Some Thoughts on Master Morality
Piling on the arguments against Bentham's Bulldog
In response to this piece Shut Up About Slave Morality by Bentham’s Bulldog:
Morality is socially enforced. Saving the drowning child is a universal moral because if you don’t save the kid, your tribe will call you an asshole. Saving the kid on the other side of the world is not universal, because your tribe doesn’t care as much about the kid on the other side of the world. That isn’t to say that’s the way it ought to be, that’s just how it is. I’ll agree with Walt about at least this part of his argument: moral realism is made up nonsense, morality is arrived at through intersubjectivism.
Parents may say they want their kid to be nice and to be a good person, but an awful lot of parenting is oriented around getting the kid into a good college and setting them on the track to an exceptional career where they will make lots of money. These familial expectations are the primary source of social enforcement of master morality. The son who goes to a great college and embarks upon a high status career is thought of as more of a “good person” than the son who flunks out and becomes a NEET. We might not use that language, because slave morality is the one we speak aloud when we assess who is a good person, while master morality has to be spoken implicitly.
Slave morality never eradicated the social pressure to be excellent and climb the hierarchy. Master morality is alive and well in all of us, it just has been stigmatized. And there are ways to be excellent and climb the hierarchy that are not worthy of stigma. Since slave morality makes master morality taboo to speak aloud, a young person will often feel shame and confusion about their ambitions, even though they’ve implicitly been taught that ambition and accomplishment are moral and good.
Part of the crucial value in reading Nietzsche as a young adult is validating the master morality scripts that are running in all of our heads, but which slave morality teaches us to disavow. An exceptional young person who wants to reach their potential will be divided against themself. Nietzsche helps one see the roots of that division, and that pursuing excellence doesn’t inherently make one a bad person. Virtues of excellence, power, and independence can co-exist with virtues like fairness and compassion.
Our friend Mr. Bulldog is still too concerned with picking a worldview that is “true” instead of accepting that no single perspective can capture the complexities of the world. From someone who confessed aloud “I don’t value art,” though, (1:44:47) it’s not particularly surprising that his view of things is sorely two-dimensional.
Part of growing up is learning to hold the tension of contradictions. Children are taught slave morality explicitly, and master morality implicitly, because they’re not complex enough thinkers to deal with contradiction, and narcissistic teenagers are in greater need of social enforcement to look outside themselves and be empathetic. (Adolescent brains will concern themselves quite enough with jockeying for status without that behavior being externally validated.) For an exceptionally talented young adult swimming in the cultural waters of today to rise to their potential and contribute their gifts to society though, they need to be reassured that a desire to be exceptional and leave their mark upon the world is not immoral.
I think you did a good job describing master morality, but a poor job discussing slave morality. Christianity is the main slave morality in the world, and none of its tenets say that you should avoid accomplishing things or being excellent. It created powerful hierarchies such at the catholic church and divine right monarchies.
What slave morality teaches is that once you achieve power, you should help those who do not have power, rather than wield it selfishly. This could be through Christianity’s golden rule, Utilitarianism, or noblesse oblige. When my parents taught me to go to a good college and get a powerful career to help others, that is entirely slave morality, not master morality. Perhaps your parents taught you to get status and money just to help you, your family, and/or tribe, but mine emphasized charity. That is why I would be higher status in my family as a Doctor who donates 10% of my income than a Big Law Lawyer who just spent the money on a bigger house.
I’m not really sure what the argument is supposed to be. You assert moral realism is false (no argument) and ignore my reasons why moral anti realists should accept my claims.