Assess Nietzsche's Accounts of Noble Values. A2 Level Philosophy Practice Essay 43/50

If someone is all for the idea of Nobility within a society then they are for a hierarchy, it is within this hierarchy where people will be divided between the lower slave classes, and the higher noble classes. Nietzsche was all for this hierarchy, a society of an aristocracy where there were Noble people at the top of the hierarchy who controlled the plebeian classes. These systems of Noble Values are ones which supposedly are most useful for the superhuman to excerpt their Will to Power, an issue that arises instantly however is that there have been societies where people have excerpt their Will to Power. For example, if we look at the communist ideal societies, where an aristocracy was frowned upon, people such as Stalin and Ho Chi Minh rose to a point of power against the aristocracy and tried to put into place a society where there was no aristocracy. However, if we look at the environment that encouraged these people to rise to power, it was within a very strong aristocracy, and although they attempted to remove such a system, you could argue that they instinctively and sub-consciously implicated the system within their own communist values (and of course once this hierarchal system was established there was eventually rebellion from the plebeian classes and a new aristocracy took it's place). Therefore if we look at Niezsche's ideas of being for an aristocracy in correlation to the ascension of the superhuman we can see that in some cases, the system of an aristocracy is hard to avoid with the superhumans.

One of the main divides within this hierarchy is within Moral values. Nietzsche separates the morality of the Nobility and Slave classes through Master and Slave morality. Master Morality is achieved through a noble state, and it is the ideology that the morality of the Noble is based around more Noble traits of a person such as "courage" and "honour" that can only be seen through the Nobleman's perspective of the world. In contrast to this, Slave Morality in contrast is from the perspective of the slave; and therefore their outlook on morality would be considered more cowardly, and completely in opposition to the ideas of the Noble's moral values. There are of course some issues with Nietzsche ideas on Noble Morality; for example, if all Nobles have the same perception of Morality, then does this not mean that all those of Noble status would have the same objective outlook on Morality? For example, if we look at any society there is always political leaders high up in the hierarchy; but in most democratic societies there is generally some competition in what they consider right or wrong, regardless of whether these are the people that Nietzsche considered superhumans or not, there is usually very frequent competing views on what is right and what is wrong. What's more, does this mean there is no slave that has the same moral outlook as a nobleman? Surely those that ascend to Nobility from Slavery must have had some Moral outlooks of the Master Morality to reach a point of "courage" to excel to the top of the hierarchy? If they genuinely believed in moral values that were based around weakness then the slaves would struggle in being able to revolt (as most would consider there to be at least some strength required to revolt against a system that is already in system).

Moreso still, if each part of society has different moral values then we could possibly conclude (based on the ideas of Nietzsche's perspectivism) that to purely have the perspective of a nobleman could be considered to subjective to be considered truth. To get a more objective view on morality, it would need to be both the perspective of the noblemen and the slaves to have a more objective truth on morality. However, Nietzsche would probably oppose the Nobleman considering anything that appeases the Slave Morality, which leads to an issue. If Master Morality is so subjective and purely based on what the Nobles supposedly consider as absolute good could be considered as a form of Dogmaticism that is focused on what the beliefs and philosophies of the Noblemen are; and seeing as Dogmaticism is generally an ideology that Nietzsche has heavily opposed with his contrasting ideology of perspectivism, we can assume that there is a chance that the Noble moral view point is somewhat contradictory, as it is not as close to objectivity as it can possibly be (as it won't take into account the slave's perspective of morality) but based on Nietzsche's Noble Values the Nobleman should assume that what they consider as moral is moral (leading to dogmaticism on behalf of the nobleman) which could possibly be considered a slightly confused account of Nietzsche's Noble values system.

Nietzsche also believed that the noble man would respect old age traditions that existed at the brink of society. Already this idea is contradictory to other noble values, suppose this tradition was harmful or considered morally weak within society; should the nobleman then still be willing to uphold the tradition? For example, the Aztecs had a tradition to sacrifice people rather frequently, and in their heyday sacrificed about two people every ten minutes; would such a large hindrance on the potential population of a society be considered a good tradition to uphold? Also, a lot of traditions hold back the development of society, thus disallowing the superhuman to forward and advance society as a whole. An example of this could be seen within Islamic culture, where the traditional religion of Islam contradicted a lot of the findings of said advancements, and thus a lot of it was destroyed to maintain the credibility of the tradition of the Islamic religion; can we honestly say that this nobleman idea of maintaining traditions that are based around less advanced and therefore possibly weaker societies are more beneficial for the superhuman? However, though some traditions may be considered harmful in some ways in others they may be more beneficial. The sacrificing that the Aztecs did (to appease their gods) was usually the sacrificing of captured slaves (albeit they did sacrifice their own natives in quite a few situations) and therefore made the society as a whole seem stronger and they pretty much dominated a lot of the other Mexican tribes; this warrior-like tradition can also be seen in societies like the Spartans (all Spartan born males were made soldiers with all the captured slaves doing the work) and the Huns (Attila the Hun ordered all new born babies to have their cheeks cut so they know pain early in life) but due to these traditions they have been renowned as some of the strongest societies in history; hence possibly a reason for Nietzsche to state that the Nobleman should respect the tradition of society; as although they may be harmful, it is the traditions of the strong (possibly the superhumans?) that manage to survive the progression and advancement of society.

Nietzsche also states that the Nobleman should respect those of old age, the elders that have lived and gathered wisdom. An issue that arises with this however, is that if Noblemen are meant to respect the old, what of those that are lower in the hierarchy but are elderly? Should the Nobleman respect those who have spent all their life basing their values on the slave morality when they reach an elderly stature? It could be considered contradiction of Nietzsche's beliefs to respect all the slaves that have developed their wisdom from a morality that opposes those of the Nobleman. Moreover we have to consider whether those who are elderly would truly be more beneficial to society, though they may have more wisdom their minds could possibly become susceptible to dementia or Alzheimer's which would effect the credibility of the elder's knowledge; it is difficult to respect the beliefs of an elder when we assume their opinion to be deluded and misguided and the Nobleman might also come across this problem. Though we should probably respect that the elders have the same rights as the other slaves or noblemen (depending on the class of the elder) basing it on Nietzsche's other theories it could be seen as illogical; as it is uncertain as to whether all elders are respected the same by every nobleman or if the elders are varied based on the hierarchy that Nietzsche believes divides the Noblemen from the Slaves.

One issue that may arise from these Noble values is at how defined the hierarchy truly seems. Noblemen according to Nietzsche, are considered more intelligent, more morally apt to make new values and generally are better people than those of the lower hierarchy. Because of this it seems to be hereditary (and a lot like Nietzsche's idea of the ideal state or the Hindu caste system) that if you are born into a certain section of the caste you are stuck there for life. Is it possible to move up the hierarchal system reinstated by the aristocracy if the slaves keep the perspective of the slaves and the noblemen keep the perspective of the noblemen? If someone had the potential of being a superhuman was born in a solid aristocracy but was born a slave and was constantly encouraged to look at life through the slave morality and the ideology of the slave then would these Noble Values be considered beneficial to the Superhuman? Or would it quash most slaves from even trying to express their Will to Power? We could however, state that the slave being encouraged to break through the overall aristocratic system itself and reach the state of Nobility through developing the outlook of a Nobleman through slavery by expressing their Will to Power. For example, if we look at the French Revolution, it was the lower plebeian classes that stood up to the Nobleman and the monarchy and completely re-established the system, where there were new leaders in the hierarchy came into power from the lower classes; thus making them the new and unofficial noblemen of the new aristocratic system. This shows that although, as Nietzsche said, the aristocratic system is generally difficult to move through as the ideals and values of the classes can be set, but it is not impossible for the slaves at the bottom to express their Will to Power and completely change the system altogether (perhaps establishing a master morality through the reinstatement of the new aristocracy) and become the new Noblemen of the new aristocracy.

We could possibly look at the example of the natural caste. Before societies were fully established, Nietzsche believed that the Barbarians who originally became the Nobles excelled to this point not by brute physical strength, but by spiritual strength. An issue in my opinion comes from this idea of spiritual strength being the absolute of excelling into nobility; can we say that there are no points at which physical brutality has lead to an uprising into nobility? There have been multiple revolutions throughout history that have consisted of other classes changing the tides of society through sheer number of supporters (e.g. the Chinese revolution turned the tide of who was in charge based a lot on the quantity of supporters the communist movement had in contrast to the former society) and therefore we can't completely ignore the fact that there may be a requirement of physical strength, or expressing your will to power by expressing physical dominance that is combined with this "spiritual strength". Taking into consideration Hobbes' state of nature, this would state that within the early and more primitive eras before societies were developed; those that would be considered "strong" or even "superhumans" would do whatever they can to reach the highest point of strength which would include physical superiority, and deception (aka Machiavellian intelligence) and most of the original societies could be considered to come from these abilities alone; spiritual strength may not be considered as an absolute prerequisite to nobility for some societies. However, it may be considered that the strength of the spirit is what retains this noble state. A lot of people may have the ability to break through the system with physical strength but these people could just as easily be quashed by those of equal strength, so what determines who wins in a battle with those of equal physical strength? Perhaps it is at this point when the caste is dictated by the strength of the spirit, when the spirit then determines who remain supreme at the top and eventually became the nobles of the future society. Though it is hard to absolutely determine how the first nobles came into power, as the recordings of how the first societies were created could be traced back to a less evolved state of humankind (definitely before barbarians) within the apes of early time there were alpha males and females (which could be considered the supposed "nobles" of apes) these apes however got to power by which one was evolutionarily stronger and would thus pass on stronger genes to the better offspring. By this point of hereditary strength alone we could assume that noble values are more genetic than we may think, as those strong of physical prowess and spirit (according to Nietzsche) are the ones that usually reach and maintain the status of nobility.

Overall Nietzsche ideas on Noble Values could be considered as very fixed and focused on the stereotypes of the hierarchy, where the people who are at the top are at the top for a reason and hence should be considered greater or "noble" and automatically these people are wiser because they have reached the state of nobility at some point down the line; whilst the slaves have been submissive and accepted their place in the noble's hierarchy and therefore they should be considered the weaker classes. However as much as Nietzsche's ideas of the aristocracy being successful in some societies appearing to be true, we can't necessarily state that all people at the top are genuinely wiser and better at making moral decisions. It may be true that those that force their way to the top have the strength to potentially lead the "slave" classes as a nobleman what of those that were born into nobility? If a person was born with all being provided and spoon fed to them would they have the Will to Power of someone who had to push their way to the top? And vice versa, what of those who are able to express their will to power to the point at which they can dominate the Slave classes, but are not given the opportunity or resources to excel into the Noble classes to dominate the Slave classes as a Nobleman? Nietzsche's ideas on morality and the wisdom of Nobles may seem rather dogmatic to some, an idea which contradicts Nietzsche's perspectivism approach as we can not just assume objectively so that Noble's are the only ones with the prerequisites to create their own moral values, Communism came from the slave classes with new values and ethics on who should and shouldn't be considered strong and dominant (or in the case of dominance "noble"). For Nietzsche's ideas to be applicable to all societies we all have to objectively agree on what makes someone noble, this may appear to be easier to do within an aristocracy where the hierarchy is much more set and easier to follow; but some societies aren't as simple to distinguish between those we may consider noble and those we may not consider noble. Would someone with absolute wealth but no power be considered noble? Would someone with pure strength and dominance to the plebeian classes but with no influence towards other Noblemen also be considered Noble? Until we can objectively agree on what the pure example of the Nobleman is, even if they match all the superhuman requirements, some may struggle to fully accept Nietzsche's ideas or prerequisites of Nietzsche's noble values with subjective ideas of what the nobleman truly is defined as.