Topic > The concept of morality in the works of Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche

"The Genealogy of Morals" by Friedrich Nietzsche and "Civilization and Its Discontents" by Sigmund Freud have similar goals. Both men want to denounce what they see as society's obstacles to individual freedom. Both attack and condemn organized religion as a disguise for the helplessness individuals feel in the face of society and as a historically destructive force that has distanced men from knowing their true selves and rendered them helpless in their present lives. Both essays, at their core, wrestle with the concept of morality, how it came to exist in society and how it came to govern our present. While the present is the subject of both essays, Nietzsche and Freud necessarily delve into the past of both society and the individual to explain their disparate definitions of morality and what these interpretations mean for their contemporaries. While Nietzsche sees morality as a concept developed by society, Freud instead sees morality as a natural process existing in the individual before he enters society and in human relationships before civilization. Nietzsche sees the past as an explanation for the continuing development of morality, while Freud sees the past as a direct continuum from the original existence of morality. Nietzsche does not believe that the origin of any past can be discovered from the present, nor that the origin itself exists in its pure form. Indeed, his goal in "The Genealogy of Morals" is to counter the belief that moral values ​​such as good and evil existed before humans constructed them. He states: Is everything that exists, whatever its origin, periodically interpreted by those in power in terms of new intentions? All processes in the organic world are processes of? reinterpretation? in the course of which the former meaning and purpose are necessarily either obscured or lost. No matter how well we understand any aspect of the self or society, we understand nothing of its origin" (Nietzsche, 209). Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned'? Get an original essay The present, individual or social, is therefore simply a reinterpretation of the past which is the reinterpretation of another past Whether we are talking about personal memory or community or national history, the past we see is nothing other than a present everyday interpretation, and no matter how far back we look, all we see are past interpretations. Freud, on the other hand, believes that the origin of every present state not only exists permanently within each of us, but remains in its pure form in our mind. Taking the example of the ancient city of Rome in "Civilization and Its Discontents", Freud states that if the history of ancient Rome functioned like human memory, one could not simply see the ruins of the restorations, but the original buildings are intact as they were in their original incarnation (Freud, 18). While he digresses a bit when speaking specifically about human memory, Freud comments that “it is rather the rule than the exception that the past is retained in mental life,” not simply as reinterpretation, but in its original form (Freud, 20). .Thus, while both agree that the morality we find in ourselves is a reaction to our natural instinct to be aggressive, to dominate both nature and other men, Nietzsche sees this morality entirely as a social construct while Freud believes that can be traced back to a distinct origin both within an individual and historically. Nietzsche believes that what todaywe consider morality to be actually a constant struggle by weak men to inhibit the aggression and power of stronger men. He claims that morality took shape in society when “slaves,” or those not at the top of the social hierarchy, realized that to valorize their own weakness they had to denote the strong as “bad.” He observes that in previous societies the "well-born" were happy in their lives, while the common elements of society were not: "the 'well-born' did not have to fictitiously construct their happiness by looking at their enemies" (Nietzsche, 172). These nobles were comfortable in their own lives and did not need external principles to facilitate this happiness. Furthermore, the cruelty they showed towards those beneath them was part and parcel of being stronger. Nietzsche uses the example of birds and lambs to illustrate the "natural" state of this social relationship that existed without moral construct. He postulates that just because lambs don't like being destroyed by birds of prey, doesn't make these birds bad: "expecting strength not to manifest itself as strength? is just as absurd as expecting weakness to manifest itself as strength." " (Nietzsche, 178). However, unlike lambs and birds, humans have the ability to use their intellect to separate this natural state from itself, to reinterpret strength as evil and weakness as good: " they assume the right to hold the raptor to account for being a bird of prey. We can hear the downtrodden, the downtrodden, the violated whisper to each other with the cunning vengeance of the powerless: “We are different from those wicked people, we are good” (Nietzsche, 179). Therefore, for Nietzsche, the "morality" that governs society and is permeated in every individual is nothing more than a reinterpretation of social relationships by the weak so that they can conquer the strong. The traps of morality: altruism, guilt for committing wrongdoing, and punishment to inflict blame are simply tools developed by the weak at an early age to gain power over the strong who have since managed to masquerade as the only way for a society to exist. However, society existed before these moral constructs were formed. Freud does not fully agree with the idea that morality is a social construct with no innate origin. He believes that the development of civilization is modeled on the development of the individual, which in turn can be traced back to a morality that existed before society codified it. Like Nietzsche, Freud believes that our natural instinct is to be aggressive. However, unlike Nietzsche, he also sees the conflicting interests of aggression and the need for love in the development of the individual. Freud believes that the fear of a loss of love from the father instinctively curbs the child's aggression: "his aggression is introjected, internalized" (Freud, 84). The child learns that everything that prevents his father from protecting him is bad: "in the beginning everything that makes you threaten to lose love is bad" (Freud, 85). Therefore, the moral oppositions of good and evil are in fact established in the individual since childhood, they are innate responses to the need for love and the instinct of aggression. Furthermore, once internalized, the mind or “ego” develops an internal authority or “super ego” that instructs the ego as to which acts are good and which acts are bad. Freud, unlike Nietzsche, believes that concepts of morality both exist within each individual. of us as a natural reaction to our aggressive instinct, and also existed historically before society developed. He believes that moral notions of personal guilt or remorse arise from “primordial ambivalenceof feelings towards their father". At a certain moment, before society was formed, the primordial sons in fact allowed their aggressive hatred for their father to prevail over their love, they killed him: "after their hatred was satisfied by their act of aggression, their love came to the fore in their remorse for the act" (Freud, 95). Therefore, the guilt or remorse that individuals feel regardless of whether they have actually committed a bad act or are simply thinking to do so, is the internalized guilt that results from this original follow-up of the aggressive instinct. Freud sees in the entire past the reification of this original act and the morality that resulted from it in the form of punishment self-punishment inflicted by the superego when the ego desires to be aggressive. The effect that this original act of aggression had on individuals who existed before civilization has the exact same effect on those who live within society and therefore we naturally incorporate. these notions of morality in society. Nietzsche, however, believes that man's natural instinct is to be cruel, to be aggressive, and that personal remorse or social punishment are simply the tools of the weak to separate the strong from their natural inclinations. The connection between aggression and punishment are social constructs, not natural states. In fact, this connection can be traced directly back to the creditor/debtor relationship in the same way that the notions of good and bad can be traced back to the strong and weak relationship. He believes that before morality was constructed, it was a clear pleasure for the creditor to extort pain as debt repayment. Given our natural tendency towards aggression: “making someone suffer was an extreme pleasure” (Nietzsche, 197). Therefore, there was a direct economic relationship between material gain and suffering. The same relationship between punishment and pleasure could then apply to an offense against the community, or to a crime. Nietzsche states that before "justice" existed as a system of laws, it existed as a direct reaction to the amount of suffering caused. In other words, if someone stole money from another, he would have the right not only to get his money back, but to derive the pleasure of punishing the culprit. But since morality was created by the weak, and the debtor is necessarily weaker than the creditor, the laws governing the post-moral society have ignored this natural relationship of pleasure in pain and have protected the debtor or criminal from his creditors or accusers: "justice, which began by setting a price for everything and making everyone strictly responsible, ends up despising the defaulter and leaving him free" (Nietzsche, 205). The "moral" concepts of guilt and punishment were constructed by the same social relations that constructed the moral concepts of good and evil. Although it seems that Nietzsche has a much more pessimistic interpretation of individuals than Freud, his theory actually develops in a much more pessimistic view of capacity of a person to free himself from historical misunderstandings. Since morality itself is a construct of society aimed at separating man from his relationship with his own nature, we have the ability to free ourselves from historical and social chains and re-establish the freedom we as individuals we had before society built morality. In "The Genealogy of Morals" this possibility manifests itself as an incredibly classist (and racist) appeal to the strong or "noble" to reclaim their instincts, it can also be seen on a larger scale as the belief in having free will in present that no amount of history can.