Empirically, it seems like the world is not improved the most by people whose primary motivation is helping others, but rather by people whose primary motivation is achieving something amazing. If this is true, that’s a strong argument against slave morality.
This is seems very wrong to me on a historical basis. When I think of the individuals who have done the most good for the world, I think of people who made medical advances like the smallpox vaccine, scientists who discovered new technologies like electricity, and social movements like abolitionism that defeated a great and widespread harm. These people might want to “achieve something amazing”, but they also have communitarian goals: to spread knowledge, help people or avert widespread suffering.
Also, it’s super weird to take the Nietzschean master and slave morality framework at face value. it does not seem to be an accurate representation of the morality systems of people today.
One crux here might be what improved lives the most over the last three hundred years.
If you think economic growth has been the main driver of (human) well-being, then the mindset of people driving that growth is what the original post might have been hinting at. And I do agree with Richard that many of those people had something closer to master morality in their mind.
I agree. Among those who’s motivation was to achieve something amazing include people like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Manhattan project peeps—than other people. I love your examples titotal and would add great statesmen who improved the world as well, like GhAndi and Mandella
What are these examples of people who were motivated primarily by doing something amazing and changed the world hugely for the better?
This is seems very wrong to me on a historical basis. When I think of the individuals who have done the most good for the world, I think of people who made medical advances like the smallpox vaccine, scientists who discovered new technologies like electricity, and social movements like abolitionism that defeated a great and widespread harm. These people might want to “achieve something amazing”, but they also have communitarian goals: to spread knowledge, help people or avert widespread suffering.
Also, it’s super weird to take the Nietzschean master and slave morality framework at face value. it does not seem to be an accurate representation of the morality systems of people today.
One crux here might be what improved lives the most over the last three hundred years.
If you think economic growth has been the main driver of (human) well-being, then the mindset of people driving that growth is what the original post might have been hinting at. And I do agree with Richard that many of those people had something closer to master morality in their mind.
I agree. Among those who’s motivation was to achieve something amazing include people like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Manhattan project peeps—than other people. I love your examples titotal and would add great statesmen who improved the world as well, like GhAndi and Mandella
What are these examples of people who were motivated primarily by doing something amazing and changed the world hugely for the better?