#friedrichnietzsche — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #friedrichnietzsche, aggregated by home.social.
-
#Hindernisse und #Schwierigkeiten sind #Stufen, auf denen wir in die #Höhe steigen.
(Friedrich #Nietzsche)
#psychotHHerapie #Zitat #Zitate #FriedrichNietzsche -
Insanity in individuals is something rare -- but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #FriedrichNietzsche #Insanity #Politics
⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Mangrove #RabbitKey #Everglades #Florida
-
Insanity in individuals is something rare -- but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #FriedrichNietzsche #Insanity #Politics
⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Mangrove #RabbitKey #Everglades #Florida
-
Insanity in individuals is something rare -- but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #FriedrichNietzsche #Insanity #Politics
⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Mangrove #RabbitKey #Everglades #Florida
-
Insanity in individuals is something rare -- but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #FriedrichNietzsche #Insanity #Politics
⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Mangrove #RabbitKey #Everglades #Florida
-
Insanity in individuals is something rare -- but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #FriedrichNietzsche #Insanity #Politics
⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Mangrove #RabbitKey #Everglades #Florida
-
Die Tanzenden wurden für #verrückt gehalten von denjenigen, die die #Musik nicht hören konnten.
(Friedrich #Nietzsche)
#psychotHHerapie #Zitat #Zitate #Wahrnehmung Perspektive #FriedrichNietzsche -
The one question Nietzsche believes everyone should ask themselves before getting married
-
As regards the celebrated "struggle for life," it seems to me for the present to have been rather asserted than proved. It does occur, but as the exception; the general aspect of life is not hunger and distress, but rather wealth, luxury, even absurd prodigality -- where there is a struggle it is a struggle for power.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche -
As regards the celebrated "struggle for life," it seems to me for the present to have been rather asserted than proved. It does occur, but as the exception; the general aspect of life is not hunger and distress, but rather wealth, luxury, even absurd prodigality -- where there is a struggle it is a struggle for power.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche -
As regards the celebrated "struggle for life," it seems to me for the present to have been rather asserted than proved. It does occur, but as the exception; the general aspect of life is not hunger and distress, but rather wealth, luxury, even absurd prodigality -- where there is a struggle it is a struggle for power.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche -
As regards the celebrated "struggle for life," it seems to me for the present to have been rather asserted than proved. It does occur, but as the exception; the general aspect of life is not hunger and distress, but rather wealth, luxury, even absurd prodigality -- where there is a struggle it is a struggle for power.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche -
As regards the celebrated "struggle for life," it seems to me for the present to have been rather asserted than proved. It does occur, but as the exception; the general aspect of life is not hunger and distress, but rather wealth, luxury, even absurd prodigality -- where there is a struggle it is a struggle for power.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche -
“They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche’s Critique of the Englishman’s Philosophy
Nietzsche had a sharp and often contemptuous view of what he called “English psychology” and the broader tradition of British empiricist and utilitarian moral philosophy. His critique is scattered across several works — Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, On the Genealogy of Morality, and The Gay Science — but forms a coherent attack on a whole intellectual temperament.
1. The Critique of Utilitarianism and the “Herd Morality”
Nietzsche’s most sustained target was Utilitarian ethics — chiefly Bentham and Mill’s reduction of morality to the calculation of pleasure and pain, and the maximization of happiness for the greatest number.
- He found this mediocre and life-denying: it privileges comfort, safety, and the average over excellence, risk, and greatness.
- Utilitarianism, for Nietzsche, is the philosophical expression of the herd — a morality that flattens hierarchy and punishes the exceptional individual.
- “Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does,” he quipped in Twilight of the Idols — meaning that making happiness the supreme value is a parochial, petit-bourgeois illusion.
2. The Attack on British Empiricism and Its Psychologists
In Beyond Good and Evil (Part I) and On the Genealogy of Morality (Preface), Nietzsche attacks English moral psychologists — figures like Spencer, Hume, and their successors — for:
- Lacking historical sense: They projected modern values (utility, sympathy, altruism) backward onto all of human history, as if these had always been the basis of morality.
- Flatness of soul: They could only explain the origin of moral concepts mechanistically — habit, utility, association — and missed the deeper question of the value of values themselves.
- “They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche says this explicitly in Beyond Good and Evil (§252), charging that the English lack the instinct for genuine philosophy. They are capable of great industry and data-gathering but not of the bold, creative, self-overcoming thought he demands of a philosopher.
3. Darwin and the Problem of “Survival”
Nietzsche had a complicated relationship with Darwin, but largely rejected Social Darwinism and the popular English interpretation of evolution:
- The “survival of the fittest” was vulgarized into a justification for mediocrity — it is the most numerous, the most adaptable, the most average that survive, not the highest.
- Nietzsche argued that nature often sacrifices the species for the sake of the exceptional individual — the reverse of what the Darwinian moralists claimed.
- Evolution, in the English reading, pointed downward toward conformity; Nietzsche wanted to point upward toward the Übermensch.
4. Critique of Sympathy and Altruism (Spencer & the “Comfortable” Ethics)
Herbert Spencer attempted to merge evolution with utilitarian ethics, grounding morality in social cooperation and sympathy. Nietzsche despised this:
- Sympathy (Mitleid) — “feeling with suffering” — was for Nietzsche a form of weakness and even a contagion of suffering, not a virtue.
- Altruism as a supreme value he traced (in the Genealogy) to slave morality — the resentful inversion of aristocratic values by the weak.
- Spencer’s “evolution toward happiness” was, to Nietzsche, a comfortable lie told by a civilization in decline.
5. The Deeper Charge: Mediocrity of Philosophical Spirit
Beyond specific doctrines, Nietzsche’s critique is temperamental and cultural:
“They are not a philosophical race — the English: Bacon represents an attack on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke an abasement and a depreciation of the idea of a ‘philosopher’ for more than a century.” — Beyond Good and Evil, §252
The English philosopher, in Nietzsche’s portrait, is:
- Too empirical — chained to facts, unable to think beyond them
- Too Christian in disguise — utilitarian altruism is secularized Christian morality without the honesty of its theological roots
- Too comfortable — philosophizing in service of stability, society, and contentment, rather than danger, solitude, and transformation
Summary Table
TargetNietzsche’s ChargeUtilitarianism (Bentham/Mill)Herd morality; reduces life to comfortEmpiricism (Hume/Locke)Debases philosophy; no historical senseDarwinism (Spencer)Glorifies the average; misreads natureAltruism/SympathySlave morality in disguise; weaknessEnglish “character”Industrious but philosophically shallowA Fair Assessment
Nietzsche’s critique, while brilliant and penetrating, is also polemical and sometimes unfair. Hume, in particular, is a far deeper thinker than Nietzsche credits. And Nietzsche himself borrows more from the British tradition than he admits — his psychological method of unmasking morality owes something to precisely the “English psychologists” he mocks. The critique is best read not as sober scholarship, but as Nietzsche’s philosophical war cry against a particular vision of what life and thought are for.
#Übermensch #BeyondGoodAndEvil #Blog #BritishEmpiricism #ContinentalPhilosophy #CritiqueOfMorality #Ethics #FriedrichNietzsche #GenealogyOfMorality #HerdMorality #HistoryOfPhilosophy #MillAndBentham #Nietzsche #NietzscheVsDarwin #PhilosophicalCritique #Philosophy #SlaveMorality #Utilitarianism #WesternPhilosophy -
“They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche’s Critique of the Englishman’s Philosophy
Nietzsche had a sharp and often contemptuous view of what he called “English psychology” and the broader tradition of British empiricist and utilitarian moral philosophy. His critique is scattered across several works — Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, On the Genealogy of Morality, and The Gay Science — but forms a coherent attack on a whole intellectual temperament.
1. The Critique of Utilitarianism and the “Herd Morality”
Nietzsche’s most sustained target was Utilitarian ethics — chiefly Bentham and Mill’s reduction of morality to the calculation of pleasure and pain, and the maximization of happiness for the greatest number.
- He found this mediocre and life-denying: it privileges comfort, safety, and the average over excellence, risk, and greatness.
- Utilitarianism, for Nietzsche, is the philosophical expression of the herd — a morality that flattens hierarchy and punishes the exceptional individual.
- “Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does,” he quipped in Twilight of the Idols — meaning that making happiness the supreme value is a parochial, petit-bourgeois illusion.
2. The Attack on British Empiricism and Its Psychologists
In Beyond Good and Evil (Part I) and On the Genealogy of Morality (Preface), Nietzsche attacks English moral psychologists — figures like Spencer, Hume, and their successors — for:
- Lacking historical sense: They projected modern values (utility, sympathy, altruism) backward onto all of human history, as if these had always been the basis of morality.
- Flatness of soul: They could only explain the origin of moral concepts mechanistically — habit, utility, association — and missed the deeper question of the value of values themselves.
- “They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche says this explicitly in Beyond Good and Evil (§252), charging that the English lack the instinct for genuine philosophy. They are capable of great industry and data-gathering but not of the bold, creative, self-overcoming thought he demands of a philosopher.
3. Darwin and the Problem of “Survival”
Nietzsche had a complicated relationship with Darwin, but largely rejected Social Darwinism and the popular English interpretation of evolution:
- The “survival of the fittest” was vulgarized into a justification for mediocrity — it is the most numerous, the most adaptable, the most average that survive, not the highest.
- Nietzsche argued that nature often sacrifices the species for the sake of the exceptional individual — the reverse of what the Darwinian moralists claimed.
- Evolution, in the English reading, pointed downward toward conformity; Nietzsche wanted to point upward toward the Übermensch.
4. Critique of Sympathy and Altruism (Spencer & the “Comfortable” Ethics)
Herbert Spencer attempted to merge evolution with utilitarian ethics, grounding morality in social cooperation and sympathy. Nietzsche despised this:
- Sympathy (Mitleid) — “feeling with suffering” — was for Nietzsche a form of weakness and even a contagion of suffering, not a virtue.
- Altruism as a supreme value he traced (in the Genealogy) to slave morality — the resentful inversion of aristocratic values by the weak.
- Spencer’s “evolution toward happiness” was, to Nietzsche, a comfortable lie told by a civilization in decline.
5. The Deeper Charge: Mediocrity of Philosophical Spirit
Beyond specific doctrines, Nietzsche’s critique is temperamental and cultural:
“They are not a philosophical race — the English: Bacon represents an attack on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke an abasement and a depreciation of the idea of a ‘philosopher’ for more than a century.” — Beyond Good and Evil, §252
The English philosopher, in Nietzsche’s portrait, is:
- Too empirical — chained to facts, unable to think beyond them
- Too Christian in disguise — utilitarian altruism is secularized Christian morality without the honesty of its theological roots
- Too comfortable — philosophizing in service of stability, society, and contentment, rather than danger, solitude, and transformation
Summary Table
TargetNietzsche’s ChargeUtilitarianism (Bentham/Mill)Herd morality; reduces life to comfortEmpiricism (Hume/Locke)Debases philosophy; no historical senseDarwinism (Spencer)Glorifies the average; misreads natureAltruism/SympathySlave morality in disguise; weaknessEnglish “character”Industrious but philosophically shallowA Fair Assessment
Nietzsche’s critique, while brilliant and penetrating, is also polemical and sometimes unfair. Hume, in particular, is a far deeper thinker than Nietzsche credits. And Nietzsche himself borrows more from the British tradition than he admits — his psychological method of unmasking morality owes something to precisely the “English psychologists” he mocks. The critique is best read not as sober scholarship, but as Nietzsche’s philosophical war cry against a particular vision of what life and thought are for.
#Übermensch #BeyondGoodAndEvil #Blog #Books #BritishEmpiricism #ContinentalPhilosophy #CritiqueOfMorality #Ethics #FriedrichNietzsche #GenealogyOfMorality #HerdMorality #history #HistoryOfPhilosophy #MillAndBentham #Nietzsche #NietzscheVsDarwin #PhilosophicalCritique #Philosophy #Religion #SlaveMorality #Utilitarianism #WesternPhilosophy -
“They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche’s Critique of the Englishman’s Philosophy
Nietzsche had a sharp and often contemptuous view of what he called “English psychology” and the broader tradition of British empiricist and utilitarian moral philosophy. His critique is scattered across several works — Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, On the Genealogy of Morality, and The Gay Science — but forms a coherent attack on a whole intellectual temperament.
1. The Critique of Utilitarianism and the “Herd Morality”
Nietzsche’s most sustained target was Utilitarian ethics — chiefly Bentham and Mill’s reduction of morality to the calculation of pleasure and pain, and the maximization of happiness for the greatest number.
- He found this mediocre and life-denying: it privileges comfort, safety, and the average over excellence, risk, and greatness.
- Utilitarianism, for Nietzsche, is the philosophical expression of the herd — a morality that flattens hierarchy and punishes the exceptional individual.
- “Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does,” he quipped in Twilight of the Idols — meaning that making happiness the supreme value is a parochial, petit-bourgeois illusion.
2. The Attack on British Empiricism and Its Psychologists
In Beyond Good and Evil (Part I) and On the Genealogy of Morality (Preface), Nietzsche attacks English moral psychologists — figures like Spencer, Hume, and their successors — for:
- Lacking historical sense: They projected modern values (utility, sympathy, altruism) backward onto all of human history, as if these had always been the basis of morality.
- Flatness of soul: They could only explain the origin of moral concepts mechanistically — habit, utility, association — and missed the deeper question of the value of values themselves.
- “They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche says this explicitly in Beyond Good and Evil (§252), charging that the English lack the instinct for genuine philosophy. They are capable of great industry and data-gathering but not of the bold, creative, self-overcoming thought he demands of a philosopher.
3. Darwin and the Problem of “Survival”
Nietzsche had a complicated relationship with Darwin, but largely rejected Social Darwinism and the popular English interpretation of evolution:
- The “survival of the fittest” was vulgarized into a justification for mediocrity — it is the most numerous, the most adaptable, the most average that survive, not the highest.
- Nietzsche argued that nature often sacrifices the species for the sake of the exceptional individual — the reverse of what the Darwinian moralists claimed.
- Evolution, in the English reading, pointed downward toward conformity; Nietzsche wanted to point upward toward the Übermensch.
4. Critique of Sympathy and Altruism (Spencer & the “Comfortable” Ethics)
Herbert Spencer attempted to merge evolution with utilitarian ethics, grounding morality in social cooperation and sympathy. Nietzsche despised this:
- Sympathy (Mitleid) — “feeling with suffering” — was for Nietzsche a form of weakness and even a contagion of suffering, not a virtue.
- Altruism as a supreme value he traced (in the Genealogy) to slave morality — the resentful inversion of aristocratic values by the weak.
- Spencer’s “evolution toward happiness” was, to Nietzsche, a comfortable lie told by a civilization in decline.
5. The Deeper Charge: Mediocrity of Philosophical Spirit
Beyond specific doctrines, Nietzsche’s critique is temperamental and cultural:
“They are not a philosophical race — the English: Bacon represents an attack on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke an abasement and a depreciation of the idea of a ‘philosopher’ for more than a century.” — Beyond Good and Evil, §252
The English philosopher, in Nietzsche’s portrait, is:
- Too empirical — chained to facts, unable to think beyond them
- Too Christian in disguise — utilitarian altruism is secularized Christian morality without the honesty of its theological roots
- Too comfortable — philosophizing in service of stability, society, and contentment, rather than danger, solitude, and transformation
Summary Table
TargetNietzsche’s ChargeUtilitarianism (Bentham/Mill)Herd morality; reduces life to comfortEmpiricism (Hume/Locke)Debases philosophy; no historical senseDarwinism (Spencer)Glorifies the average; misreads natureAltruism/SympathySlave morality in disguise; weaknessEnglish “character”Industrious but philosophically shallowA Fair Assessment
Nietzsche’s critique, while brilliant and penetrating, is also polemical and sometimes unfair. Hume, in particular, is a far deeper thinker than Nietzsche credits. And Nietzsche himself borrows more from the British tradition than he admits — his psychological method of unmasking morality owes something to precisely the “English psychologists” he mocks. The critique is best read not as sober scholarship, but as Nietzsche’s philosophical war cry against a particular vision of what life and thought are for.
#Übermensch #BeyondGoodAndEvil #Blog #Books #BritishEmpiricism #ContinentalPhilosophy #CritiqueOfMorality #Ethics #FriedrichNietzsche #GenealogyOfMorality #HerdMorality #history #HistoryOfPhilosophy #MillAndBentham #Nietzsche #NietzscheVsDarwin #PhilosophicalCritique #Philosophy #Religion #SlaveMorality #Utilitarianism #WesternPhilosophy -
“They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche’s Critique of the Englishman’s Philosophy
Nietzsche had a sharp and often contemptuous view of what he called “English psychology” and the broader tradition of British empiricist and utilitarian moral philosophy. His critique is scattered across several works — Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, On the Genealogy of Morality, and The Gay Science — but forms a coherent attack on a whole intellectual temperament.
1. The Critique of Utilitarianism and the “Herd Morality”
Nietzsche’s most sustained target was Utilitarian ethics — chiefly Bentham and Mill’s reduction of morality to the calculation of pleasure and pain, and the maximization of happiness for the greatest number.
- He found this mediocre and life-denying: it privileges comfort, safety, and the average over excellence, risk, and greatness.
- Utilitarianism, for Nietzsche, is the philosophical expression of the herd — a morality that flattens hierarchy and punishes the exceptional individual.
- “Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does,” he quipped in Twilight of the Idols — meaning that making happiness the supreme value is a parochial, petit-bourgeois illusion.
2. The Attack on British Empiricism and Its Psychologists
In Beyond Good and Evil (Part I) and On the Genealogy of Morality (Preface), Nietzsche attacks English moral psychologists — figures like Spencer, Hume, and their successors — for:
- Lacking historical sense: They projected modern values (utility, sympathy, altruism) backward onto all of human history, as if these had always been the basis of morality.
- Flatness of soul: They could only explain the origin of moral concepts mechanistically — habit, utility, association — and missed the deeper question of the value of values themselves.
- “They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche says this explicitly in Beyond Good and Evil (§252), charging that the English lack the instinct for genuine philosophy. They are capable of great industry and data-gathering but not of the bold, creative, self-overcoming thought he demands of a philosopher.
3. Darwin and the Problem of “Survival”
Nietzsche had a complicated relationship with Darwin, but largely rejected Social Darwinism and the popular English interpretation of evolution:
- The “survival of the fittest” was vulgarized into a justification for mediocrity — it is the most numerous, the most adaptable, the most average that survive, not the highest.
- Nietzsche argued that nature often sacrifices the species for the sake of the exceptional individual — the reverse of what the Darwinian moralists claimed.
- Evolution, in the English reading, pointed downward toward conformity; Nietzsche wanted to point upward toward the Übermensch.
4. Critique of Sympathy and Altruism (Spencer & the “Comfortable” Ethics)
Herbert Spencer attempted to merge evolution with utilitarian ethics, grounding morality in social cooperation and sympathy. Nietzsche despised this:
- Sympathy (Mitleid) — “feeling with suffering” — was for Nietzsche a form of weakness and even a contagion of suffering, not a virtue.
- Altruism as a supreme value he traced (in the Genealogy) to slave morality — the resentful inversion of aristocratic values by the weak.
- Spencer’s “evolution toward happiness” was, to Nietzsche, a comfortable lie told by a civilization in decline.
5. The Deeper Charge: Mediocrity of Philosophical Spirit
Beyond specific doctrines, Nietzsche’s critique is temperamental and cultural:
“They are not a philosophical race — the English: Bacon represents an attack on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke an abasement and a depreciation of the idea of a ‘philosopher’ for more than a century.” — Beyond Good and Evil, §252
The English philosopher, in Nietzsche’s portrait, is:
- Too empirical — chained to facts, unable to think beyond them
- Too Christian in disguise — utilitarian altruism is secularized Christian morality without the honesty of its theological roots
- Too comfortable — philosophizing in service of stability, society, and contentment, rather than danger, solitude, and transformation
Summary Table
TargetNietzsche’s ChargeUtilitarianism (Bentham/Mill)Herd morality; reduces life to comfortEmpiricism (Hume/Locke)Debases philosophy; no historical senseDarwinism (Spencer)Glorifies the average; misreads natureAltruism/SympathySlave morality in disguise; weaknessEnglish “character”Industrious but philosophically shallowA Fair Assessment
Nietzsche’s critique, while brilliant and penetrating, is also polemical and sometimes unfair. Hume, in particular, is a far deeper thinker than Nietzsche credits. And Nietzsche himself borrows more from the British tradition than he admits — his psychological method of unmasking morality owes something to precisely the “English psychologists” he mocks. The critique is best read not as sober scholarship, but as Nietzsche’s philosophical war cry against a particular vision of what life and thought are for.
#Übermensch #BeyondGoodAndEvil #Blog #Books #BritishEmpiricism #ContinentalPhilosophy #CritiqueOfMorality #Ethics #FriedrichNietzsche #GenealogyOfMorality #HerdMorality #history #HistoryOfPhilosophy #MillAndBentham #Nietzsche #NietzscheVsDarwin #PhilosophicalCritique #Philosophy #Religion #SlaveMorality #Utilitarianism #WesternPhilosophy -
“They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche’s Critique of the Englishman’s Philosophy
Nietzsche had a sharp and often contemptuous view of what he called “English psychology” and the broader tradition of British empiricist and utilitarian moral philosophy. His critique is scattered across several works — Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, On the Genealogy of Morality, and The Gay Science — but forms a coherent attack on a whole intellectual temperament.
1. The Critique of Utilitarianism and the “Herd Morality”
Nietzsche’s most sustained target was Utilitarian ethics — chiefly Bentham and Mill’s reduction of morality to the calculation of pleasure and pain, and the maximization of happiness for the greatest number.
- He found this mediocre and life-denying: it privileges comfort, safety, and the average over excellence, risk, and greatness.
- Utilitarianism, for Nietzsche, is the philosophical expression of the herd — a morality that flattens hierarchy and punishes the exceptional individual.
- “Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does,” he quipped in Twilight of the Idols — meaning that making happiness the supreme value is a parochial, petit-bourgeois illusion.
2. The Attack on British Empiricism and Its Psychologists
In Beyond Good and Evil (Part I) and On the Genealogy of Morality (Preface), Nietzsche attacks English moral psychologists — figures like Spencer, Hume, and their successors — for:
- Lacking historical sense: They projected modern values (utility, sympathy, altruism) backward onto all of human history, as if these had always been the basis of morality.
- Flatness of soul: They could only explain the origin of moral concepts mechanistically — habit, utility, association — and missed the deeper question of the value of values themselves.
- “They are no philosophical race”: Nietzsche says this explicitly in Beyond Good and Evil (§252), charging that the English lack the instinct for genuine philosophy. They are capable of great industry and data-gathering but not of the bold, creative, self-overcoming thought he demands of a philosopher.
3. Darwin and the Problem of “Survival”
Nietzsche had a complicated relationship with Darwin, but largely rejected Social Darwinism and the popular English interpretation of evolution:
- The “survival of the fittest” was vulgarized into a justification for mediocrity — it is the most numerous, the most adaptable, the most average that survive, not the highest.
- Nietzsche argued that nature often sacrifices the species for the sake of the exceptional individual — the reverse of what the Darwinian moralists claimed.
- Evolution, in the English reading, pointed downward toward conformity; Nietzsche wanted to point upward toward the Übermensch.
4. Critique of Sympathy and Altruism (Spencer & the “Comfortable” Ethics)
Herbert Spencer attempted to merge evolution with utilitarian ethics, grounding morality in social cooperation and sympathy. Nietzsche despised this:
- Sympathy (Mitleid) — “feeling with suffering” — was for Nietzsche a form of weakness and even a contagion of suffering, not a virtue.
- Altruism as a supreme value he traced (in the Genealogy) to slave morality — the resentful inversion of aristocratic values by the weak.
- Spencer’s “evolution toward happiness” was, to Nietzsche, a comfortable lie told by a civilization in decline.
5. The Deeper Charge: Mediocrity of Philosophical Spirit
Beyond specific doctrines, Nietzsche’s critique is temperamental and cultural:
“They are not a philosophical race — the English: Bacon represents an attack on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke an abasement and a depreciation of the idea of a ‘philosopher’ for more than a century.” — Beyond Good and Evil, §252
The English philosopher, in Nietzsche’s portrait, is:
- Too empirical — chained to facts, unable to think beyond them
- Too Christian in disguise — utilitarian altruism is secularized Christian morality without the honesty of its theological roots
- Too comfortable — philosophizing in service of stability, society, and contentment, rather than danger, solitude, and transformation
Summary Table
TargetNietzsche’s ChargeUtilitarianism (Bentham/Mill)Herd morality; reduces life to comfortEmpiricism (Hume/Locke)Debases philosophy; no historical senseDarwinism (Spencer)Glorifies the average; misreads natureAltruism/SympathySlave morality in disguise; weaknessEnglish “character”Industrious but philosophically shallowA Fair Assessment
Nietzsche’s critique, while brilliant and penetrating, is also polemical and sometimes unfair. Hume, in particular, is a far deeper thinker than Nietzsche credits. And Nietzsche himself borrows more from the British tradition than he admits — his psychological method of unmasking morality owes something to precisely the “English psychologists” he mocks. The critique is best read not as sober scholarship, but as Nietzsche’s philosophical war cry against a particular vision of what life and thought are for.
#Übermensch #BeyondGoodAndEvil #Blog #Books #BritishEmpiricism #ContinentalPhilosophy #CritiqueOfMorality #Ethics #FriedrichNietzsche #GenealogyOfMorality #HerdMorality #history #HistoryOfPhilosophy #MillAndBentham #Nietzsche #NietzscheVsDarwin #PhilosophicalCritique #Philosophy #Religion #SlaveMorality #Utilitarianism #WesternPhilosophy -
Die häufigste Form der #Dummheit ist, sein #Ziel zu vergessen.
(Friedrich #Nietzsche)
#psychotHHerapie #Zitat #Zitate #Vergesslichkeit #FriedrichNietzsche -
Die häufigste Form der #Dummheit ist, sein #Ziel zu vergessen.
(Friedrich #Nietzsche)
#psychotHHerapie #Zitat #Zitate #Vergesslichkeit #FriedrichNietzsche -
Die häufigste Form der #Dummheit ist, sein #Ziel zu vergessen.
(Friedrich #Nietzsche)
#psychotHHerapie #Zitat #Zitate #Vergesslichkeit #FriedrichNietzsche -
Die häufigste Form der #Dummheit ist, sein #Ziel zu vergessen.
(Friedrich #Nietzsche)
#psychotHHerapie #Zitat #Zitate #Vergesslichkeit #FriedrichNietzsche -
Friedrich Nietzsche was not a Transhumanist
Read the entire article at the link below:
https://www.wittystore.com/friedrich-nietzsche-was-not-a-transhumanist#philosophy #ai #technology #transhumanism #friedrichnietzsche #emanuelemulas #wittystore #science #future
-
Wir haben die #Kunst, damit wir nicht an der #Wahrheit zugrunde gehen.
(Friedrich #Nietzsche)
#psychotHHerapie #Zitat #Zitate #FriedrichNietzsche -
It is not the lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche -
As regards the celebrated "struggle for life," it seems to me for the present to have been rather asserted than proved. It does occur, but as the exception; the general aspect of life is not hunger and distress, but rather wealth, luxury, even absurd prodigality -- where there is a struggle it is a struggle for power.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #FriedrichNietzsche #Life #Struggle
⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Panopainting #Protest #MarchForOurLives #Florida
-
Wir sind so gern in der freien #Natur, weil diese keine #Meinung über uns hat
(Friedrich #Nietzsche)
#psychotHHerapie #Zitat #Zitate #Urteil #Freiheit #FriedrichNietzsche -
As regards the celebrated "struggle for life," it seems to me for the present to have been rather asserted than proved. It does occur, but as the exception; the general aspect of life is not hunger and distress, but rather wealth, luxury, even absurd prodigality -- where there is a struggle it is a struggle for power.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche -
That one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backwards, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
-
Lange tijd vocht ik met een engel.
Als de engel moe werd, overlegde hij met God…
Poetry in motion, 539: Toon Tellegen, Het gelijk aan mijn zijde
https://bit.ly/PIM539-tellegen
#poëzie #animatie #ToonTellegen #JoostPrinsen #engel #gevecht #God #FriedrichNietzsche #hetgelijk #onverslaanbaar -
#OnThisDay in 1896, "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (Thus Spake Zarathustra) by #RichardStrauss, inspired by #FriedrichNietzsche's philosophical novel, debuts in Frankfurt.
-
Belief means not wanting to know what is true.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche -
On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche (PDF)
Author: Friedrich Nietzsche
File Type: PDF
Download at https://sci-books.com/on-the-genealogy-of-morals-and-ecce-homo-0679724621/
#Philosophers, #FriedrichNietzsche -
“sulla funzione della negazione nella poetica di emilio villa”: un saggio inedito di aldo tagliaferri (2025)
https://archive.org/details/tagliaferri-negazione-poetica-emilio-villa
= https://slowforward.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/aldo-tagliaferri_-sulla-funzione-della-negazione-nella-poetica-di-emilio-villa_-pdf-slowforward-nov-2025.pdfcliccare per accedere al pdf
#EmilioVilla #AldoTagliaferri #negazione #GeorgesBataille #FriedrichNietzsche
#AldoTagliaferri #AldoTagliaferri #art #arte #Bataille #EmiioVilla #EmilioVilla #FriedrichNietzsche #GeorgesBataille #Hegel #heidegger #immanenza #letteratura #metamorfosi #negazione #Nietzsche #oggetto #poesia #prosa #sacrificio #sacro #saggio #storia #tempo #teoria #trascendenza #Villa
-
“sulla funzione della negazione nella poetica di emilio villa”: un saggio inedito di aldo tagliaferri
=
https://archive.org/details/tagliaferri-negazione-poetica-emilio-villacliccare per accedere al pdf
#EmilioVilla #AldoTagliaferri #negazione #GeorgesBataille #FriedrichNietzsche
#AldoTagliaferri #AldoTagliaferri #art #arte #Bataille #EmiioVilla #EmilioVilla #FriedrichNietzsche #GeorgesBataille #Hegel #heidegger #immanenza #letteratura #metamorfosi #negazione #Nietzsche #oggetto #poesia #prosa #sacrificio #sacro #saggio #storia #tempo #teoria #trascendenza #Villa
-
As regards the celebrated "struggle for life," it seems to me for the present to have been rather asserted than proved. It does occur, but as the exception; the general aspect of life is not hunger and distress, but rather wealth, luxury, even absurd prodigality -- where there is a struggle it is a struggle for power.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #FriedrichNietzsche #Life #Struggle
⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Pictographs #RockArt #DefianceHouse #LakePowell #Utah
-
Virtues are dangerous as vices insofar as they are allowed to rule over one as authorities and not as qualities one develops oneself.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche -
Zum 125. Todestag von F. Nietzsche: So fern dem Leben. Hörstück von Ulrich Basssenge (SRF 2014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYg669Nxdec
Es kann anlässlich seines Todestages (Nietzsche ist 125 Jahre tot) nicht um eine blinde Huldigung gehen. Basssenger unternimmt vielmehr in seiner „Dramödie“ eine makroskopische Entzauberung des Menschen Nietzsche in seiner Raumzeit. Im metaphysischen Oberengadin, im Meereshimmelblau von Genua und im philiströsen Treiben der Metropole Basel nähert sich Friedrich Nietzsche dem Leben an. Oder den Menschen. Er hat viel zu geben, aber viel erwartet er auch. Und so schlägt er das Leben und die Menschen in die Flucht.
#Dramödie #FriedrichNietzsche #Hörspiel #Hörstück #SRF #UlrichBassenge
-
125 anni dalla morte di #FriedrichNietzsche 2) #EumirDeodato prende il poema sinfonico di #RichardStrauss che in quegli anni era noto soprattutto come colonna sonora di "2001 - Odissea nello Spazio" e crea un arrangiamento #2die4. Inutile sottolineare il collegamento col pensatore tedesco. Also sprach Zarathustra - Invidious https://iv.duti.dev/watch?v=qJK3eUP5Hvg
-
Un político divide a la humanidad en dos clases, los instrumentos y los enemigos.
https://www.enfaseterminal.com/2025/04/un-politico-divide.html
#FriedrichNietzsche #blogenfaseterminal #Fuedicho #citaxdia #politica #politicos #enemigos #instrumentos -
Even a thought, even a possibility, can shatter us and transform us.
#einzelgänger #einzelganger #philosopher #quoteoftheday #philosophy #quotestoliveby #dailyquotes #thoughts #thoughtoftheday #lifequotes #success #failure #possibility #transform #friedrichnietzsche #nietzsche
-
Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.
#einzelgänger #einzelganger #philosopher #quoteoftheday #philosophy #quotestoliveby #dailyquotes #thoughts #thoughtoftheday #meditation #innerpeace #lifequotes #thinker #understood #missunderstood #nietzsche #friedrichnietzsche
-
The most common sort of lie is the one uttered to one's self.
#einzelgänger #einzelganger #philosopher #quoteoftheday #philosophy #quotestoliveby #dailyquotes #thoughts #thoughtoftheday #meditation #innerpeace #lifequotes #lie #existentialist #existentialism #friedrichnietzsche #nietzsche -
Leo Strauss and Nietzsche
https://library.hrmtc.com/2024/12/20/leo-strauss-and-nietzsche-2/
#8906PoliticalPhilosophy #book #FriedrichNietzsche #FriedrichWilhelmNietzsche18441900 #FriedrichWilhelmNietzsche18441900Biographies #FriedrichWilhelmNietzsche18441900PenseEPolitiqueEtSociale #FriedrichWilhelmNietzsche18441900PoliticalAndSocialViews #HistorySurveysModern #HistoryOfPhilosophy #LaurenceLampert #LeoStraus #LeoStrauss #LeoStrauss18991973Biographies #LeoStrauss18991973 #ModernWesternPhilosophy #PhilosophyPhilosophyOfSociety #plato #PlatoPoliticalAndSocialViews #PlatonPenseEPolitiqueEtSociale #PoliticalAndSocialViews #PoliticalScienceClassicPoliticalThought #PolitiekeFilosofie #review #TPolyphilus
