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Nietzsche

Nietzsche & Values

Nietzsche rejected all conventional morality but he wasn’t a nihilist – he called for a “re-evaluation of all values”. Alexander V. Razin describes the gulf separating him from that other great moralist, Immanuel Kant.

Friedrich Nietzsche presented the world with a philosophy of life that called for a rigorous reevaluation of all values. His critical analysis of Western civilization resulted in him drawing a crucial distinction between the ‘slave morality’ of the masses and the ‘master morality’ of those superior individuals who elevate human society through intellectual creativity. As a result, Nietzsche’s ‘philosophy of overcoming’ emphasizes self-creation and the affirmation of life. Looking ever to the future, he envisioned the coming of a ‘noble man’ who would assert his own will and create his own values without being limited by the false and outmoded values of the mediocre masses.

In sharp contrast, the great philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) had attempted to establish moral certainty through his concept of the categorical imperative; “Act only on that maxim which you can will to be a universal law.

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