The Basics of Moral Values

This week, we discussed Nietzsche. His idea is that moral values were only invented to protect the weak and slavish. He describes the slavish as being most ordinary people. For example, he would think that everyone in our class was slavish. He also asserts that the slaves believed the statement “God loves me, therefore I am wonderful.” They also supported the notion that moral values are about good and evil, not good and bad. I thought the idea that all moral values are around to protect the week was rather jarring, but insightful. It definitely made me think about why we do what we do and where the values came from. I support protecting the weak wholeheartedly, as I believe everyone deserves to have the chance to live their lives as fully as possible. Eliminating them because they are below intelligence, ugly, or weak would not be fair to their individual rights as a person. It’s also interesting that, as far as we know, we are the only species of animal that thinks rationally and has moral values. Most other species would not hesitate to leave behind a weaker individual in their group for the sake of making the population stronger. This makes humans unique. I think this week was very insightful and made me think about the grounding of morals.