more from this thinker     |     more from this text


Single Idea 4502

[filed under theme 28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality ]

Full Idea

Morality cannot survive when the God who sanctions it is missing! The "beyond" is absolutely necessary if faith in morality is to be maintained.

Gist of Idea

Morality cannot survive when the God who sanctions it is missing

Source

Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §253)

Book Ref

Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'The Will to Power', ed/tr. Kaufmann,W /Hollingdate,R [Vintage 1968], p.147


A Reaction

It strikes me that Nietzsche is self-evidently wrong. We must ask why people hang on to moral absolutes after they lose religious faith. Nietzsche seems to think it is a comfort blanket. But he admits the contractarian origins of morality.


The 16 ideas with the same theme [God as the authority behind morality]:

In 'The Laws', to obey the law is to be obey god [Plato, by MacIntyre]
Stoics teach that law is identical with right reason, which is the will of Zeus [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
The source of all justice is Zeus and the universal nature [Chrysippus]
God doesn't obey the laws of nature; they are subject to the law of God [Cicero]
William of Ockham is the main spokesman for God's commands being the source of morality [William of Ockham]
Ideas in God's mind only have value if he makes it so [Descartes]
If the will and pleasure of God controls justice, then anything wicked or unjust would become good if God commanded it [Cudworth]
The requirement that God must be obeyed must precede any authority of God's commands [Cudworth]
The finite and dependent should obey the supreme and infinite [Locke]
If goodness is constituted by God's will, it is a tautology to say God's will is good [Hutcheson]
Abraham was willing to suspend ethics, for a higher idea [Kierkegaard]
Morality can only be upheld by belief in God and a 'hereafter' [Nietzsche]
Morality cannot survive when the God who sanctions it is missing [Nietzsche]
Without God there is no intelligibility or value [Sartre]
Nominalists defended the sovereignty of God against the idea of natural existing good and evil [Taylor,C]
How could God have obligations? What law could possibly impose them? [Davies,B]