display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
7 ideas
3259 | Nietzsche rejects impersonal morality, and asserts the idea of living well [Nietzsche, by Nagel] |
Full Idea: Nietzsche's rejection of impersonal morality is an assertion of the dominance of the ideal of living well. | |
From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], I) by Thomas Nagel - The View from Nowhere X.2 |
2885 | The noble soul has reverence for itself [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The noble soul has reverence for itself. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §287) |
4517 | Egoism is inescapable, and when it grows weak, the power of love also grows weak [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: There cannot be anything other than egoism; in men whose ego is weak and thin the power of great love also grows weak. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §362) | |
A reaction: We have captured this now in the popular psychological notion of 'low self-esteem', which blights a persons behaviour. It runs counter to the Christian ideal of self-effacing altruism. |
18327 | A wholly altruistic morality, with no egoism, is a thoroughly bad thing [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: An 'altruistic' morality, a morality under which egoism languishes - is under all circumstances a bad sign. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.35) |
20248 | People do nothing for their real ego, but only for a phantom ego created by other people [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Whatever they say about their 'egotism', people nevertheless do nothing their whole life long for their ego, but instead for the phantom ego that has formed in the heads around them and been communicated to them. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Dawn (Daybreak) [1881], 105) | |
A reaction: Nietzsche has a vision of true devotion to the ego as healthy, and so (I would say) does Aristotle, though the two might disagree about the details. I want to live among people who work on themselves, not those who always sacrifice themselves. |
4409 | Only the decline of aristocratic morality led to concerns about "egoism" [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: It was only when aristocratic value judgements declined that the whole antithesis of "egoistic" and "unegoistic" obtruded itself more and more on the human conscience. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], I.§02) | |
A reaction: But Aristotle, who is no aristocrat, has a balanced and sensible view of 'egoism', where it isn't the patronising arrogance that Nietzsche seems to like, but a proper concern with one's own character. |
4519 | The ego is only a fiction, and doesn't exist at all [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The 'subject' is only a fiction: the ego of which one speaks when one censures egoism does not exist at all. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §370) | |
A reaction: This is the true Nietzsche, the nihilistic relativist. On optimistic days he thought some people had quivering dynamic egoes, to which they apparently owe duties, as one might to a great talent with which one was born. |