Friday, June 21, 2013

Morality of Custom and Slave Morality

In # 9 of Daybreak (aka The Dawn), Nietzsche proposes that 'Morality' originates as a "Morality of Custom", constituted by obedience to "tradition", which is a "higher authority which one obeys . . . because it commands . . . an incomprehensible, indefinite power, of something more than personal".  Participating in such a system is "whoever wanted to elevate himself above it . . . to become lawgiver . . . to make customs", i. e. to become 'commanders'.  Now, though Nietzsche does not use the terms in this context, it is no stretch of their usual connotations to characterize the Morality of Custom as 'Slave' Morality, with the maker of custom a 'Master'.  In contrast, according to the passage, are "moralists. . . following in the footsteps of Socrates", who "offer the individual a morality of self-control and temperance".  Thus, on this account, the "genuine philosophers" of Beyond Good and Evil #211, i. e. "commanders" and "philosophers of the future", are non-Socratic purveyors of the Morality of Custom, in which case the "slave rebellion in morals", that he ascribes to "the Jews", in "195 of BGE, is a piece of fiction.  That is, Jewish society is unarguably predated by others, each of which is constituted by its customs, and, so, it is not the origin of Slave Morality

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