display all the ideas for this combination of texts
10 ideas
| 7136 | Morality is a system of values which accompanies a being's life [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: By morality, I understand a system of valuations which is contiguous with a being's conditions of life. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 36[264]) | |
| A reaction: It needs to be added that the values influence and control the life. Note that this defines morality as neither the qualities of character of virtue theory, nor the rules for conduct of deontology and utilitarianism. Morality MUST be rooted in values. |
| 7163 | Morality is merely interpretations, which are extra-moral in origin [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: My main proposition: there are no moral phenomena, there is only a moral interpretation of those phenomena. This interpretation itself is of extra-moral origin. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[165]) | |
| A reaction: The origin will, of course, be the 'will to power', which is the drive for survival, linking Nietzsche with sociobiology or evolutionary psychology. |
| 7147 | Values are innate and inherited [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Valuations are innate (despite Locke!), inherited. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 01[21]) | |
| A reaction: This would conform with Charles Taylor's views (e.g. Idea 4002). But how are we sheep ever going to fall in with the values of our Superman when he arrives, if we are stuck with our own innate values? |
| 7190 | Our values express an earlier era's conditions for survival and growth [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The feeling of value is always antiquated, it expresses a much earlier era's conditions for survival and growth. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 10[23]) | |
| A reaction: Nice. I myself grew up in the aftermath of the Second World War. Have I ingested values that were created for that era, and are no longer required? |
| 7201 | Knowledge, wisdom and goodness only have value relative to a goal [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge and wisdom have no value as such; nor does goodness: one must always first have a goal that confers value or disvalue on these qualities. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 11[122]) | |
| A reaction: So what goals should we have? Nietzsche talks about the 'enhancement of life', but what is that, and why should we want it? There may be an ecological cost to enhancing human life. |
| 7205 | Altruism is praised by the egoism of the weak, who want everyone to be looked after [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Behind the general praise for 'altruism' is the instinct that the individual will be best safeguarded if everyone looks after each other....it's the egoism of the weak that created the praise, the exclusive praise for altruism. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 14[5]) | |
| A reaction: I don't understand why Nietzsche so strongly despises the weak. Callicles (in Plato's 'Gorgias') embodies the strong, but he is utterly unlovable, and appears to be motivated mainly by a desire to have fun at other people's expense. |
| 7141 | A living being is totally 'egoistic' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A living being is 'egoistic' through and through. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 36[20]) | |
| A reaction: Can't I even fight against my own dominating egoism? I just don't accept that this generalisation applies necessarily to all human beings at all times. How can a totally egoistic creature have 'low self-esteem'? |
| 7168 | Modest people express happiness as 'Not bad' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The happiness whose proper name on earth the modest believe is: 'Well, not bad'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 05[7]) | |
| A reaction: Alexei Sayle expresses it in the English slogan 'Mustn't grumble'. Nietzsche certainly had the English in mind. Nietzsche seems to have the romantic tendency to think that only something completely new and original can bring happiness. |
| 7159 | The only happiness is happiness with illusion [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Happiness with existence is only possible as happiness with illusion. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[110]) | |
| A reaction: A characteristically tough remark! It is, of course, indefeasible, because if you claim to have happiness without illusion, Nietzsche brands you as another fool. But why should a gradual stripping of illusion totally destroy happiness? |
| 7197 | Pleasure needs dissatisfaction, boundaries and resistances [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The feeling of pleasure lies precisely in the unsatisfaction of the will, in the way it is not yet satiated unless it has boundaries and resistances... | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 11[75]) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a 'higher' sort of pleasure, preferred by Nietzsche and Mill and clever chaps like that. Personally I like sunbathing and listening to music, and I float along very comfortably, like a cork on the stream of indulgence... |