"Master morality weighs actions on a scale of good or bad consequences unlike slave morality which weighs actions on a scale of good or evil intentions."
Nietzsche would encourage people to look at consequences before intentions in assessing decision making. But whose decision making? It is important that perspective be clearly defined. I really don't buy the Master/Slave arbitrary dynamic imposed. A person could easily propose a three way struggle between Farmer/Merchant/Soldier moralities that would allow far more subtleties and account for more subversion, valuation and the dynamic range of human decision making and interaction than a simplistic binary system like Nietzsche proposed. But simplicity is easier to relate without "telephone" symptoms occurring. For myself, I see the Nietzsche system as inadequate because the symptoms he identifies have never fit within his categories in my experience. I would swap numerous traits of the categories were I limited to his colorblind assessment of Master/Slave.
But since it did get me thinking, I guess I owe the thoughts a nod. Here's what I was thinking about:
As an individual, living daily life, it is important for me to have a healthy self-respect and a healthy respect for others. A person operating under these principles, whatever we might differ in imagining this to look like, I believe everyone would consider a morally well-adjusted individual as per their subjective idea of "healthy". As individuals, we operate in a sphere of influence, a proximity bubble, if you will. None of us influences directly to the same degree every other person. As our proximity is greater to some, the actions we take have greater consequence for them, both good and ill. Conversely, as our proximity lessens from individuals on the fringe of or beyond our bubble, the less our decision making influences them. Lessons of cause and effect. Though they can contribute, my morning jumping jacks alone do not "cause" a hurricane. Every effect can have infinite numbers of causes, each with differing and debatable "weight."
As the center of the bubble is ourselves and the most readily accessible occasion of conflict of decision making occurs in our own minds, our focus on this area should not only be seeking results, as Neitzsche believed is healthy, but on the attitudes, disciplines, fact-bank, reasoning, and whatever other facets enable those desirable results to occur. It's generally better not to be on the ass-end of a decision by simply looking at results and not paying equal (or greater) attention to the contributing components by which it is induced to occur. When we are burned, we recoil, and log in our brains ideas on how to avoid and then actively seek not to repeat the experience. When we experience exhiliration, as from, say, base jumping, internal mechanisms are placed and maintained that foster the option of repeating the experience. The reason we are told to look at the results is because they are desirable or undesirable. Yet to go beyond being a simple spectator (or perpetual victim) in life and to repeat or avoid these results the mechanisms, or if you will, the causes generating the effects, are the only components an individual has control over. I can wish a good thing to happen, but it is my own attitude, words and actions that exhibit whether my wishing is sincere or false. And it is in the sincerity of each individual that they must look. They are the only stewards of that estate. They are the only ones who can look into their own mechanisms, and bend them to generate desirable results. If they do not, who will? If I continually receive undesirable results, the implication is that my mechanisms require adjustment - or overhaul. My attitude, my desires, my thoughts, my words, they are integrated and determine to a large extent the results I receive.
Notice I say our internal mechanisms control results to a large extent. This is because results are not governed exclusively by our will, by our internal mechanisms. Christ told us we might move mountains with our words, but without faith, it is impossible. If words alone could move mountains, they'd be wandering everywhere and for no good reason. We would be disconcerted if a flippant, "I wish that mountain wasn't blocking the sun," resulted in the devastating crunch of thousands of homes or a monstrous tidal wave that wiped out every coastline along the Pacific Ocean. Certainly God controls events, at least to some degree. I struggle knowing to what extent his hand is directly within my internal mechanisms, free will and omniscience/omnipotence conflict and all that, but I know and have seen that hand directly in events outside myself. In history and (I groan at my hippie-ish in saying so) in nature as well. I think there have been times; however, where my internal mechanics were directly suspended. For a time I dreamt both the most indescribably terrible and beautiful dreams, complete with emotions altogether too powerful and uncharacteristic to my self-perceived persona. . They altogether trumped and shamed any component of earthly experience. But I would grant that I'm likely not alone in that, and in deference to limiting sensationalism, would allow them to be dismissed to simple scientific explanation. I cannot recall in them any specific message that would edify or teach, unless recognition of the dynamic range of existence is a message of the Divine Will leaving tokens by planting the miraculous in what should be the mundane.
What I do not currently see, nor can I see, is the extent to which He is working in the internal mechanics of those outside myself. I can see the results, and often I see deniable but powerful shadows of His influence in these results, but I cannot see his hand directly in the minds of others, and therefore cannot pin down with complete certainty what other people's true intentions may be at any given moment. I have seen results that bear the mark of selfishness, or charity, or egotism, or humility, but I cannot know. Experience with people closer in proximity to me tells me that over time I begin to be able to read them and get a small sense of their internal mechanics, which can range from appearing akin to (more often) frighteningly different than my own. Either way, I learn to read those nearest to me, their idiosyncracies allow me to anticipate their actions, and by looking at my own mechanics, their actions, their results, I can imagine how their mechanics might function. There are always, even in the terrifyingly different minds, some components of similarity.
For those closest to me in my bubble, I may, to a lesser degree, utilize an "analysis of motives" approach. For example, in friendships it is a desirable trait to know the mechanics of another, to be able to anticipate each other, encouraging when encouragement is needed. In parents with children, it is healthy to analyze why a child might have done something wrong, and can allow for the correction of a character flaw that could be fatal or perhaps undesirable in adulthood (to the child or others). It is presumptuous and arrogant; however, for parents to presume to tell someone they met in the park that very day why that person's child is acting up. There are no instant shrinks, whatever the Dr. Phil Age may lead you to believe. Keep in mind, I like Dr. Phil, but not everyone can get the right prescription for everyone else at their first meeting. And it seems in this age, many, many people brazenly assume they can. You might be one of those who presume to have above average or even phenomenal "discernment." That is excellent, you may have it, and if so, I'm happy for you. But more likely you also may be one of the higher percentage who presumes to have it. Beware exhibitional mimicry.
Some say it is best to assume the worst intentions in others, that way you'll never be swindled. Others say it is best to assume the best intentions in others, after all it's the same charity we extend to ourselves (though where they got the second part I don't know, I've seen bad intentions in myself plenty of times. Practically every day since I was born until now I'm obliged and often fail to curb them).
I say let's not assume either way. New acquaintances should always get the benefit of doubt. Friends and family you can have slightly more leeway with psychoanalyzing. I won't put a yes/no ultimatum on it; it's best to let proximity be your guide. Which is part of why proximity to Christ is so important. His psychoanalysis is spot on. The slave morality Neitzsche disdained is close to the morality Christ prescribed to each of us concerning ourselves. "Whoever wishes to be great among you..." Paul reiterated, "I beat my body and I make it my slave..." It is not something He prescribed to have us proactively and through subversion force down the throats of one another, whatever Neitzsche may have viewed it. The master morality Neitzsche cites and praises in reactionary measures to what he viewed as smarmy "slave" immorality is in fact none other than one meager component of what we are already prescribed to do within that allegedly erroneous Christian "slave morality." It is simply grossly inflated to preclude all other obligations and moralities. Grossly inflated beyond merit, it quickly becomes immorality. A half truth, we know, sells much better than an outright lie.
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