Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
II: Criticism of Morality§261 What is the criterion of a moral action?
Its disinterestedness, and …
its universal acceptation, etc.
But this is parlour-morality. Races must be studied and observed and, in each case, the criterion must be discovered, as also the thing it expresses: a belief such as: “This particular attitude or behaviour belongs to the principal condition of our existence”. Immoral means “that which brings about ruin”. Now all societies in which these principles were discovered have met with their ruin: a few of these principles have been used and used again, because every newly established community required them; this was the case, for instance, with “Thou shalt not steal”. In ages when people could not be expected to show any marked social instinct (as, for instance, in the age of the Roman Empire) the latter was, religiously speaking, directed towards the idea of “spiritual salvation”, or, in philosophical parlance, towards “the greatest happiness”. For even the philosophers of Greece did not feel any more for their polis?