Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free SpiritsNietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
Human beings
=Ethic of the Developed Individual.=--Hitherto the altruistic has been
looked upon as the distinctive characteristic of moral conduct, and it
is manifest that it was the consideration of universal utility that
prompted praise and recognition of altruistic conduct. Must not a
radical departure from this point of view be imminent, now that it is
being ever more clearly perceived that in the most personal
considerations the most general welfare is attained: so that conduct
inspired by the most personal considerations of advantage is just the
sort which has its origin in the present conception of morality (as a
universal utilitarianism)? To contemplate oneself as a complete
personality and bear the welfare of that personality in mind in all that
one does--this is productive of better results than any sympathetic
susceptibility and conduct in behalf of others. Indeed we all suffer
from such disparagement of our own personalities, which are at present
made to deteriorate from neglect. Capacity is, in fact, divorced from
our personality in most cases, and sacrificed to the state, to science,
to the needy, as if it were the bad which deserved to be made a
sacrifice. Now, we are willing to labor for our fellowmen but only to
the extent that we find our own highest advantage in so doing, no more,
no less. The whole matter depends upon what may be understood as one's
advantage: the crude, undeveloped, rough individualities will be the
very ones to estimate it most inadequately.
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=Usage and Ethic.=--To be moral, virtuous, praiseworthy means to yield
obedience to ancient law and hereditary usage. Whether this obedience be
rendered readily or with difficulty is long immaterial. Enough that it
be rendered. "Good" finally comes to mean him who acts in the
traditional manner, as a result of heredity or natural disposition, that
is to say does what is customary with scarcely an effort, whatever that
may be (for example revenges injuries when revenge, as with the ancient
Greeks, was part of good morals). He is called good because he is good
"to some purpose," and as benevolence, sympathy, considerateness,
moderation and the like come, in the general course of conduct, to be
finally recognized as "good to some purpose" (as utilitarian) the
benevolent man, the helpful man, is duly styled "good". (At first other
and more important kinds of utilitarian qualities stand in the
foreground.) Bad is "not habitual" (unusual), to do things not in
accordance with usage, to oppose the traditional, however rational or
the reverse the traditional may be. To do injury to one's social group
or community (and to one's neighbor as thus understood) is looked upon,
through all the variations of moral laws, in different ages, as the
peculiarly "immoral" act, so that to-day we associate the word "bad"
with deliberate injury to one's neighbor or community. "Egoistic" and
"non-egoistic" do not constitute the fundamental opposites that have
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