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Comment by woodruffw | Hacker News Reader

The SEP[1] is probably a better reference than Wikipedia for most philosophical topics, especially for individuals like Nietzsche (who, for various reasons, tends to find himself in the intersection of vaguely reactionary thinkers and people who want to read philosophy without seriously engaging with the rest of the canon).

In particular, this Wikipedia article gives the incorrect impression that Nietzsche is especially cynical about divine command and deontological ethics and implies that the MS divide is in some ways constructive. Neither is the case: Nietzsche's moral cynicism is universal and the MS divide is meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive or constructive.

[1]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche-moral-political...

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I finally found the time to read the SEP article and all in all I feel the Wikipedia article is a good summary.

Quoting SEP:

"""

Thus, what unifies Nietzsche's seemingly disparate critical remarks — about altruism, happiness, pity, equality, Kantian respect for persons, utilitarianism, etc. — is that he thinks a culture in which such norms prevail as morality will be a culture which eliminates the conditions for the realization of human excellence — the latter requiring, on Nietzsche's view, concern with the self, suffering, a certain stoic indifference, a sense of hierarchy and difference, and the like.

"""

That goes a lot further than just being descriptive, there's a clear value judgement in there.

> Nietzsche's moral cynicism is universal and the MS divide is meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive or constructive.

Could you elaborate? Nietzsche's usage of slave morality seems pejorative to me, and I wouldn't characterise Nietzsche's stance as an universal moral cynicism; his method does not aim at an universal conclusion.

Funny enough, this illustrates well why it is difficult to find good reads on Nietzsche, it is not easy to summarise his positions briefly and without equivocation.

Yeah, my read of the SEP is that they are delicately saying ("metaethically") that Nietzsche was an A-hole.

To dramatically over-simplify: N. thinks that slave morality was inferior to master morality, however he doesn’t think we should return to a master morality system. He also thinks that slave morality did have some benefits in the sense that it turned humanity's creative instincts inward. He mostly has a problem with slave morality because it is life-denying (which is essentially his criticism of Christianity).

It should also be said that he doesn’t use these terms in a scientific or extremely specific way (“this is how it was, factually”) but rather as a sort of myth-like pattern. They are broad repeating trends, so to speak, not scientific observations.

The overman (Übermensch) should transcend both moral systems and create a new life-affirming one. Unfortunately some reactionaries seem to think that he was advocating for a return to master morality.

Thanks for posting. I posted the Wikipedia page mainly as a basis for discussion. I am going to have a read. I didn't find such a prescriptive or constructive element in the Wikipedia page, though. See final paragraph in the "Society" section.

I've only read a bit of the SEP but more websites like that would be amazing. Well structured, clear and easy to read.

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