Nietzsche: The Will to Power. Friedrich Nietzsche
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necessity of false values.—A judgment may be refuted when it is shown that it was conditioned: but the necessity of retaining it is not thereby cancelled. Reasons can no more eradicate false values than they can alter astigmatism in a man's eyes.
The need of their existence must be understood: they are the result of causes which have nothing to do with reasoning.
263.
To see and reveal the problem of morality seems to me to be the new task and the principal thing of all. I deny that this has been done by moral philosophies heretofore.
264.
How false and deceptive men have always been concerning the fundamental facts of their inner world! Here to have no eye; here to hold one's tongue, and here to open one's mouth.
265.
There seems to be no knowledge or consciousness of the many revolutions that have taken place in moral judgments, and of the number of times that "evil" has really and seriously been christened "good" and vice versa. I myself pointed to one of these transformations with the words "Sittlichkeit der Sitte."3 Even conscience has changed its sphere: formerly there was such a thing as a gregarious pang of conscience.
266.
A. Morality as the work of Immorality.
1. In order that moral values may attain to supremacy, a host of immoral forces and passions must assist them.
2. The establishment of moral values is the work of immoral passions and considerations.
B. Morality as the work of error.
C. Morality gradually contradicts itself. Requital—Truthfulness, Doubt, έποχή, Judging. The "Immorality" of belief in morality.
The steps:—
1. Absolute dominion of morality: all biological phenomena measured and judged according to its values.
2. The attempt to identify Life with morality (symptom of awakened scepticism: morality must no longer be regarded as the opposite of Life); many means are sought—even a transcendental one.
3. The opposition of Life and Morality. Morality condemned and sentenced by Life.
D. To what extent was morality dangerous to Life?
(a) It depreciated the joy of living and the gratitude felt towards Life, etc.
(b) It checked the tendency to beautify and to ennoble Life.
(c) It checked the knowledge of Life.
(d) It checked the unfolding of Life, because it tried to set the highest phenomena thereof at variance with itself.
E. Contra-account: the usefulness of morality to Life.
(1) Morality may be a preservative measure for the general whole, it may be a process of uniting dispersed members: it is useful as an agent in the production of the man who is a "tool."
(2) Morality may be a preservative measure mitigating the inner danger threatening man from the direction of his passions: it is useful to "mediocre people."
(3) Morality may be a preservative measure resisting the life-poisoning influences of profound sorrow and bitterness: it is useful to the "sufferers."
(4) Morality may be a preservative measure opposed to the terrible outbursts of the mighty: it is useful to the "lowly."
267.
It is an excellent thing when one can use the expressions "right" and "wrong" in a definite, narrow, and "bourgeois" sense, as for instance in the sentence: "Do right and fear no one";4—that is to say, to do one's duty, according to the rough scheme of life within the limit of which a community exists.—Let us not think meanly of what a few thousand years of morality have inculcated upon our minds.
268.
Two types of morality must not be confounded: the morality with which the instinct that has remained healthy defends itself from incipient decadence, and the other morality by means of which this decadence asserts itself, justifies itself, and leads downwards.
The first-named is usually stoical, hard, tyrannical (Stoicism itself was an example of the sort of "drag-chain" morality we speak of); the other is gushing, sentimental, full of secrets, it has the women and "beautiful feelings" on its side (Primitive Christianity was an example of this morality).
269.
I shall try to regard all moralising, with one glance, as a phenomenon—also as a riddle. Moral phenomena have preoccupied me like riddles. To-day I should be able to give a reply to the question: why should my neighbour's welfare be of greater value to me than my own? and why is it that my neighbour himself should value his welfare differently from the way in which I value it—that is to say, why should precisely my welfare be paramount in his mind? What is the meaning of this "Thou shalt," which is regarded as "given" even by philosophers themselves?
The seemingly insane idea that a man should esteem the act he performs for a fellow-creature, higher than the one he performs for himself, and that the same fellow-creature should do so too (that only those acts should be held to be good which are performed with an eye to the neighbour and for his welfare) has its reasons—namely, as the result of the social instinct which rests upon the valuation, that single individuals are of little importance although collectively their importance is very great. This, of course, presupposes that they constitute a community with one feeling and one conscience pervading the whole. It is therefore a sort of exercise for keeping one's eyes in a certain direction; it is the will to a kind of optics which renders a view of one's self impossible.
My idea: goals are wanting, and these must be individuals. We see the general drift: every individual gets sacrificed and serves as a tool. Let any one keep his eyes open in the streets—is not every one he sees a slave? Whither? What is the purpose of it all?
270.
How is it possible that a man can respect himself only in regard to moral values, that he subordinates and despises everything in favour of good, evil, improvement, spiritual salvation, etc.? as, for instance, Henri Fréd. Amiel. What is the meaning of the moral idiosyncrasy?—I mean this both in the psychological and physiological sense, as it was, for instance, in Pascal. In cases, then, in which other great qualities are not wanting; and even in the case of Schopenhauer, who obviously valued what he did not and could not have ...—is it not the result of a merely mechanical moral interpretation of real states of pain and displeasure? is it not a particular form of sensibility which does not happen to understand the cause of its many unpleasurable feelings, but thinks to explain them with moral hypotheses? In this way an occasional feeling of well-being and strength always appears under the optics of a "clean conscience," flooded with light through the proximity of God and the consciousness of salvation.... Thus the moral idiosyncratist has (1) either acquired his real worth in approximating to the virtuous type of society: "the good fellow," "the upright man"—a sort of medium state of high respectability: mediocre in all his abilities, but honest, conscientious, firm, respected, and tried, in all his aspirations; (2) or, he imagines he has acquired that worth, simply because he cannot otherwise understand all his states—he is unknown to himself; he therefore interprets himself in this fashion.—Morality is the only scheme of interpretation by means of which this type of man can tolerate himself:—is it a form of vanity?
271.
The predominance of moral values.—The consequence of this predominance: the corruption of psychology, etc.; the fatality which is associated with it everywhere. What is the meaning of this predominance? What does it point to?
To a certain greater urgency of saying nay or yea definitely in this domain. All sorts of imperatives have been used in order to make moral values appear as if they