By James Zheng

Morality is just a fiction used by the herd of inferior human beings to hold back the few superior men.

— Friedrich Nietzsche 

There is inspiration that can be evoked from a single sentence. Nietzsche says that morality is a worthless concept. I think what he said is right and can’t be refuted. 

Nietzsche’s definition of morality in the quote is not referring to the “common” understanding of morality. That morality is not the Christian doctrine.

Before we continue into Nietzsche’s perplexing mind, briefly think about your definition of morality. Our accordant definition of it might just be the principles concerning right and wrong, or good and bad behavior, but Nietsche does not care about right or wrong. Does he even know what is right or wrong? [Quote Nietzsche?]

Although in Nietzsche’s time most of the objects and thoughts of his word were focused on Christianity, its scope was far beyond that. I think Nietzsche would say that even if he lived in the present.

Nietzsche’s philosophy is what is recognized as the thoughts derived by the “strong man” (how Nietzsche characterizes himself). Ordinary people always want to put the wisemen at the same level as them.

In case you don’t understand what I just said–the mentioned morality is an unspoken rule established by the majority in the society, such as what is allowed or when and how to do something. This is their system of consensus.

Something that seems to be off the topic but worth mentioning is that from Nietzsche’s vision, the strong are the individuals who pursue self-transcendence, so that they themselves become the standard of conduct of everything, breaking all the agreed norms of the secular world, and putting their own norms in the highest position in the world. Nietzsche sees conventional “Morality” as an excuse for the weak to “despise” the strong. The weak say, “Hum, those so-called strong people are just immoral people.” They want to popularize the vulgar norms of their own connection, so as to make the strong yield to them. Nietzsche characterizes himself as the strong and those who obey the social norms as weak.

For example, I used to see this type of phenomenon in middle school. A student is studying during the break while a group of other students would be messing around near that student. One of them couldn’t endure watching the studying student, so he said, “Why do you keep learning when you’re already really outstanding? You’ve got a stable situation, you can definitely get to Tsinghua or Peking (the two top universities in China)! You are making us so nervous!” Well, that’s the way they stop that classmate from continuing his study. His latent meaning is “Now we should be all enjoying our life for doing whatever we want. Why do you waste time on studying? Do you not know how to follow the public will?” Conformity becomes a type of morality.

I think that’s what Nietsche meant by “morality is of the weak.”

But here, the other students can be called “the weak,” but the student who studies can not be called “the strong.” The former is called “the weak” because they impose their own kind of “morality” on others and destroy their transcendence. If the student gives in, he can only wait to be the next “weak.” If he carefully considers the meaning behind other students’ words and decides whether “conformity” is his own “morality,” then he is a strong one. The logic is quite simple. 

As for why Nietzsche said morality was a “fiction,” Nietzsche believed that this kind of social conforming “morality” is false. The real morality of a man can only come from himself rather than from others.

Consider one of Immanuel Kant’s books named Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. He denies the moral command of God but affirms the moral absolute command in the human heart. Why? Because the former is from the outside world, the latter is from his own. Kant found no reason for others to force you to do anything. Nietzsche agrees with this point. 

Your self-discipline can’t come from the outside world. Morality from the outside world needs you as the judge. If you think it’s rotten, then it’s rotten. The strong is the one who constructs his own moral values. Those values will inevitably conflict with the moral values produced by the weak. In the perception of the strong, this kind of “morality” is fiction.

Nietzsche’s ideas are subjective and can be considered as “offensive” to our normally conventional thought. But his primary advocacy concentrates on the crucial word “innovation” rather than “convention.” Coming back to morality, at last, we do have an agreement on what morality is and know the prohibition of certain behaviors, but by hearing the intriguing thoughts from Nietzsche, I hope you learned something new from it.

I asked PVS junior Nathan Bosworth what he thought about Nietzsche’s points. He replied, “I believe with all my being that this quote from my boy [Nietzsche] is the meaning of capitalism, because social norms need to be suppressed to get what you want. In other words, to acquire what you want, you have to do something unethical.” I actually had a long talk with Nathan about what morality really is. We finally came to a vague conclusion that true morality might not even exist. After that, I came to our notable scholar Mr. Griffin who had something deeper to say: “I think [Nietzsche’s] quote is really narcissistic, and it reminds me of the character Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment.” Mr. Griffin went on to point out that Raskolnikov commits misdeeds to prove himself a superior person. He continues, “If you think about it more, it applies to The Picture of Dorian Gray as well.” To me, this became even more edifying as I recalled the contents of the book. 

Nietzsche’s definition of morality revolves around unreasonable social norms. What is your definition of morality? If you simply look up the word in Google’s dictionary, it just shows you “the distinction between right or wrong, good or bad.” But that raises a bigger question: how do you distinguish between right and wrong or good and bad? Do you follow the law of nature? Do you follow your own heart? Or do you follow the herd. . .   

Minor ideas of this post regarding the conventions of morality were originally proposed by Blogger Sizhe Chen

Morality Editor: Luke Langlois