Nietzsche’s Aphorism 341 Essay Example

"The question in each and every thing 'Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more? " The challenge posed by the demon is the story of the Ring of Gyges applied in a different way. While the myth of the Ring of Gyges is concerned with how a person's sense of justice is determined by the threat of human retribution, the revelation of this demon is the theoretical consideration of what life would look like with the removal of divine retribution. Just as Plato examines how a human being would act if he could never get caught, the demon is asking the human being to consider how differently he would live is life, if God no longer exists, and that only man himself can shape his life from now on.

The demon’s suggestion takes on the nature of temptation, much as the serpent in the Book of Genesis, as the aphorism has no logical attempt, no reasoned argument for why time should be cyclical, but only a seductive appeal to the desire for a divine power over one’s life. While the appeal of emotion in rhetoric is often legitimate, it would behoove the victim of the demon’s temptation to consider the proposition more deeply, given what is at stake.If the demon is found to be right, than one can launch into a life of basing all decisions on what one wants to experience endlessly. But if the demon is wrong, there is a quite likely specter of a painful eternal damnation to face. Thus, it is best that one should examine the legitimacy of this demonic claim, especially since something similar has been

seen in the Book of Genesis that turned out to be lie, and base one’s actions with honesty in regards to the difference between what one knows to be true and what one wants to be true.