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Nietzsche's On The Genealogy Of Morality

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In Friedrich Nietzsche’s book On the Genealogy of Morality, he argues about the implications of pity and states that “[t]he sick represent the greatest danger for the healthy; it is not the strongest but the weakest who spell disaster for the strong” (121-122). Pity, according to Nietzsche, is morally and politically dangerous to the structure and effectiveness of a society. This clash between the strong and the weak highlights the importance of Nietzsche’s argument of challenging the status quo where those who are strong and healthy have a moral responsibility to care for the weak/sick. According to Nietzsche, it is the weak who have a stronghold influence on the strong by monopolizing pity as a virtue and utilizing it against the strong. …show more content…

This is morally dangerous because of the burden that is imposed by the weak to the strong. In conventional terms, a common consensus among society is that the sick should be taken care of by those who are relatively well off. This idea of the strong helping the weak revolves around the concept of moral responsibility and the obligations that come with being healthy. Nietzsche, however, rejects this argument by asserting that society devotes too much care for the sick and that in itself is a detriment to society. Nietzsche adds that all members of society eventually struggle and therefore it is not the job of the strong to use their time and resources to take care of the poor. (122-123) Cynically, Nietzsche adds that the weak resent the strong because “[t]hey monopolize virtue, these weak, hopelessly sick people, there is no doubt of it: “we alone are the good and just,”… they walk among us embodied reproaches, as warnings to us --- as if health, well-constitutedness, strength, pride, and the sense of power were in themselves necessarily vicious things” (123) It is therefore, not morally right for the strong to care for the weak because pity reduces their strength by forcing the strong to dedicate precious time and resources to the weak. By monopolizing virtue and associating it with pity, the weak are manipulating and exploiting the strong into …show more content…

Society invests in various social programs that are designed to assist the poor in combatting poverty and increasing their standard of living. Nevertheless, those funds are not reciprocated in the same fashion for other things such as the arts, sciences, and other investments that target individuals who wish to cultivate their minds. As a result, pity would have a detrimental impact politically on society because the strong would be incentivized to take care for the weak out of guilt. This is politically dangerous because a society that devotes much of its resources to the weak can jeopardize the success of the strong. Nietzsche adds to this by asserting that “If they [weak] succeed in poisoning the consciences of the fortunate with their own misery, with all misery, so that one day the fortunate began to be ashamed of their good fortune and perhaps said one to another: “it is disgraceful to be fortunate: there is too much misery!” (124). Nietzsche believed that the weak felt powerless and therefore wanted to the strong to feel guilty for being powerful. By trapping the strong in a corner using guilt, the weak are in essence discouraging the strong from maximizing their potential through the acquisition of knowledge and virtue. In order to prevent this, he argues that “the sick should

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