The eagle has brought forth a mouse: Memories from underground and nietzschian moral philosophy under the view of Alasdair Macintyre

Abstract

A philosophical investigation was carried out on the ethics presented by Fyodor Dostoevsky in his novel Notes from Underground, comparing it with the moral thought of Friedrich Nietzsche. A profound similarity was identified between the ideas of the “underground man” and Nietzschean thought. Next, Alasdair MacIntyre's critique of enlightenment and emotivist moral philosophy was sought, in which the Scottish philosopher is based on Nietzsche's thought. MacIntyre demonstrates that the author of Thus Spoke Zarathustra is brilliant in his argument against enlightenment philosophy and completely wrong when he proposes his own solution. It is concluded that the underground man can serve as an example of the inevitable failure of both the ethics criticized by Nietzsche and the Nietzschean ethics itself. Dostoevsky's character demonstrates in the form of fiction how someone who exclusively uses rationalist moral language would behave. And at the same time, the underground man is an anti-model for virtue ethics.