Nietzsche: His Life and WorksLudovici, Anthony M. (Anthony Mario)
Philosophy
Nietzsche: His Life and Works
Ludovici, Anthony M. (Anthony Mario)
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900
Let us, however, remember that although Nietzsche did undoubtedly
take up a position beyond good and evil, in order to free himself
temporarily from the gyves of all tradition, still this attitude was no
more than a momentary one, and he ultimately became as rigid a moralist
as the most exacting could desire. It was a new morality, however, or
perhaps a forgotten one, which he ultimately preached, and with the
view of preparing the ground for it he was in a measure obliged to
destroy old idols. "He who hath to be a creator in good and evil," says
Zarathustra, "verily, he hath first to be a destroyer, and to break
values to pieces."[4]
Assuming the position of the relativist, then, Nietzsche observed
that, all morality, all use of the words "good" and "evil," is only an
artifice for acquiring power. Turning to the animal kingdom, he went
in search of support for his views, and very soon discovered that, in
biology at least, no fact was at variance with his general hypothesis.
In nature every species of organic being behaves as if its kind alone
ought ultimately to prevail on earth, and, whether it try to effect
this end by open aggression or cowardly dissimulation, the motive in
both cases is the same. The lion's good is the antelope's evil. If
the antelope believed the lion's good to be its good, it would go
and present itself without further ado before the lion's jaws. If
the lion believed the antelope's good to be its good it would adopt
vegetarianism forthwith and eschew its carnivorous habits for the rest
of its days. Again, no parasite could share the notions of good and
evil entertained by its victim, neither could the victims share the
notions of good and evil entertained by the parasite. Everywhere, then,
those modes of conduct are adopted and perpetuated by a species, which
most conduce to the prevalence and extension of their particular kind,
and that species which fails to discover the class of conduct best
calculated to preserve and strengthen it gets overcome in the war of
conduct which constitutes the incessant struggle for power.
Now, applying the knowledge to man, what did Nietzsche find? He found
there was also a war being waged between the different modes of conduct
which now prevail among men, and that what one man sets up as good is
called evil by another and _vice versâ_. But of this he soon became
convinced, that whenever and wherever good and evil had been set up as
absolute values, they had been thus elevated to power with the view of
preserving and multiplying one specific type of man.
All moralities, therefore, were but so many Trades Union banners flying
above the heads of different classes of men, woven and upheld by them
for their own needs and aspirations.
So far, so good. But then, if that were so, the character of a morality
must be determined by the class of men among whom it came into being.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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