Creating values › What the death of God opens

In the prologue, Zarathustra connects his teaching with a demand to remain faithful to the earth. He rejects hopes that direct people away from earthly life. The challenge concerns the ends by which life is evaluated, rather than only the assent given to a theological sentence.

One can understand the problem without claiming that Nietzsche has proved every religious outlook false. If a source of authority loses its hold on someone, that person still needs to decide how to live. The loss does not automatically supply a new standard. This conditional question gives the subsequent argument its force.

The book's answer emphasizes valuation. In “The Thousand and One Goals,” Zarathustra describes peoples with different tables of good and bad. He relates their valuations to the conditions and aspirations of their lives. The speech presents value as something humans have bestowed, rather than something received ready-made from heaven.

That is a substantive philosophical proposal. Differences between peoples do not by themselves prove that no judgment can be better than another. Nor does discovering a value's human history settle whether it deserves to be retained. Those questions remain part of assessing the claim that values can be created.