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Nietzsche's Contradictory Concept Of Freedom

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The concept of freedom is contradictory in the Genealogy of Morals: for Nietzsche, true freedom will occur when every individual can live according to their true nature; however, this version of freedom would allow the strong to easily enslave the weak, negating any possibility of true freedom for an entire society. Thus, any theory of morality that seeks to explain this concept of freedom must be able to reconcile the contradiction it produces. Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj comes close to being able to resolve Nietzsche’s contradictory concept of freedom, but applying Gandhi in this way highlights his own difficulty situating freedom within his theory of home rule. With close analysis of passages from Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals and Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj, the reader discovers that, according to how one defines freedom, he or she will perceive an individual who they believe to be truly free as having achieved moral perfection.
In Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche’s appeal to …show more content…

As aforementioned, in Nietzsche’s ideal society in which all are free to live according to their natures, the strong would quickly enslave the weak. Adding Gandhi’s path to freedom to Nietzsche’s ideal moral code equation would resolve the complications it produces because of Gandhi’s association with the weak. Gandhi claims that “every reform must be preceded by discontent” (23). In order for the weak to commence their journey to becoming passive resisters, they must first experience unrest. Similarly, Nietzsche believes that “slave morality always first needs a hostile external world” (37); and, his ideal moral code produces this hostile environment that will generate unrest within the weak. However, instead of seeking to change the moral code as they have done in the past, the weak would begin to walk Gandhi’s path to true

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