Full Idea
The injustice of slavery, the cruelty in subjugating persons and peoples, cannot be measured by our standards. For the instinct for justice was not so widely developed then.
Gist of Idea
Slavery cannot be judged by our standards, because the sense of justice was then less developed
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 101)
Book Reference
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Human, All Too Human', ed/tr. Faber,Marion [Penguin 1994], p.70
A Reaction
Why do we value the instinct for justic which we have subsequently developed? Why do we think it is important, and battle to preserve it? This is the sort of creepy relativism that Nietzsche drifted into, and for the worse.
Related Idea
Idea 14883 We should evaluate the past morally [Nietzsche]