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190-640: Since the dawn of the 20th century, the philosophy of Nietzsche has had great intellectual and political influence around the world. Nietzsche applied himself to such topics as morality , religion , epistemology , poetry , ontology , and social criticism . Because of Nietzsche's evocative style and his often outrageous claims, his philosophy generates passionate reactions running from love to disgust. Nietzsche noted in his autobiographical Ecce Homo that his philosophy developed and evolved over time, so interpreters have found it difficult to relate concepts central to one work to those central to another, for example,

380-497: A superstitious piety and devotion; Hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere." Religious value-systems can be used to justify acts that are contrary to general contemporary morality, such as massacres , misogyny and slavery . For example, Simon Blackburn states that "apologists for Hinduism defend or explain away its involvement with

570-424: A "hermeneutics of factical life", and his hermeneutical transformation of phenomenology. There is little doubt that Heidegger seized upon Dilthey's concept of hermeneutics. Heidegger's novel ideas about ontology required a gestalt formation, not merely a series of logical arguments, in order to demonstrate his fundamentally new paradigm of thinking, and the hermeneutic circle offered a new and powerful tool for

760-515: A 35-year-old Heidegger began what would be a four-year affair with Hannah Arendt, who was then 19 years old and his student. Like Blochmann, Arendt was Jewish. Heidegger and Arendt agreed to keep the details of the relationship a secret, preserving their letters, but keeping them unavailable. The affair was not widely known until 1995, when Elzbieta Ettinger gained access to the sealed correspondence. Nevertheless, Arendt faced criticism for her association with Heidegger after his election as rector at

950-739: A German revolution, and in an article and a speech to the students from the same year he also supported Adolf Hitler. In November 1933, Heidegger signed the Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State . Heidegger resigned from the rectorate in April 1934, but remained a member of the Nazi Party until 1945 even though

1140-603: A body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy , religion or culture , or it can derive from a standard that is understood to be universal . Morality may also be specifically synonymous with " goodness ", "appropriateness" or "rightness". Moral philosophy includes meta-ethics , which studies abstract issues such as moral ontology and moral epistemology , and normative ethics , which studies more concrete systems of moral decision-making such as deontological ethics and consequentialism . An example of normative ethical philosophy

1330-580: A categorization which Nietzsche himself found best: [Of Brandes' description of his philosophy, Nietzsche himself remarked:] "The expression 'aristocratic radicalism', which you employ, is very good. It is, permit me to say, the cleverest thing that I have yet read about myself"." Otherwise, his ideas were also variously interpreted as Bonapartism , individualist anarchism , and more controversially as proto-fascism (see: Nietzsche and fascism ) with some authors describing him as apolitical, anti-political or political sceptic. Today two positions have dominated

1520-471: A certain degree others such as Sikhism and Zoroastrianism , define right and wrong by the laws and rules as set forth by their respective scriptures and as interpreted by religious leaders within each respective faith. Other religions spanning pantheistic to nontheistic tend to be less absolute. For example, within Buddhism , the intention of the individual and the circumstances should be accounted for in

1710-707: A counter-offer by Marburg. The title of his 1929 inaugural lecture was "What is Metaphysics?" In this year he also published Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics . Heidegger remained at Freiburg im Breisgau for the rest of his life, declining later offers including one from Humboldt University of Berlin . His students at Freiburg included Hannah Arendt, Günther Anders , Hans Jonas , Karl Löwith , Charles Malik , Herbert Marcuse , and Ernst Nolte . Emmanuel Levinas attended his lecture courses during his stay in Freiburg in 1928, as did Jan Patočka in 1933; Patočka in particular

1900-518: A group may depend on widespread conformity to codes of morality; an inability to adjust moral codes in response to new challenges is sometimes credited with the demise of a community (a positive example would be the function of Cistercian reform in reviving monasticism; a negative example would be the role of the Dowager Empress in the subjugation of China to European interests). Within nationalist movements, there has been some tendency to feel that

2090-619: A grudge against the ruling classes and by moralizing, he tried to blame them for his own misery. He named him together with Savonarola , Martin Luther , Robespierre and Henri de Saint-Simon as fanatics, "sick intellects" who influence masses and stand in opposition to strong spirits. He similarly called Eugen Dühring an "apostle of revenge", "moral braggart" and his ideas "indecent and revolting moralistic gibberish". He saw egalitarian and peaceful socialist community as essentially antagonistic to life; in On

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2280-427: A level with every other unit: what he combats he does not combat as a person, but as a representative of units against a mass. (...) When one has reached a certain degree of independence, one always longs for more: separation in proportion to the degree of force; the individual is no longer content to regard himself as equal to everybody, he actually seeks for his peer—he makes himself stand out from others. Individualism

2470-544: A moral judgment. According to such investigations, TMS did not disrupt participants' ability to make any moral judgment. On the contrary, moral judgments of intentional harms and non-harms were unaffected by TMS to either the RTPJ or the control site; presumably, however, people typically make moral judgments of intentional harms by considering not only the action's harmful outcome but the agent's intentions and beliefs. So why were moral judgments of intentional harms not affected by TMS to

2660-414: A moral judgment. Moral reasoning is controlled and less affective than moral intuition. When making moral judgments, humans perform moral reasoning to support their initial intuitive feeling. However, there are three ways humans can override their immediate intuitive response. The first way is conscious verbal reasoning (for example, examining costs and benefits). The second way is reframing a situation to see

2850-466: A more existentialist dimension to Being and Time . ( Existentialism is a broad philosophical movement largely defined by Jean-Paul Sartre and is not to be confused with Heidegger's technical analysis of the specific existential features of Dasein.) Its central notion is authenticity , which emerges as a problem from the "publicness" built into the existential role of das Man . In Heidegger's own words: In this inconspicuousness and unascertainability,

3040-470: A nation will not survive or prosper without acknowledging one common morality, regardless of its content. Political morality is also relevant to the behavior internationally of national governments, and to the support they receive from their host population. The Sentience Institute , co-founded by Jacy Reese Anthis , analyzes the trajectory of moral progress in society via the framework of an expanding moral circle. Noam Chomsky states that ... if we adopt

3230-424: A new perspective or consequence, which triggers a different intuition. Finally, one can talk to other people which illuminates new arguments. In fact, interacting with other people is the cause of most moral change. The brain areas that are consistently involved when humans reason about moral issues have been investigated by multiple quantitative large-scale meta-analyses of the brain activity changes reported in

3420-404: A notebook: It will be a good idea to found societies everywhere so as to deliver into my hands at the right time a million disciples. It is particularly important to recruit first of all officers and Jewish bankers. Both together represent the will to power. If I ask who my natural allies are I see that above all they are officers. With military instincts in the body one cannot be a Christian... In

3610-523: A physiology of art where he established the concept of artistic rapture (Rausch). This phenomenon, which is considered a countermovement to nihilism, is for Nietzsche the force that brings forth not only the form but the fundamental condition for the enhancement of life. Throughout his works, Nietzsche writes about possible great human beings or "higher types" who serve as an example of people who would follow his philosophical ideas. These ideal human beings Nietzsche calls by terms such as "the philosopher of

3800-417: A religious value system are two distinct kinds of value systems or action guides." Within the wide range of moral traditions, religious value-systems co-exist with contemporary secular frameworks such as consequentialism , freethought , humanism , utilitarianism , and others. There are many types of religious value-systems. Modern monotheistic religions, such as Islam , Judaism , Christianity , and to

3990-447: A sense of fairness. In related work, it has been convincingly demonstrated that chimpanzees show empathy for each other in a wide variety of contexts. They also possess the ability to engage in deception, and a level of social politics prototypical of our own tendencies for gossip and reputation management . Christopher Boehm (1982) has hypothesized that the incremental development of moral complexity throughout hominid evolution

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4180-468: A series of lectures on Friedrich Nietzsche at Freiburg that presented much of the raw material incorporated in his more established work and thought from this time. These would appear in published form in 1961. This period also marks the beginning of his interest in the " essence of technology" . In the autumn of 1944, Heidegger was drafted into the Volkssturm and assigned to dig anti-tank ditches along

4370-407: A shared neural network for both tasks. The results of this meta-analysis, however, also demonstrated that the processing of moral input is affected by task demands. Regarding the issues of morality in video games, some scholars believe that because players appear in video games as actors, they maintain a distance between their sense of self and the role of the game in terms of imagination. Therefore,

4560-403: A shocking moral violation may involve quick, affect-laden processes. Nonetheless, certain cognitive skills such as being able to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, emotions to oneself, and others is a common feature of a broad range of prototypical situations. In line with this, a meta-analysis found overlapping activity between moral emotion and moral reasoning tasks, suggesting

4750-405: A significant number of individuals (not necessarily all) in a society. It does not connote objective claims of right or wrong, but only refers to claims of right and wrong that are seen to be made and to conflicts between different claims made. Descriptive ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense. In its normative sense, "morality" refers to whatever (if anything)

4940-449: A soldier during the final year of World War I . His service was in the last ten months of the war, most of which he spent in meteorological unit on the western front upon being deemed unfit for combat. Heidegger married Elfride Petri on 21 March 1917 in a Catholic ceremony officiated by his friend Engelbert Krebs  [ de ] , and a week later in a Protestant ceremony in the presence of her parents. Their first son, Jörg,

5130-497: A supernatural or universalist understanding of principles – values including integrity, trustworthiness, benevolence, and fairness. These values can be resources for finding common ground between believers and nonbelievers. Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger ( / ˈ h aɪ d ɛ ɡ ər , ˈ h aɪ d ɪ ɡ ər / ; German: [ˈmaʁtiːn ˈhaɪdɛɡɐ] ; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976)

5320-411: A thing of the past. He saw the last expression of noble values, French seventeenth and eighteenth century, lost after the fall of Napoleon. Much of his thoughts on the subject are unsystematic and he did not leave specific instructions about how this new aristocratic class should be selected and elevated to the ruling positions in society. However, he was quite clear that he used the term "aristocracy" in

5510-556: A world purged of morality, we pagans in faith, we are probably also the first who understand what a pagan faith is: to be obliged to imagine higher creatures than man, but to imagine them beyond good and evil; to be compelled to value all higher existence as immoral existence. We believe in Olympus, and not in the "man on the cross." Since Martin Heidegger at least, the concepts of the will to power ( Wille zur Macht ), of Übermensch and of

5700-488: Is Archaic Greece . In Thus Spoke Zarathustra , Nietzsche posits the Übermensch (often translated as "overman" or "superman") as a goal that humanity can set for itself. While interpretations of Nietzsche's overman vary wildly, here are a few of his quotes from Thus Spoke Zarathustra : I teach you the Übermensch. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?... All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be

5890-438: Is actually right or wrong, which may be independent of the values or mores held by any particular peoples or cultures. Normative ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense. Philosophical theories on the nature and origins of morality (that is, theories of meta-ethics ) are broadly divided into two classes: Some forms of non-cognitivism and ethical subjectivism , while considered anti-realist in

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6080-467: Is "Dasein-with" ( Mitsein ), which he presents as equally primordial with "being-one's self" ( Selbstsein ). Heidegger's term for this existential feature of Dasein is das Man , which is a German pronoun, man , that Heidegger turns into a noun. In English it is usually translated as either "the they" or "the one" (sometimes also capitalized); for, as Heidegger puts it, "By 'others' we do not mean everyone else but me.... They are rather those from whom for

6270-670: Is "central to Heidegger's philosophy". He accuses the Western philosophical tradition of mistakenly trying to understand being as such as if it were an ultimate entity. Heidegger modifies traditional ontology by focusing instead on the meaning of being . This kind of ontological inquiry, he claims, is required to understand the basis of our understanding, scientific and otherwise. In short, before asking what exists, Heidegger contends that people must first examine what "to exist" even means. In his first major work, Being and Time , Heidegger pursues this ontological inquiry by way of an analysis of

6460-424: Is 'in' the world is the sense of "residing" or "dwelling" in the world. Heidegger provides a few examples: "having to do with something, producing something, attending to something and looking after it, making use of something". Just as 'being-in' does not denote objective, physical enclosedness, so 'world', as Heidegger uses the term, does not denote a universe of physical objects. The world, in Heidegger's sense,

6650-451: Is a modest and still unconscious form of will to power; with it a single human unit seems to think it sufficient to free himself from the preponderating power of society (or of the State or Church). He does not set himself up in opposition as a personality, but merely as a unit; he represents the rights of all other individuals as against the whole. That is to say, he instinctively places himself on

6840-460: Is a necessary condition for supporting an upper class which could devote itself to more sophisticated activities. In his letters and personal notes he ridiculed American abolitionists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe , and wrote disparagingly of German attempts, led by the Kaiser and Christian activists, to end slavery in colonial Africa (leading to Brussels Conference Act of 1890 ). Nietzsche claimed that

7030-1070: Is a process closely tied to sociocultural evolution . Some evolutionary biologists , particularly sociobiologists , believe that morality is a product of evolutionary forces acting at an individual level and also at the group level through group selection (although to what degree this actually occurs is a controversial topic in evolutionary theory). Some sociobiologists contend that the set of behaviors that constitute morality evolved largely because they provided possible survival or reproductive benefits (i.e. increased evolutionary success). Humans consequently evolved "pro-social" emotions, such as feelings of empathy or guilt, in response to these moral behaviors. On this understanding, moralities are sets of self-perpetuating and biologically driven behaviors which encourage human cooperation . Biologists contend that all social animals, from ants to elephants, have modified their behaviors, by restraining immediate selfishness in order to improve their evolutionary fitness. Human morality, although sophisticated and complex relative to

7220-413: Is also comparable with conservative, aristocratic liberalism of Alexis de Tocqueville , Hippolyte Taine , Jacob Burckhardt (Nietzsche corresponded with the latter two) although his overall philosophy is much more radical. In his opposition to Christian tradition and modern philosophy Nietzsche also criticized the concepts of soul , subject and atomism (that is, the existence of an atomic subject at

7410-619: Is also helpful at the individual level for the passing on of one's genes. For example, a mother who favors her own children more highly than the children of other people will give greater resources to her children than she will to strangers', thus heightening her children's chances of survival and her own gene's chances of being perpetuated. Due to this, within a population, there is substantial selection pressure exerted toward this kind of self-interest, such that eventually, all parents wind up favoring their own children (the in-group) over other children (the out-group). Peterson and Seligman approach

7600-439: Is an illusion. Lastly, the authors explain a basic psychological mechanism that uses two well-established phenomena (distorted exposure to information and distorted memory of information) to cause the illusion of moral decline. The authors present studies that validate some of the predictions about the circumstances in which the perception of moral decline is attenuated, eliminated, or reversed (e.g., when participants are asked about

7790-489: Is bad? But I have already answered: all that proceeds from weakness, from envy, from revenge. — The anarchist and the Christian have the same ancestry... In The Will to Power , he further elaborated similarity between Christianity and socialism: The Gospel is the announcement that the road to happiness lies open for the lowly and the poor—that all one has to do is to emancipate one's self from all institutions, traditions, and

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7980-446: Is concerned with what makes beings intelligible as beings. Heidegger was born on 26 September 1889 in rural Meßkirch , Baden , the son of Johanna (Kempf) and Friedrich Heidegger. His father was the sexton of the village church, and the young Martin was raised Roman Catholic . In 1903, Heidegger began to train for the priesthood . He entered a Jesuit seminary in 1909, but was discharged within weeks because of heart trouble. It

8170-728: Is considered an unreliable source, Nietzsche had plans to study natural sciences in Vienna or Paris in order to prove his idea. "Nietzsche viewed his argument for eternal recurrence as a proof of the absurdity or meaninglessness of life, a proof that no meaning was given to the universe from on high." What if a demon were to creep after you one day or night, in your loneliest loneness, and say: "This life which you live and have lived, must be lived again by you, and innumerable times more. And mere will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh—everything unspeakably small and great in your life—must come again to you, and in

8360-445: Is degraded or unavailable, moral judgments are shifted toward other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). For intentional harms and non-harms, however, the outcome suggests the same moral judgment as to the intention. Thus, the researchers suggest that TMS to the RTPJ disrupted the processing of negative beliefs for both intentional harms and attempted harms, but the current design allowed the investigators to detect this effect only in

8550-459: Is essentially bound up with a declining culture: the chasm between man and man, class and class, the multiplicity of types, the will to be one's self and to distinguish one's self – that, in fact, which I call the pathos of distance is proper to all strong ages. Unlike many conservative and liberal authors of the era, Nietzsche didn't justify the dismal conditions of the working class purely as an unfortunate price that had to be paid for

8740-662: Is followed by a development in groups and organs; correlative tendencies join up together and become powerfully active: now there arise between these centres of power, friction, war, a reconnoitring of the forces on either side, reciprocity, understandings, and the regulation of mutual services. Finally, there appears an order of rank. While Nietzsche shared some of the liberal ideas and values such as individualism, private property , economic inequality , suspicion of state power , and dismissed political criticisms of exploitation his philosophy does not have much in common with classical liberalism and capitalism . He wrote that liberalism

8930-476: Is introduced as a term for the type of being that humans possess. Heidegger believed that Dasein already has a "pre-ontological" and concrete understanding that shapes how it lives, which he analyzed in terms of the unitary structure of "being-in-the-world". Heidegger used this analysis to approach the question of the meaning of being; that is, the question of how entities appear as the specific entities they are. In other words, Heidegger's governing "question of being"

9120-547: Is morally acceptable in one culture may be taboo in another. They further contend that no moral virtue can objectively be proven right or wrong Critics of moral relativism point to historical atrocities such as infanticide, slavery, or genocide as counter arguments, noting the difficulty in accepting these actions simply through cultural lenses. Fons Trompenaars , author of Did the Pedestrian Die? , tested members of different cultures with various moral dilemmas . One of these

9310-635: Is not a single cognitive faculty dedicated exclusively to moral cognition, characterizing the contributions of domain-general processes to moral behavior is a critical scientific endeavor to understand how morality works and how it can be improved. Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists investigate the inputs to these cognitive processes and their interactions, as well as how these contribute to moral behavior by running controlled experiments. In these experiments putatively moral versus nonmoral stimuli are compared to each other, while controlling for other variables such as content or working memory load. Often,

9500-471: Is not always absolute, contending that moral issues often differ along cultural lines. A 2014 PEW research study among several nations illuminates significant cultural differences among issues commonly related to morality, including divorce, extramarital affairs, homosexuality, gambling, abortion, alcohol use, contraceptive use, and premarital sex. Each of the 40 countries in this study has a range of percentages according to what percentage of each country believes

9690-436: Is one of the defining characteristics of psychopathy , and this would appear to lend support to Decety's view. Recently, drawing on empirical research in evolutionary theory , developmental psychology , social neuroscience , and psychopathy, Jean Decety argued that empathy and morality are neither systematically opposed to one another, nor inevitably complementary. An essential, shared component of moral judgment involves

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9880-527: Is one way in which Heidegger breaks from the Cartesian tradition of beginning from the perspective of individual subjectivity. Dreyfus argues that the chapter on das Man is "the most confused" in Being and Time and so is often misinterpreted. The problem, he says, is that Heidegger's presentation conflates two opposing influences. The first is Dilthey's account of the role that public and historical contexts have in

10070-520: Is perhaps most needful of all—their Asiatic stability." While Nietzsche's thoughts on the subject are often vague, he did occasionally use very harsh language, calling for "the annihilation of the decadent races" and "millions of deformed". Morality Morality (from Latin moralitas  'manner, character , proper behavior') is the categorization of intentions , decisions and actions into those that are proper, or right , and those that are improper, or wrong . Morality can be

10260-632: Is still consistently aligned with the capital against the worker movement which he saw as a fundamental threat to his hierarchical vision of society. William Altman also interprets Nietzsche's criticism of capitalist class as the advice to cultivate better public image and thus legitimize the social hierarchy. Negative attitude towards socialism and proletarian movement was one of the most consistent themes in Nietzsche's philosophy. He wrote negatively of socialism as early as 1862 and his criticisms of socialism are often harsher than those of other doctrines. He

10450-413: Is synonymous with mediocrity and believed also that it leads to cultural decay. He also decried "liberal optimism" of political economy , the idea that economic development and technological innovation should solve social problems; even though it was more attainable and moderate than socialist utopianism, he still saw the goal of mass happiness and comfort as unworthy and philistine. He dismissed captains of

10640-557: Is that of universality, that is, If something's right for me, it's right for you; if it's wrong for you, it's wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth looking at has that at its core somehow. Religion and morality are not synonymous. Morality does not depend upon religion although for some this is "an almost automatic assumption". According to The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics , religion and morality "are to be defined differently and have no definitional connections with each other. Conceptually and in principle, morality and

10830-462: Is the Golden Rule , which states: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself." Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e., opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any particular set of moral standards or principles. Ethics (also known as moral philosophy)

11020-553: Is the aspect of Hinduism most difficult to understand". Religions provide different ways of dealing with moral dilemmas. For example, Hinduism lacks any absolute prohibition on killing, recognizing that it "may be inevitable and indeed necessary" in certain circumstances. Monotheistic traditions view certain acts—such as abortion or divorce —in more absolute terms. Religion is not always positively associated with morality. Philosopher David Hume stated that "the greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with

11210-451: Is the branch of philosophy which addresses questions of morality. The word "ethics" is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality'   ... and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group, or individual." Likewise, certain types of ethical theories, especially deontological ethics , sometimes distinguish between ethics and morality. Philosopher Simon Blackburn writes that "Although

11400-580: Is the name of a concept created by Nietzsche; the title of a projected book which he finally decided not to write; and the title of a book compiled from his notebooks and published posthumously and under suspicious circumstances by his sister and Peter Gast . The work consists of four separate books, entitled "European Nihilism" , "Critique of the Highest Values Hitherto" , "Principles of a New Evaluation" , and "Discipline and Breeding" . Within these books there are some 1067 small sections, usually

11590-505: Is the outburst, the explosion, of a concentrated loathing of the "masters,"—the instinct which discerns the happiness of freedom after such long oppression... (Mostly a symptom of the fact that the inferior classes have been treated too humanely, that their tongues already taste a joy which is forbidden them... It is not hunger that provokes revolutions, but the fact that the mob have contracted an appetite en mangeant...) Nietzsche never mentioned Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels by name, and it

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11780-410: Is to be understood according to our sense of our possibilities: things present themselves to people in terms of their projects, the uses to which they can put them. The 'sight' with which people grasp equipment is not a mentalistic intentionality, but what Heidegger calls 'circumspection'. This is to say that equipment reveals itself in terms of its 'towards-which,' in terms of the work it is good for. In

11970-412: Is transparent; when it is used, it is subsumed under the work toward which it is employed. Heidegger calls this structure of practically ordered reference relations the 'worldhood of the world'. Heidegger calls the mode of being of such entities "ready-to-hand", for they are understood only in being handled. If the fork is made of plastic, however, and it snaps in the course of using it, then it assumes

12160-498: Is typically to ensure a reliable supply of essential resources, especially for animals living in a habitat where food quantity or quality fluctuates unpredictably. For example, some vampire bats fail to feed on prey some nights while others manage to consume a surplus. Bats that did eat will then regurgitate part of their blood meal to save a conspecific from starvation. Since these animals live in close-knit groups over many years, an individual can count on other group members to return

12350-484: Is unable to create aristocratic culture of leisure and sophistication. He praised Napoleon for reviving the warlike, aristocratic spirit which triumphed over the "modern ideas", over "the businessman and the philistine ". His attitudes were particularly negative in his earlier works. He claimed that luxurious goods should be heavily taxed and that economy should be regulated so that people cannot get rich quickly by means of financial speculation. In Human, All Too Human ,

12540-401: Is unclear whether he was acquainted with their ideas. However, they are more or less extensively quoted and discussed in eleven books that Nietzsche owned in his personal library and in one of them he underlined Marx's name. In socialist countries, Nietzsche was usually considered a disreputable reactionary, bourgeois, imperialist or fascist philosopher. His books were unavailable to the public in

12730-457: Is unrealistic. He also developed some sympathies to the diligent, competent bourgeoisie, seeing the wealthy capitalist class as necessary allies in the struggle against both Adolf Stoecker 's Christian movement and social democracy which were gaining influence in Germany. To solve the conflict he hesitantly accepted the idea that aristocracy should absorb the emerging capitalist class while retaining

12920-458: The European Journal of Personality , found that moral foundations have significant genetic bases. Another study, conducted by Smith and Hatemi, similarly found significant evidence in support of moral heritability by looking at and comparing the answers of moral dilemmas between twins. Genetics play a role in influencing prosocial behaviors and moral decision-making. Genetics contribute to

13110-407: The Übermensch and the thought of eternal recurrence. His later works involved a sustained attack on Christianity and Christian morality, and he seemed to be working toward what he called the transvaluation of all values ( Umwertung aller Werte ). While Nietzsche is often associated in the public mind with fatalism and nihilism , Nietzsche himself viewed his project as the attempt to overcome

13300-543: The French Revolution , restored colonial slavery , and tried to revive the aristocratic spirit of Roman Empire , paganism and Renaissance , and not as a progressive revolutionary leader like some of his contemporaries. Despite his proclaimed contempt for daily politics and culture of newspaper reading, which was a common attitude of conservatives who saw the mass publishing as subversive, Nietzsche did comment on contemporary political events in his letters and notes. He

13490-663: The Rhine . In late 1946, as France engaged in épuration légale in its occupation zone , the French military authorities determined that Heidegger should be blocked from teaching or participating in any university activities because of his association with the Nazi Party. Nevertheless, he presented the talk "What are Poets for?" in memory of Rilke . He also published "On Humanism" in 1947 to clarify his differences with Jean-Paul Sartre and French existentialism . The denazification procedures against Heidegger continued until March 1949 when he

13680-524: The Soviet Union from 1923. They were placed on the list of forbidden books and were kept in libraries only for restricted, authorized use. Until 1988, they were not translated or reprinted, and in the years between 1938 and 1988, only ten dissertations on Nietzsche were defended. Western leftist writers, led by French postwar intellectuals, largely rehabilitated Nietzsche on the left and have proposed ways of using Nietzschean theory in what has become known as

13870-638: The University of Freiburg . At this time he also became an assistant to Husserl, who had been a professor there since 1916. In 1923, Heidegger was elected to an extraordinary professorship in philosophy at the University of Marburg . His colleagues there included Rudolf Bultmann , Nicolai Hartmann , Paul Tillich , and Paul Natorp . Heidegger's students at Marburg included Hans-Georg Gadamer , Hannah Arendt , Karl Löwith , Gerhard Krüger , Leo Strauss , Jacob Klein , Günther Anders , and Hans Jonas . Following Aristotle , he began to develop in his lectures

14060-429: The caste system , and apologists for Islam defend or explain away its harsh penal code or its attitude to women and infidels". In regard to Christianity, he states that the " Bible can be read as giving us a carte blanche for harsh attitudes to children, the mentally handicapped, animals, the environment, the divorced, unbelievers, people with various sexual habits, and elderly women", and notes morally-suspect themes in

14250-501: The maternal bond is selected for because it improves the survival of offspring; the Westermarck effect , where close proximity during early years reduces mutual sexual attraction, underpins taboos against incest because it decreases the likelihood of genetically risky behaviour such as inbreeding . The phenomenon of reciprocity in nature is seen by evolutionary biologists as one way to begin to understand human morality. Its function

14440-507: The pessimism of Arthur Schopenhauer . Nietzsche conceptualizes his diagnostic with the statement " God is dead ", which first appeared in his work in section 108 of The Gay Science , again in section 125 with the parable of "The Madman", and even more famously in Thus Spoke Zarathustra . The statement, typically placed in quotation marks, accentuated the crisis that Nietzsche argued that Western culture must face and transcend in

14630-578: The thought of the eternal recurrence features heavily in Also sprach Zarathustra ( Thus Spoke Zarathustra ), but is almost entirely absent from his next book, Beyond Good and Evil . Added to this challenge is the fact that Nietzsche did not seem concerned to develop his thought into a system, even going so far as to disparage the attempt in Beyond Good and Evil . Common themes in his thought can, however, be identified and discussed. His earliest work emphasized

14820-439: The upper classes are overreacting and projecting their own sensitivity to the suffering of slaves and poor industrial workers who are supposedly toughened by hardship, less sensitive to pain and contended with their life. However, while he wrote positively about ancient and colonial slavery, he did not leave any clear comments suggesting that he actually advocated reintroduction of slavery in modern Europe. In fact, he proposed that

15010-504: The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a region involved in valuation, while intuitive reactions to situations containing implicit moral issues activates the temporoparietal junction area, a region that plays a key role in understanding intentions and beliefs. Stimulation of the VMPC by transcranial magnetic stimulation , or neurological lesion, has been shown to inhibit the ability of human subjects to take into account intent when forming

15200-404: The "categories" of metaphysics. Heidegger unifies these three existential features of Dasein in a composite structure he terms "care": "ahead-of-itself-being-already-in-(the-world) as being-amidst (entities encountered within-the-world)." What unifies this formula is temporality . Understanding is oriented towards future possibilities, attunement is shaped by the past, and discourse discloses

15390-432: The "grandfather of French Revolution ". Beginning in the 1890s some scholars have attempted to link his philosophy with Max Stirner 's radical individualism of The Ego and Its Own (1844). The question remained pendent. Recently there was unearthed further, still circumstantial, evidence clarifying his relationship with Stirner . In any case, few philosophers really consider Nietzsche an "individualist" thinker. Against

15580-660: The "politics of difference " – particularly in formulating theories of political resistance and sexual and moral difference. Nietzsche often made racist , classist remarks and used racialist explanations of cultural and political phenomena. Some of his later admirers often tried to reinterpret, downplay or ignore this part of his thought, but because of preponderance of explicit comments in Nietzsche's work, such approaches remain controversial. There are also controversies about some newer translations of Nietzsche which seem to be misleadingly euphemistic when dealing with more loaded terms that Nietzsche used. Nietzsche used

15770-567: The "weak" to take power over the "strong". To the "ethics of compassion" ( Mitleid , "shared suffering") exposed by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche opposed an "ethics of friendship" or of "shared joy" ( Mitfreude ). Nietzsche often referred to the common people who participated in mass movements and shared a common mass psychology as "the rabble", or " the herd ". Although he valued individualism his general political views included many hierarchical and authoritarian ideas which are usually incompatible with modern individualistic ideologies. He often used

15960-483: The 19th century by Arthur de Gobineau . It is unclear whether Nietzsche was directly influenced by Gobineau but he was probably aware of his work because of numerous similarities and because Richard Wagner was an admirer who wrote an introductory essay on his work. Excerpts from Gobineau were frequently published in the Wagnerian journal Bayreuther Blätter which Nietzsche read. Despite his oppositions to Darwinism , he

16150-673: The Bible's New Testament as well. Elizabeth Anderson likewise holds that "the Bible contains both good and evil teachings", and it is "morally inconsistent". Christian apologists address Blackburn's viewpoints and construe that Jewish laws in the Hebrew Bible showed the evolution of moral standards towards protecting the vulnerable, imposing a death penalty on those pursuing slavery and treating slaves as persons and not as property. Humanists like Paul Kurtz believe that we can identify moral values across cultures, even if we do not appeal to

16340-480: The Genealogy of Morality , he wrote: A legal system conceived of as sovereign and universal, not as a means in the struggle of power complexes, but as a means against all struggles in general, something along the lines of Dühring's communist cliché in which each will must be considered as equal to every will, that would be a principle hostile to life, a destroyer and dissolver of human beings, an assassination attempt on

16530-456: The Nazi Party. Per their agreement, it was not published until five days after his death in 1976, under the title " Only a God Can Save Us " after a reference to Hölderlin that Heidegger makes during the interview. Heidegger's publications during this time were mostly reworked versions of his lectures. In his last days, he also arranged for a complete edition of his works to be compiled and published. Its first volume appeared in 1975. As of 2019,

16720-599: The Nazis eventually prevented him from publishing. In 1935, he gave the talk " The Origin of the Work of Art ". The next year, while in Rome, Heidegger gave his first lecture on Friedrich Hölderlin . In the years 1936–1937, Heidegger wrote what some commentators consider his second greatest work, Contributions to Philosophy ; it would not be published, however, until 1989, 13 years after his death. From 1936 to 1940, Heidegger also delivered

16910-455: The Nazis, as a "will for domination". Baeumler attempted to interpret the "will to power" along Social Darwinist lines, an interpretation refuted by Heidegger in his 1930s courses on Nietzsche. While Heidegger's reading has become predominant among commentators, some have criticized it: Mazzino Montinari by declaring that it was forging the figure of a "macroscopical Nietzsche", alien to all of his nuances. "Will to power" ( Wille zur Macht )

17100-552: The RTPJ? One possibility is that moral judgments typically reflect a weighted function of any morally relevant information that is available at the time. Based on this view, when information concerning the agent's belief is unavailable or degraded, the resulting moral judgment simply reflects a higher weighting of other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). Alternatively, following TMS to the RTPJ, moral judgments might be made via an abnormal processing route that does not take belief into account. On either account, when belief information

17290-477: The University of Freiburg in 1933. In 1927 Heidegger published his main work, Sein und Zeit ( Being and Time ). He was primarily concerned to qualify to be a full professor. The book, however, did more than this: it raised him to "a position of international intellectual visibility." When Husserl retired as professor of philosophy in 1928, Heidegger accepted Freiburg's election to be his successor, in spite of

17480-460: The anthropological view looking across cultures, geo-cultural areas and across millennia. They conclude that certain virtues have prevailed in all cultures they examined. The major virtues they identified include wisdom / knowledge; courage; humanity ; justice; temperance; and transcendence . Each of these include several divisions. For instance humanity includes love , kindness , and social intelligence . Still, others theorize that morality

17670-540: The apparently meaningful stories of our lives. This idea of eternal recurrence became a cornerstone of his nihilism, and thus part of the foundation of what became existentialism." It is unclear whether Nietzsche viewed his idea as a scientific hypothesis or just a thought experiment whose purpose is to test individual's affirmation of life. He had an interest in natural sciences and read about related topics in cosmology and thermodynamics , but most of his scientific arguments remained unpublished. According to Lou Salome , who

17860-461: The articulation and realization of these ideas. Søren Kierkegaard contributed much to Heidegger's treatment of the existentialist aspects of his thought located in Division II of Being and Time . Heidegger's concepts of anxiety ( Angst ) and mortality draw on Kierkegaard and are indebted to the way in which the latter lays out the importance of our subjective relation to truth, our existence in

18050-423: The belief that morality is deteriorating continuously, and this conviction has been present for the last 70 years. Subsequently, they indicate that people ascribe this decay to the declining morality of individuals as they age and the succeeding generations. Thirdly, the authors demonstrate that people's evaluations of the morality of their peers have not decreased over time, indicating that the belief in moral decline

18240-486: The capacity to detect morally salient content within a given social context. Recent research implicated the salience network in this initial detection of moral content. The salience network responds to behaviorally salient events and may be critical to modulate downstream default and frontal control network interactions in the service of complex moral reasoning and decision-making processes. The explicit making of moral right and wrong judgments coincides with activation in

18430-399: The case of attempted harms, in which the neutral outcomes did not afford harsh moral judgments on their own. Similarly, individuals with a lesion of the VMPC judge an action purely on its outcome and are unable to take into account the intent of that action. Moral intuitions may have genetic bases. A 2022 study conducted by scholars Michael Zakharin and Timothy C. Bates , and published by

18620-586: The collective on the individual. These norms will be arbitrary, culturally dependent and 'flexible', whereas territorial morality aims at rules which are universal and absolute, such as Kant 's ' categorical imperative ' and Geisler 's graded absolutism . Green relates the development of territorial morality to the rise of the concept of private property, and the ascendancy of contract over status. Some observers hold that individuals apply distinct sets of moral rules to people depending on their membership of an " in-group " (the individual and those they believe to be of

18810-422: The common moral issues are acceptable, unacceptable, or not moral issues at all. Each percentage regarding the significance of the moral issue varies greatly on the culture in which the moral issue is presented. Advocates of a theory known as moral relativism subscribe to the notion that moral virtues are right or wrong only within the context of a certain standpoint (e.g., cultural community). In other words, what

19000-430: The common perception of a decline in morality in societies worldwide and throughout history. Adam M. Mastroianni and Daniel T. Gilbert present a series of studies indicating that the perception of moral decline is an illusion and easily produced, with implications for misallocation of resources, underuse of social support, and social influence. To begin with, the authors demonstrate that people in no less than 60 nations hold

19190-542: The consequences brought about in the situation (Consequences-component, C). This, implies that various inputs of the situation a person encounters affect moral cognition. Jonathan Haidt distinguishes between two types of moral cognition: moral intuition and moral reasoning. Moral intuition involves the fast, automatic, and affective processes that result in an evaluative feeling of good-bad or like-dislike, without awareness of going through any steps. Conversely, moral reasoning does involve conscious mental activity to reach

19380-452: The cultural mix is greater, thus requiring more liberalism. Group morality develops from shared concepts and beliefs and is often codified to regulate behavior within a culture or community. Various defined actions come to be called moral or immoral. Individuals who choose moral action are popularly held to possess "moral fiber", whereas those who indulge in immoral behavior may be labeled as socially degenerate. The continued existence of

19570-401: The cultural supremacy. Even the vulgar commercial activities could be transformed by the aristocracy in a similar way that hunting was raised from practical subsistence into a ceremonial, luxurious activity. Don Dombowsky argues that Nietzsche's criticisms of capitalism are mostly cultural and moderate; compared with the usual ideological points of political economy and views on class conflict, he

19760-1061: The decay of the European society and culture, but also credited it with the creation of modern men of the "historical sense." He also used the term race in the ethnic meaning and in this sense he supported the idea of mixing specific races which he considered to be of high quality (for example he proposed that Germans should mix with Slavs). Despite occasional reverence for ancient Germanic conquests and his identification of upper class with blond, dolichocephalic type, Nietzsche's ideas do not have much in common with Nordicism . He occasionally also praised non-European cultures, such as Moors , Incas and Aztecs , claiming that they were superior to their European conquerors. In The Dawn of Day he also proposed mass immigration of Chinese to Europe claiming that they would bring "modes of living and thinking, which would be found very suitable for industrious ants" and help "imbue this fretful and restless Europe with some of their Asiatic calmness and contemplation, and—what

19950-419: The decision-making and moral behavior of players in the game are not representing player's Moral dogma. It has been recently found that moral judgment consists in concurrent evaluations of three different components that align with precepts from three dominant moral theories (virtue ethics, deontology , and consequentialism): the character of a person (Agent-component, A); their actions (Deed-component, D); and

20140-452: The development and expression of certain traits and behaviors, including those related to morality. However, it is important to note that while genetics play a role in shaping certain aspects of moral behavior, morality itself is a multifaceted concept that encompasses cultural, societal, and personal influences as well. If morality is the answer to the question 'how ought we to live' at the individual level, politics can be seen as addressing

20330-448: The development of a self-identity that is defined by moral purposes: this moral self-identity leads to a sense of responsibility to pursue such purposes. Of historical interest in psychology are the theories of psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud , who believe that moral development is the product of aspects of the super-ego as guilt-shame avoidance. Theories of moral development therefore tend to regard it as positive moral development:

20520-896: The development of morals, usually going through stages of different morals. Lawrence Kohlberg , Jean Piaget , and Elliot Turiel have cognitive-developmental approaches to moral development ; to these theorists morality forms in a series of constructive stages or domains. In the Ethics of care approach established by Carol Gilligan , moral development occurs in the context of caring, mutually responsive relationships which are based on interdependence , particularly in parenting but also in social relationships generally. Social psychologists such as Martin Hoffman and Jonathan Haidt emphasize social and emotional development based on biology, such as empathy . Moral identity theorists, such as William Damon and Mordechai Nisan , see moral commitment as arising from

20710-400: The differential neural response to specifically moral statements or scenes, are examined using functional neuroimaging experiments. Critically, the specific cognitive processes that are involved depend on the prototypical situation that a person encounters. For instance, while situations that require an active decision on a moral dilemma may require active reasoning, an immediate reaction to

20900-485: The earth. Let your will say: the Übermensch shall be the meaning of the earth... Man is a rope, tied between beast and Übermensch—a rope over an abyss... what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end... Nietzsche may have encountered the idea of the Eternal Recurrence in the works of Heinrich Heine , who speculated that one day a person would be born with the same thought-processes as himself, and that

21090-412: The ebb of this great flood, and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or established embarrassment. And man shall be that to Übermensch: a laughingstock or painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape... The Übermensch is the meaning of

21280-402: The edicts of a god or the hypothetical decrees of a perfectly rational being, respectively. Practical reason is necessary for the moral agency but it is not a sufficient condition for moral agency. Real life issues that need solutions do need both rationality and emotion to be sufficiently moral. One uses rationality as a pathway to the ultimate decision, but the environment and emotions towards

21470-532: The edition is almost complete at over 100 volumes. Heidegger died on 26 May 1976 in Freiburg . A few months before his death, he met with Bernhard Welte, a Catholic priest, Freiburg University professor and earlier correspondent. The exact nature of their conversation is not known, but what is known is that it included talk of Heidegger's relationship to the Catholic Church and subsequent Christian burial at which

21660-437: The environment at the moment must be a factor for the result to be truly moral, as morality is subject to culture. Something can only be morally acceptable if the culture as a whole has accepted this to be true. Both practical reason and relevant emotional factors are acknowledged as significant in determining the morality of a decision. Celia Green made a distinction between tribal and territorial morality. She characterizes

21850-458: The everyday world, people are absorbed within the equipmental totality of their work-world. Moreover, on Heidegger's analysis, this entails a radical holism. In his own words, "there 'is' no such thing as an equipment". For example, when someone sits down to dinner and picks up their fork, they are not picking up an object with good stabbing properties: they are non-reflectively engaging an 'in-order-to-eat'. When it works as expected, equipment

22040-563: The face of death, the temporality of existence, and the importance of passionate affirmation of one's individual being-in-the-world. According to scholar Taylor Carman , traditional ontology asks "Why is there anything?", whereas Heidegger's fundamental ontology asks "What does it mean for something to be?" Heidegger's ontology "is fundamental relative to traditional ontology in that it concerns what any understanding of entities necessarily presupposes, namely, our understanding of that by virtue of which entities are entities". This line of inquiry

22230-514: The favor on nights when it goes hungry (Wilkinson, 1984) Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce (2009) have argued that morality is a suite of behavioral capacities likely shared by all mammals living in complex social groups (e.g., wolves, coyotes, elephants, dolphins, rats, chimpanzees). They define morality as "a suite of interrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate complex interactions within social groups." This suite of behaviors includes empathy, reciprocity, altruism, cooperation, and

22420-451: The form given by his sister, remain a key insight into the philosophy of Nietzsche, and his unfinished transvaluation of all values . An English edition of Montinari & Colli's work is forthcoming (it has existed for decades in Italian, German and French). The “Will to power” also contains the provisional outline to Nietzsche's aesthetics as a whole. This has been described as his attempt at

22610-499: The form of merit , to determine if an action is termed right or wrong. Barbara Stoler Miller points out a further disparity between the values of religious traditions, stating that in Hinduism , "practically, right and wrong are decided according to the categories of social rank, kinship, and stages of life. For modern Westerners, who have been raised on ideals of universality and egalitarianism , this relativity of values and obligations

22800-417: The foundation of everything, found for example in social contract theories). He considered the individual subject as a complex of instincts and wills-to-power, just as any other organization. He claimed that idea of subject, whether in metaphysical or scientific sense, leads to the belief in essential equality of people and is politically used to justify notion of human rights, therefore calling René Descartes

22990-465: The future of human beings, a sign of exhaustion, a secret path to nothingness. Nietzsche believed that if socialist goals are achieved, society would be leveled down and conditions for superior individuals and higher culture would disappear. In Twilight of the Idols he wrote: "Equality", a certain definite process of making everybody uniform, which only finds its expression in the theory of equal rights,

23180-417: The future", "the free spirit", "the tragic artist" and "the Übermensch ". They are often described by Nietzsche as being highly creative, courageous, powerful and extremely rare individuals. He compares such individuals with certain historical figures which have been very rare and often have not been considered geniuses, such as Napoleon , Goethe and Beethoven . His main example of a genius exemplary culture

23370-486: The higher stages are morally higher, though this, naturally, involves a circular argument. The higher stages are better because they are higher, but the better higher because they are better. As an alternative to viewing morality as an individual trait, some sociologists as well as social- and discursive psychologists have taken upon themselves to study the in-vivo aspects of morality by examining how persons conduct themselves in social interaction. A new study analyses

23560-399: The in-group and irrational hostility towards the out-group. Gary R. Johnson and V.S. Falger have argued that nationalism and patriotism are forms of this in-group/out-group boundary. Jonathan Haidt has noted that experimental observation indicating an in-group criterion provides one moral foundation substantially used by conservatives , but far less so by liberals . In-group preference

23750-434: The industry as vulgar and even blamed them for the rise of socialism, claiming that rise of the capitalist class disrupted the order of rank and that workers would not rebel if they were able to serve the true, natural aristocrats instead of capitalists whom they do not see as superiors but just as ordinary people who got lucky with money. Bourgeoisie, with its love of practical work and educational, intellectual specialization,

23940-423: The justification of the selfishness and sovereignty of the individual: the freedom which was granted to one God in respect to other Gods, was at last given to the individual himself in respect to laws, customs and neighbours. In 1034 of The Will to Power he then directly called himself to be a pagan, and claimed to be amongst the first to understand what its faith is: We, many or few, who once more dare to live in

24130-497: The kind of being that people have, namely, that humans are the sort of beings able to pose the question of the meaning of being. According to Canadian philosopher Sean McGrath Heidegger was probably influenced by Scotus in this approach. His term for us, in this phenomenological context, is Dasein . This procedure works because Dasein's pre-ontological understanding of being shapes experience. Dasein's ordinary and even mundane experience of "being-in-the-world" provides "access to

24320-409: The latter as predominantly negative and proscriptive: it defines a person's territory, including his or her property and dependents, which is not to be damaged or interfered with. Apart from these proscriptions, territorial morality is permissive, allowing the individual whatever behaviour does not interfere with the territory of another. By contrast, tribal morality is prescriptive, imposing the norms of

24510-626: The left or the right, declaring that Nietzsche's aim was to by-pass the short timespan of modern politics, and its inherent lies and simplifications, for a greater historical timespan. Much of Nietzsche's contempt of politics is directed towards modern democratic , parliamentarian , party politics and especially mass movements such as socialism and antisemitic populism . He contrasted such mundane, petty politics with his idea of "great politics", and often praised individual politicians such as Napoleon . He interpreted Napoleon as an autocratic genius who stood above conventional morality, invalidated

24700-459: The leisured, cultured lifestyle of the upper-class minority, but saw them as an expression of natural caste order which is necessary for both the rich and the poor. He claimed that even if reduction of work and granting more leisure to the masses were economically feasible, they would have a negative social, cultural effect because people of common nature are incapable of enjoying aristocratic idleness. The highest society imagined by socialists would be

24890-615: The literature: one attributes to Nietzsche a commitment to aristocratic forms of social ordering, while the other denies that Nietzsche has any political philosophy at all. Walter Kaufmann put forward the view that the powerful individualism expressed in his writings would be disastrous if introduced to the public realm of politics. Georges Bataille argued in 1937, in the Acéphale review, that Nietzsche's thoughts were too free to be instrumentalized by any political movement. In "Nietzsche and Fascists," he argued against such instrumentalization, by

25080-483: The lowest according to his order of rank. In The Antichrist , he wrote: Whom do I hate most heartily among the rabbles of today? The rabble of Socialists, the apostles to the Chandala , who undermine the workingman's instincts, his pleasure, his feeling of contentment with his petty existence—who make him envious and teach him revenge... Wrong never lies in unequal rights; it lies in the assertion of "equal" rights... What

25270-405: The main theme of his philosophy: the question of the sense of being. He extended the concept of subject to the dimension of history and concrete existence , which he found prefigured in such Christian thinkers as Paul of Tarsus , Augustine of Hippo , Martin Luther , and Søren Kierkegaard . He also read the works of Wilhelm Dilthey , Husserl, Max Scheler , and Friedrich Nietzsche . In 1925,

25460-512: The masses who are "born to serve and obey". He called socialism "the tyranny of the meanest and the dumbest" and claimed that it attracts inferior people who are motivated by ressentiment . A lot of his criticism is linked to his view of Christianity; he called socialism "residue of Christianity and of Rousseau in the de-Christianised world". He described Rousseau as "moral tarantula", his ideas as "idiocies and half-truths" that were born out of self-contempt and inflamed vanity, claimed that he held

25650-482: The meaning of being because it does not seem possible, from such a condition, to even raise the question of being that Heidegger claims to pursue. He responds to this challenge with his account of authenticity . Heidegger's term Eigentlichkeit is a neologism, in which Heidegger stresses the root eigen , meaning "own." So this word, usually translated "authenticity", could just as well be translated "ownedness" or "being one's own". Authenticity, according to Heidegger,

25840-412: The meaning" or "sense of being"; that is, the terms in which "something becomes intelligible as something." Heidegger proposes that this ordinary "prescientific" understanding precedes abstract ways of knowing, such as logic or theory. Being and Time is designed to show how this implicit understanding can be made progressively explicit through phenomenology and hermeneutics . Heidegger introduces

26030-415: The mode of being that Heidegger calls "present-at-hand." For now the fork needs to be made the object of focal awareness, considering it in terms of its properties. Is it too broken to use? If so, could the diner possibly get by with another utensil or just with their fingers? This kind of equipmental breakdown is not the only way that objects become present-at-hand for us, but Heidegger considers it typical of

26220-474: The moral neuroscience literature. The neural network underlying moral decisions overlaps with the network pertaining to representing others' intentions (i.e., theory of mind) and the network pertaining to representing others' (vicariously experienced) emotional states (i.e., empathy). This supports the notion that moral reasoning is related to both seeing things from other persons' points of view and to grasping others' feelings. These results provide evidence that

26410-407: The moralities of other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive individualism that could undermine a group's cohesion and thereby reducing the individuals' fitness. On this view, moral codes are ultimately founded on emotional instincts and intuitions that were selected for in the past because they aided survival and reproduction ( inclusive fitness ). Examples:

26600-592: The morality of people and their ethics amounts to the same thing, there is a usage that restricts morality to systems such as that of Immanuel Kant , based on notions such as duty, obligation, and principles of conduct, reserving ethics for the more Aristotelian approach to practical reasoning, based on the notion of a virtue , and generally avoiding the separation of 'moral' considerations from other practical considerations." In its descriptive sense, "morality" refers to personal or cultural values , codes of conduct or social mores that are observed to be accepted by

26790-402: The morality of people closest to them or people who lived before they were born). Moral cognition refers to cognitive processes implicated in moral judgment and decision making, and moral action. It consists of several domain-general cognitive processes, ranging from perception of a morally salient stimulus to reasoning when faced with a moral dilemma. While it is important to mention that there

26980-456: The most part, one does not distinguish oneself—those among whom one is too". Quite frequently the term is just left in the German. According to philosopher Hubert Dreyfus , part of Heidegger's aim is to show that, contrary to Husserl, individuals do not generate an intersubjective world from their separate activities; rather, "these activities presuppose the disclosure of one shared world." This

27170-476: The neural network underlying moral decisions is probably domain-global (i.e., there might be no such things as a "moral module" in the human brain) and might be dissociable into cognitive and affective sub-systems. Cognitive neuroscientist Jean Decety thinks that the ability to recognize and vicariously experience what another individual is undergoing was a key step forward in the evolution of social behavior, and ultimately, morality. The inability to feel empathy

27360-452: The ones usually held by Social Darwinists. He didn't share the evolutionary optimism of the Darwinists, believing that current trends in European society point to degeneration of the species rather than to survival of the fittest. Some of his views were influenced by the works of Charles Féré and Théodule-Armand Ribot . One of the themes that Nietzsche often used to explain social phenomena

27550-446: The opposition of Apollonian and Dionysian impulses in art, and the figure of Dionysus continued to play a role in his subsequent thought. Other major currents include the will to power , the claim that God is dead , the distinction between master and slave moralities , and radical perspectivism . Other concepts appear rarely, or are confined to one or two major works, yet are considered centerpieces of Nietzschean philosophy, such as

27740-424: The philosopher of the party, but the highly abstract nature of his work and the opposition of Alfred Rosenberg , who himself aspired to act in that position, limited Heidegger's role. His withdrawal from his position as rector owed more to his frustration as an administrator than to any principled opposition to the Nazis, according to historians. In his inaugural address as rector on 27 May he expressed his support of

27930-416: The present in those terms. In this way, the investigation into the being of Dasein leads to time. Much of Division II of Being and Time is devoted to a more fundamental reinterpretation of the findings of Division I in terms of Dasein's temporality. As implied in the analysis of both attunement and discourse, Dasein is "always already", or a priori , a social being. In Heidegger's technical idiom, Dasein

28120-589: The priest officiated. Heidegger was buried in the Meßkirch cemetery. Edmund Husserl , the founder of phenomenology , was Heidegger's teacher and a major influence on his thought. While the specific lines of influence remain a matter of scholarly dispute, one thing is clear: Heidegger's early work on Being and Time moved away from Husserl's theory of intentionality to focus on the pre-theoretical conditions that enable consciousness to grasp objects. Aristotle influenced Heidegger from an early age. This influence

28310-434: The principle of universality: if an action is right (or wrong) for others, it is right (or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal moral level of applying to themselves the standards they apply to others—more stringent ones, in fact—plainly cannot be taken seriously when they speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and evil. In fact, one of them, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles

28500-497: The production of significance. The second is Kierkegaard's insistence that truth is never to be found in the crowd. The Diltheyian dimension of Heidegger's analysis positions das Man as ontologically existential in the same way as understanding, affectedness, and discourse. This dimension of Heidegger's analysis captures the way that a socio-historical "background" makes possible the specific significance that entities and activities can have. Philosopher Charles Taylor expands upon

28690-526: The real dictatorship of the 'they' is unfolded. We take pleasure and enjoy ourselves as they take pleasure; we read, see and judge about literature and art as they see and judge; likewise we shrink back from the 'great mass' as they shrink back; we find 'shocking' what they find shocking. The 'they', which is nothing definite, and which we all are, through not as the sum, prescribes the kind of being of everydayness. This "dictatorship of das Man " threatens to undermine Heidegger's entire project of uncovering

28880-525: The rebellious European workers could be pacified by shifting some of their burden to Asian and African populations. He saw the contemporary revolutionary and emancipatory movements as the most recent part of the long-term social and cultural decay as he noted: Continuation of Christianity by the French Revolution. Rousseau is the seducer: he again removes the chains of woman, who from then on is represented in an ever more interesting way, as suffering. Then

29070-467: The remaining three values more. Both groups gave care the highest over-all weighting, but conservatives valued fairness the lowest, whereas liberals valued purity the lowest. Haidt also hypothesizes that the origin of this division in the United States can be traced to geo-historical factors, with conservatism strongest in closely knit, ethnically homogeneous communities, in contrast to port -cities, where

29260-408: The robust sense used here, are considered realist in the sense synonymous with moral universalism . For example, universal prescriptivism is a universalist form of non-cognitivism which claims that morality is derived from reasoning about implied imperatives, and divine command theory and ideal observer theory are universalist forms of ethical subjectivism which claim that morality is derived from

29450-584: The same applied to every other individual. Although he admired Heine he never mentions him in connection with this idea. Nietzsche put forth his theory in The Gay Science and further developed it in Thus Spoke Zarathustra . Schopenhauer directly influenced this theory. Nietzsche's view on eternal return is similar to that of Hume: "the idea that an eternal recurrence of blind, meaningless variation—chaotic, pointless shuffling of matter and law—would inevitably spew up worlds whose evolution through time would yield

29640-421: The same group) or an "out-group" (people not entitled to be treated according to the same rules). Some biologists, anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists believe this in-group/out-group discrimination has evolved because it enhances group survival. This belief has been confirmed by simple computational models of evolution. In simulations this discrimination can result in both unexpected cooperation towards

29830-604: The same question at the social level, though the political sphere raises additional problems and challenges. It is therefore unsurprising that evidence has been found of a relationship between attitudes in morality and politics. Moral foundations theory , authored by Jonathan Haidt and colleagues, has been used to study the differences between liberals and conservatives , in this regard. Haidt found that Americans who identified as liberals tended to value care and fairness higher than loyalty, respect and purity. Self-identified conservative Americans valued care and fairness less and

30020-580: The same sequence and series... The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned—and you with it, dust of dust!" Would you not throw yourself down and curse the demon who spoke to you thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment, in which you would answer him: "Thou art a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!" [The Gay Science (1882), p. 341 (passage translated in Danto 1965, p. 210).] Nietzsche's political ideas were once during his lifetime interpreted by Georg Brandes as aristocratic radicalism ,

30210-411: The same way, Jewish bankers are my natural allies, as the only international power which, by origin and instinct, binds nations together after accursed interest-politics has made the arrogance and egoism of nations into a duty. According to Domenico Losurdo , in his later works Nietzsche concluded that the industrial society which he disliked is here to stay and the return to warlike, landed aristocracy

30400-406: The same year that he married his wife, Heidegger began a decades-long correspondence with her friend Elisabeth Blochmann . Their letters are suggestive from the beginning, and it is certain they were romantically involved in the summer of 1929. Blochmann was Jewish , which raises questions in light of Heidegger's later membership in the Nazi Party . From 1919 to 1923, Heidegger taught courses at

30590-494: The shape of a circle, and sometimes just a key phrase—such as his opening comments in the 1st monstrosity of the preface: "Of what is great one must either be silent or speak with greatness. With greatness—that means cynically and with innocence." Despite Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche's falsifications (highlighted in 1937 by Georges Bataille and proved in the 1960s by the complete edition of Nietzsche's posthumous fragments by Mazzino Montinari and Giorgio Colli ), his notes, even in

30780-472: The slaves and Mistress Beecher-Stowe. Then the poor and the workers. Then the vicious and the sick — all that is brought to the fore. Nietzsche extoled aristocratic societies and military elites claiming that they create higher quality of culture. He often linked noble classes with ancient barbarian conquerors. His thoughts were usually oriented to the future aristocracy, not so much to the preservation of existing monarchical order, which he saw as exhausted and

30970-408: The strictly "egoist" perspective adopted by Stirner, Nietzsche concerned himself with the "problem of the civilization" and the necessity to give humanity a goal and a direction to its history, making him, in this sense, a very political thinker. In The Will to Power he described individualism as a part of the process that leads to the ultimate goal of establishing the order of rank: Individualism

31160-502: The subjugated masses who don't have the natural capacity for it. Such freedom is not given to all people as a natural right but is earned by the strong individual through struggle, and is closely connected to the power that he can exercise over others. Arguably, such elitist individualism can be interpreted as similar to early liberalism since many authors and politicians at the time supported stratified society with low social mobility , racial exclusion, colonial conquests and even slavery. It

31350-403: The term Dasein to denote a "living being" through its activity of "being there". Understood as a unitary phenomenon rather than a contingent, additive combination, it is characterized by Heidegger as "being-in-the-world". Heidegger insists that the 'in' of Dasein's being-in-the-world is an 'in' of involvement or of engagement, not of objective, physical enclosedness. The sense in which Dasein

31540-451: The term race in two different meanings, for ethnic groups and social classes . He believed that race and class are identical in the sense that nations are composed of different races and that upper classes are usually of superior nature to the lower. He was fascinated by the restrictive caste system of India and Laws of Manu which he saw as promoting eugenics . Such ideas about aristocracy and race were especially popularized in

31730-439: The term "individualism" to describe a certain set of personality traits - such as originality, nonconformism and egoism - not to describe the political system based on institutions that guarantee wide individual rights and freedoms . According to Nietzsche, who often held pre-Socratic Greece and ancient Rome as the social model, individualism and freedom should be reserved only for the aristocratic minority, while discouraged among

31920-454: The term: "It is that of which I am not simply unaware... but at the same time I cannot be said to be explicitly or focally aware of it, because that status is already occupied by what it is making intelligible". For this reason, background non-representationally informs and enables engaged agency in the world, but is something that people can never make fully explicit to themselves. The Kierkegaardian influence on Heidegger's analysis introduces

32110-479: The thought of Eternal Recurrence have been inextricably linked. According to Heidegger's interpretation, one can not be thought without the others. During Nazi Germany , Alfred Baeumler attempted to separate the concepts, claiming that the Eternal Recurrence was only an "existential experience" that, if taken seriously, would endanger the possibility of a "will to power"— deliberately misinterpreted, by

32300-484: The traditional sense, meaning noble birth and hereditary hierarchy; he ridiculed the idea of "aristocracy of the spirit" popular among intellectuals as a democratic subversion. In the context of his criticism of morality and Christianity, expressed, among others works, in On the Genealogy of Morals and in The Antichrist , Nietzsche often criticized humanitarian feelings, detesting how pity and altruism were ways for

32490-544: The tutelage of the higher classes. Thus Christianity is no more than the typical teaching of Socialists. Property, acquisitions, mother-country, status and rank, tribunals, the police, the State, the Church, Education, Art, militarism: all these are so many obstacles in the way of happiness, so many mistakes, snares, and devil's artifices, on which the Gospel passes sentence—all this is typical of socialistic doctrines. Behind all this there

32680-487: The urban working class, Nietzsche praised the peasantry as an example of health and natural nobility. Beyond only abstract, cultural opposition, he regularly wrote against specific social policies of the German Empire that aimed to improve the position and welfare of the workers. He was particularly against democratic, universal education , calling it "barbarism" and "a prelude to communism" because it pointlessly arouses

32870-420: The utter meaninglessness of life by reaffirming it through his idea of Eternal Return. In aphorisms 143 of The Gay Science he praises the greatest utility of the individualising self-creating values of polytheism, where he states: The inventing of Gods, heroes, and supermen of all kinds, as well as co-ordinate men and undermen dwarfs, fairies, centaurs, satyrs, demons, devils was the inestimable preliminary to

33060-448: The wake of the irreparable dissolution of its traditional foundations, moored largely in classical Greek philosophy and Christianity . In aphorisms 55 and 56 of Beyond Good and Evil , Nietzsche talks about the ladder of religious cruelty that suggests how Nihilism emerged from the intellectual conscience of Christianity. Nihilism is sacrificing the meaning "God" brings into our lives; in aphorism 56, Nietzsche explains how to emerge from

33250-570: The way that this shift occurs in the course of ordinary goings-on. In this way, Heidegger creates a theoretical space for the categories of subject and object, while at the same time denying that they apply to our most basic way of moving about in the world, of which they are instead presented as derivative. Heidegger presents three primary structural features of being-in-the-world: understanding, attunement, and discourse. He calls these features "existentiales" or "existentialia" ( Existenzialien ) to distinguish their ontological status, as distinct from

33440-487: The work of his middle period , he wrote that "youthful Jew of the stock exchange is the most repugnant invention of the whole human race". However, he later significantly changed his attitude and noted that Jewish financiers should play a prominent role in the new united Europe . In his later writings he even particularly praised Jewish capitalists as powerful, natural allies against Christianity, socialism and nationalism. In December 1888, his last month of sanity he wrote in

33630-404: Was mixing of the races . He believed that mixed race persons were usually inferior because of the conflicting, incompatible instincts that exist in them, and advocated racial purification . He used Socrates as a negative example of miscegenation, although he claimed that it can also occasionally create energetic individuals such as Alcibiades and Caesar . He blamed the mixing of the races on

33820-435: Was a German philosopher best known for contributions to phenomenology , hermeneutics , and existentialism . His work covers a wide range of topics including ontology , technology , art , metaphysics , humanism , language and history of philosophy . He is often considered to be among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th century, specially in the continental tradition . In April 1933, Heidegger

34010-482: Was born in 1919. Elfride then gave birth to Hermann  [ de ] in August 1920. Heidegger knew that he was not Hermann's biological father, but raised him as his son. Hermann's biological father, who became godfather to his son, was family friend and doctor Friedel Caesar. Hermann was told of this at the age of 14; Hermann grew up to become a historian and would later serve as the executor of Heidegger's will. In

34200-531: Was critical of French Revolution and was deeply disturbed by the Paris Commune which he saw as a destructive insurrection of the vulgar lower classes that made him feel "annihilated for several days". In his later writings he especially praised contemporary French authors, most of whom were right-wing thinkers whose works expressed strongly negative response to the Commune and its political heritage. As opposed to

34390-414: Was deeply disturbed by the Paris Commune , he initially supported Bismarck but became disappointed by his later social policies and détente toward socialists and Catholics, he was worried about the rise of Adolf Stoecker , and after death of Emperor Friedrich III he became worried about the future of free speech in Germany. He was against equality of rights and defended slavery , believing that it

34580-497: Was deeply influenced by him. Heidegger was elected rector of the university on 21 April 1933, and joined the Nazi Party on 1 May, just three months after Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor. During his time as rector he was a member and an enthusiastic supporter of the party. There is continuing controversy as to the relationship between his philosophy and his political allegiance to Nazism . He wanted to position himself as

34770-517: Was directed by Heinrich Rickert , a Neo-Kantian , and influenced by Husserl's phenomenology . The title has been published in several languages and in English is "Duns Scotus's doctrine of categories and meaning". He attempted to get the (Catholic) philosophy post at the University of Freiburg on 23 June 1916 but failed despite the support of Heinrich Finke  [ de ] . Instead, he worked first as an unsalaried Privatdozent then served as

34960-445: Was due to the increasing need to avoid disputes and injuries in moving to open savanna and developing stone weapons. Other theories are that increasing complexity was simply a correlate of increasing group size and brain size, and in particular the development of theory of mind abilities. In modern moral psychology , morality is sometimes considered to change through personal development. Several psychologists have produced theories on

35150-618: Was during this time that he first encountered the work of Franz Brentano . From here he went on to study theology and scholastic philosophy at the University of Freiburg . In 1911 he broke off training for the priesthood and turned his attention to recent philosophy, in particular, Edmund Husserl 's Logical Investigations . He graduated with a thesis on psychologism , The Doctrine of Judgment in Psychologism: A Critical-theoretical Contribution to Logic , in 1914. The following year, he completed his habilitation thesis on Duns Scotus , which

35340-431: Was elected as rector at the University of Freiburg and was widely criticized for his membership and support for the Nazi Party during his tenure. After World War II he was dismissed from Freiburg and banned from teaching after denazification hearings at Freiburg. There has been controversy about the relationship between his philosophy and Nazism . In Heidegger's first major text, Being and Time (1927), Dasein

35530-537: Was finally pronounced a Mitläufer (the second lowest of five categories of "incrimination" by association with the Nazi regime). No punitive measures against him were proposed. This opened the way for his readmission to teaching at Freiburg University in the winter semester of 1950–51. He was granted emeritus status and then taught regularly from 1951 until 1958, and by invitation until 1967. In 1966 he gave an interview to Der Spiegel attempting to justify his support of

35720-521: Was mediated through Catholic theology , medieval philosophy , and Franz Brentano . According to scholar Michael Wheeler, it is by way of a "radical rethinking" of Aristotle's Metaphysics that Heidegger supplants Husserl's notion of intentionality with his unitary notion of being-in-the-world. According to this reinterpretation, the various modes of being are united in more basic capacity of taking-as or making-present-to. The works of Wilhelm Dilthey shaped Heidegger's very early project of developing

35910-916: Was very interested in the works of Francis Galton , although he had only partial knowledge of his works since they were not translated. Like Nietzsche, Galton also praised ancient Greeks claiming that their customs, partially unconsciously, promoted eugenic outcomes and population control . Nietzsche admired the Megaran poet Theognis who rallied against marriages between the aristocracy and common people. He proposed numerous eugenic policies such as medical examinations before marriage, discouragement of celibacy among successful and healthy individuals, tax breaks, and also castration of criminals and mentally ill. Along with his opposition to Darwinism, he also disagreed with Social Darwinism , especially Herbert Spencer 's ideas of progress, but Nietzsche's views on welfare policies, social conflict and inequality are not much different from

36100-841: Was whether the driver of a car would have his friend, a passenger riding in the car, lie in order to protect the driver from the consequences of driving too fast and hitting a pedestrian. Trompenaars found that different cultures had quite different expectations, from none to definite. Anthropologists from Oxford's Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology (part of the School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography) analysed ethnographic accounts of ethics from 60 societies, comprising over 600,000 words from over 600 sources and discovered what they believe to be seven universal moral rules: help your family, help your group, return favours, be brave, defer to superiors, divide resources fairly, and respect others' property. The development of modern morality

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