Chapter 7: Ethics Nietzsche and Existentialism; Sartre; Ethics and Gender Introducing Philosophy, 10th edition Robert C. Solomon, Kathleen Higgins, and Clancy Martin

Friedrich Nietzsche ( ) German philosopher who declared himself the archenemy of traditional morality and Christianity and spent much of his life writing polemics against them; most vicious attack is in his book, Antichrist (1888) Although he is generally known as an immoralist (a name he chose for himself), Nietzsche’s moral philosophy is an attack on one conception of morality in order to replace it with another

The morality he attacks is the morality of traditional Christianity as defined by Kant The morality he seeks to defend is the ancient morality of personal excellence, as defined by Aristotle Nietzsche refers to the former as “slave morality,” suggesting that it is suitable only for the weak and servile, and to the latter as “master morality,” suggesting that it is the morality of the strong and independent few

According to Nietzsche, the concept of moral duty is fit for servants and slaves, but such a morality is wholly inadequate to motivate us to personal excellence and achievement An unabashed elitist: only a few people are capable of “higher” morality; for the rest, the “slave morality” of duty would have to suffice One should develop one’s own virtues and become excellent in as many ways as possible, but the excellence of the individual is part of and contributes to the excellence of mankind as a whole

Nietzsche does not believe that every human “nature” is the same; different individuals will find and follow different values, different moralities “Follow yourself, don’t follow me” What does your conscience say? “You should become him who you are” —Nietzsche

Nietzsche on Master and Slave Morality Categories of Nietzsche’s philosophy are strength and weakness, and he considers the Greek tradition of personal excellence a source of strength, the modern conception of morality a facade for weakness Accordingly, he calls the first a “master morality,” the second a “slave morality” or, with reference to modern mass movements, a “herd instinct”

Jean-Paul Sartre ( ) Contemporary French philosopher who began as a literary writer and a phenomenologist, in the style of Edmund Husserl, but who converted that austere philosophy to his own radical ends Generally regarded as the main proponent of the philosophy of existentialism Sartre’s existentialism is a moral philosophy as well as a philosophy of freedom

Sartre’s existentialism denies that there is any such thing as “human nature” and therefore insists that “man makes himself” Through our various choices and moral commitments we deem what we want humanity to be According to Sartre, we do not simply find moral principles upon which we should act, but rather we choose those moral principles through our acting

Thus, Sartre’s moral philosophy places most of its emphasis on action It minimizes the importance of moral deliberation and all that sort of moralizing in which we simply talk about what is good rather than simply a “good will,” as in Kant In his novels and plays, Sartre’s characters are always torn by alternative identities They suffer just because they cannot make up their minds

In his greatest work, Being and Nothingness (1943), Sartre argues that everyone “is who he is not, and is not who he is” The paradoxical phrase means that our identity is never simply the totality of facts (“facticity”) that is true of us We always identify ourselves with our plans and intentions for the future (our “transcendence”) as well, which means that so long as we are alive, we have no fixed “identity” at all

Our values are a question of creation, personal choice, and commitment. Why be moral? “Because I choose to accept these values” But Sartre, sounding like Kant, also insists on the need to choose principles for all mankind, not just oneself. The difference is that Sartre, unlike Kant, makes no claims about the singular correctness of these principles “Man makes himself”

It is through my actions that I commit myself to values, not through principles I accept a priori or through rules that are imposed on me by God or society Sartre argues that morality is simply our choice of actions and values together with their consequences, whatever those are But this does not mean that we need not choose or that it is all “arbitrary”

Ethics and Gender In recent decades, the view of morality as essentially rational, principled, and impersonal has been challenged Some argue that women think about moral issues differently than men Virginia Held spells out some of these differences John Corvino also attacks the claim that homosexuality is “unnatural”

Virginia Held American philosopher, specializing in feminist epistemology Currently teaches at the City University of New York Graduate Center Examines the concept of mothering as a moral ideal John Corvino Teaches philosophy at Wayne State University in Detroit Author of Same Sex