Nietzsche and Morality

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) discarded the conventional moral philosophy, and described a new philosophy in which morals are not handed down to Man from a higher power, but are constructed by the individual. No where is this more evident that the remark, “God is dead.” (The Gay Science, 1882). Nietzsche did not mean that God is dead in any physical sense; more that, as humanty develops, there is no need for the rigid morality of previous epochs.

The concept of individually constructed morality is embodied in Nietzsche’s idea of the Ubermensch, or overman. He claimed that, once man has forsaken (primarily) Christian morality and constructed his own, he will go beyond Man, “beyond good and evil” (Beyond Good and Evil, 1886). This overman will imprint his existence upon the universe, regardless of everyone else, using his Will to Power (the human will to dominate, contrasted with Schopenhauer’s Will to Live).

Jack the Ripper as Nietzschian Ubermensch?