103

There are two kinds of deniers of morality.  'To deny morality'  this can mean, first: to deny that the moral motives which men claim have inspired their actions really have done so  it is thus the assertion that morality consists of words and is among the coarser or more subtle deceptions (especially self-deceptions) which men practise, and is perhaps so especially in precisely the case of those most famed for virtue. Then it can mean: to deny that moral judgments are based on truths. Here it is admitted that they really are motives of action, but that in this way it is errors which, as the basis of all moral judgment, impel men to their moral actions. This is my point of view: though I should be the last to deny that in very many cases there is some ground for suspicion that the other point of view  that is to say, the point of view of La Rochefoucauld52 and others who think like him  may also be justified and in any event of great general application.  Thus I deny morality as I deny alchemy, that is, I deny their premises: but I do not deny that there have been alchemists who believed in these premises and acted in accordance with them.  I also deny immorality: not that countless people feel themselves to be immoral, but there is any true reason so to feel. It goes without saying that I do not deny  unless I am a fool  that many actions called immoral ought to be avoided and resisted, or that many called moral ought to be done and encouraged  but I think the one should be encouraged and the other avoided for other reasons than hitherto. We have to learn to think differently  in order at last, perhaps very late on, to attain even more: to feel differently.

52. La Rochefoucauld (1613-80): French writer whose Moral Maxims is a collection of short, highly cynical observations on life. He wrote, "Our virtues are mostly our vices in disguise."
Friedrich Nietzsche - Daybreak
Book II - Aphorism # 103

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