A Handbook of Ethical TheoryFullerton, George Stuart
Philosophy
A Handbook of Ethical Theory
Fullerton, George Stuart
Ethics
But what is a man's duty? "What a man ought to do," says Hegel,
[Footnote: _Ibid_., Sec 150] "what duties he should fulfill in order
to be virtuous, is in an ethical community easy to say--the man has only
to do what is presented, expressed and recognized in the established
relations in which he finds himself."
In other words, he ought to do just what his community prescribes! This
seems, taken quite literally, a startling doctrine.
It would be a wrong to Hegel to take him quite literally, for he
elsewhere [Footnote: _Ibid_., Introduction.] makes it plain that he
by no means approves of all the laws and customs that have obtained in
various societies. Still, he exalts the law of the state and regards any
opposition to it on the authority of private conviction as "stupendous
presumption." [Footnote: Op. _cit_., Sec 138.] This is a serious
rebuke to the reformer. The individual must, according to Hegel, look for
the moral law outside of himself--of himself as an individual, at least.
He must find it in the State.
138. NIETZSCHE.--Again a startling contrast: after Hegel, Nietzsche--the
voice of one crying in the wilderness, exquisitely, passionately, but
scarcely with articulate scientific utterance. A prophet of revolt and
emancipation; a cave-dweller, who would flee organized society and the
refinements of civilization; the rabid individualist, to whom the
community is the "herd," and common notions of right and wrong are
absurdities to be visited with scorn and denunciation. He makes a strong
appeal to young men, even after the years during which the carrying of
one's own latch-key is a source of elation. He appeals also to those
perennially young persons who never attain to the stature which befits
those who are to take a responsible share in the organized efforts of
communities of men.
With Nietzsche the man, his suffering life, and the melancholy eclipse of
his brilliant intellect, ethics as science is little concerned. In
Nietzsche the marvellous literary artist it can have no interest. These
things are the affair of literature and biography.
Here we are concerned only with his contribution to ethics. Just what
that has been it is more difficult to determine than would be the case in
a writer more systematic and scientific. But he makes it very clear that
he repudiates the morals which have been accepted heretofore by moralists
and communities of men generally.
He confesses himself an "immoralist." He despises man as he is, and hails
the "Superman," a creature inspired by the "will to have power" and free
from all moral prejudices, including that of sympathy with the weak and
the helpless.
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