Answers to Questions by Yair Davidiy (7 September 2017, 16 Elul, 5777)
How do you feel about/respond to this quote of Adolf Hitler "I do not see why man should not be just as cruel as nature"?
https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-feel-about-respond-to-this-quote-of-Adolf-Hitler-I-do-not-see-why-man-should-not-be-just-as-cruel-as-nature/answer/Yair-Davidiy
Hitler assumedly held that Moral Authority rested with the ruler and that there was no authority beyond that.
That is what he meant by saying "just as cruel as nature."
One obeys or one is killed or socially isolated.
Where does nature come in this?
"Nature" would lead one to obey.
Nature acts itself out according to preset rules. An animal has no real choice but reacts according to the influences acting on it.
A person also acts in the same way but moderates it according to moral choices.
Everyone has an innate sense of morality.
That is why we are responsible.
That is what makes us responsible.
Hitler also recognized this in so far as he would punish people who made moral choices different from those he advocated.
For example:
One would have a moral choice to deliver a Jew over to the authorities or not to.
In this case,
Saving the life of a Jew would be considered moral.
Obeying the authorities would also be considered moral, at least in Germany it would.
The choice is which of the two moral options would be obeyed.
There is a Moral Authority beyond humanity. This is called God.
Hitler did not deny this.
Hitler held that God is in effect “self-benefit†whether of the individual or of the super race he imagined to exist.
The question is not whether or not one believes in God as the source of morality
but which God or god and which morality. This applies to all social systems and ideologies. Do we obey Fraulein Adolph or the Almighty?