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The Moral Decadence In Nietzsche’s Philosophical Writings
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1.4.1 Rational Morality:
This
is the idea of morality as innate or self-evident, based on reason.
Thus, morality is necessarily one of self-interest and looks at man’s
nature and the reason; he needs values known as a moral code that must
be practiced to reach those values. Rational morality asserts that all
other “views†of morality are subjective and require some sort of
sacrifice, either to the supernatural (i.e. God) or collective motive,
where as proper morality is self-evident and in the interest of the
individual’s happiness and self-evident.
However, this has been
criticized; Churian objectivists are one group that opposes the idea of
rational morality. They believed in the fact that without objective
standard morality, rationality is simply personal opinion. The human
choice to do “right†is guided by values, but the determination of
value, an objectivist would argue that it cannot come from reason alone.
1.4.2 Morality in Judicial Systems
The
government of South Africa is attempting to create a moral Regeneration
movement. Part of this is a proposed Bill of morals that will bring
biblical based ‘moral code’ into the realm of law. Though this move by
nominally secular democracy has attracted relatively little criticism.
In judicial systems, the word morality concretely means a requirement
for the assessment of certain charges or careers, or for the obtaining
of certain licenses or concessions, and generally consists of the
absence of previous records, for instance, crimes, political or
commercial irregularities.
1.4.3 Morality and Darwinism
Some
evolutionary psychologists have argued that human morality originated
from evolutionary processes. As this could be experienced in their
innate tendency to develop a sense of right and wrong in a species with
complex social interactions, and doctrines. Selected behaviours, seen in
abstraction as moral codes are seen to be common to all human cultures,
and it reflects in their development and similarities to natural
selection. These aspects of morality can be seen as the basis of some
religious doctrine. From this, some also argue that there may be a
simple Darwinian explanation for the existence of religion. Such that
regardless of the validity of religious beliefs, religion tends to
encourage behaviour beneficial to the species, as a code of morality
tends to encourage communality, and communality tends to assist
survival.
1.4.4 Nietzsche’s Morality:
He derived the notion
that there is a universal and absolute system of morality that everybody
must obey. To say this is to disregard the uniqueness of individuals.
There are, says Nietzsche a “Twofold early history of good and evilâ€3,
which shows the development of two primary types of morality, namely
master morality and slave morality. Nietzsche totally rejects the
negative values or virtues of the “slave moralityâ€, as virtues that turn
men into weaklings. In other ways, they are evil or morally bad for
Nietzsche rather pride, violence, ruthless struggle, ambition, display
of power, strength, vitality, egoism, and so on, are the virtues and
what is morally good for “master moralityâ€.
Nietzsche rejects such
Christian virtues, which he calls slave morality like humility,
meekness, self-denial, prudence, patience, and so on. and this is the
point of similarity between him and Machiavellians. He was influenced by
Darwin’s evolution theory according to which all living beings have to
struggle for existence.
Finally, morality can be defined in two fold
manner; descriptive and Normative. In the descriptive sense; it refers
to that code of conduct that is put forward by a society. Though for
anthropologists, it does not simply mean that always. In a normative
sense, “It is a science that gives rules for acting, especially if these
norms have to do with a person’s inner goodness and perfection rather
than with making of external objectsâ€4. The only feature that the
descriptive and normative senses of “morality†have in common is that
they guide our behaviours.
5. C. Ewutosi, Ethics, A Normative, Practical and Speculative Science, (Unpublished handout, 2003). P.4
1.5 Conditions Affecting Morality:
Here,
we are only responsible before God only for truly human act that is
those where knowledge and free will play part. In a situation where
freedom and free will are not involved, we do not have a human act but
only an act of man or woman. It is easy enough to agree that the act of
murder is bad, but just how guilty the murderer is before God is
difficult to answer. The objective goodness or badness of an act is one
thing; the subjective accountability of the actor is another.
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