In ancient times, there was seldom a question about what was right and wrong. Through the application of natural law and reason, one could come to a close approximate to how each society would work within the civilized world. Those who did not fit the social normative standards were labeled as barbarians and not fit for civilized society. Throughout the medieval age and culminating in the modern age, natural law slowly split and segregated into three broad subjects of science, philosophy, and theology. Science was ruled by empirical data. Philosophy was ruled by reason. Theology was ruled by faith. Where and how these subjects overlapped or intersected was very difficult to distinguish. One of these areas is that of morality. How does one know what is right and wrong, and what happens within a society if two people’s opinion on the matter differ? The matter of morality is a vast topic that has many implications. Philosophy and religion both speak to this subject. This paper will seek to understand the very different views on the subject of morality in the consideration of an individual views of Hegel and his subjectivity of morals, Kierkegaard and his paradox of faith, and Nietzsche and his tyranny of morality.
To begin with Hegel, it is best to start with what he subjects morality to, “The moral is not characterized primarily by its having already been opposed to the immoral, nor is right directly characterized by its opposition to wrong. The point is rather that the general characteristics of morality and immorality alike rest on the subjectivity of the will” (42). Hegel is reorientating the direction that morality flows here. By saying that morality is not defined by the opposition to immorality or vise versa, he is saying that there is not an outside standard for morality. Rather he says that morality and immorality are ruled subjectivity of the will. No longer is there a law outside of the minds of men that direct them how to act. It is now based upon the reason within each person for how they are to act. Hegel does give some clarification on how subjective morality is within the individual. He does not completely loose it upon humanity. Rather he individualizes morality to each person. Consider how he talks about the idea of the good:
The good is the Idea as the unity of the concept of the will with the particular will. In this unity, abstract right, welfare, the subjectivity of knowing and the contingency of external fact, have their independent self-subsistence superseded, though at the same time they are still contained and retained within it in their essence. The good is thus freedom realized the absolute end and aim of the world. (48)
He is again reversing the direction of good and the will. Unity, abstract right, welfare, subjectivity of knowing and the contingency of external fact are not the standard anymore. These are not the measures of men’s lives. It is instead a combination of all these things to the particular will of a person. From this passage, it could be understood this way. There are good things in the world that are empirically good. These are not the goals of human life though. Each person may choose how they are going to work out their own form of good that should coincide to some of the parts of the empirically good in the world. This is loosening the chains on the individual from working out their good in the world in the same way as everyone else in the world. Hegel is not looking to completely free everyone to a hedonistic life. He course-corrects the individual this way:
For the subjective will, the good and the good alone is the essential, and the subjective will has value and dignity only in so far as its insight and intention accord with the good. Inasmuch as the good is at this point still only this abstract Idea of good, the subjective will has not yet been caught up into it and established as according with it. Consequently, it stands in a relation to the good, and the relation is that the good ought to be substantive for it, i.e. it ought to make the good its aim and realize it completely, while the good on its side has in the subjective will its only means of stepping into actuality. (48)
While the empirical good that is in the universe does not completely bind a person to it, the subjective will of each person should be looking to direct their life toward the good in order to bring the idea of good into reality through their action. Hegel is potentially trying to empower an individual into doing good works by making the individual the conduit for good works coming into the world. To Hegel, the ideal of good is not meant to merely be a thing to measure people’s lives against. It is meant to come into existence by way of the work of the people. This is the purpose of the human existence to Hegel. Here is how Hegel himself ties all these ideas together:
If an action is to be moral, it must in the first place correspond with my purpose, since the moral will has the right to refuse to recognize in the resulting state of affairs what was not present inwardly as purpose. Purpose concerns only the formal principle that the external will shall be within me as something inward. On the other hand, in the second moment of the moral sphere, questions may be asked about the intention behind the action, i.e. about the relative worth of the action in relation to me. The third and last moment is not the relative worth of the action but its universal worth, the good.
In a moral action, then, there may be a breach first between what is purposed and what is really affected and achieved; secondly, between what is there externally as a universal will and the particular inner determination which I give to it. The third and last point is that the intention should be in addition the universal content of the action. The good is the intention raised to be the concept of the will. (131)
With the first sentence, Hegel does imply that morality is based upon the individual’s purpose. If a person does something that could be called good that goes against the individual’s life purpose, it would actually be wrong for the person to do it according to Hegel. There must be a combination between the individual’s idea of what is good and the ideal of good. Where these two things intersect is where a person should strive to be. A single individual is not meant to do all the good in the universe, only the portion of good that is meant for his life based upon his desires for it and what he can accomplish. This idea is freeing and empower for the individual.
Soren Kierkegaard approaches the idea of morality from a very different perspective than Hegel. Through his work, Fear and Trembling, he is looking to understand the relationship between Abraham and his actions with God and God’s commandments to Abraham and the moral law. To summarize the narration of his book, Kierkegaard is trying to figure out how God’s eternal law fits together with God telling Abraham to kill his son, along with the fact that Abraham is the father of faith and is justify by the action of his willingness to murder his son. He starts off the discussion of morality with a question and answer:
Is there such a thing as a teleological suspension of the ethical?
The ethical as such is the universal, and as the universal it applies to everyone, which may be expressed from another point of view by saying that it applies every instant. It reposes immanently in itself, it has nothing without itself, which is its telos, but is itself telos for everything outside it. (423)
In the opening question, he is pondering if there is ever a time to do something unethical for the greater ethical good. He then analyzes ethics, or morality, and defines it as the universal, the thing that applies to all people all the time. It exists by itself and is the end to itself and is the end of everything else. If this is true about ethics, then how is Abraham justified in his actions towards his son? Kierkegaard calls it the paradox of faith.
For faith is this paradox, that the particular is higher than the universal—yet in such a way, be it observed, that the movement repeats itself, and that consequently the individual, after having been in the universal, now as the particular isolates himself as higher than the universal. If this be not faith, then Abraham is lost, then faith has never existed in the world because it has always existed […] Faith is precisely this paradox, that the individual as the particular is higher than the universal, is justified over against it, is not subordinate but superior—yet in such a way, be it observed, that it is the particular individual who, after he has been subordinated as the particular to the universal, now through the universal becomes the individual who as the particular is superior to the universal, for the fact that the individual as the particular stands in an absolute relation to the absolute. This position cannot be mediated, for all mediation comes about precisely by virtue of the universal; it is and remains to all eternity a paradox, inaccessible to thought. (424)
In this section, Kierkegaard is drawing the conclusion that in some instances, the particular actions of a person can supersede the universal standards of the universe. If one is told to do something by God that goes against the universal moral code of the universe, then one is responsible to do it, even if it is immoral. Divine, individual commands are superior to universal commands. The universal, moral laws of the world bind all men to them, yet there is a time to disobey them. The time to disobey is when one has been given a direct command from God. The variability of morality is not built upon the individual’s purpose as much as each individual’s mission or duty from God. Kierkegaard sees no reason for how these two things hold together, so he calls them a paradox that is inaccessible to thought.
The last view on morality to be consider is Nietzsche. In his work, he is not looking to set up a system of morality as much as he is trying to tear down the old system. He looked upon the moral systems of history and the world, such as Hegel’s and Kierkegaard’s, and deems them not worth of nature. He says it like this:
Every morality is, as opposed to laisser aller, a piece of tyranny against “nature,” likewise against “reason”: but that can be no objection to it unless one is in possession of some other morality which decrees that any kind of tyranny and unreason is impermissible. The essential and invaluable element in every morality is that it is a protracted constraint: to understand Stoicism or Port-Royal or Puritanism one should recall the constraint under which every language has hitherto attained strength and freedom—the metrical constraint, the tyranny of rhyme and rhythm. (495)
Nietzsche is setting up morality against laisser all as a tyranny against nature. Laisser aller, according to Merriam Webster, means “letting go, carelessness.” In this opening quote, he is saying that morality is against nature and that man should be free from moral laws. Morals are the binding chains of tyranny against nature and reason instead of simply letting oneself go in freedom and growth. This opening line is setting humanity up to transcend morals by way of nature and reason, like morality is a thing that humans can outgrow as they evolve into something better, which is the greater point of the book. The restraints of morality and laws go against the rhyme and rhythm of the world. It shackles men down to keep them from progressing in to what they could be. Nietzsche sees this as a terrible trouble that must be overcome systemically. He laments further:
This tyranny, this arbitrariness, this rigorous and grandiose stupidity has educated the spirit; it seems that slavery, in the cruder and in the more refined sense, is the indispensable means also for spiritual discipline and breeding. Regard any morality from this point of view: it is “nature” in it which teaches hatred of laisser aller, of too great freedom, and which implants the need for limited horizons and immediate tasks—which teaches the narrowing of perspective, and thus in a certain sense stupidity, as a condition of life and growth. “Thou shalt obey someone and for a long time: otherwise thou shalt perish and lose all respect for thyself”—this seems to me to be nature’s imperative, which is, to be sure, neither “categorical” as old Kant demanded it should be (hence the “otherwise”—), nor addressed to the individual (what do individuals matter to nature!), but to peoples, races, ages, classes, and above all to the entire animal “man,” to mankind. (496)
The tyranny of morality has educated the spirit and taught man to be a slave through spiritual discipline and breeding. It is now natural to have a hatred of the laisser aller and the freedom that comes with laisser aller. He goes further by calling it stupid. He is saying to man is bound to these old rules and laws. He is using nature in a different sense now. He is saying that man has learned to be naturally subservient to the morally binding system that is slowing humankind down. Too long have humans been under this rule. This is how Nietzsche sees morality, as a thing to be thrown off in order to grow and excel. He does not give a system to replace the current one. He sees the constraint of the old moral system and wants to see man be free from where they are currently at, so that they can grow into their higher selves.
Nietzsche does leave a warning about his system of morality and who is meant to go beyond the tyranny of morality.
Few are made for independence—it is a privilege of the strong. And he who attempts it, having the completest right to it but without being compelled to, thereby proves that he is probably not only strong but also daring to the point of recklessness. He ventures into a labyrinth, he multiplies by a thousand the dangers which life as such already brings with it, not the smallest of which is that no one can behold how and where he goes astray, is cut off from others, and is torn to pieces limb from limb by some cave-minotaur of conscience. If such a one is destroyed, it takes place so far from the understanding of men that they neither feel it nor sympathize—and he can no longer go back! He can no longer go back even to the pity of men! (477)
Only the person who is strong and sure of himself is the one who can go beyond the normal views of good and evil. It is going down into a place that is dark and hard to find one’s way in and it may lead to the death of the individual who tries to do it. The manner that Nietzsche talks about the journey down into the labyrinth though does sound like the path of a hero. While it is a warning, he is trying to make it out as a path and trial that is worthy of a life.
Throughout this paper, three very different views on morality have been analyzed. First, Hegel saw that morality was a thing that depended upon the subjective will and nature of the individual. There is an outside good that guides all men to what is best, but it is up to each individual to find out how they are to measure up to that good. Kierkegaard saw that there was a universal morality for everyone, but it could be broken because of faith and divine command. There was a set standard, but there was also a time to break and push against that standard depending upon each person’s relation to the divine and the commands of the divine. He saw these two truths as working together paradoxically. Lastly, Nietzsche was considered, not because he had a system of morality to propose for men to follow but because of the need to let go or tear down the current system. Morality is something that keep humanity back from excelling to their natural place in the universe. It stops humanity from evolving further. He sees the need to free people in order that they can work on themselves and grow beyond the social normative.
Works Cited
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Søren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche. The Philosophy of Right; The Philosophy of History; Fear and Trembling; Beyond Good and Evil. Great Books of the Western World. Ed. Mortimer J. Adler and Philip W. Goetz. Trans. T. M. Knox, Walter Lowrie, and R. J. Hollingdale. Second Edition. Vol. 43. Chicago: Robert P. Gwinn; Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1990. Print.
“Laissez-aller.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laissez-aller. Accessed 21 May. 2022.