Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Kant says "The inherent value of the world, the summun bonum [highest good], is freedom in accordance with a will which is not necessitated to action. Freedom is thus the inner value of the world." How would Nietzsche evaluate this statement?
In contrast to the philosopher Immanuel Kant, Frederick Nietzsche often expressed his anger over the ways that pagan and Classical values, as manifest in ancient Rome and ancient Greece, had been overcome in Western philosophy by notions of the superiority of Christian practices and thought. Along the lines of Christian belief structures, Kant stressed that the indivdiual ought to always act as if he or she was setting the standards for the rest of humanity, and thus function as if creating the summum bonum, or highest good for all, no matter what his or her station or circumstances in life. The goodness of Christianity, for Kant, was that as the human will was always free. Thus the actor or the believer had the ability and duty to choose good, as opposed to have good forced upon one's will.
But Nietzsche believed that Christianity itself was an imposition upon free will, rather than a guide as to how to exercise one's innate free will and choice. He would state that the aforementioned quote showed how Kant confused Christian impositions upon morality with free choice -- in other words, like Christian philsosophers before him, Kant was equating freedom with the will and goodness with the 'freedom' to chose Christian belief structures and norms over non-Christian beliefs. Kant saw this as mere conformity and no freedom at all. It went against the true greatness of natural human impulses and inclinations, according to Nietzsche's belief structure.
Nietzsche would certianly not approve of the Kantian stress upon freedom as an inner state. Nietzsche instead stressed the need to act in the world. Specifically, he believed all human should beings to expend their innate energies in their own particular way, and always denied any notion of a kind of Kantian universal moral imperative applicable to all human beings regardless of circumstabce. Rather, for Nietzsche morality was dependent upon's one station in life, social roles, historical circumstances, and state of physical and mental health.
However, that should not suggest that its pursuit is wholly worthless. There is some value in striving to attain this ideal, even if it can never be realized. Despite the appeal of the categorical imperative, follows its dictates proves to be seemingly impossible, and even in some instances, undesirable. When adhering to the principles of Kantian morality, it is clear that moral reasoning is reduced to a strict moral calculus,
In Cultural Ethical Relativism, Universalism, Absolutism (2005), it was mentioned that Kant said that people engage a particular space in creation and morality can be figured out in one supreme directive of reason or imperative that all responsibilities and duties drawn from; Kant described an imperative as any intention which asserts a particular act or inaction to be compulsory; a hypothetical imperative requires action in a particular condition: "if I
Living authentically "as if" my actions had the force of reason strikes me as very similar to living in deliberate opposition to reason -- which, in a contemporary milieu, often entails structuring a life according to personal experience or even faith. In an era in which the irrational is widely accepted and even embraced -- through the thought of Freud, Kierkegaard, and others in addition to Nietzsche himself --
Moral Worth Present, explain, and assess the thesis that only acts done from duty have moral worth In his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant addresses the issue of how people can determine the moral value of actions. His central claim is that only acts that are done out of duty can be considered to have any moral value. Implicit in this topic is the need to reconcile the intent
ANIMAL RIGHTS- SHOULD ANIMALS BE TREATED WITH MORE KINDNESS? Animal rights or animal-human relationship is as controversial a subject as abortion and genetic research. This is because despite endless debates, several philosophical theories, numerous viewpoints and research findings, there appears to be no end in sight for this issue. How should be treat animals? Do they deserve our love and mercy? Can they be used for human consumption and benefit? How
Utilitarianism and Deontology John Stuart Mill's theory of Utilitarianism and Immanuel Kant's Deontological theory approach the question of ethics from diametrically opposite points-of-view: "Consequentialist theories...try to ground moral judgments in human well-being. Kantian theories...try to ground moral judgments in the rational nature of the moral subject, whose inherent dignity they emphasize." (Aune & Berger, p. 125) It is the objective of this paper to briefly explain and compare the two theories. Mill's