master morality, slave morality... and hero morality?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Anyone who knows Nietzsche knows master morality and slave morality.

Master morality is what might be called “primordial” morality–that is, morality as it originally took form. Nietzsche explains it as a perspective on the “good” that rests on what is pleasurable or desirable, and particularly pleasurable or desirable to a noble, dominant class–a class that doesn’t have to worry about oppression or social inequalities, a class that just takes what it wants and calls it good when it succeeds.

Any class that the noble, dominant class oppresses or mistreats could take a master morality perspective on what is good, but they are typically preoccupied with opposing the master class. This is a defensive, reactive maneuver, and it leads to a perspective on morality that serves to oppose the master class–it considers “moral” anything that paints the oppressed class in a positive, bolstered light (e.g. the meek shall inheret the Earth), and paints the master class in a negative, diminished light (e.g. it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter Heaven). This is slave morality. Because it is a defensive, reactive morality, it is typically geared towards depicting the masters and their morality as “bad” or “wrong”–thus, the “good” typically contrasts with what is pleasurable or desirable (thus asceticism and martyrdom).

But that’s not the point of this thread. The point is to introduce an alternative to both of these: hero morality.

Hero morality is not about asceticism and self-sacrifice–it is not “slavish” in that way. Yet hero morality is not about stepping on the have-nots and taking from others whatever you want either. Hero morality is defined as treating the “good” as any way one can help, or perform a service, or bring improvement to the lives of others. But it is not driven by guilt, fear, or resentment, not by a defensive reaction against oppression or abuse (not your own in any case), as slave morality might be, but by a desire, by inspiration, a wanting, a craving, to be a hero, to be “that guy”–to be the one that everyone loves and holds up in high esteem because you did something very important and incredible, something that no one else stepped up to the plate to do. In a sense, it is a kind of reversion to master morality–a taking of what you want, for selfish purposes, for your own glory–but with an eye for making that dependent on the happiness and wellbeing of others. It can require some measure of self-sacrifice, some service to others, but never at the expense of the end goal, never at the expense of what you ultimately want–anyone who aims to take what they want must usually make a few sacrifices.

The unfortunate thing about both slave and master morality is that both, in our modern Western world, are seen in an unflattering light–slave morality because no one wants to be the martyr, the underdog, the slave, and master morality because no one wants to be the tyrant, the bully, the slave-driver. Morality, I believe, is a troubled issue in our modern Western world because we tend to be ambivalent about it–we want to be good (which seems at odds with master morality–probably a legacy of Christianity), yet we don’t want to be push-overs either (and that makes it hard to accept slave morality). Then there are certain philosophical problems: relativism, religious dogmatism, the very flakiness of moral principles themselves (are moral principles real? Are they tangible? Where are they? Can you hold one in your hands?). This is why I maintain that we need to approach morality with the perspective of the hero. We need some moral perspective that makes us want to be good, a perspective that makes it “cool” to be good. We need to believe that being good makes us “awesome” in the eyes of others, and that needs to be the prime motivator. Even if it is ultimately done for selfish reasons, that doesn’t matter–it’s healthy as a matter of fact–for what matters is that it leads us to make improvements in our lives and the lives of others–that is, after all, what morality is all about.

2

I’m not sure the weak can take on any form of master morality. By “weak” I don’t mean those who happen to have less money or material wealth (not simply people of low class), I mean those who are actually diminished in raw ability, those who are actually less able. What characterizes a person of master morality is that s/he uses himself as the standard of what is good because s/he is strong and able and knows himself as such. What is like him/her is good. Master morality is selfish, as in self-serving.

Oppression: “Keep[ing] (someone) in subservience and hardship”
The noble don’t get their power by restraining others, they are powerful because they themselves are fit. It is not a noble act to oppress others and oppression should not be thought as a defining characteristic of master morality. Oppression is more likely the tool of mediocre people who take Machiavellianism to heart.

I don’t think master morality entails or even tends toward the systematic oppression of lower classes. The noble don’t arrive at their power through artificial mechanisms of inequality* and it’s not clear why they would need or want to rely on any such mechanisms to be powerful. I think today we conflate masters/nobility with upper class. In many cases, I think nobility (strength/ability) stagnates or diminishes from generation to generation of a hereditary line while status and class are kept. In other words, nobility is anchored in true ability while status is associated with wealth.

Hero morality sounds deontological, based on adherence or duty to a set of rules/principles. In principle, then, hero morality differs quite a bit from master. Master morality is based on a standard of physiological/psychological strength, not adherence to abstract principles.

3

I consider morality to usually be value and meaning manipulation. It’s a set of rules for the life games. The problem is that people can control morality fairly easily, and use it to favor themselves or their goals. If human morality was immune to propaganda, I’d like it allot more. You can classify the various moralities in many possible ways.

4

Sounds like an attempt to synthesise slave and master moralities, and I can see how you regard “hero” morality as drawing from both equally, yet trying to present it as standing apart from each.

But ultimately, I think you are speaking from slave morality: basically anything that attempts to dethrone master morality, e.g. by bringing it closer to/synthesising it with slave morals (in this case under the guise of benefiting everyone) is slave morality. I’m sure you expected a reply like this one though.

To fuse, I do not class ability as nobility - ability is nothing without actual implementation. It’s perfectly possible to be highly capable yet still slavish. It’s also perfectly possible for masters to be less capable than those they rule. If anything, masters don’t need to be capable because they have the power to use capable slaves and to use other capable slaves to keep the each all under control so they don’t have to lift a finger. This is implemented power, which is the only power that counts in reality. The nobles of today/the upper class etc - they are still the masters even though they’re pitiful people.

5

Sil,

Ah, I agree that ability has to be implemented to be powerful. Good point.

One thing, though, I think masters have to have a minimum level of capability, they do have to be fairly capable as Nietzsche described them if they are to see themselves as the measure for what is good, and what is unlike them as bad, and also if they are to create value. This is why I say the upper class is not equal to the set of people who are noble and act as masters, because I agree that the upper class is filled with many pitiful and incapable people.

You talked about how masters manipulate slaves without needing to be capable themselves, but I think the relationship between master morality and slave morality is different from people who are actual masters of slaves. For instance, master morality does not fittingly characterize American slave owners in 18th and 19th centuries. In general, American slave owners simply had the material (money enough for buying) and cultural means (favorable laws and circumstances) to obtain and hold slaves by force. They weren’t necessarily a nobility or possessed of exceptional ability. I mean, if I catch someone off guard, kidnap them, drug them, use them and force them to do things for me, it does not make me a person of master morality and the other person of slave morality does it?

6

One problem in nietszchean philosophy is that people associate his aristocracy ideals with decadent slave owners and kings, mistaking one for the other. Fuze gives an example of why owning a slave or slaves doesn’t suddenly turn you into an ideal person.

7

Nietzsche never said masters were ideal people. I don’t believe he said anyone was an ideal person. There are greater people and smaller people, there are more creative people and more repressed people etc. but whilst he had his preferences and sold his values very well, he never said they were ideal (and definitely not universally ideal). If anything he was averse to ideals and pro-real.

A slave owner fulfills master morality just fine - he gets to act out his unfettered will to power a lot more seemlessly for doing so. He might not be the most creative and “Highest” man, or “Surpassing/Uber” man, but he at least forges the rules over a few, and bases his morals around such things. One problem in Nietzschean philosophy is that people associate master morality with “better” and even as synonymous with his other concepts such as the higher man and the ubermensch.

Slave and master morality was just an observation about all past civilisations up to and including this one, coming from a philologist. It wasn’t an argument about how people should and shouldn’t be.

I say all this to fuse as well. And additionally, yes, whilst masters need a minimum level of capability, there is no definitive correlation between ability and nobility. If anything there’s just more variation amongst the masses (though they are certainly restricted from certain types of excellence, such as that which comes from being brought up in a culture of ruling etc). Having such advantages can make all the difference, where notable ability does not. To normal (not noble) people, things like catching someone off guard, kidnapping them, drugging them and using them and forcing them are automatically bad - or evil even - this is the indiscriminate nature of slave morality: it goes for harming/terrorising just anyone. Masters are a lot more discriminating when they judge how “bad” something is, such as with this slave example (as opposed to e.g. allies/brethren). They may not think it purely “good” to do such a thing (though they certainly may), but they would at least not see it as evil. There is a certain confusion these days though, as in any liberal society, where masters are mixed with slaves, and their “distance” is watered down. Whilst their removal from much of society compromises their sympathies with certain “types” of people, e.g. “they’re only slaves”, often you get masters at least convincing themselves that they are “good” in the sense that slave morality defines it (even if they aren’t when it comes down to it): “we’re liberating them from their barbarian lifestyle”.

8

Hm, what you say is clear enough to me. I know that a lot of people think Nietzsche set master morality down as an ideal, and it’s not, you’re right it’s a description and part of his descriptive genealogy. I’m still reading GoM for first time, btw. Then I’ll finally read TSZ.

If you are right about slave holders, then that means master morality characterizes any ruling class or group in power?

9

Actually, that’s not true. The most one can say is that it’s morality as it originally took form in history, i.e. as opposed to in prehistory. Before it, there was what Nietzsche called the morality of custom (see his Dawn of Day). Here’s a post of mine which is relevant in this context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Master–slave_morality#Intentions_and_consequences.

Anyway, that’s not really pertinent to your post. I think what you call hero morality is actually the lower form of master morality. 'Tis the morality of those who love honour as distinct from the higher masters who love wisdom. This triple distinction (first between master and herd morality and then between two forms of master morality) can also be found in Plato:

[size=95]“According to Diotima [the alleged teacher of Plato’s Socrates], erotic desire in mortals can move them upward from the immortality gained through the reproduction of children, to the immortality gained through the undying fame accorded poets and the founders of peoples, to the highest of all possible erotic satisfactions, the vision of unchanging being, of what always is, of the Good and the Beautiful and the True ([Plato, Symposium] 210d-211b).” (Source: Lampert, Nietzsche and Modern Times, pp. 383-84.)[/size]

We must distinguish, by the way, between slave and herd morality. Slave morality is a reaction to master morality, whereas herd morality, though it’s quite similar to slave morality, is really the “primordial” morality. Most people want sensual pleasure more than honour or wisdom.

10

It’s actually been years now since I read any Nietzsche, though I certainly made a thorough job of it during the few years that I was reading him.

Maybe get back to me once you’ve read those 2 books and see if what I said is still clear enough to you. It should be, but I’d be open to criticism. Maybe give the last chapter of Beyond Good and Evil a run through (or at least aphorism 260) too. I’d respect input from you because you’re not desperate to hold onto the idea that Nietzsche is telling you what to do, and that he must be speaking about you when he speaks of greater people. It’s people who need to think this who become those Nietzschean assholes who appear to be so unwelcomely common. Not to say he isn’t, but it’s just always clear when he’s not.

11

Everyone,

Sorry it took so long for me to get back to this thread. I was out of commission yesterday.

Will try to respond to each of you later today (still out of commission today until late afternoon :wink:).

12

I’d like to say that my own definition of slave and master morality are different than the first concepts of uncle Nietzsche.

I think my definition is more relative to modern trends, but also applies to some of the old religions.

Basically, my slave morality bases the idea of goodness as someone without value gaining value by preforming services to life and beings and God.
I made a thread, “why i dislike slave morality”. I think that was what I named it.

13

I suppose I can agree that oppression is not a defining characteristic of master morality, but I don’t think Nietzsche thought of it as uncommon among masters. If it was uncommon, it couldn’t be said that slave morality was a reaction to master morality–that is, slave morality comes about from feeling oppressed or mistreated by the masters.

This is typically true of people who come from a background of slave moraliy and suddenly enter into power. I’ve actually seen it in practice. You have to take a slave morality attitude to believe that oppressive and abusive tactics are what people in power do–you have to feel that this is how they maintained power over you (and it may be true, but not necessarily what the masters thought of themselves as doing). Thus, when you come into power from a slave morality background, you believe that you’re supposed to apply those same Machiavellian tactics.

But how would you explain what happens in situations where the acquisition of resources, security, status, wealth and power becomes competitive. What would you predict the results to be when that competition is between a group of people with strengths and abilities (the masters by your definition) ad those without (the slaves)? Keep in mind that we’re talking about a very early, germinal form of morality, which means we shouldn’t assume there was any wide spread sentiment of distributing or sharing resources and such equally, or acting altruistically such as to give of one’s self for the sake of the less fortunate. At that early stage in human history, I think it would be fair to assume that those with strength and ability would have just taken what they wanted and needed at the expense of those who couldn’t just take it.

No, hero morality is based on a lust for glory–not much more. It is based on the desire to be seen in the eyes of others as a hero. This may tie in with deontological principles, but only insofar as those principles are the basis on which others will recognize you as heroic for defending or acting upon them. But even then, I don’t think it would be that common or necessary. That is to say, you can usually bypass any considerations of deontological principles when the concern is that you or your community are in need of a hero to come and save the day or make things right/better.

I agree with this. But do you think there could be such a thing as a healthy morality? Even if that means manipulating the public’s values and principles such as to steer morality in a direction what was actually good for us?

Nietzsche himself spoke of a “science of ethics” in his later works. The idea, I think, was to study the nature of morality and the underlying psychology of people who act (or react) according to it, but not so that we become cynical of it in the end, but to learn how to set it right. That is to say, morality, Nietzsche thought, could and ought to be treated as any other scientific subject in that, if studied and understood, it could then be applied (like technology) in such a way as to improvement our world and way of life.

I’d like to see a day where society takes on hero morality as their perspective on what is right and good. I think that would be a healthy and positive application of morality.

Are you saying that an attempt to overthrow master morality is essential to slave morality? But what if I’m attempting to overthrow slave morality in the same sroke (in fact, I’d prefer to overthrow slave morality). Further, what if there is no attempt to overthrow anything–no deliberate attempt anyway–but it happens as an unintended side effect (though perhaps not an undesirable one)?

You’re right that I am trying to form a kind of synthesis of master and slave morality (in fact, I see this as very Hegelian). But does a synthesis really require an overthrowing of thesis and antithesis? Or is it more like a resolution of the two, a happy reconciliaton between two conflicting parties? Usually, when I think of synthesis, I think of a business deal–the aim being to find an arrangement by which each party gets what they originally wanted (i.e. neither one has to sacrifice what they originally wanted) without the adverse side effects it has on the other party. This, of course, requires a modification of each party’s original ways of getting what they want, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the same as overthrowing.

Fair enough, but…

  1. that’s not quite relevant to my point, and…

  2. I can’t imagine a morality that would any less developped than that and still be called “morality”. (I’ll have a look at your link when I have time later).

(I think it should also be noted that every child, in any age or any place of the world, learns a form of morality that is far closer to slave morality than master morality–for example, when they’re scolded for taking something they want away from someone else like their sibling).

Would it be similar to Nietzsche’s morality of custom then?

That may be true, but is it practical? Is it healthy in the long run?

14

Of course.

Like a symbiote.

15

Maybe the hero is the true master, and part of the slave mentality is the misunderstanding of the master mentality such that it’s actually the case that only the smallest percentage of people get it.

Imagine 99% of the world arguing over who is rich and who is poor. Now imagine the 1% that has the best experience with the life they live.

16

When you think about the value you give to yourself, do you credit your own manipulation and control of what you think, how you think and when you think? Your thinking and the manner in which you use it has resulted in what you are and you cannot say that someone else is responsible for that. If that is not the case, then what is good for you is not within your control.

When you stop looking for what is good but see inherently what is good in the situation and do that good … that is the beginning of hero morality.

17

I’m saying the desire to overthrow master morality is one instance of slave morality when it is done in such a way as to promote goodness of the sort that dilutes the power and dominance of masters, such that they become more amenable toward the slave version of goodness (which clearly the “hero morality” would do).
Different master moralities may also result in the desire to overthrow one another, if they are deemed by one another to be harmful to one another. This is done in order to prevent harm, or “bad” done to the other master morality, rather than to prevent or mediate any of their supposedly “evil” ways as determined by any slave morality.
Slave morality can also take the form of denying they would want to be in the position of their masters anyway, even if they could overthrow them.
So I’m not saying that “overthrowing” is the essence of slave morality.

I don’t think that “hero morality” would overthrow slave morality either, seeing as I class it as (as I said) one instance of slave morality.
I don’t even know why you’d want to overthrow slave morality. It’s essentially the product of people getting to assert their will to power in an unfettered way (masters), having the inevitable consequence of others not being able to do so (slaves). Getting rid of the latter would mean getting rid of the former. Either that or re-wiring “the human will” away from what has ensured its continued survival to this day (which may or may not work, sure), or at least weening human will to want power ONLY over things other than other humans, like, I dunno, robots that are programmed to like it.

One thing I like to do is present slave morality to people in such a way that they don’t automatically feel they need to dissociate themselves from it because their pride won’t let them think of themselves as slaves, even if they are. It’s actually something that’s extremely common across most people on the planet, and not in a bad way. It’s just a normal reaction to being dominated by people who restrict our will, and whilst you may not like it, it’s most likely what you’re just going to have to put up with until you actually overthrow your masters and replace them (before someone else does and you’re back to where you started).

18

I think the best you could say is that hero morality might serve some slave morality ends, but not that it is an instance of slave morality itself.

And that’s why I can’t see what hero morality has to do with slave morality.

I have personal reasons for disliking slave morality–I think anything motivated by resentment or hatred is ultimately an unhealthy thing–but with respect to hero morality, I mainly bring it up to contrast the two. I do want to present it as an alternative to (and better than) slave morality, but that’s not quite the same as attempting to get rid of slave morality.

19

So because something is an instance of something, but not the essence of it, you disregard that it could come from it? To be more specific, I am saying that whilst hero morality is neither identical with nor the only aspect of slave morality, it still comes from it and is one manifestation of it.

The whole master/slave morality distinction is intended to be very black and white, and the model is supposed to cover every “finer and coarser morality that has ruled or still rules on earth”. Obviously you’re challenging the form of this distinction and the distinction itself - I’m just saying that from within the model, anything that is not unfettered will to power over others is fettered will to power. And yes you’re right, slave morality IS unhealthy in this way - it’s just an inevitable illness given the existence of full, healthy expression of will to power. Perhaps interestingly, it is slave morality that would deem this general suffering amongst anyone as an evil that must be changed and improved upon - that is what religions like Christianity are for. They intend to turn around the general suffering of those without power, just as you are. Perhaps even Christianity has been presented as a better alternative to the master/slave dilemma that seems to stubbornly persist throughout history.

I only suggested you wanted to get rid of slave morality because you said “in fact, I’d prefer to overthrow slave morality”. You then went on to clarify that you would prefer a peaceful resolution such that each party gets what they originally wanted. In Nietzsche’s terms, “getting what they originally wanted” can only be one thing, which is unfettered will to power, which cannot (and should not?) be peaceful or even possible for everyone.

This seems as inappropriate a time as any to reveal that I am an avid proponent of co-operation and the “virtue” of seeking the best for the system as a whole in order to yield superior results compared to a system where various parties are solely at competitive odds with one another. I condone competition, just not as a basis of a society (or at least THIS society).

My objection is not so much against “hero morality”, as against its presentation as being a synthesis of master and slave moralities.

20

I haven’t even agreed that it’s an instance of it. My problem is that I fail to see what makes it slave morality. What is the essence of slave morality such that we can say what is and what isn’t an instance of it.

I figured that. But this is a loaded distinction. Is there really such a thing as unfettered will to power? If your will is fettered by the will of another, is that what determines your morality? Does it always affect it in such a way as to oppose the morality of those who have imposed their will on you? I’d have to get some answers to these kinds of question before I can make any comment on what you’re saying.

Be careful not to confuse what I personally prefer with what I think hero morality, as an abstract principle, is based on and has to offer.