Unit
Four: The Questions of Ethics: "Does goodness lie in happiness or in acting
according to the moral law - - that is, doing what is right?"
Parts 1 and 2
(Or is living well something
“beyond good and evil”?)
Part 3
Part 1
The
answer given by Epicurus: "The good lies in happiness and happiness is
gained in the prudent pursuit of pleasure."
In Unit 3 we began to think about the question of what possibilities we should
strive to make actual in order to fully realize our freedom and our humanity.
This investigation leads immediately to the philosophical questions that are examined
by the philosophical discipline known as ethics. The fundamental ethical
question, we saw, may be expressed as follows: "What is it to live
well?" Or put
another way, "What is the good life?" In Unit 3 we began to reflect on this
question by asking a subsidiary but still fundamental question, "Should we
care more about others than we care about ourselves?" Ethical egoism and
ethical altruism form the poles of the debate about how we should answer this
question.
Ethical altruism:
"We should care about others to the point of being willing to sacrifice
our own happiness or pleasure for them, at least sometimes"
Ethical egoism: "We
have an obligation to care for ourselves. We never have an obligation to
sacrifice our own happiness or pleasure for others."
It is important to remember that these answers contradict each other. This means that they
can't both be true.
Of course our common
psychological makeup may involve inclinations or dispositions to care for
ourselves and to
care for others. But ethics forces us to focus on the times when such
inclinations come into conflict, when we can't both care for ourselves and for others. In such a case,
philosophy asks what we should do. "What is the rational thing to do?" "What is the
thing we should do if we are to act in a way that is most fully human? " This is the choice we should
make whether we like it or not. Unfortunately
time often does not wait for us to make up our minds about who we are.
Important moments often pass unnoticed.
Other times we recognize that we are facing defining moments in our lives. Such moments tell us
what sort of person we are—or can be. Of course everyone makes mistakes, does
things that they wish they had not done. A person who regrets nothing is either
deceiving himself/herself or is perfect. The wonderful thing about freedom, if
we are free, is that we have an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and
strive to live differently in the future. Not that we ever cease making
mistakes. However ethics is based on the belief that we can do better in the
future. This may not be easy, for we develop habits which are difficult to
break, and we also develop pleasing stories about ourselves so we can feel
comfortable with ourselves as we are.
Since ancient times
philosophers have given basically two answers to the question, "What makes life good?" Some say that
happiness is life's ultimate good. Others, while not denying that happiness is a good, say that living in accordance
with the moral law is the ultimate good. It is important here to understand that "the
moral law" does not mean, at least in the first instance, the
"moral" commandments or prescriptions laid down by the church,
parents, or other "authorities" we encounter from our childhood on.
Rather, these philosophers believe that we come to know the moral law in
ourselves and in the world only in knowing what it is to be fully human. Often,
reflection on our humanity leads us to be critical of the "morality" which is
represented in the church, our parents or our society generally. Such customary
morality is
often blind to injustice, dogmatic and obsessed with obedience to rules. If there is a fundamental moral law,
it may not be easy to say exactly what it obliges us to do in particular
circumstances. For example, we know that unless we make substantial changes in
our habits of consumption of natural resources, we will leave a much poorer
planet to our children and grandchildren. We are reducing the world's forests
at an alarming rate. However, if my family makes its living from logging or in
the paper industry, substantial reductions in logging may put many of us out of
work. What should we do? There is no recipe for solving such moral problems, and no set of commandments, however
highly esteemed and expressive of our moral ideals can provide us with a
procedure for calculating precisely what we should do except at the expense of
discounting values that others, often with good reason, take to be of
fundamental importance .
Let us turn first, however,
to the idea that it is happiness that supplies life's good. The view that
happiness is the good is often combined with the view that happiness is a kind
of pleasure. The two great schools of ethics which have defended this view are epicureanism , named after the philosopher who
founded the school, Epicurus, and, much later, in the 19th century, utilitarianism. Both of these ethical schools are
normally associated as well with the view that pleasure is the only thing that
is good in itself. That is, ultimately, it is pleasure that makes life worth
living. This view is called hedonism.
Biographical note: Epicurus, 341 B.C.-270 B.C,was born on the Greek island of Samos, at the time a territory belonging to Athens. Epicurus's parents were poor. Athenian citizens. During Epicurus's childhood, Alexander the Great conquered Greece, the Persian Empire, and Egypt. Greek culture was spread as far as Afghanistan and Pakistan. When Alexander's empire collapsed, Athenian politics became highly factionalized. Initially, Epicurus was trained in the philosophy of Plato, but upon going to Athens he was exposed to the heirs of Aristotle's philosophy. However, Epicurus was drawn more to the physical philosophy of atomists such as Democritus. When Epicurus decided to set up his own school, he met with considerable hostility on the part of the followers of Plato and Aristotle, then regarded as politically orthodox. His life threatened, he escaped to Ionia, to return to Athens only after the political situation in Athens promised to be more tolerant of his unorthodox views. His school became known as the Garden , named after the place where instruction was held, a garden belonging to a small house which Epicurus had purchased on his return to Athens. Epicurus avoided politics and determined to address his teaching to individuals, while at the same time outwardly supporting the religious and political establishment of the day. Epicurus is known to have admitted women and slaves to the Garden, a liberal practice foreign to the Platonic and Aristotelian schools. Of the nearly forty works Epicurus is known to have authored, only a few fragments survive. Epicurus died from a painful combination of urinary disease and dysentery.. But just prior to dying he wrote to his friend Idomeneus, recalling the pleasures of their friendship and praising them in contrast to the insignificance of his present pains.
Epicurus begins by arguing that seeking wisdom about the good is a task for
both young and old. What is his reasoning? In the first paragraph is the claim
that justifies us in calling Epicurus a hedonist. Can you find it?
Epicurus Letter
to Menoeceus
Greetings.1
Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in
the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late
for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy
has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season
for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and
young ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he
may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the
latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old,
because he has no fear of the things which are to come. So we must exercise
ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we
have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward
attaining it. . . .
Generally speaking, those who defend the view that happiness
or pleasure is the fundamental good in life are skeptical about the existence
of God or an afterlife.* The good is something to be sought for and gained in
this life. It does not come as a
reward in another life. Nor is it something so esoteric as a moral law which
might command that life be sacrificed for it without some consequence of
pleasure or happiness for real living people being involved. Still, not all
hedonists would go quite so far as Epicurus does in the following passage where
he argues that death should be of no concern to us, since in death their is no
pleasure or pain.
*(Epicurus, himself,
occasionally speaks of the importance of a respect for the gods. However, he
thinks of the gods as distant and unconcerned with human affairs. It may be
that he speaks of the world in quasi-religious terms because of the danger in
his day of speaking against the gods. More than one philosopher was executed
for advocating views critical of established religious practice. The most
famous such case is that of Socrates.)
Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the person who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer. But in the world, at one time people shun death as the greatest of all evils, and at another time choose it as a respite from the evils in life. The wise person does not deprecate life nor does he fear the cessation of life. The thought of life is no offense to him, nor is the cessation of life regarded as an evil. And even as people choose of food not merely and simply the larger portion, but the more pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time which is most pleasant and not merely that which is longest. And he who admonishes the young to live well and the old to make a good end speaks foolishly, not merely because of the desirability of life, but because the same exercise at once teaches to live well and to die well. Much worse is he who says that it were good not to be born, but when once one is born to pass with all speed through the gates of Hades. For if he truly believes this, why does he not depart from life? It were easy for him to do so, if once he were firmly convinced. If he speaks only in mockery, his words are foolishness, for those who hear believe him not. We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither must we count upon it as quite certain to come nor despair of it as quite certain not to come.
Now of course there are all sorts of pleasures that one might seek out in life.
Just as clearly, though, some pleasures are not so good as others insofar as
they involve severe pains in the long run. One may both enjoy smoking and die
painfully and early as a consequence of seeking out the pleasures of smoking. Consequently,
the hedonist faces the problem of how to distinguish between those pleasures
that contribute to happiness in the long run and those that interfere with
happiness. For happiness is a persistent, enduring joy or pleasure in life,
not, it would seem, a matter of a momentary pleasure. What, according to
Epicurus, makes for happiness? You may also find something that will remind you
of Epictetus and Stoicism in what follows.
We must also reflect that of desires some are natural, others are groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some natural only. And of the necessary desires some are necessary if we are to be happy, some if the body is to be rid of uneasiness, some if we are even to live. He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquility of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a happy life. For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and, when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid; seeing that the living creature has no need to go in search of something that is lacking, nor to look for anything else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled. When we are pained, then, and then only, do we feel the need of pleasure. For this reason we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a happy life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting-point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing. And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatever, but often pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them. And often we consider pains superior to pleasures when submission to the pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a greater pleasure. While therefore all pleasure because it is naturally akin to us is good, not all pleasure is worthy of choice, just as all pain is an evil and yet not all pain is to be shunned. It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, that all these matters must be judged. Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary, as a good. Again, we regard. independence of outward things as a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that whatever is natural is easily procured and only the vain and worthless hard to win. Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when once the pain of want has been removed, while bread and water confer the highest possible pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To habituate one's self therefore, to simple and inexpensive diet supplies all that is needful for health, and enables a person to meet the necessary requirements of life without shrinking and it places us in a better condition when we approach at intervals a costly fare and renders us fearless of fortune.
A frequent mistake made by those who refer to hedonism or to epicureanism is to think that such philosophers advocate
unrestrained sensuality. As you can see from the following passage, Epicurus
had to put up with the same misrepresentation of his views. For the hedonist,
it is happiness that we should seek, and the achievement of happiness requires
careful judgment and discrimination among pleasures. It is the person who is prudent in the pursuit of pleasure that will gain happiness.
When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not
mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are
understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful
misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of
trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of
merrymaking, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other
delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober
reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and
banishing those beliefs through which the greatest disturbances take possession
of the soul. . . . For this reason prudence is a more precious thing even than
the other virtues, for neither lead a life of pleasure which is not also a life
of prudence, honor, and justice; nor lead a life of prudence, honor, and
justice, which is not also a life of pleasure. For the virtues have grown into
one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them.
. . .
Exercise yourself in these and kindred precepts day and night,
both by yourself and with him who is like to you; then never, either in waking
or in dream, will you be disturbed, but will live as a god among people. For
people lose all appearance of mortality by living in the midst of immortal
blessings.
While it is difficult to imagine someone being happy
who is wracked with pain or emotional distress, it seems wrong to deny that
there are true and worthy pleasures of the senses. Moreover, it is also difficult to imagine a person as being
happy in whom such pleasures are entirely absent. Is tranquility or contentment enough to add up to happiness?
Is Epicurus's hedonism altruistic or egoistic? That
is, is his argument concerned more with achieving happiness for oneself or with
contributing to the happiness of others, if necessary, with a sacrifice of
one's own happiness? While Epicurus placed a high value on friendship and the
happiness of persons generally, he did not formulate the ethical altruistic
version of hedonism that in the 19th century came to be known as utilitarianism. This school of ethical thought originated in Britain
with the works of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. The general principle of
utility prescribes that each of us should strive to achieve the greatest
happiness for the greatest number of people. In
order for this to be accomplished, individuals must be prepared to sacrifice some pleasures so that others may have happier lives. The
utilitarians were deeply committed to social action, especially to the
reduction of suffering, a necessity
if persons are to have a chance for genuine happiness. The following passages
from John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism show that Mill was a hedonist. But notice how Mill goes beyond
Epicurus in two ways. First, for Mill, the good to be realized in living well,
that is, happiness, is not just my own happiness but the happiness of all
mankind. He even goes further to admit that the happiness (and freedom from
pain) of "the whole sentient creation" is to be sought. That is, for
Mill, we are to take into account the pains and pleasures of animals when
seeking the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Second, Mill tells us that in making a
proper accounting of the happiness of mankind, one person's happiness is to
count the same as the happiness of another. Mill is an egalitarian. We should seek
the greatest happiness for the greatest number but, also, each should have an
equal share in this happiness insofar as possible.
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this is left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is grounded- namely, that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.
This, being, according to the utilitarian opinion, the end of human action, is necessarily also the standard of morality; which may accordingly be defined, the rules and precepts for human conduct, by the observance of which an existence such as has been described might be, to the greatest extent possible, secured to all mankind; and not to them only, but, so far as the nature of things admits, to the whole sentient creation.
. . . the Greatest Happiness Principle . . . is a mere form of words without rational signification, unless one person's happiness, supposed equal in degree (with the proper allowance made for kind), is counted for exactly as much as another's. Those conditions being supplied, Bentham's dictum, "everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one," might be written under the principle of utility as an explanatory commentary.
1 James Fieser (jfieser@utm.edu) ed., [The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
1996]
Epicureanism
in General
"Epicureanism
is a system of philosophy based chiefly on the teachings of the Greek
philosopher Epicurus. The essential doctrine of Epicureanism is that pleasure
is the supreme good and main goal of life. Intellectual pleasures are preferred
to sensual ones, which tend to disturb peace of mind. True happiness, Epicurus
taught, is the serenity resulting from the conquest of fear of the gods, of
death, and of the afterlife. The ultimate aim of all Epicurean speculation
about nature is to rid people of such fears. Epicurean physics is atomistic, in
the tradition of the Greek philosophers Leucippus and Democritus. Epicurus
regarded the universe as infinite and eternal and as consisting only of bodies
and space. Of the bodies, some are compound and some are atoms, or indivisible,
stable elements of which the compounds are formed. The world, as seen through
the human eye, is produced by the whirlings, collisions, and aggregations of
these atoms, which individually possess only shape, size, and weight. In
biology, Epicurus anticipated the modern doctrine of natural selection. He
postulated that natural forces give rise to organisms of different types and
that only the types able to support and propagate themselves have survived.
Epicurean psychology is thoroughly materialistic. It holds that sensations are
caused by a continuous stream of films or "idols" cast off by bodies
and impinging on the senses. All sensations are believed to be absolutely
reliable; error arises only when sensation is improperly interpreted. The soul
is regarded as being composed of fine particles distributed throughout the
body. The dissolution of the body in death, Epicurus taught, leads to the
dissolution of the soul, which cannot exist apart from the body; and thus no
afterlife is possible. Since death means total extinction, it has no meaning
either to the living or to the dead, for "when we are, death is not; and
when death is, we are not." The cardinal virtues in the Epicurean system
of ethics are justice, honesty, and prudence,or the balancing of pleasure and
pain. Epicurus preferred friendship to love, as being less disquieting. His
personal hedonism taught that only through self-restraint, moderation,and
detachment can one achieve the kind of tranquillity that is true happiness.
Despite his materialism, Epicurus believed in the freedom of the will. He
suggested that even the atoms are free and move on occasion quite
spontaneously; his view resembles the uncertainty principle of quantum
mechanics. Epicurus did not deny the existence of gods, but he emphatically
maintained that as "happy and imperishable beings" of supernatural
power they could have nothing to do with human affairs, although they might take
pleasure in contemplating the lives of good mortals.True religion lies in a
similar contemplation by humans of the ideal lives of the high, invisible gods.
So firmly fixed and venerated were Epicurus's teachings that the doctrines of
Epicureanism, unlike those of its great philosophical rival Stoicism, remained
remarkably intact throughout its history as a living tradition. Epicureanism
was brought into discredit largely because of a confusion, which still
persists, between its tenets and the crudely sensual hedonism advanced by the
Cyrenaics. Nevertheless, the Epicurean philosophy found many distinguished
disciples, including, among the Greeks, the grammarian Apollodorus and, among
the Romans, the poet Horace, the statesman Pliny the Younger, and, most
notably,the poet Lucretius. The poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of
Things) by Lucretius is the main source of knowledge of Epicureanism. As an
organized school, Epicureanism went out of existence early in the 4th century
AD. It was revived in the 17th century by the French philosopher Pierre
Gassendi. Since then, Epicureanism has attracted eminent persons in all ages
and is regarded as one of the leading schools of moral philosophy of all time.
"http://www.atomic
swerve.net/tpg/epicurus.html#Epicureanism
Part 2
The
answer given by C. S. Lewis: "You may live a good life even if
circumstances make you unhappy. Also, a person may live happily and fail to
live well. The good is fundamentally achieved in living according to the moral
law."
While many non-hedonists
will say that pleasure or happiness is a good, they deny that it is the only thing that is
good in itself and that it is the most important thing that is good in itself.
(Of course many things are good merely as means to ends. Something which is
good as a means to an end is called an instrumental good. Things which are good only as means
are good because we believe that they help to bring about good ends, that is, things which are good in
themselves. In this
Unit we are concerned with the question of what is good in itself.)
Well if happiness is not the
most important good thing, what is? Ordinarily, non-hedonists claim that the
fundamental good is realized when we live in accordance with the moral law. (I
say “ordinarily,” since there are non-hedonists such as Nietzsche, whose immoralism we will examine at the end of this
unit, denies that living in accord with “the moral law” is good.) In the following, C. S. Lewis defends a
version of a non-hedonist idea of the good. He begins by uncovering evidence in
our everyday social intercourse that we believe in a moral standard or law. We
appeal to this law when we say of some action that it is right or wrong. If your roommate never cleans up and
never buys any food while regularly eating what you buy, you will very likely
be angry and there will be an argument. You will be angry not just because your
roommate is causing you pain or reducing your pleasure, but because you think
she or he is being unfair, unjust, or in the wrong. Such everyday arguments
show that we have standards of right and wrong.
C. S. Lewis from The
Case For Christianity
Biographical Note Clive (Jack) Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was born in Belfast, Ireland. While a young boy, his mother died of cancer. He was awarded a scholarship to study at University College, Oxford where he went in 1917, but soon entered military service. He served as a light infantry officer in France where he was wounded in the battle of Arras. Following the war he resumed his studies at Oxford where he became a Fellow in Language and Literature at Magdalen College where he taught until 1954. In 1956 he married an American woman, Joy Gresham with whom he had become friends during a correspondence concerning his writings. The events of their friendship, marriage and Joy's death are related in the film Shadowlands based on Lewis's narration of their relationship. Lewis is known for an array of writings including fiction, children's stories, literary criticism, theology and philosophy.
Everyone has heard people quarrelling. Sometimes it
sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds,
I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of
things they say. They say things like this: "That's my seat, I was there
first"‹"Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm"‹ "Why
should you shove in first?"‹"Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you
a bit of mine"‹"How'd you like it if anyone did the same to
you?"‹"Come on, you promised." People say things like that every
day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.
Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them
isn't just saying that the other man's behaviour doesn't happen to please him.
He is appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which he expects the
other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies, "To hell
with your standard." Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has
been doing doesn't really go against the standard, or that if it does, there is
some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this
particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or
that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that
something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in
fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or rule of fair
play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it, about
which they really agreed. And they have. If they hadn't, they might, of course,
fight like animals, but they couldn't quarrel in the human sense of the word.
Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man's in the wrong. And there'd
be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement
as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there'd be no sense in lying that a
footballer had committed a foul unless there as some agreement about the rules
of football.
Such moral standards are
sometimes said to be natural laws, not in the way that gravity is a natural law, but in the
sense that living up to them is required if we are to be fully what a human
being is "by nature." Some apples never mature and grow ripe, but
when an apple develops fully what it is by nature, it becomes ripe. So too with
a human being, say those who believe in morality as natural law. Of course we
see crime and immorality all around us. But if a human being is mature, fully
developed, she or he will act morally, will speak truthfully, keep promises,
respect the lives or others, and so on. Moreover, if morality is a law of human
nature, we should expect to find that human beings have some basic knowledge of
this law. It is a knowledge that is passed on from one generation to the next. Those who hold such a view of the moral
law normally go one step further.
The standards of what makes a mature human being, morally speaking, are
not simply ideals that define the good life or what it is to live well. We think of them as laws in the sense that we are obligated to
act in accordance with them and may be held responsible, justly punished, if we
do not.
Let's
call the above view of natural law the developmental concept of natural law in
ethics. The idea is that the very nature or
essence of being human involves moral ends which we should encourage one
another to strive for, to develop, even hold them responsible for
failing to live up to these standards.
However
there is another view of natural law in ethics which we encounter in Kant's
notion of the categorical imperative, which we met in Unit 3. The idea here is
that some moral standards or rules are so fundamental to governing human
interactions in a society of free persons that a social order respecting such
freedom would be impossible without them. For example, could there be a society
at all in which people only told lies to one another? Or could there be a
society at all in which people killed one another as they pleased? Or could
there be a society at all in which people took the possessions of others whenever
they felt like it? It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to imagine such
societies. Even if we could, they would be abhorrent to free persons. Hence, we can say that respect for
moral rules which require truth-telling, promise-keeping, and which forbid murder
and stealing belongs to the very nature or essence of human society as a
community of free persons. A society of free persons is inconceivable without
them. Let's call this the
categorical concept of natural law in ethics, following Kant. As with the
developmental concept, the categorical concept is thought to generate
obligations for which we may be held accountable.
Both
concepts of natural law involve this aspect of obligation and responsibility –
which is why we speak of moral standards as laws. Where
they differ is in the way that they define the foundation for these laws. The developmental account grounds moral
laws in an idea of what it is to be a fully developed individual human being. The categorical concept grounds moral
laws in an idea of what a human being is essentially as a member of a
community of free
persons. Which of these concepts of natural law
in ethics do you think Lewis has in mind in the following?
Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to called the
Law of Nature. Nowadays, when we talk of the "laws of nature" we
usually mean things like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry.
But when the older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong the Law of
Nature, they really meant the Law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as falling stones are
governed by the law of gravitation and chemicals by chemical laws, so the
creature called man also had his law‹with this great difference, that the stone
couldn't choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not, but a man
could choose either to obey the Law of Human Nature or to disobey it. They
called it Law of Nature because they thought that every one knew it by nature
and didn't need to be taught it. They didn't mean, of course, that you mightn't
find an odd individual here and there who didn't know it, just as you find a
few people who are colour-blind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race
as a whole, they thought that the human idea of Decent Behaviour was obvious to
every one. And I believe they were right. If they weren't, then all the things
we say about this war are nonsense. What is the sense in saying the enemy are
in the wrong unless Right is a real thing which the Germans at bottom know as
well as we do and ought to practise? If they had no notion of what we mean by
right, then, though we might still have to fight them, we could no more blame
them for that than for the colour of their hair.
So we might agree with Lewis that
indeed we do appeal to standards of right and wrong in our everyday dealings
with one another. But aren't these standards relative to a particular
culture or society? Aren’t so
called moral laws nothing but the expression of irreducible culturally variable
ideas of what it is to be human?
Given these variable ideas of what it is to be human, why should we
think there is a human nature, morally speaking?
Lewis argues against cultural
and moral relativism. He does so in a way which is similar to the way in
which Kant defends the view that the moral law is categorical, that is, absolutely necessary for human life. Try to imagine a society in which in general people,
as we understand them to be, valued lying rather than telling the truth. You
can't imagine such a society, says Kant. It's like trying to imagine that 2 + 2
= 5, says Lewis. No such society could ever exist. Hence, even if lying may be occasionally
morally permitted--something Kant denied, special justification for lying or
withholding the truth is required.
I know that some
people say the idea of a Law of Nature or decent behaviour known to all men is
unsound, because different civilisations and different ages have had quite
different moralities. But they haven't. They have only had slightly different
moralities. Just think what a quite different morality would mean. Think of a
country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man
felt proud for double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You
might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men
have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to -- whether it
was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or every one. But they
have always agreed that you oughtn't to put yourself first. Selfishness has
never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or
four. But they have always agreed that you mustn't simply have any woman you
liked.
But the most remarkable thing is this. Whenever you find a man
who says he doesn't believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same
man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if
you try breaking one to him he'll be complaining "It's not fair"
before you can say Jack Robinson. A nation may say treaties don't matter; but
then, next minute, they spoil their case by saying that the particular treaty
they want to break was an unfair one. But if treaties don't matter, and if
there's no such things as Right and Wrong, in other words, if there is no Law
of Nature, what is the difference between a fair treaty and an unfair one?
Haven't they given away the fact that, whatever they say, they really know the
Law of Nature just like anyone else?
If Lewis and Kant are right, that there is a real
Right and Wrong, at least in the sense of a categorical Right and Wrong, is something we must accept, and, as
one might expect, something that human beings widely do accept, then--even if
we would agree that there are some
variations in specific moral standards from one society to another.
But there is also a reason
for admitting that we believe in a developmental standard. It comes from the usually dishonest
feeling we have that we need to make excuses when we fail to live up to a moral
standard. That we admit to moral failings when we are honest about ourselves, however, shows
that we hold out the real possibility of something better for ourselves.
Developmentally, moral standards are more about doing better than they are
about punishing ourselves for not having done very well, morally speaking. What
is important to the fullest realization of meaningful freedom is that we
concentrate on the necessity of making actual moral improvement.
It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table. Now if we're agreed about that, I go on to my next point, which is this. None of us are really keeping the Law of Nature. If there are any exceptions among you, I apologise to them. They'd better switch on to another station, for nothing I'm going to say concerns them. And now, turning to the ordinary human beings who are left:
I hope you won't
misunderstand what I'm going to say. I'm not preaching, and Heaven knows I'm
not pretending that I'm better than anyone else. I'm only trying to call
attention to a fact; the fact that this year, or this month, or, more likely,
this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we
expect from other people. There may be all sorts of excuses for us. That time
you were so unfair to the children was when you were very tired. That slightly
shady business about the money‹the one you've almost forgotten‹came when you
were very hard up. And what you promised to do for old So-and-so and have never
done‹well, you never would have promised if you'd known how frightfully busy you
were going to be. And as for your behaviour to your wife (or husband),if I knew
how irritating they could be, I wouldn't wonder at it‹and who the dickens am I,
anyway? I am just the same. That is to say, I don't succeed in keeping the Law
of Nature very well, and the moment anyone tells me I'm not keeping it, there
starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm. The question at
the moment is not whether they are good excuses. The point is that they are one
more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in the Law of
Nature. If we didn't believe in decent behaviour, why should we be so anxious
to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in
decency so much‹we feel the Rule or Law pressing on us so-that we can't bear to
face the fact that we're breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the
responsibility. For you notice that it's only for our bad behaviour that we
find all these explanations. We put our bad temper down to being tired or
worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves.
Well, those are the two points I wanted to make tonight. First,
that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought
to behave in a certain way, and can't really get rid of it. Secondly, that they
don't in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it.
These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and
the universe we live in.
In Section II Lewis attempts
to make more clear what he means by the Moral Law by answering some objections
or questions posed by his listeners. Notice that in the first part of what he
says, he is arguing for something like ethical altruism, claiming that it is
part of the Moral Law. (Would Ayn Rand agree? Couldn't there be a society of
ethical egoists? That is, ethical altruism does not appear to be categorical
for human nature. Perhaps it should be universally upheld in human societies, but "Why?" "What makes it natural ,
that is, fully human, for human beings to care about others to the point of
sacrificing their own happiness?" )
Lewis also makes the claim
that none of our instincts is as such moral or immoral. If he is right, our
desire for pleasure or for happiness, though a desire for something which is
normally a good, is not unconditionally good. Sometimes the desire for
happiness can move us to actions which are morally wrong. Happiness, then, is
not an unqualified good.
The belief that moral
standards are all relative or that they are social conventions, variable from
one society to another, runs quite deep. Lewis continues to argue contrary to
such relativism. This is a crucial point for someone who thinks that the good
is a matter of living in accordance with Moral Law. For if moral standards are
merely variable conventions, then probably we should say that they are merely
instrumental goods,
useful, perhaps even necessary,
devices for establishing social relationships which bring us pleasure or
a certain amount of happiness.
. . . "Isn't what you call the
Moral Law just a social convention, something that is put into us by
education?" I think there is a misunderstanding here. The people who ask
that question are usually taking it for granted that if we have learned a thing
from parents and teachers, then that thing must be merely a human invention.
But, of course, that isn't so. We all learned the multiplication table at
school. A child who grew up alone on a desert island wouldn't know it. But
surely it doesn't follow that the multiplication table is simply a human
convention, something human beings have made up for themselves and might have
made different if they had liked? Of course we learn the Rule of Decent
Behaviour from parents and teachers, as we learn everything else. But some of
the things we learn are mere convention which might have been different‹we
learn to keep to the left of the road, but it might just as well have been the
rule to keep to the right‹and others of them, like mathematics, are real
truths. The question is which class the Law of Human Nature belongs to.
There are two reasons for saying it belongs to the same class as mathematics.
The first is, as I said last time, that though there are differences between
the moral ideas of one time or country and those of another, the differences
aren't really very big‹you can recognise the same Law running through them all:
whereas mere conventions‹like the rule of the road or the kind of clothes
people wear‹differ completely. The other reason is this. When you think about
these differences between the morality of one people and another, do you think
that the morality of one people is ever better or worse than that of another?
Have any of the changes been improvements? If not, then of course there could
never be any moral progress. Progress means not just changing, but changing for
the better. If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other there
would be no sense in preferring civilised morality to savage morality, or
Christian morality to Nazi morality. In fact, of course, we all do believe that
some moralities are better than others. We do believe that some of the people
who tried to change the moral ideas of their own age were what we'd call
Reformers or Pioneers‹ people who understood morality better than their
neighbours did. Very well then. The moment you say that one set of moral ideas
can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a
standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than
the other. But the standard that measures two things is something different
from either. You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality,
admitting that there is really such a thing as Right, independent of what people think, and
that some people's ideas get nearer to that real Right than others. Or put it
this way. if your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true,
there must be something‹some Real Morality‹for them to be true about. The reason why your idea of New York
can be truer or less true than mine is that New York is a real place, existing
quite apart from what either of us thinks. If when each of us said "New
York" each meant merely "The town I am imagining in my own
head," how could one of us have truer ideas than the other? There'd be no
question of truth or falsehood at all. In the same way, if the Rule of Decent
Behaviour meant simply, "whatever each nation happens to approve,"
there'd be no sense in saying that any one nation had ever been more correct in
its approval than any other; no sense in saying that the world could ever grow
better or worse.
Is living in accord with the moral law merely instrumentally good, or is it
intrinsically good? It is tempting to
speak of the moral law as something which is a matter of convenience, something
which is instrumentally good in securing peace and happiness. Recall that
Hobbes argues that way in claiming that justice and injustice are
social/political constructions which bring and end to the war of all against
all. However, it is clear that concern about the moral law is more than a
concern about mere convenience or inconvenience. Sometimes it is the immoral
action which is the convenient thing or the thing that pays. You don't have to
own the Ring of Gyges to gain a pleasure at the expense of hurting someone else.
Living in accordance with the moral law is often difficult; often it brings
pain and unhappiness, sometimes death. If I think that moral laws are merely
instrumental goods, convenient conventions, agreed upon for mutual advantage,
then I am just plain stupid if I act morally, knowing that my action will bring
me suffering and unhappiness. If, nevertheless, I think I should do the right
thing, no matter the consequences,
I must think that doing the right thing is intrinsically good,
good-in-itself. Does Lewis think that
living in accordance with the moral law is instrumentally good or that it is
intrinsically good?
. . . A man occupying the corner seat in
the train because he got there first, and a man who slipped into it while my
back was turned and removed my bag, are both equally inconvenient. But I blame
the second man and don't blame the first. I'm not angry‹ except perhaps for a
moment before I came to my senses‹ with a man who trips me up by accident; I am
angry with a man who tries to trip me up even if he doesn't succeed. Yet the
first has hurt me and the second hasn't. Sometimes the behaviour which I call
bad is not inconvenient to me at all, but the very opposite. In war, each side
may find a traitor on the other side very useful. But though they use him and
pay him they regard him as human vermin. So you can't say that what we call
decent behaviour in others is simply the behaviour that happens to be useful to
us. And as for decent behaviour in ourselves, I suppose it's pretty obvious
that it doesn't mean the behaviour that pays. It means things like being
content with thirty shillings when you might have got three pounds, leaving a
girl alone when you'd like to make love to her, staying in dangerous places
when you could go somewhere safer, keeping promises you'd rather not keep, and
telling the truth even when it makes you look a fool.
If moral laws are merely laws of nature in the sense that such rules must be
generally upheld for human societies to exist, then are they really anything
more than instrumental goods? If you will die without your high-blood pressure
medicine, the medicine is necessary for your life, even though it is only an
instrumental good. It is an especially important instrumental good. Lewis
believes that living in accordance with the moral law is intrinsically good.
And he says that the moral law is true a bit like the way that it is true that
2 + 2 = 4. But isn't this kind of being true like the way that it is true that
"You should tell the truth!" when we think that no society could
exist where everyone lied all the time? "Telling the truth" seems
like "taking my high blood-pressure medicine," the one essential for
the basic functioning of a society, the other essential for the basic
functioning of my body. That is, Lewis defends the idea that the moral law is a
law of nature the way a doctor might explain why I should take my high-blood
pressure medicine. But he needs to defend the moral law's being intrinsically good. Why is that true in the way that it is true that 2 + 2 = 4? Why
is being unselfish intrinsically good or acting unselfishly right whatever the
consequences? Is there "a higher reality" that makes it so? That
seems to be where Lewis leaves us. What kind of reality is that? How is my
thinking going to be able to grab hold of such a reality?
Some people say that though decent
conduct doesn't mean what pays each particular person at a particular moment,
still, it means what pays the human race as a whole; and that consequently there's
no mystery about it. Human beings, after all, have some sense; they see that
you can't have any real safety or happiness except in a society where every one
plays fair, and it's because they see this that they try to behave decently.
Now, of course, it's perfectly true that safety and happiness can only come
from individuals, classes, and nations being honest and fair and kind to each
other. It is one of the most important truths in the world. But as an
explanation of why we feel as we do about Right and Wrong it just misses the
point. If we ask, "Why ought I to be unselfish?" and you reply,
"Because it is good for society," we may then ask, "Why should I
care what's good for society except when it happens to pay me personally?"
and then you'll have to say, "Because you ought to be unselfish,"
which simply brings us back to where we started. You're saying what's true, but
you're not getting any further. If a man asked what was the point of playing
football, it wouldn't be much good saying, "in order to score goals,"
for trying to score goals is the game itself, not the reason for the game, and
you'd really only be saying that football was football, which is true, but not
worth saying. In the same way, if a man asks what is the point of behaving decently,
it's no good replying, "in order to benefit society," for trying to
benefit other people, in other words being unselfish is one of the things
decent behaviour consists in; all you're really saying is that decent behaviour
is decent behaviour. You'd have said just as much if you'd stopped at the
statement, "Men ought to be unselfish."
And that's just where I do stop. Men ought to be unselfish, ought to be fair. Not that men are unselfish, nor that they like being unselfish, but that they ought to be. The Moral Law, or Law of Human Nature, is not simply a fact about human behaviour in the same way as the Law of Gravitation is, or may be, simply a fact about how heavy objects behave. On the other hand, it's not a mere fancy, for we can't get rid of the idea, and most of the things we say and think about men would be reduced to nonsense if we did. And it's not simply a statement about how we should like men to behave for our own convenience; for the behaviour we call bad or unfair isn't exactly the same as the behaviour we find inconvenient, and may even be the opposite. Consequently, this Rule of Right and Wrong, or Law of Human Nature, or whatever you call it, must somehow or other be a real thing‹a thing that's really there, not made up by ourselves. And yet it's not a fact in the ordinary sense, in the same way as our actual behaviour is a fact. It begins to look as if we'll have to admit that there's more than one kind of reality; that, in this particular case, there's something above and beyond the ordinary facts of men's behaviour, and yet quite definitely real‹a real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing on us.2
If there is something missing in the hedonist's conception of the good, isn't
there something missing also in a concept of the good which sets aside the
pursuit of happiness? Perhaps we should separate the content of the moral law from the meaning or significance of the moral law. That is, it may well be that the
moral law will tell me to do something which will involve a sacrifice of my
happiness. However, isn't at least part of the meaning or significance of such a sacrifice to be found in increasing
someone else's happiness or reducing his or her suffering? If so, then happiness is not just a good, but a fundamental good. Isn't this what is so important about what the
utilitarians and other hedonists are saying, namely, that the happiness or
suffering of people, ourselves included, should not be a matter of indifference
to us. This may not be the only
meaning or significance which living in accord with the moral law has. It
perhaps is part of what makes me fully human. Moreover, that is of meaning or
significance for me, as part of the challenge I face with respect to developing
myself, whether or not I am effective in reducing other people's suffering or
contributing to their happiness. But part of being human as well is to possess
the capacity for joy.
2The selections from Lewis
are from The Case for Christianity, Touchstone, 1996.
Part 3
The Case for Immoralism:
Friedrich Nietzsche
Recall
that we said that the fundamental question of ethics is the question, “What is
it to live well?” However it is
not obvious that the answer to this question is one that is “ethical” whether
that be conceived as a matter of seeking the greatest happiness for the
greatest number or whether it be conceived as doing the right thing, living in
accord with the moral law.
Arguably,
all these rules as to what is right
and wrong or about promoting the general happiness
are just instruments that have been developed to protect the weak who are
fearful of what the strong might otherwise do to them. Didn’t Hobbes claim just that? Surely that is an argument that outright
will only be convincing to the fearful, so in their fear they will try to put
about the idea that moral rules have some authority that comes from God,
nature, or reason. Thus they hope
to turn the tables on the strong and put themselves in control, in mass,
banding together like a herd of sheep.
These claims to authority are simply ruses of the weak. God is dead, human nature is what human
beings make of it and mostly we don’t make very much of it. In our fear and weakness, the highest
we aspire to is happiness, a high-sounding notion that signifies our readiness
to settle for being contented sheep and our fear of anything that is dangerous,
painful and original. As for
reason, reason is simply the instrument with which we calculate the way to bring about what we desire. If our goals are petty and safe, the
petty and the safe will be said to be rational. If our goals are great and dangerous, the way that is
dangerous but great will be the rational way. Desire should not look to reason for authority. Reason gets whatever authority it has
only in relation to desire. The
strength and originality of your will is the measure of your greatness. So argues Friedrich Nietzsche in Beyond
Good and Evil.
From Beyond Good and Evil3
198
All these
moralities that direct themselves at the individual person, for the sake of his "happiness," as people
say—what are they except proposals
about conduct in relation to the degree of danger in which the
individual person lives with
himself, recipes against his passions, his good and bad inclinations, to the extent that they may have a will
to power and want to play the master;
small and great clever sayings and affectations, afflicted with the
musty enclosed smell of ancient
household remedies or old women's advice, all baroque and unreasonable in form—because they direct themselves at
"everything," because they generalize where we should not generalize—, all speaking absolutely,
taking themselves absolutely, all spiced
with more than one grain of salt, and much more bearable, and sometimes
even seductive, only when they
learn to smell over-seasoned and dangerous, above all "about the other world."
199
Given that at all
times, so long as there have been human beings, there have also been herds of
human beings (racial groups,
communities, tribes, peoples, states, churches) and always a great
many followers in relation to the
small number of those issuing orders, and also taking into consideration that so far nothing has been
better and longer practised and cultivated among human beings than obedience, we
can reasonably assume that typically now the need for obedience is inborn in
each individual, as a sort of
formal conscience which states "You should do something or other without conditions, and leave aside
something else without
conditions," in short, "Thou shalt."
This need seeks to
satisfy itself and to fill its form with some content. Depending on its strength, impatience, and
tension, it seizes on something, without being very particular, like a coarse appetite, and accepts what
someone or other issuing commands
shouts in people's ears—parents, teachers, laws, class bias, public opinion. The curiously limited
intelligence of human development, the
hesitation, length of time, often regressive and turning around on
itself, is based on the fact that
the herd instinct of obedience is passed on best and at the expense of the art of commanding.
If the herd invents morality
out of fear, it does the same when it comes to politics. It invents democracy as the political
form that ensures that everyone conduct themselves in accordance with the will
of the herd-majority. Defenders of
democracy pride themselves on the idea that it protects individuals from
“unlawful” power while it is
rather a force for reducing human life to the lowest common denominator and
discouraging individuals from acting contrary to the “will of the majority.”
203
Those of us who
have a different belief, who do not consider the democratic movement merely a
degenerate form of political organization but a degenerate form of humanity, that is, as something that
diminishes humanity, makes it mediocre and of lesser worth, where must we reach out to with our hopes?
There's no choice: we must reach for new philosophers, for
spirits strong and original enough to provide the stimuli for an opposing way
of estimating value and to
re-evaluate and invert "eternal values," for those sent out
as forerunners, for men of the
future who at the present time take up the compulsion and the knot which forces the will of the
millennia into a new path. To
teach man the future of humanity as his will, as dependent on a man's
will, and to prepare for great
exploits and comprehensive attempts of discipline and cultivation, so as to put an end to that horrifying
domination of nonsense and
contingency which up to now has been called "history"—the
nonsense of the "greatest
number" is only its latest form. For that some new form of philosophers and commanders
will at some point be necessary, at the
sight of which all hidden, fearsome, and benevolent spirits on earth may
well look pale and dwarfish. The
image of such a leader is what hovers before our eyes: may I say that out loud, you free spirits?
3 http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/beyondgoodandevil5.htm
We need new philosophers,
Nietzsche thinks, those who will tell the truth about morality, that is, that good
and evil are founded in fear; philosophers who will unmask the lack
of authority in what is said to come from God, nature and reason. These new philosophers will speak of a
man yet to come, a higher man, a super man, one who is capable of going beyond
good and evil and able to undertake danger and pain for the sake of creating
what is original in its beauty and meaning. Nietzsche puts the teaching of this new philosopher in
the mouth of an as-yet-fictional
Zarathustra (though Nietzsche was certainly thinking of himself as just such a
new philosopher).
From Thus Spake Zarathustra4
The Higher Man
1.
When I came unto men for the first time,
then did I commit the anchorite folly, the great folly: I appeared on the
market–place.
And when I spake unto all, I spake unto none. In the evening,
however, rope–dancers were my companions, and corpses; and I myself almost a
corpse.
With the new morning, however, there came unto me a new truth:
then did I learn to say: “Of what account to me are market–place and populace
and populace–noise and long populace–ears!”
Ye higher men, learn THIS from me: On
the market–place no one believeth in higher men. But if ye will speak there,
very well! The populace, however, blinketh: “We are all equal.”
“Ye higher men,”—so blinketh the populace—”there are no higher
men, we are all equal; man is man, before God—we are all equal!”
Before God!—Now,
however, this God hath died. Before the populace, however, we will not be
equal. Ye higher men, away from the market–place!
2.
Before God!—Now however this God hath
died! Ye higher men, this God was your greatest danger.
Only since he lay
in the grave have ye again arisen. Now only cometh the great noontide, now only
doth the higher man become—master!
Have ye understood
this word, O my brethren? Ye are frightened: do your hearts turn giddy? Doth
the abyss here yawn for you? Doth the hell–hound here yelp at you?
Well! Take heart!
ye higher men! Now only travaileth the mountain of the human future. God hath
died: now do WE desire—the Superman to live.
3.
The most careful ask to–day: “How is man
to be maintained?” Zarathustra however asketh, as the first and only one: “How
is man to be SURPASSED?”
The Superman, I
have at heart; THAT is the first and only thing to me—and NOT man: not the
neighbour, not the poorest, not the sorriest, not the best.—
O my brethren, what
I can love in man is that he is an over–going and a down–going. And also in you
there is much that maketh me love and hope.
In that ye have
despised, ye higher men, that maketh me hope. For the great despisers are the
great reverers.
In that ye have
despaired, there is much to honour. For ye have not learned to submit
yourselves, ye have not learned petty policy.
For to–day have the
petty people become master: they all preach submission and humility and policy
and diligence and consideration and the long et cetera of petty virtues.
Whatever is of the
effeminate type, whatever originateth from the servile type, and especially the
populace–mishmash:—THAT wisheth now to be master of all human destiny—O
disgust! Disgust! Disgust!
THAT asketh and
asketh and never tireth: “How is man to maintain himself best, longest, most
pleasantly?” Thereby—are they the masters of to–day.
These masters of
to–day—surpass them, O my brethren—these petty people: THEY are the Superman’s
greatest danger!
Surpass, ye higher
men, the petty virtues, the petty policy, the sand–grain considerateness, the
ant–hill trumpery, the pitiable comfortableness, the “happiness of the greatest
number”—!
And rather despair than submit yourselves. And verily, I love
you, because ye know not to–day how to live, ye higher men! For thus do YE
live—best!
4 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus spake Zarathustra: A book for all and none, translated by Thomas Common, the text is in
the public domain.
As you reflect on Nietzsche’s
proposed answer to the question of what it is to live well, consider some
questions: Is it true that
morality has meaning only as a way of protecting those who are afraid of the
strong? Nietzsche anticipates Rand
in thinking that the meaning of freedom is realized in the maximal development
of our powers, but doesn’t our freedom also impose responsibilities on us
toward others, obligations to respect them as free persons and, sometimes
anyway, obligations to liberate them from shackles on their freedom such as
oppressive governments, poverty and ignorance?