Supposing that the abused, the oppressed, the suffering, the unemancipated, the weary, and those uncertain of themselves should moralize, what will be the common element in their moral estimates? Probably a pessimistic suspicion with regard to the entire situation of man will find expression, perhaps a condemnation of man, together with his situation. The slave has an unfavorable eye for the virtues of the powerful; he has a skepticism and distrust, a refinement of distrust of everything “good” that is there honored—he would fain persuade himself that the very happiness there is not genuine. On the other hand, those qualities which serve to alleviate the existence of sufferers are brought into prominence and flooded with light; it is here that sympathy, the kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence, humility, and friendliness attain to honor; for here these are the most useful qualities, and almost the only means of supporting the burden of existence. Slave-morality is essentially the morality of utility.
Here is the seat of the origin of the famous antithesis “good” and “evil”:—power and dangerousness are assumed to reside in the evil, a certain dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength, which do not admit of being despised. According to slave-morality, therefore, the “evil” man arouses fear; according to master-morality, it is precisely the “good” man who arouses fear and seeks to arouse it, while the bad man is regarded as the despicable being.
The contrast attains its maximum when, in accordance with the logical consequences of slave-morality, a shade of depreciation—it may be slight and well-intentioned—at last attaches itself to the “good” man of this morality; because, according to the servile mode of thought, the good man must in any case be the safe man: he is good-natured, easily deceived, perhaps a little stupid, un bonhomme. Everywhere that slave-morality gains the ascendancy, language shows a tendency to approximate the significations of the words “good” and “stupid.”
SLAVE AND MASTER MORALITY (FROM CHAPTER IX OF NIETZSCHE’S BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL)
by Lee Archie and John G. Archie
https://open.library.okstate.edu/introphilosophy/chapter/slave-and-master-morality-by-nietzsche/
In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche (1844-1900 CE) detects two types of morality mixed not only in higher civilization but also in the psychology of the individual.
Master-morality values power, nobility, and independence: it stands “beyond good and evil.” Slave-morality values sympathy, kindness, and humility and is regarded by Nietzsche as “herd-morality.”
The history of society, Nietzsche believes, is the conflict between these two outlooks: the herd attempts to impose its values universally, but the noble master transcends their “mediocrity.”
Origin of Aristocracy
257. Every elevation of the type “man,” has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society and so it will always be—a society believing in a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. Without the pathos of distance, such as grows out of the incarnated difference of classes, out of the constant out-looking and down-looking of the ruling caste on subordinates and instruments, and out of their equally constant practice of obeying and commanding, of keeping down and keeping at a distance—that other more mysterious pathos could never have arisen, the longing for an ever new widening of distance within the soul itself, the formation of ever higher, rarer, further, more extended, more comprehensive states, in short, just the elevation of the type “man,” the continued “self-surmounting of man,” to use a moral formula in a supermoral sense.To be sure, one must not resign oneself to any humanitarian illusions about the history of the origin of an aristocratic society (that is to say, of the preliminary condition for the elevation of the type “man”): the truth is hard. Let us acknowledge unprejudicedly how every higher civilization hitherto has originated! Men with a still natural nature, barbarians in every terrible sense of the word, men of prey, still in possession of unbroken strength of will and desire for power, threw themselves upon weaker, more moral, more peaceful races (perhaps trading or cattle-rearing communities), or upon old mellow civilizations in which the final vital force was flickering out in brilliant fireworks of wit and depravity. At the commencement, the noble caste was always the barbarian caste: their superiority did not consist first of all in their physical, but in their psychical power—they were more complete men (which at every point also implies the same as “more complete beasts”).
Higher Class of Being
258. Corruption—as the indication that anarchy threatens to break out among the instincts, and that the foundation of the emotions, called “life,” is convulsed—is something radically different according to the organization in which it manifests itself. When, for instance, an aristocracy like that of France at the beginning of the Revolution, flung away its privileges with sublime disgust and sacrificed itself to an excess of its moral sentiments, it was corruption:—it was really only the closing act of the corruption which had existed for centuries, by virtue of which that aristocracy had abdicated step by step its lordly prerogatives and lowered itself to a function of royalty (in the end even to its decoration and parade-dress). The essential thing, however, in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it should not regard itself as a function either of the kingship or the commonwealth, but as the significance highest justification thereof—that it should therefore accept with a good conscience the sacrifice of a legion of individuals, who, for its sake, must be suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. Its fundamental belief must be precisely that society is not allowed to exist for its own sake, but only as a foundation and scaffolding, by means of which a select class of beings may be able to elevate themselves to their higher duties, and in general to a higher existence: like those sun-seeking climbing plants in Java—they are called Sipo Matador,—which encircle an oak so long and so often with their arms, until at last, high above it, but supported by it, they can unfold their tops in the open light, and exhibit their happiness.
Life Denial
259. To refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from exploitation, and put one’s will on a par with that of others: this may result in a certain rough sense in good conduct among individuals when the necessary conditions are given (namely, the actual similarity of the individuals in amount of force and degree of worth, and their co-relation within one organization). As soon, however, as one wished to take this principle more generally, and if possible even as the fundamental principle of society, it would immediately disclose what it really is—namely, a Will to the denial of life, a principle of dissolution and decay.
Here one must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation;—but why should one for ever use precisely these words on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped?
Even the organization within which, as was previously supposed, the individuals treat each other as equal—it takes place in every healthy aristocracy—must itself, if it be a living and not a dying organization, do all that towards other bodies, which the individuals within it refrain from doing to each other it will have to be the incarnated Will to Power, it will endeavor to grow, to gain ground, attract to itself and acquire ascendancy—not owing to any morality or immorality, but because it lives, and because life is precisely Will to Power. On no point, however, is the ordinary consciousness of Europeans more unwilling to be corrected than on this matter, people now rave everywhere, even under the guise of science, about coming conditions of society in which “the exploiting character” is to be absent—that sounds to my ears as if they promised to invent a mode of life which should refrain from all organic functions.
“Exploitation” does not belong to a depraved, or imperfect and primitive society it belongs to the nature of the living being as a primary organic function, it is a consequence of the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to Life—Granting that as a theory this is a novelty—as a reality it is the fundamental fact of all history let us be so far honest towards ourselves!
Master Morality
260. In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have hitherto prevailed or still prevail on the earth, I found certain traits recurring regularly together, and connected with one another, until finally two primary types revealed themselves to me, and a radical distinction was brought to light.
There is master-morality and slave-morality,—I would at once add, however, that in all higher and mixed civilizations, there are also attempts at the reconciliation of the two moralities, but one finds still oftener the confusion and mutual misunderstanding of them, indeed sometimes their close juxtaposition—even in the same man, within one soul. The distinctions of moral values have either originated in a ruling caste, pleasantly conscious of being different from the ruled—or among the ruled class, the slaves and dependents of all sorts.
In the first case, when it is the rulers who determine the conception “good,” it is the exalted, proud disposition which is regarded as the distinguishing feature, and that which determines the order of rank. The noble type of man separates from himself the beings in whom the opposite of this exalted, proud disposition displays itself he despises them. Let it at once be noted that in this first kind of morality the antithesis “good” and “bad” means practically the same as “noble” and “despicable”,—the antithesis “good” and “evil” is of a different origin. The cowardly, the timid, the insignificant, and those thinking merely of narrow utility are despised; moreover, also, the distrustful, with their constrained glances, the self-abasing, the dog-like kind of men who let themselves be abused, the mendicant flatterers, and above all the liars:—it is a fundamental belief of all aristocrats that the common people are untruthful. “We truthful ones”—the nobility in ancient Greece called themselves.
It is obvious that everywhere the designations of moral value were at first applied to men; and were only derivatively and at a later period applied to actions; it is a gross mistake, therefore, when historians of morals start with questions like, “Why have sympathetic actions been praised?” The noble type of man regards himself as a determiner of values; he does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: What is injurious to me is injurious in itself; he knows that it is he himself only who confers honor on things; he is a creator of values. He honors whatever he recognizes in himself: such morality equals self-glorification. In the foreground there is the feeling of plenitude, of power, which seeks to overflow, the happiness of high tension, the consciousness of a wealth which would fain give and bestow:—the noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not—or scarcely—out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the superabundance of power. The noble man honors in himself the powerful one, him also who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and hard. “Wotan placed a hard heart in my breast,” says an old Scandinavian Saga: it is thus rightly expressed from the soul of a proud Viking. Such a type of man is even proud of not being made for sympathy; the hero of the Saga therefore adds warningly: “He who has not a hard heart when young, will never have one.” The noble and brave who think thus are the furthest removed from the morality which sees precisely in sympathy, or in acting for the good of others, or in dèintèressement, the characteristic of the moral; faith in oneself, pride in oneself, a radical enmity and irony towards “selflessness,” belong as definitely to noble morality, as do a careless scorn and precaution in presence of sympathy and the “warm heart.”
It is the powerful who know how to honour, it is their art, their domain for invention. The profound reverence for age and for tradition—all law rests on this double reverence,— the belief and prejudice in favor of ancestors and unfavorable to newcomers, is typical in the morality of the powerful; and if, reversely, men of “modern ideas” believe almost instinctively in “progress” and the “future,” and are more and more lacking in respect for old age, the ignoble origin of these “ideas” has complacently betrayed itself thereby.
A morality of the ruling class, however, is more especially foreign and irritating to present-day taste in the sternness of its principle that one has duties only to one’s equals; that one may act towards beings of a lower rank, towards all that is foreign, just as seems good to one, or “as the heart desires,” and in any case “beyond good and evil”: it is here that sympathy and similar sentiments can have a place. The ability and obligation to exercise prolonged gratitude and prolonged revenge—both only within the circle of equals,—artfulness in retaliation, refinement of the idea in friendship, a certain necessity to have enemies (as outlets for the emotions of envy, quarrelsomeness, arrogance—in fact, in order to be a good friend): all these are typical characteristics of the noble morality, which, as has been pointed out, is not the morality of “modern ideas,” and is therefore at present difficult to realize, and also to unearth and disclose.
Slave Morality
It is otherwise with the second type of morality, slave-morality. Supposing that the abused, the oppressed, the suffering, the unemancipated, the weary, and those uncertain of themselves should moralize, what will be the common element in their moral estimates? Probably a pessimistic suspicion with regard to the entire situation of man will find expression, perhaps a condemnation of man, together with his situation. The slave has an unfavorable eye for the virtues of the powerful; he has a skepticism and distrust, a refinement of distrust of everything “good” that is there honored—he would fain persuade himself that the very happiness there is not genuine. On the other hand, those qualities which serve to alleviate the existence of sufferers are brought into prominence and flooded with light; it is here that sympathy, the kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence, humility, and friendliness attain to honor; for here these are the most useful qualities, and almost the only means of supporting the burden of existence. Slave-morality is essentially the morality of utility.
Here is the seat of the origin of the famous antithesis “good” and “evil”:—power and dangerousness are assumed to reside in the evil, a certain dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength, which do not admit of being despised. According to slave-morality, therefore, the “evil” man arouses fear; according to master-morality, it is precisely the “good” man who arouses fear and seeks to arouse it, while the bad man is regarded as the despicable being.
The contrast attains its maximum when, in accordance with the logical consequences of slave-morality, a shade of depreciation—it may be slight and well-intentioned—at last attaches itself to the “good” man of this morality; because, according to the servile mode of thought, the good man must in any case be the safe man: he is good-natured, easily deceived, perhaps a little stupid, un bonhomme. Everywhere that slave-morality gains the ascendancy, language shows a tendency to approximate the significations of the words “good” and “stupid.”
Creation of Values
A last fundamental difference: the desire for freedom, the instinct for happiness and the refinements of the feeling of liberty belong as necessarily to slave-morals and morality, as artifice and enthusiasm in reverence and devotion are the regular symptoms of an aristocratic mode of thinking and estimating.— Hence we can understand without further detail why love as a passion—it is our European specialty—must absolutely be of noble origin; as is well known, its invention is due to the Provencal poet-cavaliers, those brilliant, ingenious men of the “gai saber,” to whom Europe owes so much, and almost owes itself.
261. Vanity is one of the things which are perhaps most difficult for a noble man to understand: he will be tempted to deny it, where another kind of man thinks he sees it self-evidently. The problem for him is to represent to his mind beings who seek to arouse a good opinion of themselves which they themselves do not possess—and consequently also do not “deserve,”—and who yet believe in this good opinion afterwards. This seems to him on the one hand such bad taste and so self-disrespectful, and on the other hand so grotesquely unreasonable, that he would like to consider vanity an exception, and is doubtful about it in most cases when it is spoken of.
He will say, for instance: “I may be mistaken about my value, and on the other hand may nevertheless demand that my value should be acknowledged by others precisely as I rate it:—that, however, is not vanity (but self-conceit, or, in most cases, that which is called ‘humility,’ and also ‘modesty’).” Or he will even say: “For many reasons I can delight in the good opinion of others, perhaps because I love and honour them, and rejoice in all their joys, perhaps also because their good opinion endorses and strengthens my belief in my own good opinion, perhaps because the good opinion of others, even in cases where I do not share it, is useful to me, or gives promise of usefulness:—all this, however, is not vanity.”
The man of noble character must first bring it home forcibly to his mind, especially with the aid of history, that, from time immemorial, in all social strata in any way dependent, the ordinary man was only that which he passed for:—not being at all accustomed to fix values, he did not assign even to himself any other value than that which his master assigned to him (it is the peculiar right of masters to create values).
It may be looked upon as the result of an extraordinary atavism, that the ordinary man, even at present, is still always waiting for an opinion about himself, and then instinctively submitting himself to it; yet by no means only to a “good” opinion, but also to a bad and unjust one (think, for instance, of the greater part of the self-appreciations and self-depreciations which believing women learn from their confessors, and which in general the believing Christian learns from his Church).
In fact, conformably to the slow rise of the democratic social order (and its cause, the blending of the blood of masters and slaves), the originally noble and rare impulse of the masters to assign a value to themselves and to “think well” of themselves, will now be more and more encouraged and extended; but it has at all times an older, ampler, and more radically ingrained propensity opposed to it—and in the phenomenon of “vanity” this older propensity overmasters the younger. The vain person rejoices over every good opinion which he hears about himself (quite apart from the point of view of its usefulness, and equally regardless of its truth or falsehood), just as he suffers from every bad opinion: for he subjects himself to both, he feels himself subjected to both, by that oldest instinct of subjection which breaks forth in him.
It is “the slave” in the vain man’s blood, the remains of the slave’s craftiness—and how much of the “slave” is still left in woman, for instance!—which seeks to seduce to good opinions of itself; it is the slave, too, who immediately afterwards falls prostrate himself before these opinions, as though he had not called them forth.—And to repeat it again: vanity is an atavism.
Master–slave morality
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master–slave_morality
Master–slave morality (German: Herren- und Sklavenmoral) is a central theme of Friedrich Nietzsche’s works, particularly in the first essay of his book On the Genealogy of Morality.
Nietzsche argues that there are two fundamental types of morality: “master morality” and “slave morality”, which correspond, respectively, to the dichotomies of “good/bad” and “good/evil”. In master morality, “good” is a self-designation of the aristocratic classes; it is synonymous with nobility and everything powerful and life-affirming. “Bad” has no condemnatory implication, merely referring to the “common” or the “low” and the qualities and values associated with them, in contradistinction to the warrior ethos of the ruling nobility. In slave morality, the meaning of “good” is made the antithesis of the original aristocratic “good”, which itself is relabeled “evil”. This inversion of values develops out of the ressentiment the weak feel toward the powerful.
For Nietzsche, a morality is inseparable from the culture that values it, meaning that each culture’s language, codes, practices, narratives, and institutions are informed by the struggle between these two moral structures.
Master morality
Nietzsche defined master morality as the morality of the strong-willed. He criticizes the view (which he identifies with contemporary British ideology) that good is everything that is helpful, and bad is everything that is harmful. He argues proponents of this view have forgotten its origins and that it is based merely on habit: what is useful has always been defined as good, therefore usefulness is goodness as a value. He writes that in the prehistoric state “the value or non-value of an action was derived from its consequences” but that ultimately “[t]here are no moral phenomena at all, only moral interpretations of phenomena.” For strong-willed men, the “good” is the noble, strong, and powerful, while the “bad” is the weak, cowardly, timid, and petty.
The essence of master morality is nobility. Other qualities that are often valued in master morality are open-mindedness, courage, truthfulness, trustworthiness, and an accurate sense of one’s self-worth. Master morality begins in the “noble man”, with a spontaneous idea of the good; then the idea of bad develops as what is not good. “The noble type of man experiences itself as determining values; it does not need approval; it judges, ‘what is harmful to me is harmful in itself’; it knows itself to be that which first accords honour to things; it is value-creating.” In master morality, people define the good based on whether it benefits them and their pursuit of self-defined personal excellence.: loc 1134, loc 1545 Insofar as something is helpful to the strong-willed man, it is like what he values in himself; therefore, the strong-willed man values such things as good because they aid him in a life-long process of self-actualization through the will to power.
Slave morality
According to Nietzsche, masters create morality; slaves respond to master morality with their slave morality. Unlike master morality, which is sentiment, slave morality is based on ressentiment—devaluing what the master values and what the slave does not have. As master morality originates in the strong, slave morality originates in the weak. Because slave morality is a reaction to oppression, it vilifies its oppressors. Slave morality is the inverse of master morality. As such, it is characterized by pessimism and cynicism. Slave morality is created in opposition to what master morality values as good.
Slave morality does not aim at exerting one’s will by strength, but by careful subversion. It does not seek to transcend the masters, but to make them slaves as well. The essence of slave morality is utility: The good is what is most useful for the whole community, not just the strong. Nietzsche sees this as a contradiction. Since the powerful are few compared to the masses of the weak, the weak gain power by corrupting the strong into believing that the causes of slavery (viz., the will to power) are evil, as are the qualities the weak originally could not choose because of their weakness. By saying humility is voluntary, slave morality avoids admitting that their humility was in the beginning forced upon them by a master. Biblical principles of humility, charity, and pity are the result of universalizing the plight of the slave onto all humankind, and thus enslaving the masters as well. “The democratic movement is the heir to Christianity”—the political manifestation of slave morality because of its obsession with freedom and equality.
Society
According to Nietzsche, the struggle between master and slave moralities recurs historically. He noted that ancient Greek and Roman societies were grounded in master morality. The Homeric hero is the strong-willed man, and the classical roots of the Iliad and Odyssey exemplified Nietzsche’s master morality. He calls the heroes “men of a noble culture”, giving a substantive example of master morality. Historically, master morality was defeated, as Christianity’s slave morality spread throughout the Roman Empire.
After the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, Judea completely lost its independence to Rome, and after the defeat of the Bar-Kokhba revolt in 136 AD it ceased to exist as a national state of Jewish people. The struggle between the polytheistic culture of Rome (master, strong) and newly developed Christian monotheism in former Judea and surrounding territories in the Middle East (slave, weak) lasted continuously until 323, when Christianity became the Roman Empire’s official religion. Nietzsche condemns the triumph of slave morality in the West, saying that the democratic movement is the “collective degeneration of man”. He claims that the nascent democratic movement of his time was essentially slavish and weak. Weakness conquered strength, slave conquered master, re-sentiment conquered sentiment. This ressentiment Nietzsche calls “priestly vindictiveness”, based on the jealous weak seeking to enslave the strong and thus erode the basis for power by pulling the powerful down. Such movements were, according to Nietzsche, inspired by “the most intelligent revenge” of the weak.
ご存知ですか？「奴隷道徳」：「ニーチェが京都にやってきて17歳の私に哲学のこと教えてくれた」
隙間時間で読書生活
https://www.mafublog.com/2021/05/06/nietzsche/
「臆病な卑劣さ → 謙虚」
「仕返ししない無力さ → 善い」
「弱者のことなかれ主義 → 忍耐」
弱者であることを美化した表現が用いられ、非利己的が良いとされている風潮が奴隷道徳。
本来人間は利己的な生き物で、道徳に振り回されて自分を否定する必要はない（ニーチェ）。
2024年9月6日（金）
今の社会のモラルは奴隷のモラル
今週の書物/
『Beyond Good and Evil』
Friedrich Nietzsche 著、R. J. Hollingdale 訳
Penguin Classics、2003年刊
戦前は、護国の精神に富んだ忠良なる臣民を育成するのが教育の目的だった。臣民というのは天皇に従属する者のこと。建国の精神、国体の要義を子どもの脳裡に徹底させる必要があるということで、教育勅語の精神に合致する教科書が使われた。また、中学校以上の男子校には現役陸軍将校が配属され、軍事教練が実施された。
そんな歴史のせいで、日本には今でもパブリックという考えがない。「Public Private」は「公私」と訳されはするが、その実態は「官民」であり、「Civil Servant」は公務員と訳されてはいるものの、「Civil Servant」として働く者たちの意識は相変わらず「官吏」であって、「国民に奉仕する」という考えは微塵もない。
国は国民のために存在するというのと、国民は国のために存在するというのとでは、意味合いがまったく違う。日本には今でも「お上」が存在していて、国民は「お上」の言うがまま。国の言うことには黙って従うし、警官や税務署員の理不尽に対しても従順だ。
学校での「いい子」といえば「言うことを聞く子」「言われた通りに行動する子」を指し、大人になって出来上がった「善良な市民」は、いつも正しく 温かい心を持ち、親切で 思いやりがあり、勤勉で どんな辛いことも耐え忍び、謙虚で 他人のために行動する。
日本の学校は奴隷養成所で、日本の社会は奴隷のような人間で溢れている。そんなことを考えているときに出会ったのが ニーチェの「Master–slave morality」と 忌野清志郎の「善良な市民」。「Master–slave morality」は まるで今の日本のことを言っているようだし、「善良な市民」は「小さな家で 疲れ果てて 眠るだけ」「新しいビールを飲んで 競馬で大穴を 狙うだけ」「飯代を 切詰めたりして Jリーグを 観に行くだけ」という具合で なんともせつない。
で、今週は「Master–slave morality」のことを書いた文章を読む。『Beyond Good and Evil』（Friedrich Nietzsche 著、R. J. Hollingdale 訳、Penguin Classics、2003年刊）の「Chapter IX What is noble?」だ。
ニーチェは不思議な存在だ。多くの人が若い頃に出会い、あまり多くを読まずに、それぞれが勝手な解釈をする。「ルサンチマン」だの「ニヒリズム」だのと言って わけのわからないことをこねくり回す人は多い。でも、読まないのは もったいない。ニーチェは いろいろなことを違った視点から捉えるのがとてもうまいから、固定観念から自由になるのの助けになる。
『Beyond Good and Evil』の「Chapter IX What is noble?」には、主人道徳（master morality）と 奴隷道徳（slave morality）という２つの道徳が出てくるのだが、その前提として 一方に高貴な人たち（権力者たち、貴族たち）がいて、もう一方には弱者たち（庶民、抑圧された人たち）がいるという社会がある。
主人道徳は、意志の強い者の道徳とされ、その道徳での「善」は 高貴で、強く、力強いものであり、「悪」とは弱く、臆病で、ささいなものだという。高貴な人たちの道徳とはいえ、動物的・直截的で、かつ積極的・攻撃的だ。心の広さ、勇気、誠実さ、信頼性、そして価値に対する正確な認識が必要とされるというが、それは仲間内だけのことで、弱い者たちは眼中にない。
これに対し奴隷道徳は、弱い者たちの持つ道徳で、その道徳での「善」は コミュニティ全体にとって役立つもの、「悪」は 権力を握っている者たちのやることなすことだという。謙虚さ、慈悲、憐れみなどの感情は、強い者たちにはわからないと思っている。民主主義・自由・平等などは、奴隷道徳の政治的な表現だという。
とはいっても、書かれたのは日本でいえば明治時代だから、今とは何も比較はできないが、それでもいろいろ考えさせられる。日本とかアメリカとか、21世紀に民主主義・自由・平等などを掲げている国を、ニーチェは、奴隷道徳の国だというのだろうか？ エヌビディアのジェンスン・フアンのようなビリオネアが奴隷道徳を身に着けていることを、どう説明するのだろう？
そんな疑問を考えるために、私たちの国である日本について考えてみよう。日本には、世界でもめずらしい『道徳教育』がある。教師は自らの信念を押し付けず、日本に昔からある道徳心に従うよう指導し、親や年長者を敬ったり、動物に優しく接したり、困っている人を助けたりすることの大切さを教えるのだという。
道徳教育の基盤は家庭にあるべきなのに、子どもは夕方から夜にかけてしか家にいないからといって、学校が代わりに道徳教育の役割を引き受ける。学校に行かない日が年間に170日もあるのだし、そもそも学校にいる時間の大部分は道徳以外の強化の授業に費やされるのだから、年に30時間にも満たない『道徳教育』をしたところで、たかが知れているのだが、この類のプロパガンダの子供への影響は思いのほか大きい。
その文部科学省が掲げる道徳教育だが、道徳的な心情、判断力、実践、態度などの道徳性を養うのが目的で、秩序、注意深さ、努力、公平性、人間や自然との関係における協調性も含まれているという。なんのことはない、ニーチェの言うところの奴隷道徳の教育をしているのだ。
日本教職員組合（日教組）のウェブページに行っても、日本国憲法とか人権教育とかいった進駐軍が日本に押し付けたことが並んでいるだけで、掲げられている道徳がニーチェが書いた奴隷道徳であることは、文部科学省の道徳と何ら変わりがない。
要は、どんな立場にいるにせよ、今の日本人が道徳をイメージする場合には、ニーチェが説明した奴隷道徳しか頭に浮かばないということなのだ。日本には、主人道徳は悪だと考える人しか存在しない。まるで、みんなが（社畜とか皇民とかの）歯車の一部になったかのようだ。
考えてみれば、20世紀という国家の時代には、たとえそれが 軍国主義だろうが 民主主義だろうが 共産主義だろうが、個人の意思は認められない。
ニーチェが多くの文章を並べて言いたかった 主人道徳 における個人の意思を思い出してみよう。個人の意思はノーブルな（精神が高貴な）人間が持つものなのだ。ノーブルな人間は自分を価値を自分で決める。他人に承認を求めたりはしないで、自分で判断を下す。自分にとって有害なものはそれ自体が有害で、悪なのだ。名誉を与えるのは自分だけ。価値の創りだすのも自分だけ。自分の中に認められるものは何でも尊重する。そのような道徳を持つものは今の日本には ひとりもいない。
主人道徳がいいと言っているのではない。主人道徳を持っている人がいないと言っているのだ。言葉を変えれば、ノーブルな人がひとりもいないということになる。そしてみんなが、そのことをいいことだと思っている。
何かに属していたり 金持ちだったりして 自分のことをノーブルだと勘違いしている人はいても、本当の意味で精神的にノーブルな人はいない。今の金持ちたちは、みんな卑しい。
今の状態から抜け出せないか？ 奴隷道徳に覆われた社会のなかで 高貴な個人を獲得することはできないのだろうか？ 自分の価値は自分で決め 自分のことは自分で判断する。そんな150年前にはあたりまえにいた「精神的に高貴」で「自分に誇りを持っている」人は、もう今の社会には現れないのか？
日本には、労働を強制されながら、そのことを自らの意志で働いているのだと考えている人たちが大勢いる。その誰もが、自分のことを奴隷だと思っていない。失業したら生きていけないと、上司の言うことに従い、長時間労働している人たちは、はたから見れば自由ではない。そんな人たちの過労死とか自殺とかが新聞紙上を賑わせるが、それはなぜなのか。その理由が、ニーチェの文章を読んでわかったような気がする。すべて奴隷道徳のせいなのだ。
自分の自由な時間を増やすことに罪悪感を感じ、逃げることをよしとしなければ、それはもう奴隷でしかない。そんなふうな人たちは、みんな、ニーチェの言う 奴隷道徳 の持ち主なのだ。
なにも 主人道徳 を持たなくてもいい。奴隷道徳 から解放されさえすればいいのだ。主人も奴隷も関係なく、国のため・会社のため・上司のためといった他人のためという発想を捨て、自分を否定せず、誇りを持って、自分のために生きる。それだけでいい。勤め人だろうが、自由業であろうが、奴隷道徳に染まらなければいいのだ。多くの人たちがそうすれば、社会はきっと もっと風通しのいいものになる。
ニーチェの著作を読むと、時代が違うせいもあって、反感を感じることが多い。でも考えさせられることが多く、個人の そして社会の 指針となることが少なからずある。少しだけでも、たとえ１章・１節だけでも読んでみるといいと、声を大にして言いたい。
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Master–slave morality
主宰与奴役道德再次与电影《Good Grief 》联想一齐。主宰和奴隶是一对夫夫，当主宰master决定离开奴隶时，上天给他的惩罚是一定会有的（电影结局车祸死亡）但反之那人是奴隶性格，那么他不会选择离开出走，因而可以避免死亡或其他惩罚，他可以为已悲伤，但他明知故为而给无辜主宰加于悲伤是如隶难以做到的行为。
道不通人不直
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