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About this quote

What does it mean?
He claims that rights are tied to self‑imposed duties and that most people lack a right to exist, being a misfortune to higher men.
In plain terms
Rights depend on personal responsibility, and many are unworthy.
What can you take from it?
Link personal duty to entitlement.

Where it applies

  • ethical discussions
  • social theory

Putting it to work

  • philosophical critiques
  • policy debates

Questions to consider

  • Is it just to deny rights based on perceived merit?
  • How do we define 'higher' men?

Another view

It denies universal human dignity.

More from Friedrich Nietzsche

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  2. The homogenizing of European man ... requires a justification: it lies in serving a higher sovereign species that stands upon the former which can raise itself…

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  3. The Beautiful exists just as little as the True. In every case it is a question of the conditions of preservation of a certain type of man: thus the herd-man w…

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