The first notion relies heavily on previously conceived notions of morality from past philosophers. Following the ideas of widely accepted pre-Nietzschean moral philosophy, in forgetting our mistakes so that we can “feel better” about ourselves, we discard the…
The professor Philip Hallie’s ‘From Cruelty to Goodness’ radiates unwavering genuine philanthropy which by its nature oppose the cruelty and imbalance of power he talks about. The understanding of how cruelty works goes through the understanding what cruelty is and what morality has to say about that. Professor Hallie recognizes two types of ethics- negative and positive- that illuminate the path of good-making. The negative is the ban for actions associated with deliberate harm-making and pain-inflicting on other human beings. The most significant negative ethical rules are the Ten Commandments, says the professor. As reverse, the positive rules enjoin actions that preserve human’s welfare. The positive ethics commands activity; demands courage, and takes sacrifice. The positive ethical rules are for the brave. In close association with the ethical rules, whether negative or positive, comes the question what cruelty is? Had we looked at the institutionalized type of cruelty from the near past to nowadays as the slavery, the Holocaust, the political prisons and the prisoner-of-war camps we would see the cruelty is not mere bloodshed, cut-off limbs, beatings and other atrocities which all are included though. The cruelty goes beyond that- it affects the self-respect, self-esteem, all of that which makes person a person and destroys it. So the cruelty not only (often) kills the body, it first kills the spirit, the soul, the life inside. As professor Hallie uncovers the cruelty derives from something so frequently seen as the imbalanced power in the relationship. The relationship could be both personal (private) or institutionalized. The imbalance is being born when the power between the two parties is unequally distributed, often leaving one of the parties with negligible or no power. Respectively, the strong party gains not only the power to decide for herself but to rule over the destiny of the powerless side. The imbalance of power resides in families, business…
Friedrich Nietzsche is a German Philosopher, who studied and written several critical texts. The type of texts he wrote were along the lines of philosophy, religion, contemporary culture, and science. Nietzsche is known for a lot of his work, but master-slave morality is highly valued. Master-slave morality was the first subject in Nietzsche’s book, On the Genealogy of Morality. In this book Nietzsche defines the difference between Slave morality and Master morality. When Nietzsche compares between the two types of morality he distinguish strength versus weakness, the difference is primarily one of power and also love independence. The master knows he has power and abilities to aspire to excellence, also he…
Critical philosophers of the nineteenth century were less sure that general moral qualities could be maintained. For Marx morality and morals were a piece of middle class philosophy: sets of thoughts that overlooked the exploitative monetary courses of action of society and added to False Consciousness. Nietzsche took a gander at the starting points of morality, and like Marx, saw moral frameworks as emerging from the hobbies of social gatherings. For Nietzsche the individual needed to go past acknowledged morality to make another morality for him. In the twentieth century, there has been developing negativity about the likelihood of a widespread moral framework. Jean-Paul Sartre accentuated the subjective judgments that an individual must make so as to be genuine.…
A moral dilemma entails a choice between two highly conflicting values, where the decision made may result in guilt and remorse. As responders we are able to assess our own values in regards to the character’s actions. These characteristics are present in the texts Montana 1948 by Larry Watson 1993, The Returning by Daniel De Paola 1964 and Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby 2004. I personally have been influenced to assess my own values towards family ties, justice and the balance between right and wrong.…
On the Genealogy of Morality the word ‘ressentiment’ is possibly one of the key concepts in Nietzsche’s ideas about the psychology of ‘slave-morality’, the birth of morality, and the way it reassigned morality as we know it today. The word meaning itself is very close to the word resentment in English but is slightly different. The context in which Nietzsche uses the word ‘ressentiment’ is a psychological state of people that are conscious of their own inferiority and turn it to hatred towards external anger. It is a feeling that arises from the incapability of one’s success and hence finding external factors to blame for this incapability. Nietzsche aligns this concept with the weak people or slaves which are inferior to the noble, strong…
An issue in today’s society is discrimination. For consistency I will define discrimination as anything that denies a group of people from any universal privileges. A few examples of this would be racism, LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Transgender) rights, and sexism. These issue have been present through all points in American and World History, normally putting the white adult heterosexual male as the most privileged and discriminations putting everyone else below him. In the twenty-first century measures have recently been taken to correct for the unjust treatment of those other than white males for factors out of their control. These factors of course include skin color, sex, and sexual orientation. I feel Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality…
honest relationship with themselves and others, and also a connection to a power greater than themselves…
Nietzsche here specifies that his task is not simply to expose the psychological and historical eventuality that make for different moralities, but to question moralities for their objective value. It is exposed how a particular morality comes from a tradition. Nietzsche states how the only thing that matters is their current, actual functional value in objective terms, and their potential functional value. The work can be used to determine whether the values of the road’s protagonist’s actions are subjective, meaning they fit the characters needs. It can also be used to determine if there is any source of absolute morality in the novel.…
"The Reader", by Bernhard Schlink is set in postwar Germany and tells the story of fifteen-year-old Michael Berg and his affair with a woman named Hanna, who was twice his age. After some time, she disappears. When Michael next sees Hanna, he is a young law student and she is on trial for her work in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Their feelings of guilt and shame lead to Hanna's tragic death near the end of the story. Bernhard Schlink is trying to portray these two emotions in his book as things that can destroy one's life, and possibly the life of those around us. Examples of them can be found throughout the whole book. One of the first major examples is the shame that many adults, including Michael's father, felt because of their tolerance and acceptance of the Nazi regime. The second is Michael's feelings of guilt for "betraying" Hanna by not acknowledging her at the pool. The third example is the guilt that Michael feels for comparing his wife to Hanna. The fourth is Michael's shame for having been in love with Hanna. The fifth, and possibly the most tragic example in the book is Hanna's own shame of being illiterate.…
Moral theology includes concerns of a particular or special nature as well as those of a general or fundamental nature. There is thus a two-fold division in moral theology – fundamental moral theology (which we have been doing up to now) and special moral theology. They are intricately related. Special moral theology deals with concrete moral issues that relate to sexuality, medical practice, business relations, social ethics. Fundamental moral theology shows the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ of special issues. Disagreement at the level of concrete issues often can be traced to different understandings of the foundational concerns of morality.…
Master status is a status which an individual has that profoundly impacts how others label and interact with him or her. These definitions and exchangers are influenced by stereotypes which are us the qualities that are attributed to people of a particular group or social status. These stereotypes teach people how individuals from a specific group are expected to behave. In addition these preconceptions are derived from multiple sources, including socialization and the media.…
It is reported that there were demonstrations and encounters between Germany’s Nazis and Anti-Nazis social movements in 1st of May 2010 and, as a result, Hitler’s ideology seems still has influence on people’s morality after almost 65 years of the end of World War II. Such circumstances can be caused by diversity of ideologies and dissimilar interpretation of morality. Morality is a complex philosophic category which determines human behavior and ethics. There are two types of morality – social and personal, and this essay will discuss some of their differences such as discrepancies of system of values and individuals’ behavior.…
Nietzsche begins by tearing apart the philosopher and his views. They idolize concepts and threaten the life of anything they worship. In Nietzsche’s opinion, once the philosophers got to these concepts nothing managed to escape alive. In response Nietzsche says, “that which is, does not become; that which becomes, is not.” Nietzsche explains that the philosophers all believe in the which is, however they fail to understand so instead they search for a reason why it withholds itself from them. Finally this “trickster” is revealed and is the senses. The senses are believed to have tricked them about the true world. Nietzsche reveals a moral as to not trust history because it is nothing but belief in the senses, which has discovered to be a lie.…
The author’s main point was that morality is different for everybody and according to Prinz once a person understands this, they quit being morally judgmental and refrain from the imposition of their values on others. He initially gave examples of how morality is different for everyone and then he explained the root of morality; an individual’s emotional inclination. The writer not only presented arguments to support his own opinion but put forward the view point of the opposing party, the moral objectivists, and responded to their allegations logically and analytically.…