Mitch Baldwin
Philosophy final
1. Explain and compare how the will to power, objective TRUTH and generalized accounts of
morality are connected to the slave morality and the master morality. Include in your answer:
A. the characteristics of each morality
B. define TRUTH and explain the need to believe for the slave
C. Explain specifically how the belief in the objective TRUTH works (has pragmatic
worth) for the slave referring to both James and Nietzsche.
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in his book On Those Who Are Sublime “Of all evil I deem
you capable: Therefore I want good from you. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who
thought themselves good because they had no claws.” He was saying that we are capable of
being great if we shed objective morality and strive to reach the highest possible position in life.
He thinks that people that follow an objective morality are weak, and they are unable to fight for
what they want. A person who uses an objective truth thinks that because they are weak and do
no harm they are morally above the strong. They call the strong evil, because they resent that the
strong can exercise their will to get whatever they want.
He thinks that it’s important to affirm your will to power which is the driving force
behind a person’s ambition to achieve greatness. A master or someone who uses the master
morality is a person who affirms their will to power, as opposed to slave morality which denies
their will to power. The person who follows master morality will be self-aware, empowered,
proud, experimental, strong (or evil in the eyes of the slave), they will accept the world around
them, they accept their shortcomings themselves, and they will follow a subjective morality. The
person who follows slave morality will be, reactionary, resentful, week willed, weak (or good in
their own eyes), they have a herd mentality, they direct their anger outwardly, and they follow an
objective morality.
Nietzsche sees objective truth as a pointless exercise that makes people resent the world.
People who follow slave morality have this misconception that their morality can be applied to
the entire world around them. They will resent the world not only when their outside world
doesn’t fit their expectations, but they will also try to deny their own shortcomings and shift the
blame outward William James had a different viewpoint than Nietzsche on objective morality,
because he sees morality from a utilitarian standpoint. James believed that a moral decision was
one that made the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people. He believes
that truth is subjective and each person has a right to a truth that makes them the happiest. He
thinks an individual can believe in an objective morality so long as this adds pragmatic worth to
their life and makes them happy. Nietzsche’s viewpoint differs on objective truth, because he
believes that an objective truth subtracts worth and meaning from their life. He says that an
objective truth strips one of their will to power. Nietzsche said a slave’s dependence on
something bigger than themselves is something that makes them weaker than the master. The
slaves justify their own weaknesses to themselves by saying god wants them to be weak, and
give themselves up for god. In religion most people are taught from a young age to be
subservient to the church. They are told to give up certain things to serve god like a sacrifice, or
tithing. Within Christianity their all-encompassing god is valued as the most important thing in
the universe. Followers of god are asked to surrender freedoms, views, parts of their identity,
worldly pleasures, their time, and their will to power. Within their circle they won’t be accepted
if they don’t accept their god into their life and let the church take the things they were asked to
renounce. Nietzsche says the master is stronger, because of its ability to cope without using god
as a scapegoat for their own weaknesses. The master is strong, because they don’t have to use an
objective morality as a tool to direct their resentment towards other people and the world. The
master can be more accepting of the world, because he shoulders the burden of his shortcomings
and accepts his limitations.
2. According to Nietzsche, how will the “death” of god affect both the slave and the master
morality? Be sure to reference Kohlberg's conventional stage of moral development and Freud's
concept of the need to believe in an ego-ideal. What caused the madman to go mad?
Nietzsche describes “The death of god” in the Mad Man Parable. This is not a literal
murder of god, but a symbolic one. The character describing the death of god in the story was
named the mad man. He goes to the market to look for god, and tells all of the shoppers that he
sees him. The people at the market mock him, because they are atheist and don’t believe in a
god. He goes on to tell them how god is dead, and that we killed them. The mad man had gone
mad, because he believed at one point that god existed. He is now in the process of becoming
nihilist, which is the rejection of moral principles and religion. The mad man is a symbol for
what Nietzsche thought the death of god to lead to. Once god wasn’t a part of society anymore
he speculated the consequences of a society of nonbelievers and how it may drive some mad.
We once called upon a god for rain to grow our crops. We called upon god to keep us free from
disease. Society has evolved past that need during the period of extreme economic growth since
the industrial revolution. We now have the ability to track weather to predict when we will get
another storm that will water our crops. Improvements in medical science coupled with our
enhanced standard of living has increased life expectancy substantially. We no longer depend on
god to solve all of our problems, because we understand the world to the point to where we don’t
need him. We may have metaphorically killed god, but we literally replaced him with our
capitalist system, and western culture.
The death of god will not affect the master morality in the slightest. The master morality
creates its own set of moral principles and standards. The master never relied on an objective
truth so the death of god never really had an impact on it, however the murder of god had a much
bigger impact on the slave morality. Society has become so far removed from god that
Christianity is no longer used as basis for our morals. This causes a dilemma for the slave
morality. Slave morality is dependent on an objective set of moral standards, and slowly we have
strayed away from the dominant objective truth. There are still many people who go to church
and believe in a god, but Christianity’s influence on moral principles is limited. What happens to
the slave when you take away its objective truth? Without Christianity’s influence slaves are able
to do things that were once considered a sin without any guilt. Sins that were once unacceptable
in a society have become the social norm. During Kohlberg’s conventional stage people learn to
accept social norms and base their moral principles off of them. Even though we lost Christian
morality, we will still always have morality. Morality is learned behavior and that did not die
with the death of god. During the conventional stage we learn our behavior based on what will
get us accepted with the people around us. Freud also said the ego ideal is our idealized selfimage based on our role models. A person’s truth is heavily dependent on the environment that
they grew up in.
3. Based on your attendance, the quality of the work you completed, and your participation, what
grade do you think you deserve and why?
I believe I deserve a B to a B+ for my semester of work. At the first of the semester you
told us that if we came to every class and studied every week for an hour we should have no
problem getting an A. I did not have perfect attendance, but I was in class at least 85 % of the
time. This class wasn’t something I picked up quickly, but I met your personal studying
expectation. I believe I showed proficiency on the final, after hours of writing and researching.
I’m very confident that this final proved to you that I worked very hard to learn the material and
became well versed in philosophy.