welcome today we are going to address atheistic existentialism we're going to compare different atheist existentialists uh satra and nietzsche together and in so we're going to find this debate between different ethical positions that hold the same basic outlook that even though you might have the same starting assumptions what this means can be things that are terribly different saatra is going to hold to the idea that you have obligations that you owe other people while nietzsche is a relativist believing that he owes nobody anything else while both have the starting point of being atheists and both believe that all of life boils down to your choices and decisions what they do with that becomes things that are terribly different from one another to begin with existentialism has got different branches and they look at things differently for our discussions the two atheist existentialists that we're choosing to highlight as sartre and nietzsche and we'll understand that while they might share this idea of being atheist existentialists not all existentialism is the same and not all atheist existentialists will hold the same moral views either [Music] to start with i'm going to be so bold as to point out something that's wrong with satra in many ways this is a very bold statement for me to make because satra is generally regarded as the greatest of the french existentialists and the father of french atheistic existentialism and for me to sit back later and say yeah you were wrong about this seems a little petty and nonsensical and and really kind of problematic in all sorts of different ways but santa ends up making a statement somewhat casually and somewhat very importantly in his work existentialism is a humanism that a lot of people because satra is an expert in this field take to just be true and yet it's not and this is a claim around the notion of one's existence preceding one's essence this is in fact a central tenet of atheistic existentialism as advocated by safra but this is not the case for all existentialists he ends up claiming that theistic existentialists would agree with this claim in his work and while he might find a few who would it really wouldn't be apt to say that that's an accurate statement people like kierkegaard would vigorously disagree with this and we'll kind of tease out the idea of existence and essence and what these mean here in a little while but this is a very important distinction to be made between atheistic existentialists like satra and kamu and nietzsche and theistic existentialists on the other hand like kierkegaard and dostoevsky another subtle but key distinction between these groups is over terms which have a certain amount of overlap in their meaning but how they're applied is also very different the notion of the absurd is really important for kamu and has its grounding in the fact that there is no god for his position while kierkegaard would never advocate for notions of the absurd he does have a parallel train of thought when he addresses the paradox and in many ways the paradox is the absurd but with the distinction that there is a god and an object for which faith must be done and yet trying to think what thought itself cannot think trying to reach beyond it yourself could be seen as an absurdity it's got fruit at the result of it for kierkegaard and therefore it's not an absurdity but a paradox and is a driving force of his notion of theistic existentialism so if existentialism is not what you're going to get it casually mentioned in by satra's your existence preceding your essence or the idea of the absurd what is it well we've mentioned this a little bit before but importantly existentialism is a school of philosophical thought that emphasizes your choices and your decisions it's about what you decide to do because when you decide to do something that has everything wrapped up into it it makes you who you are and so you can't casually make a decision all decisions will carry the weight that kierkegaard had with breaking off his engagement with regine olsen that it's hard and difficult but yet a task that needs to be done this is the emphasis of what existentialism truly is is it's about your choices it's not about absurdity although your choices might be based on absurdity it's not about a paradox although your choices might be wrapped up in within a notion of a paradox it does have a relation between your existence and your essence and depending on how you're going to be presenting your notions of existentialism these will look differently for satra the choices and decisions that you make are essential because as we'll point out is the key notion in his work existentialism as a humanism in fashioning myself i fashioned man you fashion yourself you make yourself who you are through your choices and decisions and this is what existentialism is for sakra much more than the other things that kind of build off of this right the whole idea of one's existence preceding your essence really is how it relates to this thesis that your decisions decide who you are and satra also says that decides who everybody is so how would i define existentialism the best definition i can come up with is that it's a philosophical movement which emphasizes the existence of the individual an individual who is a responsible agent who through choices of their own determines their essence now this doesn't mean that one happens to exist prior to the other and again depending on how we would like to address this we would look at these ideas differently now the issues that are being debated here between our theistic and atheistic counterparts are the notions of your essence and your existence these are supposed to be one these are supposed to be identical your essence is what you are who you are as an individual if i was to ask you who you are you'll give me your name maybe an occupation maybe a couple of traits right who do you think you are in yourself this is the notion of your essence as opposed to your existence and that is that you are right you exist you breathe you walk you talk you relate with other people etc right however you're going to find existence undoubtedly you would say that you exist if you don't then this is a whole different discussion for you isn't it but the fact that you believe that you exists means that you're out here amongst everything else so the question between our different camps of existentialists is which one comes first your essence or your existence who you are or what you do and these again who you are and what you do should be the same your choices and decisions are to bring these things together in one form or another so quick poll have you ever stolen something yes have you ever lied maybe would it be accurate to say that if you steal that you are a criminal and a thief that this is who you are after all what you've done has stolen it's the act of a thief would it be accurate to say that if you have lied that you are a liar would it be okay for somebody to characterize you as a thief and a liar after all if you've stolen even a little thing even if it was a while ago maybe you were a child maybe it was a paper clip from work doesn't matter it wasn't yours you stole it you are a thief if you've ever lied no yeah this food is great [Music] it's horrible but i'm gonna say it's great i don't wanna hurt your feelings or yeah i'll call you again yeah i don't ever wanna talk to you again this was the worst date ever or whatever right if you've lied even if it's for a good reason even if you can come up with a million reasons why it's okay you are a liar and many of you who are listening to me engaged in this class are a bunch of liars and thieves if you were to ask me to write you a letter of recommendation should i state so and so was a general good student it's amazing what they're able to do singing is they are a liar and a thief you'd probably say you should leave that other part out that's not really how i see myself you would probably say since the majority of people do say this no no i'm a good person those are exceptions to who i am they're not really who i am that my existence didn't correspond with my essence even though what your existence has demonstrated is that you are a thief and a liar is there a difference depending on the action of what we would say changes somebody's essence how about if they murdered somebody i just casually you know murdered people that doesn't mean i'm a murderer or would you say no sorry that's a big that one you you're stuck with does it matter the severity of it or is it only mean that when you decided it was okay to lie that you're a casual liar that you think lying is so unimportant that it is really who you are all the more the murderer might actually feel great and grave remorse over this action it might be something that haunts them all the days of their life that they did this yet you are making excuses and ignoring the fact that you lie and steal maybe you don't maybe i'm talking to your classmates instead of you maybe you've been the perfect you know paradigm of virtue your entire life congratulations if so but are there certain actions which change who you are in your essence or is it just your existence we can very clearly see this sort of debate and discussion between our different types of existentialists on this very basic question are you indeed a liar and a thief or have you just lied and stolen so our camps of existentialism is fairly well drawn for the christian existentialists your essence precedes your existence who you are exists before you've done a single thing god knows who you are and your job through your life is to match who god knows you to be with what you do in your life you are to live up to the virtues and character to which god envisions you to be and your choices are difficult but you have a calling you have a direction you have an identity and you need to live up to that and again your choices are very important with that for the atheist existentialists your existence precedes your essence there's nothing but you to tell you who you are and the only way of telling you who you are is by what you do so if you steal that is who you are if you lie that is who you are you know why i know that because you did it and you can't appeal to some sort of secret special gnosis some special wisdom that is going to say that you're somehow different because how we know who you are is based on what you've done if you are an atheist existentialist and we can see very clearly how the question of does your essence precede your existence or your existence perceived your essence is dependent upon god but also when you get down to it both of which will firmly emphasize that you need to make sure you're doing the right thing either because that is all that you are or you're more than that so you better do the right thing because you're going to be held accountable for the distinction and the division between who you are and what you appear to be satra lived and wrote during the glory days of existentialism it really had its vintage years as it were following the second world war and the idea of existentialism became so ubiquitous with kind of philosophy and kind of a new post-war thought that it kind of lost all of its meaning in many ways existentialism is kind of like the term postmodern during this idea where anyone or everyone would kind of glob onto it and assume some sort of identity where it's became kind of a catch-all term for the sort of cultural and artistic avant-garde radical critiques of universal principles and absolute values that existed before it and in many ways it's accurate to characterize some of these thoughts as existentialist and other ways it's not and we kind of need to push back and know where our push and pull would be there's a problem when a term becomes so overly used that it loses its actual meaning and so many of you might have your image of existentialism being in this period as opposed to others jean paul sautra lived 1905 to 1980. his work as a atheist existentialist in france was during this sort of glory days where you might not even want to call yourself an existentialist because the meaning could have been all sorts of other things his major works include being in nothingness and no exit uh the work we're addressing today is existentialism as a humanism and he's got quite a few others his main philosophy is really over that idea that being in itself the world is everything that is given meaning or structured by being for itself in the act of consciousness that you need to be in yourself and this is what gives it meaning as a free and transcending self-consciousness being for itself is oddly enough also nothingness therefore we have this connection between being and nothingness is major work he ends up developing what is known as a phenomenological ontology centering along this reflexive analysis of consciousness wherein consciousness of something is distinguished from the consciousness of the self that is reflexively implicit or mirrored in the consciousness of something so your self helps you understand what that object is as it's reflecting upon yourself when you look at what other things are it's a little confusing for some but this is the sort of reflexive as it said uh ontology right that the way you understand things is also through how you look at yourself and in many ways we can see the basis of satra's notion of philosophy here being in relation to hegel and his master slave dialectic as well as the categories instituted by content really grounded in a very broad and yet also deep understanding of the philosophies that have existed prior to his writing in that post-war period for our discussion today the focus is on the idea of ethics as applied through his understanding of existentialism and he's a advocating for this in the work existentialism is a humanism he says the purpose here his purpose is to offer a defense of existentialism against several reproaches that have been laid against it already at this period there are those who don't like existentialism and are rejecting it and pushing back against this idea that it's become so broad that it's almost lost its meaning here so the question is also only complicated because there are two kinds of existentialists they're on one hand to the christian existentialists and on the other hand atheist existentialists among whom he's going to place heidegger as well as the frex french existentialist whom he's a representative what they have in common is simply the fact that they believe that existence comes before essence or if you will that we must begin from the subjective and what do we mean by that now notice here that he's equating this essence and existence thing with that beginning of the subjective that you're going to begin with your own position now if we're going to interpret his idea that the christian existentialists will say that we need to begin with the subjective then you're right but if we're going to mean that who you are what one's essence is is only contained in the subjective then you're wrong and there's there's a subtle but very important distinction between this and and this is why i needed to lay out that caveat on saturn his notion of existentialism at the very beginning satra says that when we think of god as the creator we are thinking of him most of the time as a supernatural artisan whatever doctrine we may be considering whether it's a doctrine like that of descartes or of leibniz himself we always imply that the will follows more or less from the understanding or at least accompanies it so that when god creates he knows precisely what he is creating man possesses a human nature that human nature which is the conception of human beings is found in every man which means that each man is a particular example of a universal conception that conception of man we're engaged in a much wider philosophical debate here when we're thinking of god and god having ideas of people what is it that god happens to see of humanity what universals can be said about the particulars if there's a god we assume that god knows what god is doing that it's not just an accident but rather humanity is something known by this god [Music] this is now challenged by atheistic existentialism he says of which he's a representative declares with greater consistency that if god does not exist there is still yet one being whose existence comes before its essence a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it but if god doesn't exist then the idea of what human nature is does not exist in the mind of god but yet he says that there is this being who can exist before they know what it is whose conceptions of the nature exist ahead of time that being is man or as heidegger has it the human reality what do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence we mean that man first of all exists encounters himself surges up in the world and defines himself later you were all born you live you then at some point decide i'm not going to do this that or the other because that's not who i am you decide this is going to be what my vocation is i'm going to engage my life towards these pursuits and this is going to be how i define who i am and that this is the call of what you have to do as an existentialist and for the atheist existentialist this is you defining who you are therefore this is also going to lead us to that first principle of existentialism he says if man is the existentialist sees himself is not definable it is because to begin with he is nothing how are you going to define who you are this says the starting point is that you are simply nothing there's nothing there he will not be anything until later and then he will be what he makes of himself you start off as nothing the conception of other people perhaps but nothing of your own choosing nothing of what you really are later you conceive of who you are and this is where you're going to be found satra says there is no human nature because there is no god to have a conception of it man simply is man is nothing else but what he makes of himself and that is the first principle of existentialism you simply are you are what you will yourself to be you are your choices and your decisions you are what you do it is up to you to decide all of these things this is that first principle of existentialism this naturally leads us to the first effect of existentialism he says before that projection of the self nothing exists right before you assert who you are you are nothing because you haven't decided what you are yet not even in the heaven of intelligence man will only attain existence when he is what he purposes to be not however what he may wish to be right you are not just simply what you hope to be but again this is where your decisions actually matter for what we usually understand by wishing our willingness is a conscious decision taken much more often than not after we have made ourselves what we are thus the first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is what have you done what are you you are in possession of this exactly what you are and it places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his own shoulders you are responsible for all of your existence now maybe you've been treated bad maybe you've been marginalized maybe you had a bad upbringing maybe you've got jerks all around you who knows that doesn't matter you are still responsible for you it doesn't matter the effects and the decisions of other people it doesn't matter if the whole system is rigged against you and that you are the most victimized pitied whatever if you have no power that doesn't matter you still have power on you according to saturday here this is the effect of existentialism now the difficult thing moves forward here he says that when we say that man is responsible for himself we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality but that he is responsible for all men this is the difficulty not only are you responsible for you and you can't say well that guy over there is responsible for me i had bad parents i had bad society i had bad whatever right no no you're still responsible for you but then you're also then according to santra responsible for them for all people for all mankind when we say that man chooses himself he says we do not mean that every one of us must choose himself but by that we also mean that in choosing himself he chooses for all men you choose for all men for all people what it is that you are to choose between this or that is at the same time to affirm the value of that which is chosen for we are unable ever to choose the worse now this is something we might disagree with uh and in many ways he's got a differing view here of what aquinas lays out is the idea that we always choose goods such as taking this a couple of steps farther and saying that you're incapable of choosing the worse what we choose is always the better and nothing can be better for us unless it is better for all you've decided this is what is best for all if moreover existence precedes essence and we will to exist at that same time as we fashion our image the image is valid for all and for the entire epoch in which we find ourselves our responsibility is thus much greater than we had supposed for concerns mankind as a whole in fashioning myself i fashion man when you decide who you are you decide for everybody you decide that this is what humanity is because humanity exists only in your mind only in your conception of it and your conception of that is based on your conception of yourself right once again we return to that phenomenological ontology right this reflexive analysis of consciousness where your consciousness of something is distinguished from the self-consciousness that is reflexively implicit or mirrored in this consciousness of this something your consciousness of what it is to be a human is reflexive not just upon what you see in other humans but primarily in your self-consciousness therefore your deciding to do something decides that this is the case for all of humanity now if you take this seriously that you then decide what all of humanity is this should cause you great anguish this is not going to be a easy thing to assume in order to assert this is going to cause you problems in every decision that you make software says that the existentialist frankly states that man is in anguish his meaning is as follows when a man commits himself to anything fully realizing that he is not only choosing what he will be but is thereby at the same time a legislator decided for the whole of mankind in such a moment a man cannot escape from the sense of complete and profound responsibility you have this great giant weight on every decision you make of course he says this is the anguish that kierkegaard calls the anguish of abraham right when kierkegaard spoke of abraham having to make the decision about what to do regarding his son and the binding of isaac and that whole story kierkegaard talks about the anguish that would have existed and the difficulty that exists for abraham to be able to engage in this unthinkable act and yet he must act this is the sort of anguish you should have over every decision that you make satra then says who then can prove that i am the proper person to impose by my own choice my conception of man upon mankind i shall never find any proof whatever there will be no sign to convince me of it if a voice speaks to me it is still myself who must decide whether the voice is or is not that of an angel who are you to decide for everybody but yet you are exactly the person who is deciding this all leaders such as know that anguish it does not prevent their acting on the contrary it is the very condition of their action for the action presupposes that there is a plurality of possibilities and in choosing one of these they realize that it has value only because it is chosen there's a finite but large number of possibilities that exist for every moment your act of choosing it is what gives it value and it also is what causes you anguish now it is anguish of that kind which existentialism describes and moreover as we shall see makes explicit through direct responsibility towards other men who are concerned far from being a screen which could separate us from action it is a condition of action itself dostoevsky famously once wrote if god did not exist everything would be permitted and that for existentialism is the starting point this is the beginning for atheist existentialism that everything indeed is permitted if god does not exist and man is in the consequence forlorn for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside of himself he discovers forth with that he is without excuse for if indeed existence precedes essence one will never be able to explain one's action by reference to a given specific human nature there is no determinism you can't say i only did this because of the human condition no your choice decided it your choice decided what was human nature man is free man is freedom you are completely free to do anything and that should terrify you according to satra there is no god to say no you have this this nature this responsibility you have it all such continues that if god does not exist are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimize our behavior thus we have neither behind us nor before us in a luminous realm of values any means of justification or excuse we are left alone without excuse that is what i mean when i say that man is condemned to be free you are alone you must decide everything you are responsible for you and for everyone else with no guideposts other than yourself to tell you what is the correct action this of course is the very heart and center of existentialism it is the absolute character of the free commitment by which every man realizes himself in realizing a type of humanity a commitment always understandable to no matter whom and no matter what epoch you are responsible and this is where you're realizing yourself and all of humanity it is bearing upon the relativity of the cultural pattern which may result from such an absolute commitment one must observe equally the relativity of cartesianism and the absolute character of the cartesian commitment in this sense you may say if you like that one every one of us makes the absolute by breathing by eating by sleeping or by behaving in any fashion whatsoever you become the absolute right this is the character your choices then dictate what things are going to be this is a doctrine of action it's not just speculation but you must do something as a result of it satra states that existentialism is nothing else but an attempt to draw the full conclusions from a consistently atheistic position its intention is not in the least that of plunging men into despair as many kind of lampoon existentialism as especially the defense that satra is trying to address here and if by despair what only means as the christians do any attitude of unbelief the despair of existentialists is of course something entirely different existentialism is not atheist in the sense that it would exhaust itself in the demonstrations of the non-existence of god it declares rather that even if god existed that would make no difference from its point of view not that we believe god does exist but we think that the real problem is not of that of god's existence what man needs is to find himself again and to understand that nothing can save him from himself not even a valid proof for the existence of god in this sense existentialism is optimistic it is a doctrine of action and it is only by self-deception by confining your own despair with ours he says that christians could describe us as without hope you must still make these decisions even if god does exist santa says even if there is a god you still need to understand your weight and obligations towards everybody else by every decision that you make so what does this all mean this could be rather confusing in many ways but we can boil it down to a couple of essential ideas ethically satra is calling you to decide not just for yourself what actions are okay but what is okay for humanity there are no absolutes and there is no outside force following satra's atheistic existentialism to dictate morality dictate what you do and yet every action you do carries moral weight because it's the action of all of humanity there's not even the use of reason to guide us to these virtues that we are determined to do nor a code following comps at least this is what santa's arguing we are not obliged to look for the happiness of others but every action we choose is also for everybody even the small decisions that you make are really big because they are for everybody do you like chocolate or vanilla ice cream or are you gonna be a radical and go with strawberry right very small decision but yet you're saying in your decision that humanity is such that prefers vanilla chocolate strawberry or another flavor you're deciding this for everybody not just for you right now do you stay faithful in a relationship this isn't just oh i kind of like this one or i kind of don't like that one but you're saying that humanity is such that decides that faithfulness is a value or it's not this is your decision to make it nobody else's do you kill somebody most of you would probably say no to this one reflexively but you're saying that humanity is such that does not permit death that values life or that doesn't value life and does get to kill others do you ditch class it's nice weather friends are inviting you to something you're just tired you're up too late doing something for another class whatever the reasons would be it really doesn't matter you are by deciding to not show up saying that you do not value this class this education this whatever it is that's going to be a body there you're deciding that nobody should show up if you don't show up because you are humanity there is no quote humanity that exists except for within you so this is the weight in the decision that you have to make every decision you have has this weight upon it friedrich nietzsche proposes a different basis of morality he disagrees with his fellow atheist existentialist satra and satra's idea that in fashioning myself i fashioned mankind instead nietzsche will end up ultimately arguing that i am morality itself nietzsche lived 1844 to 1900 a german philosopher atheist existentialist we will see that his notion of existentialism differs quite a bit from other existentialists be them theistic like kierkegaard or atheistic like satra but again he's definitely an atheist existentialist this is an appropriate title for him his major works include the birth of a tragedy beyond good evil a genealogy of morals thus spake the zarathustra and the will to power throughout all of these works there's kind of this theme that your choices still do matter right he still is an existentialist that it's about your choices and decisions but he weighs this idea of your choices and decisions against different concerns where morality comes from or who dictates what's good and evil and what choices you should make or the role religion uh would have and this idea of god saying what's going to be okay or not and the difficulty that exists with you choosing what you're going to do nietzsche says as a group as soon as philosophers have busied themselves with morality they've demanded from themselves with a formal seriousness which makes one laugh something very much higher more ambitious more solemn they have been looking for a rational basis of morality and every philosopher so far as he believed that he has provided such a rational grounding for morality but morality itself has been considered something given this is the key idea for what he's addressing the idea that morality is seen as something given delivered coming from some other source some other authority and all this science of morality up to this point what is still lacking odd as it may sound is the problem of morality itself what has been missing is the suspicion that there may be something problematic egypt points out that everyone talks about where morals come from be it contour or anybody else maybe from god maybe from society maybe something but it's always the idea that it's something given but people haven't pointed out that it might be problematic that it wasn't delivered to us at all nietzsche continues that there are moralities which are intended to do things morals are a tool that are used to get a certain result to justify their creators before other people other morality sisters are meant to calm him down and make him satisfied with himself with others he wants to nail himself to the cross and humiliate himself and with others to practice revenge with others to hide himself with others to be transfigured and set himself above high up and far away this morality serves its originator so that he forgets that morality so that he or something about him is forgotten some moralists may want to exercise their power and creative mood on humanity some on others but that morals are always used for a purpose that it's a tool as opposed to something which actually exists on its own according to egypt and this is why it's problematic this is why it needs to be looked at and addressed perhaps even kanti says wants us to understand with his morality what is respectable about me is that i can obey and things should be no different for you than they are for me right that this is how he sees even kant in the notion of the categorical imperative deontologies a whole class of ethics is is about look at how good i am that i can obey and please you do the same thing you be like me this is how nietzsche sees it in short moralities he says are only sign languages of feelings they're not having a basis in anything other than your own particular fickle mood every morality he says therefore is a in part a tyranny against nature and also therefore against reason right this is the problem with morality is that it is a tyranny that it's all about control that it's against what would just be reasonable nietzsche in many ways is connecting way back to earlier skeptics and cynics and others and asking questions like what do we see about nature what is humanity by its nature the cynics had one answer and the skeptic's another and nietzsche yet still another but closer to the skeptics that it's at the best indeterminable beyond just being endured indeterminable nietzsche says nature reveals herself as she is in her total extravagant and indifferent magnificence which is an outrage but something noble nature doesn't care about you therefore this shouldn't be the basis of morality this is not a new thing this idea that morality is something given but rather it goes back at least to the time of plato he says plato who is more innocent in such things and without the mischievousness of a common man wanted to use his power the greatest power which a philosopher until that time had had in his command to prove that reason and instinct inherently moved to a single goal to the good and to god things that are used as proofs for the existence of god by people like aquinas and others but of course how does nietzsche see plato and aquinas and aristotle and socrates is all morons it's all people who are inventing something and going against reason that since plato all theologians and philosophers have been on this same road that is in things concerning morality up until now instinct whereas the christians call it faith or as i call it the herd has now triumphed we may grant stakehart an exception at least got a little a little bit of a hey you know not everyone is quite as bad we might want to give some people a little more exceptions and and nietzsche grants this to descartes he says he's the father of rationalism and thus the grandfather of the revolution this revolution of thought that he is now a part of right trying to dictate and ground things in reason as opposed to somewhere else a man who conferred soul authority on reason but reason is a tool and descartes was superficial and so reasoning says itself is great but it's also only a tool to help dictate and understand how we're going to move and and descartes didn't go far enough that his appeal to reason didn't include all aspects of morality it was only a superficial treatment according to nietzsche that there still is this problem of something being given so what do we need we need a call to action he says all these moralities that direct themselves at the individual person for the sake of his happiness going back to epicurean in other discussions right this idea of wanting to be happy that these people have all followed the same basic path says what are their exception proposals about conduct in relation to the degree of danger in which the individual person lives with himself recipes against his passions his good and his bad inclinations to those extent that they may have a will to power and to want to play the master but that this is really what we see with most of these discussions about moralities it's about keeping you safe it's about navigating your passions instead of just asserting yourself says to the extent that they may have a will to power and want to play the master but still this isn't what we're going to see from most people that most are this weaker man that his most basic demand is that the war which constitutes him should finally end the goal for most systems of morals is finding this balancing act amongst the passions and what does nietzsche say forget that that's only for the weaker people which you want is a will to power to go beyond this happiness which is usually kind of the goal by resting your passions he says seems in accordance with a calming medicine a way of thinking for example the epicurean or the christian this weaker sort of man principally the happiness of resting of having no interruptions of smugness of the final unity of the sabbath of sabbaths to use the words of the saintly rhetorician augustine who was himself such a man right he kind of throws people under the bus as we see obviously here with with nietzsche right that every discussion every treatment on how to overcome the morals he says uh the passions is just to try to make you feel happy but that itself is not reasonable right and that all of these salt themselves he says they're over seasoned with talks about the other world everything is generalized to a point where it's not healthy according to nietzsche then arise he says those delightfully amazing and unimaginable men whose enigmatic men predestined for victory and temptation notice here they're not overcoming the passions they're not sitting with this rest this having no interruptions they're facing their temptations they're succumbing to their temptations they're eager to do so says that these most beautiful expressions are alcabides and caesar and maybe among artists perhaps leonardo da vinci and most notably in his mind of course while writing this nietzsche is thinking about napoleon so that they appear precisely in the same ages when that weaker type with its demand for quiet steps into the foreground both types he says belong to one another and arise from the same causes when those weak men hold power those like caesar and napoleon seize that power they take it they don't just let it be that others are in charge others who can't hold that power no the these ubermensch they they take it for example he says a compassionate action in the best of the roman period compassion wasn't neither called good nor evil nor moral nor immoral according to nietzsche and even if it was praised this praise brought with it at best a kind of reluctant disdain as soon as was compared with any other action which served the demands of the totally totality of the rest of the republic the people this is maybe what it was but again says these ideas of compassion during the roman period didn't really exist now i would disagree with nietzsche as far as some of his historical statements i think there would be some claims that we would look at one way or another but this is his idea to look back and even say when did we see this we saw a handful of individuals just taking what they wanted that this served everybody because they rose up because they were in charge and everyone else was weak and falling so where does our morality come from according to nietzsche it's always something given right but he says ultimately the idea of the love of one's neighbor is always something of a minor importance partly conventional arbitrary and apparent in relation to the fear of one's neighbor after the structure of society in its entirety is established and appears secure against external dangers it is this fear of one's neighbor which creates once again new perspectives of moral value judgments that here once again the mother of morality is fear now notice the evolution of thought here for nietzsche first of all we need to be secure against foreign threats once we're not afraid of somebody coming in from the outside and attacking us our fear still exists but now instead of being a stranger the barbarians at the gate or something along these lines what we have to be concerned about is our neighbors your neighbor is now the one you're afraid of so how is it that you keep your neighbors from just taking your stuff well it's not going to be the same as how you would keep the barbarians or the next village or whatever it was depending on the history that we're going to be talking about right how is it we keep ourselves secure within a society well we now have morals you don't take my stuff why it's not okay it's not moral but and why do i say i want you to take my stuff hit me over the head break my my you know ahead and take all of my belongings my children my whatever well it's out of fear and the only way that you and i can work and relate with each other is through the lens of fear the guise of fear it's not love of our neighbor that's making us do things it's mutual fear i'm afraid that my neighbor can kill me and take my stuff he's afraid that i'll do the same so we have moral codes that we create to try to lessen that fear to lower the angst to now allow for my neighbor and i to shake hands showing that we are not holding weapons and about to you know kill each other that this is what happens this is the evolution of thought it's not love but fear that drives morality the high independent spirituality the will to stand alone even powerful reasonings are experienced as a danger though and everyone who wants to do their own thing those people who you know hey i'm going to do it on my own ah they're a danger we can't allow for that we must all be in this together we must have the protection of the herd everything which lifts the individual up over the herd and creates fear of one's neighbor from now on is called evil that's what's going to happen is it's now evil that you're saying this or believing that the proper modest conforming faith inequality and the average of the desires take on a name of morality and honor that this is the idea as long as you're staying here with the herd you're perfectly fine we like you you're moral if you're gonna stand up against that if you're going to be button heads with somebody else nope you're out no good because now you're a cause of fear nietzsche says very clearly i am morality itself right morality today in europe is the morality of the hurt animal i am morality itself and nothing outside of me is moral i am the one who decides what's moral if i want to do something and i think i can get away with it it is now moral not what the herd says now it's written down in law codes or scriptures but what i have if indeed i have the will to power to overcome this otherwise i'm lost just along the lines of everyone else then the herd dictates what's moral but that's not the case i am morality i dictate it i am the one in charge so who's right nietzsche or satra or maybe neither that's always a possibility do we hold nietzsche's idea that i am morality itself and nothing outside of me is moral that you can decide to do anything you want because screw it you gotta do whatever you want if only you have the will to power to to decide and to rise up and to be one of those ubermensch or in fashioning myself do i fashion all of mankind and it's my decisions that hold great weight that i have to decide for everybody it's not can i get it i should get it but is this what i think all of humanity is which one of these is the ethical standard well both of these men are atheist existentialists and both have the idea that it's about your choices and your decisions where those come from and where you're going to go with those are radically different but you are still the one who must decide and it's about your decisions not the whims of somebody else so which one is stronger only about you everything's relative or it's about everybody and every decision you have carries that entire weight it's not an easy choice to be and it shows us that while you might start off from the same page in a book it doesn't mean that you're ending in the same place