The Genealogy Of Morality By John Stuart Mill And Friedrich Nietzsche

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Paul Gauguin, a famous painter of his time, quit his job so that he could have more focus to pursue his artistic career. Not only did he quit his job, he left his wife and five children to travel to Tahiti and immerse himself in the culture. While he found great success in his endeavors, inspiring many other artists and solidifying himself as one of the most prominent artists of all time, he did not know that things would turn out this way. In this paper I will be drawing on John Stuart Mill and Friedrich Nietzsche’s differing opinions on moral theory as well as my own interpretation of the event.
John Stuart Mill, commonly considered to be one of the great British philosophers of the nineteenth century, was a driving force in the moral theory
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In his essays Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality he discusses the shift in thinking in terms of “good and bad” to “good and evil.” Nietzsche goes on to discuss his idea of master-slave morality, which at its core is exactly what it appears to be. Initially, this formulation of morality was practiced by ancient aristocratic societies and followed the value equation of good = noble = powerful = beautiful = happy = beloved by God (Nietzsche, 81.) Breaking it down, master morality is both good and bad, where being “good” is to be happy and have wealth, power, or strength. On the contrast, being bad was the equivalent of being a slave, weak, sick, and pitied. On the other side, slave morality is both good and evil where good is akin to charity and submission and evil is to be selfish, wealthy, or …show more content…
Together they can help to explain different aspects of moral theory, but alone I feel they are too impractical to be functional as a single explanation. I believe that Gauguin’s decision was the wrong one. He had no concern for his wife and five children and could have possibly put them out on the street to follow his desires. While the endeavor worked out in his favor, it very much had the possibility to backfire and send him packing back home. Now, is it wrong of someone to pursue their dreams? I don’t think so, but to do it in the reckless fashion like this is very much an immoral thing to do. Even still in our modern society I believe that most average people would agree that he made a poor judgement call, even though success was found.

While Nietzsche and Mill offer differing opinions on what is and is not moral, the ability to evaluate morality is introspective. Whether you side with Mill’s Utilitarianistic approach, Nietzsche’s master-slave morality concepts, or another theory entirely it is not our place to say who is right and who is wrong. At the root of it all, Paul Gauguin acted in the way that he believed was best for himself and his ability to flourish as a human being. As ludicrous as it may seem, this is the way many people live their day to day lives; purely functioning on gut feelings and

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