Otto Weininger on the character of man

power above or outside the individual human being. They proclaimed a new morality based on the sovereignty of the individual free will. Nietzsche differed from the other two in maintaining that man has to be surpassed, and that whatever tends in the direction of man’s achieving a higher state of being is good. Both Weininger and Stirner accepted man as he now is. But while Stirner maintained that any action was good that was freely done and true to one’s own real self, Weininger based his ethics on logic and reason.

For Weininger the criterion of a moral action was that it should be done in accordance with a principle which has been freely and consciously accepted as one’s own, that one should stand by this principle and accept full responsibility for the consequences of one’s action. This conviction of the autonomy and unconditional responsibility of the individual free will is Weininger’s great contribution to modern thought.

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