Thus Spoke Zarathustra

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche offers a moral philosophy designed to replace all the old, conventional moral philosophies which he believed were dead and useless. The first law of Nietzsche's moral philosophy is that man is at the center of it, and not God, for "God is dead" (12). The "overman" is the new center of moral reality, for "Man is something that shall be overcome" (12). This overman will transcend man by transcending the conventional understanding of good and evil. It will be up to this superior overman to determine for himself the exact nature of the new morality. It is Zarathustra's mission to leave his cave and descend to the world of men to teach to a rare few this new moral philosophy which transcends conventional good and evil. The "new tablet" of Zarathustra is the bible of the overman, and its central message to those who are able to hear is that they will have to "become hard!" (214) if they have any hope of becoming an overman themselves. Zarathustra calls for a new morality in which the strong give to the weak not out of pity but simply because their abundance and power overflows naturally. For the strong to achieve and maintain the will to power they must be merciless in recognizing both their own superiority and the inferiority of normal human beings.

From Nietzsche's point of view, he was not suggesting and end to conventional morality , for he actually believed that such morality had long before ceased to have any meaning or effect. Nietzsche

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rcome by [life's] worthlessness and vanity. . . . (54-55). The intellect is capable of perceiving this situation and taking the ethical step of suppressing the irrational demands of the will, according to Schopenhauer. There is, therefore, hope of some degree for the individual in terms of easing the suffering of life, but this diminishing of suffering is at the same time a diminishing of life itself. This is why Schopenhauer is seen as a pessimistic philosopher in terms of his attitude toward life. There is a measure of hope for the individual to lead an ethical life, but only at the cost of reducing the will to live. There seems to be no real hope for humankind, however. Individuals can make the effort which will lead to an overcoming of the will by the intellect, but the resulting silencing of the individual's will to live has no impact on the suffering of humankind as a whole. Schopenhauer seems to be saying that humankind, as a race, is hopelessly mired in the irrational and universal will to live and desire and suffer. Schopenhauer's sole suggestion for anything resembling salvation is the silencing of the will by the intellect. This is a suggestion which few individuals would be able to comprehend, much less follow success

Category: Philosophy - T