A Comparative Analysis of Nietzsche and the Death of God: Implications for Modern Ethics

One of the most provocative statements in modern philosophy, Friedrich Nietzsche’s declaration that God has 'died,' carries significant implications for ethics and moral theory. This paper sets out to examine Nietzsche’s lateness ‘announcement’ that ‘god is dead’ and to understand that the moral tradition of the West has been founded on a belief in a divinely ordained or just moral order, that in the destruction of this order the foundation of Western ethics is undermined. We first situate Nietzsche’s ideas in late 19th century European thought and the relation between God and morality. We go on to elucidate the meaning and the existentialist crisis of nihilism that Nietzsche was portending when the spoke of the ‘death of God.’ We then go through Nietzsche’s critique of conventional morality, as well as his argument that there is no ‘God’ and therefore absolutes of good and evil lack grounding and then move on to Nietzsche’s proposed alternatives to fill the void: there’s a ‘revaluation of all values,’ an Übermensch (overman) as a creator of new values, and the will to power as a principle of affirming life. Finally, the paper engages with recent notion and critique of Nietzsche’s ideas: contemporary responses and critiques in terms of how Nietzsche’s ideas impacted on modern moral philosophy, existentialist criticisms and reaction and secular and religious criticism. After that, we turn to Nietzsche’s lasting impact on modern ethics and whether he became either a catalyst for new practices of value creation, or a controversial figure whose rejection of egalitarian morality and compassion is firmly condemned. This paper analyzes primary texts (e.g. The Gay Science, Beyond Good and Evil, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, On the Genealogy of Morals) and locates themselves in relation to scholarly interpretations to explain Nietzsche’s understanding of ethics after ‘the death of god’ and its relevance to contemporary ethical thinking.