Live life by your own ends, or live life for the society?
Society values the virtue of selflessness, but in fact, selflessness is valued insofar as it serves as a means to other ends, which society actually values more. It is conceivable that if selfishness were to serve as a better instrument than selflessness in promoting the ends which society desires, then society would extol the selfish, instead of the selfless. -wh
In this post, Wenghong implies that society values some values more than others. Neitzsche, in SAE, seems to imply some sort of social darwinism when he says that "[m]ankind must work continually at the production of individual great men" and that "nothing else is its task". If Nietzsche considers this value this highest of society, the ultimate end of society, then presumably he would want every person to adopt this ends as a personal end. I do not think that he is just using such a shocking premise to make us consider for ourselves what our life's ends are. However, he doesn't seem to advance or support this point in his other passages. All we are left with is "How can [life] be least squandered? Certainly only by your living for the good of the rarest and most valuable exemplars ... ". That's all - a 'certainly'. Which leads me to think that he is either wrong, or changed his mind about this. Puzzling.
Thursday, September 25, 2003
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