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Single Idea 7177

[filed under theme 23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 6. Authentic Self ]

Full Idea

The virtues are as dangerous as the vices, to the extent that one allows them to rule as authority and law from outside instead of generating them from within oneself.

Gist of Idea

Virtues from outside are dangerous, and they should come from within

Source

Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 07[6])

Book Ref

Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Writings from the Late Notebooks', ed/tr. Bittner,Rüdiger [CUP 2003], p.132

A Reaction

Nietzsche was a romantic, who thought things only have worth if they are authentic, individual, autonomous, original. Existentialism is the last fling of romanticism, and expresses an adolescent yearning for 'freedom'. From what?

The 29 ideas with the same theme [changing one's self into something more genuine]:

6231 There is a self-determing power in each person, which makes them what they are [Cudworth]
20759 Feelings are prior to intelligence; we should be content to live with our simplest feelings [Rousseau]
23236 Freedom means making yourself become true to your essential nature [Fichte]
8930 The in-itself must become for-itself, which requires self-consciousness [Hegel]
7073 I am a creative nothing, out of which I myself create everything [Stirner]
5274 Young Hegelians proposed changing our present consciousness for liberating critical consciousness [Marx/Engels]
22095 There are aesthetic, ethical and religious subjectivity [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
20314 People want to lose themselves in movements and history, instead of being individuals [Kierkegaard]
7582 Becoming what one is is a huge difficulty, because we strongly aspire to be something else [Kierkegaard]
6869 Nietzsche thinks the human condition is to overcome and remake itself [Nietzsche, by Ansell Pearson]
2874 Man is the animal whose nature has not yet been fixed [Nietzsche]
20275 Most people think they are already complete, but we can cultivate ourselves [Nietzsche]
20132 To become what you are you must have no self-awareness [Nietzsche]
7150 By developing herd virtues man fixes what has up to now been the 'unfixed animal' [Nietzsche]
7177 Virtues from outside are dangerous, and they should come from within [Nietzsche]
4513 Virtuous people are inferior because they are not 'persons', but conform to a fixed pattern [Nietzsche]
20317 Mundane existence is general, falling under universals, but Existens is unique to individuals [Jaspers]
20319 We want the correct grasp on being that is neither solipsism nor absorption in the crowd [Jaspers]
20315 'Existenz' is the potential being, which I could have, and ought to have [Jaspers]
15581 Dasein is always only that which it has chosen to be [Heidegger]
20453 Heidegger says we must either choose an inauthentic hero, or choose yourself as hero [Heidegger, by Critchley]
22232 Authenticity is taking responsibility for a situation, with all its risks and emotions [Sartre]
20760 Sincerity is not authenticity, because it only commits to one particular identity [Sartre, by Aho]
22231 We flee from the anguish of freedom by seeing ourselves objectively, as determined [Sartre]
3844 Existentialism says man is whatever he makes of himself [Sartre]
20754 It is dishonest to offer passions as an excuse [Sartre]
22230 Sartre gradually realised that freedom is curtailed by the weight of situation [Sartre, by Daigle]
6690 A standard problem for existentialism is the 'sincere Nazi' [Graham]
20753 The self is constituted by its choices made within a social context [Aho]