Nietzsche’s Notion of Slave Morality
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Introduction
Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher, poet and culture critic. He was born in 1844 and died in 1900. During his lifetime, he wrote several texts on science, philosophy, contemporary culture and religion. Among the major tenets of his work, Nietzsche condemned the moral philosophy of his time. He argued that traits such as meekness, kindness, humility and pity are not universal virtues (BookCaps, 2011). According to Nietzsche, such traits are deemed to be universally good in the eyes of the weak in the society. The weak embrace a moral philosophy called “slave morality.” He argued that slave morality is developed and embraced by the weak in their revenge against the noble and the strong. The weak perceive the traits of the noble and strong in the society as evil (BookCaps, 2011). Precisely, the weak perceive traits such as egoism, will to power, independence of thought and aggressiveness to be evil, since they are traits of their masters, who are also their oppressors (Nietzsche, 2006). In reference to the traits associated with the masters in the society, Nietzsche introduced the concept of “master morality.” In particular, master morality is an exact opposite of slave morality (Nietzsche, 2006).
Master morality is embraced by noble men, who only focus on the things that affect them and what they do. They view things that bring profit to be good and things that have a negative impact to be bad. According to Nietzsche, slave morality evolved as the “slaves” established ways of revenge against their masters (Nietzsche, 2006). In the view of Nietzsche, slave morality has succeeded in replacing the master morality that was originally dominant. This paper presents a detailed explanation of Nietzsche’s notion of slave morality. With regard to Nietzsche’s views, the paper explains the reason why people in the contemporary society should only embrace some of the values associated with the slave morality.
Discussion
Historically, Nietzsche argued that slave morality was established by the Jews and later spread to Europe and other parts of the world. According to Nietzsche, Majority of the Jews who loved Jesus were the poor and the weak. This was mainly caused by the fact that the values that Jesus embraced highly resonated with the interests of the weak and the poor. Just as the poor did, Jesus showed hatred for the values associated with the strong and the powerful (Nietzsche, 2003). During his ministries, Jesus taught his followers that they should disregard the earthly wealth and focus on the heavenly life. In addition, the teachings of Jesus seemed to console those who suffered under the hands of their masters, and to despise the acts of the masters. As a result, most of his followers developed a negative attitude towards the virtues of the powerful.
Overall, Christianity has always promoted values such as humility, showing pity, love, harmlessness, kindness and selflessness. At the same time, the powerful are presented as wicked. They are involuntarily required to support the poor and the weak. In this regard, Nietzsche argued that Christianity promotes the incapacitation of the powerful and the exaltation of the weak (Nietzsche, 2003). In other words, Christianity supports the replacement of master morality with slave morality. As Christianity spread to different parts of the world, the values of associated with slave morality were embraced by slaves, the poor and the weak. Since the slaves, the weak and the poor were the majority in many parts of the world, they managed to overcome their masters. Eventually, the masters were forced to embrace the values embraced by slave morality, which were also promoted by Christianity (Nietzsche, 2003).
As mentioned earlier, slave morality is the opposite of the master morality. As such, slave morality opposes what is percieved as good by the master morality. According to Nietzsche, master morality weighs issues in terms of good and bad consequences, whereas the slave morality weighs issues in terms of good and bad intentions. What is valued as good in the perspective of master mortality is regarded as evil by the slave morality (Nietzsche, 2003). Unlike the master morality which perceives power as good, the slave morality perceives lack of power as good. Slave morality was meant to build up the poor, the ugly and the weak, unlike master morality which glorified in privilege, beauty and strength (Nietzsche, 2003). While the master morality is based on active will to power, slave morality is based on reactive will to power. Slave morality is based on the hatred of the strong and the powerful. In other words, slave morality is based on the resentment of the weak and the poor. In their efforts to revenge against the powerful, the poor and the weak tend to revalue everything that is valued by the powerful, including wealth (Nietzsche, 2006). As a result, the slave morality villainizes the powerful.
Slave morality embraces values that have high utility for the community. The weak and the poor perceive good actions as those that are useful to the whole community and not the powerful, a view that Nietzsche found to be contradictory. Nietzsche found that, unfortunately, slave morality does not focus on rising or gaining power than the masters; rather, it aims at enslaving the master as well. Since the weak are greater in number compared to the powerful, the weak use their numbers to weaken the power of the strong (Soccio, 2012). They corrupt the powerful into believing that they are the causes of poverty and slavery. They emphasize that they could have chosen the virtues of the powerful but they decided to reject them because they are evil. They also corrupt the powerful into thinking that adhering to slave morality values such as humility and kindness is voluntary (Soccio, 2012).
Nietzsche criticized the perception of slave morality that the virtues of master morality are evil. According to Nietzsche, the actions of the powerful in the society emanate from their inherent traits, such as strength and independence of thought, and not from any malicious intent. Nietzsche gives an example of the “blond beast” (the lion) and its prey. He argued that it is wrong to hold the blond beast as evil for hunting its prey. It would also be wrong to hold the lion as wrong for resistances and triumphs, since those are natural traits (Soccio, 2012). Similarly, it would be wrong to resent the powerful for their actions since all their actions emanate from inherent traits. Nietzsche noted that the struggle between the two opposing valuations (master morality and slave morality) has lasted for thousands of years, since the war of Judea and Rome. Judea embraced slave morality while Rome embraced master morality (Soccio, 2012).
As Nietzsche argued, people in the contemporary society should not follow all values associated with slave morality. Values such as hated for the powerful, hatred for wealth and enmity that are associated with slave morality should be avoided. As mentioned earlier, slave morality is based on hatred of the strong and the powerful. Everything that is associated with the powerful is seen as evil. Further, slave morality deceives the weak that they are blessed and should be satisfied with their present circumstances. Embracing this notion may affect the ability for people in the contemporary society to work hard and to acquire wealth (Soccio, 2012). The hatred for the values associated with master morality emanates from the feeling of resentment among the weak. In response, the weak set up an imaginary revenge against that powerful (Soccio, 2012). Thus, for the slave morality to be able to sustain itself, it requires enemies. It is wrong to follow values that lead one to form enemies. Such values that have negative impact on the interaction between the weak and the powerful should be avoided. However, there are some values that are associated with slave morality that people in the contemporary society should follow. They include humility, kindness, love and justice. Such values should be embraced since they support positive interaction between the poor and the rich, leaders and their subjects and slaves and masters.
Conclusion
In conclusion, slave morality is the opposite of master morality. It originated from Christianity, which was initially a Jewish religion. As Christianity spread in Europe and other parts of the world, the values associated with slave morality were embraced by the weak, the poor and the slaves. Since the weak, the poor and the slaves were greater in number compared to the powerful, they managed to corrupt the powerful. Slave morality emanates from resentment among the weak in the society and thus, it is a reactive will to power. Despite their efforts, the weak do not aim to transcend the powerful; rather, they aim at enslaving them as well. This is due the fact that they view everything that is associated with the powerful to be evil. The weak embrace values such as justice, love, pity, humility and kindness. Such values are good and they should be embraced by people in the contemporary society since they support positive interaction between individuals from different social classes. However, slave morality also support hatred for anything associated with the powerful, including wealth. They also see the powerful as their enemies. Such negative values associated with slave morality should not be followed. In short, we should only embrace values that support positive interaction between the powerful and the weak in the society.
References
BookCaps. (2011). Friedrich Nietzsche in Plain and Simple English. California, CA: BookCaps
Study Guide
Nietzsche, F. W. (2003).The Genealogy of Morals. New York, NY: Courier Dover Publications
Nietzsche, F. W. (2006). Beyond Good and Evil. New York, NY: Filiquarian Publishing, LLC
Soccio, D. (2012). Archetypes of Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy. New York, NY:
Cengage Learning
