#noble morality

A note on terminology, because it’s clearly very loaded: the “noble” and “slave” labels on moralities/value systems refer to whom the value system ultimately benefits. A noble value system is posited and maintained by the noble class (which may be either a knightly or a priestly caste) and works to justify and preserve their dominant position in society. A slave value system may or may not be invented by the lower classes of society (Buddhism, which counts as a slave morality in Nietzsche’s sense, was invented by a prince), but it definitely works to their advantage, because it protects the vulnerable and promotes social equality. The terminology is unfortunate in a context where the word “slave” immediately brings to mind the American system of Black chattel slavery; that is definitely not what Nietzsche had in mind. He was a classicist before he became a philosopher, so he’s usually thinking about slavery in the ancient world as well as serfdom in pre-modern Europe. This is definitely unorthodox, but I’m going to start using “serf morality” instead of “slave morality” to avoid irrelevant racial connotations.

The main difference between noble and serf morality, on the issue of caring for and helping others, has to do with the way you think about the obligation to do so. The type of serf morality that Nietzsche calls “the morality of compassion” or “the morality of suffering” says that you have an obligation to relieve all suffering, and to care about all others who suffer. (Sometimes an exception is made for those who make others suffer and you’re allowed to hate them and want them to suffer; sometimes you’re supposed to pity and help them too.) You’re supposed to make the happiness and/or well-being of other people your primary goal in life, and you’re supposed to care about everyone, regardless of their relationship to you. Some forms of (post-)Christian morality permit you to prioritize people to whom you have special relationships (family and friends), but the purest form of this morality requires you to care about everyone equally, and ascetic or monastic Christianity discourages forming special relationships because that will inject an element of selfishness into your desire to benefit certain people. The purer forms of this morality -- philosophical Christianity, with or without God -- also consider the salvation of one’s own soul to be an unacceptably selfish motivation for helping others. Ideally, everyone’s entire motivation is to eliminate the suffering of others, not because of anything particular about them or their relation to you, but simply because they exist and they suffer. The morality of compassion is universalistic, egalitarian, and outward-focused.

Noble value systems allow agents to be selective in whose well-being they care about. Special relationships are extremely important. Traditionally, this usually means family relationships and comradeship-in-arms because aristocratic societies have conventionally been very heredity-focused and martial. But it also includes what Aristotle scholars call “character friendships”: friendships formed with kindred spirits because of mutual admiration for each other’s qualities and abilities. The standards of a noble morality only apply to a small class of people, namely, the nobility; it’s largely silent on how non-nobles should behave, and different versions have different rules about how nobles should treat non-nobles. Respect is reserved for other nobles, but some noble moralities, especially medieval hybrids of Christianity and Roman/pagan noble morality, also encourage benevolence, generosity, and forbearance toward commoners. Under certain circumstances, nobles can be obligated to care about the well-being of certain non-nobles, but it’s virtually always a matter of regarding them as your own, as your responsibility. Lords are supposed to care about the commoners who live in their lands and are obligated to protect them and provide for them; Christian knights are supposed to care about other Christians. In the ideal city described in Plato’s Republic, the guardians (the warrior class) are compared to guard dogs who are friendly to their master’s family but hostile to strangers. Their responsibility is to all the citizens of their city, even the lower-class ones; to that extent, all citizens are their own in the same way family members are. Caring for others in noble moralities is selective and is always a matter of regarding certain others as an extension of oneself and, therefore, regarding their well-being as part of one’s own well-being. Noble moralities also don’t preclude sacrificing yourself for others -- that would be very silly in a warrior’s code of conduct -- but self-sacrifice is not selfless when you’re sacrificing a part of yourself (your life, your body) for another part of yourself: the people who matter to you, your family, your comrades, your countrymen. There’s also the understanding that those who sacrifice themselves in such a way will be remembered and honored; you exchange a brief life for long-lasting glory.

(To be clear: Nietzsche was not in favor of going back to a Homeric-style warrior noble morality; he was very aware of the many cultural changes that have made that both impossible and undesirable, mostly involving the internalization and intellectualization of human life and activity. He was imagining communities being constructed and battle lines drawn on the ground of ideas, not geography or ethnicity, which can no longer defensibly be said to have the significance they once did. Nationalism, he thought, was a spasm of an outdated worldview. But he also questioned the value of selflessness and wondered about the end goal of a moral system whose primary motivation is the alleviation of suffering.)