Nietzsche Flashcards
(13 cards)
What did Nietzsche believe traditional Christian values (e.g. piety, charity, restraint, meekness) did to people?
He believed they encouraged people to act like slaves to their master, God.
What did Nietzsche call Christian morality?
‘master-slave morality’
Nietzsche believed that Christian values could only work by _______. Give two examples.
He believed they could only work by condemning some as evil. e.g. to believe you are strong, you have to believe some are weak; to believe that some are saved in heaven, you have to believe that some are sent to hell.
What did Nietzsche think of the ‘Abraham and Isaac story’?
Nietzsche believed that Abraham was an example of these Christian values, because the narrative of Abraham and Isaac demonstrated the master-slave principle for him.
What did Nietzsche believe people should do instead of relying on God? What did he call this?
He believed that people should stop relying on God and create their own values, where individuals had the right to decide what was right for themselves. He called this scenario ‘perspectivism’.
What did Nietzsche believe people could become if they didn’t depend on God?
He believed that people could become ‘übermensch’ (which means ‘supermen’) if they did not depend on God, but relied on themselves for the creation of moral decisions and rules.
Why did Nietzsche think everyone should become Nietzsche? What did he argue?
He believed that man was something that should be overcome. He said that all creatures so far had created something beyond themselves, so we should overcome man rather than return to the animals? He said that Superman was the meaning of the earth.
What did Nietzsche say about conventional religion when he talked about God being present and not being present? What was his conclusion on religion in relation to human development?
What Nietzsche was trying to say was that in conventional religion, God provided direction, but with the death of God, life was directionless. He observed that people needed direction, and progress required decisiveness. He then observed that religion was negative with respect to human development, and stated that it therefore needed to be replaced by secular (non-religious) decisiveness.
How did Hitler interpret Nietzsche’s philosophy and what did this lead to?
The bad news is that Hitler read Nietzsche’s philosophy and understood the ‘übermensch’ to be a race which was pure of perceived racial and moral imperfections. This led to the Holocaust - one of the most horrific genocides in human history.
How does Soren Kierkegaard’s argument oppose Nietzsche’s?
Kierkegaard wrote an account of an authentic Christian faith, as opposed to what he called ‘Sunday Christianity’. According to Kierkegaard, a true Christian will stand apart from conventional, rule-based morality and look to something greater for moral guidance - Jesus can be seen as an example of this.
What did Kierkegaard mean by authentic faith?
For Kierkegaard, authentic faith was a passionate personal commitment to divine authority; it involved a fearful and life-transforming leap of faith beyond what was reasonable, and this leap had to be made repeatedly. Kierkegaard saw this authentic faith best demonstrated in the Biblical narrative ‘Abraham and Isaac’.
What did Kierkegaard think of the ‘Abraham and Isaac’ narrative?
Abraham is prepared to sacrifice his only son because God has asked him to - a leap of faith. Kierkegaard referred to Abraham as a ‘knight of faith’ who makes a sacrifice on the basis of principle.
What did Nietzsche believe? What does this mean?
He believed that ‘God is dead’ meaning God is no longer around to help people and so human beings are now in control of their own destiny.
