Friedrich Nietzsche's Theory Of Good And Evil

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“Friedrich Nietzsche is a German philosopher born on October 15, 1844, in Röcken bei Lützen. Nietzsche was known for his writings on good and evil, the end of religion in modern society and the concept of a “super-man”. Nietzsche is regarded as a major influence on 20th century philosophy, theology and art. His ideas on individuality, morality and the meaning of existence contributed to the thinking of philosophers Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault. Nietzsche introduces the “sovereign individual” as a person who is able to make promises because he is master of his own free will:“…in short, the human being who possesses his own independent and enduring will, who is entitled to make promises—and in him a consciousness quivering in every muscle,…show more content…
He describes the human being and claims that humans lived in glorious animal nature then became a human animal, which as he considers as a developed version of the animal, humans can take responsibility, can think, and can make promises: “The proud knowledge of the extraordinary privilege of responsibility, the consciousness of this rare freedom, of this power over oneself and destiny, has become internalized into the deepest parts of him and grown instinctual, has become an instinct, a dominating instinct:—what will he call it, this dominating instinct, assuming that he finds he needs a word for it? There’s no doubt: the sovereign man calls this instinct his conscience”. Nietzsche considered responsibility as a power over oneself which as humans developed, became a part of…show more content…
Conscience itself is a late fruit of memory tree. Nietzsche relied in some of his views on etymology(study the origin of words and the way their meanings have changed throughout history). For example, as mentioned before, in the relation between debtor and creditor, the creditor has the power to use violence on debtor who owed them in several ways: this is a metaphor to the realtion between guilt and conscience. Similarly, Nietzsche introduces the notion of justice as means to revenge from debtors(in the example of creditor debtor). Justice is born from kindness, fairness and other values: “the oldest and most naive moral principle of justice, the beginning of all “good nature,” all “fairness,” all “good will,” all “objectivity” on earth. Justice at this first stage is good will among those approximately equal in power to come to terms with each other, to “come to an agreement” again with each other by

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