PHIL103: Moral and Political Philosophy

5.7: Existentialist Ethics

• 5.7.1: Friedrich Nietzsche

  • Yale University: Iván Szelényi's "Nietzsche on Power, Knowledge, and Morality" Page

    Watch this lecture, from 10:23. This lecture gives an introduction to Nietzsche's critique of morality. Nietzsche finds that modern morality is dominated by a limited view of Christian ethics as a passive and subservient rather than powerful. He describes the will to power as a necessary part of living as a fully actualized noble soul.

• 5.7.2: Jean-Paul Sartre

  • Saint Anselm College: David Banach's "The Ethics of Absolute Freedom"

    Read this lecture for a sense of Sartre's conception of existence. For Sartre, first we exist, and then we shape our essence through our choices in life.