Aquinas Vs Nietzsche On Morality

In every day life, we face many situations that require a moral decision. We have to decide what is right and what is wrong? Not always is this an easy task thus, it seems important to analyze how we make our moral decisions. I will start with an analysis of how we make decisions in general

In the real world when people are faced with choices these choices have consequences and deeply impact our loved ones, whether we intend them to or not. By challenging any set of beliefs, standards or ideals can be difficult, but one must be aware of those consequences and how they will alter the course of our life. Morality is a strong guiding compass in making difficult decisions, and is often the one that is most difficult to follow when put against the will of

Determinism and natural law, two worldviews that stand on opposite sides of the earth. People that value determinism see life as a one way track where any effort made still leave the final destination the same. An individual’s choices will lead to somewhere, but there is nothing they can do to influence whether or not they make that certain choice. In opposition, those who believe in natural law see that the actions of the individual have an influence on the outcome on the outcome of their life. These actions follow their morals, which come from introspection and experience. Chigurh embodies the idea of determinism, while Sheriff Bell embodies the idea of natural law.

Morals are the beliefs of what is right or wrong that is instinctual. Many stories and novels we have read have shown the characters with morals. Morals are brought up by the individuals influenced by society. How we as humans manipulate those morals to our preferences is the affected relationship between individuals and society.

Can we achieve an objective understanding of reality? Is there a single truth or a universal morality? These are question essential to the the thesis of many philosophers. Humans are naturally curious creatures who are irritated by not understanding something. Many people turn to religion for an explanation of the unknown or the unexplained; others turn to their own intellect. Thousands of philosophers have dedicated their lives to try and find truth. Some believe they have succeeded while others died still searching. The concept of morality has also been debated for centuries. Agreed upon ideas of what is right and what is wrong are crucial components of any functional society. Below, Friedrich Nietzsche, german philosopher and author of Beyond Good and Evil will offer his opinion on these topics along with Niccolo Machiavelli; famed politician and philosopher well known for his book The Prince.

Immanuel Kant and John Samuel Mill have various similarities and differences on how we see the world. Where both will have, different ideologies referring to the cases of rescue I and rescue II. Kant and Mill are similar in multiple ways where both recognize the moral rules where Kant calls them duties and Mill calls them subordinate principles. Both have the subordinate principles where not to lie, no to stealing, and deprive from liberty from others. Appealing the consequences of the derived duties, where Kant considers the consequence of Maxim to become a universal law of nature, Mill considers the consequence of kind action. Evaluating the morality within ourselves they evaluate morality on the principle of what is wrong or right. As equally

Throughout history many great philosophers have attempted to unravel the origins of virtues by developing moral theories of their own. This document is designed to provide the reader with an overview of some of the more popular theories concerning morals. Three of the most popular moral theories are… Utilitarianism, Kantianism, and Aristotelianism. Though Utilitarianism, Kantianism, and Aristotelianism differ in many ways, they also share similar fundamentals.

“Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness” (Immanuel Kant). Morality is the divergence between right and wrong in every aspect of life. The history of the world has demonstrated human need to attain sovereignty. In the journey to achieve this goal, people have forgotten the gravity of the steps taken to complete an ideal and have only focused on the result. There have been several examples where detrimental actions have been taken by fortunate people to accomplish their goals. Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman, living in the early 1900s in eastern United States. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital at the age of 31, on January 29, 1951. The doctors prescribed her treatment plan as several Radium sessions and an initial surgery to help extirpate the tumor from her body. However, in her first surgery, without obtaining consent, the doctors extracted more than just her tumor. They took samples Henrietta’s cells. Using them, scientist George Gey was able to initiate the first immortal human cell line, denominated HeLa, and help cure various diseases. However, taking advantage of Henrietta’s race and socioeconomic status the doctors never informed her family about her revolutionary cells.

During his illustration of his principle, his definition of morality seems to be unstable and ambiguity increases with phrases like “moral difference”, “moral significance”, “moral autonomy”. It is likely that when it comes to significant difference between his principle and traditional values, he tends to use morality to confuse readers and make his statements more mysterious, more highly standardized and in a way, more likely to be trustable because we tend to believe in what we do not fully understand even confusingly.

Morality; “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior” Is the correlation

Morality has long been used by human being as a basis for their actions. Believers of God think that doing good deeds is being moral and thus these actions will save them from their sins. They believe that following God’s will, that is the 10 commandments and in the new commandments stated in the New Testament is the written and visible basis for these actions found in the Holy Bible. .

Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher of the 1800s was a very bold thinker and introduced ideas on the fundamental origin of morality, contrary to the ones believed by psychologists of his time. The theories that these psychologists had suggested that people considered an action to be “good” if someone benefitted from another person’s actions if they were doing it for themselves, claiming that any action someone committed was good if it gave an advantage to someone else. On the other hand, Nietzsche believed goodness came from those who created the term, He believed that there were two moralities that depicted the origins from where morality and the ideas of being good and bad come from. These moralities are known to be the “slave” morality

Thomas Aquinas was a famous medieval theologist and saint. He believed that there was no conflict between faith and reason and that they were both gifts. Reason helped, he believed, people discover important truths about God’s creation. Faith, meanwhile, uncovered facts about God. Aquinas wrote logical arguments in support of his faith to show how reason and religious belief helped each other. His concept of natural law stated that there was an order in nature that could guide people’s thoughts about right and wrong. Natural law, he declared, could be discovered through reason alone. Since God had created nature, natural law agreed with the moral teachings of the Bible.

Human is born with the natural ability of reasoning whether or not it is a gracious gift from God as claimed. According to natural law, human is capable of deciding whether an action is morally right or wrong. We do not create what is evil and good, rather, we discover what is right or wrong. Besides, humans are morally obliged to use their reasoning capability to discern what the laws are and subsequently acting in conformity with them. Therefore, there is no reason why divine law must be superior than man-made law when human is just as effective and arguably, even more effective. It is true that human law is self-imposed, capable of violation, subject to exception, modification and repeal. Human law can be binding in conscience if it is formed

Natural law theory states that there are laws that are immanent in nature and the man made laws should correspond as closely as possible. Man can’t produce natural laws but he can find and discover through his reasoning. If a law is contrary to a natural law then it is not a law. Laws should be related to morality. It is a concept of a body of moral principal that is same for all the man and it can only be find through human reasoning alone. There are many philosophers who followed this theory like Plato, Aristotle and john Locke.