Morality and Righteousness, Essay Example

The concept of morality and righteousness has been a given throughout the ages: indeed, throughout every culture, every faith, every race, the concept of decency and embodying good in acts and deeds has been a shared goal and trait for all.  It has been argued that good is a point of view by some in that what is helpful or benign for one individual leads, invariably at times, to something much worse for another: one notable instance being that of the invention of motorcars, known otherwise as horseless carriages and how once these motorized vehicles came about, carriage drivers were, by and by, put out of business, in this case, the introduction of a motorized vehicle eliminating the need for animal power and one to drive said animal.

Similarly, morality, as defined in Webster’s Dictionary, is identified as “conformity to the rules of right conduct; moralor virtuous conduct”, and to be virtuous is, of course, an extension of good itself in that one embodies the rules and goals that are required to live a lifethat is, for lack of a better word, good.

Both the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and the more contemporary existentialist German writer Friedrich Nietzsche held varying viewpoints on the notion of morality for man from those of Aristotle.

The written work entitled Twilight of the Idols, penned by the German philologist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, was written as a critical rebuke towards German culture of his time, taking care to criticize similarly notable French, Italian and English cultural figures that embodied tendencies akin to those of which Nietzsche disapproved of.  In one chapter of Idols entitled Morality as Anti-Nature, Nietzsche, believing not in God but in the nature of man as a higher animal, maintained that man’s passions are a form of desire, a common trait shared by all life forms, and that passions allow men to obtain the benefits of life without falling prey to the consequences because of his own control over those circumstances that would otherwise prevent him from obtaining what he wishes.  Similarly, some weaker men, as Nietzsche puts it, are less capable of controlling their passions and so abstain from them on the whole, as a means of exerting a controlling grip over them.  Finally, according to Nietzsche, some exist that cannot resist the temptations of their own passions, at any given turn and so they view those passions as oppressors; to cope with this, according to Nietzsche, those that cannot resist their passions, devise moralities to mark their passions as evil rather than their own weaknesses, and in so doing, they deny the essential quintessence of their own natures. Nietzsche maintained that denial of one’s passions is as absurd as the denial of reality itself: one might liken passions to a wild creature such as a tiger in that a strong man might attempt to capture, grapple with and tame the beast, while a lesser would, to the slightest degree, run from the tiger.  A true fool, however, would simply choose to pretend that the tiger does not exist at all.  In short, Nietzsche maintained that the best and greatest moralities are such that they accommodate human natures whereas the weakest of them choose to deny human nature outright.

Nietzsche’s viewpoints vary substantially with those of Aristotle, who maintains that, as humans, one’s first priority must be to set a high goal and to strive for it, and that all things done in life, everything in our intent, must be done with the goal in mind always.  The highest goal, as Aristotle put it, must be to serve mankind.  Aristotle put forth the notion that the greatest and most important role that can be played in life is that of government service.A view held by Aristotle was that three type of life exist: the life of enjoyment, the life of politics and the life of contemplative thought, and, as Aristotle pegged it, the life of enjoyment, the life that most men seem to seek out for themselves, is the lowest of the three and that “men of superior refinement and active dispositions…identify happiness with honor”, or rather, the political life, which Aristotle went on to define as the second best of the three.  The very best of them all, as Aristotle had put it, was the contemplative life as a goal, for solely the truly virtuous among mankind in life would enter the contemplative life, and virtue, as Aristotle viewed it, is supremely higher in lasting value to honor.  Aristotle viewed happiness as the greatest good of all and that the state of happiness in itself ought to be the aim of governmental affairs.  The notion that places Aristotle’s views in a sharp contrast to those given by Nietzsche was simply that Aristotle also reasoned that good is “that for the sake of which all else is done” and that, granted a choice betwixt good and evil, man must and does choose to do good.  Nietzsche himself did not express the view of good in such a glorified manner as an existentialist, to say nothing of his own personal view of morality being a manmade concept and therefore subject to twisting around: Nietzsche believed in no God and maintained the concept of good and evil as something thought of and embodied by man in man’s life, dealings and deeds.  In a sharp contrast, Aristotle viewed the concept of an ultimate good as something that was always to be an end and never a means: to elucidate, Aristotle viewed an ultimate good as a lifetime of virtuosity and doing what is right.

In conclusion, Nietzsche’s views carry a great deal of reasoning behind them in that more often than not, men will brand what passions they themselves cannot control a sin or a crime, simply because they themselves cannot control their own passions and thus see fit to brand them a crime.  Nietzsche’s reasoning behind this, while accurate to one extent, might, if misread or misunderstood, lead to individuals rejecting morality altogether: morality being that set of socially acceptable traits and acts that exists in societies to live by in such a way that man lives in a manner that harms neither himself nor others rather than, as Nietzsche views it, a simple set of manmade rules that serve to hinder men from pursuing what they most want.  Morality, in this sense, is therefore something that prevents the worst from taking place in a peaceful society and maintaining civility and order among mankind.

Aristotle’s views, to the common idealist, fit well with the concept of what society must follow, at least to a majority of its tenets rather than as a whole: Aristotle maintains that a degree of altruism, doing good for society out of no expectance of reward or pay, is the key to ultimate happiness and to be dismissive of these teachings is to be a certifiable fool.

On the whole, Aristotle’s view is a better perspective of morality and good for mankind and further proof that good is, in fact, not at all a mere point of view but a state of being, and one that, with cooperation from all, everyone can obtain for themselves.

Works Cited

Aristotle. “The Aim of Man”, A World of Ideas 8^th Edition, Lee A. Jacobus, Boston; Bedford, 2010, 690-709

Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Morality as Anti-Nature”, A World of Ideas 8^th Edition, Lee A. Jacobus, Boston; Bedford, 2010, 713-27

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, W.D. Ross,Newbury, MA: Focus Pub./R. Pullins, 2002, 3-70

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols; and, The Anti-Christ. London, England New York, N.Y., USA: Penguin Books, 1990, 160-84