master morality
Noble values system
Master morality is Nietzsche's term for a value system that originates with the strong and noble, who define "good" as what they themselves embody—strength, pride, creativity—and "bad" as what is weak or lowly.
It contrasts with slave morality, which Nietzsche saw as a reactive inversion where the powerless redefine their weakness as virtue.
He argued that master morality celebrates life-affirming qualities rather than meekness or self-denial.
- NietzscheGerman philosopher of will
- beyond good and evilOutside moral categories
- self-assertionInsisting on recognition
- aristocracyRule by hereditary elite
- ruling classDominant governing stratum
willpower · hierarchy · natural order · Übermensch · nobility · self-overcoming · ethics · nihilism · autonomy · moral relativism · pride · existentialism · value systems · courage · individualism · elitism · greatness · dominance
- German PhilosophyKant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Heidegger
- Nietzschewill to power, overman, superman, Zarathustra, Dionysian
- philosophyethics, logic, metaphysics, ontology, epistemology
master moralityslave morality
Ethics born from oppression
blessed are the meek · Christian morality · asceticism · self-denial · Buddhist ethics