有很多不同类型的道德理论。一是神圣命令理论，认为我们应该遵守的道德准则来自上帝的十诫。还有一种观点认为，理性支配着道德的戒律。根据康德的说法，道德法则是从我们自己的理性能力中衍生出来的，毫不奇怪，上帝的十诫和其他格言可以在我们的理性中找到。然而，尼采却不认同这两种观点。尼采出生于1844年，受到达尔文和叔本华等哲学家的影响。他的道德理论更多地反映了休谟对自然主义的坚守，而不是像康德那样的义务论理论。18世纪的哲学家大卫·休谟(David Hume)认为，道德建立在对他人的自然同情之上。约翰声称，和休谟一样，尼采也是一个自然主义者。然而，Ken仍然不确定这一说法的有效性。 As far as he was taught, especially in graduate school, Nietzsche was a moral skeptic denying there were moral facts at all.

布莱恩·莱特捍卫尼采是自然主义者的观点。和休谟一样，他认为我们的信仰没有一个是合理的。那么，如果道德或因果关系都没有理性基础，为什么还要相信它们呢?虽然休谟和尼采都试图讨论这个问题，但他们的叙述在方法上有所不同。在休谟看来，我们有一种天生的同情倾向，这导致我们接受我们的道德信念。然而，尼采的道德心理学理论完全破坏了我们的道德信念。正如约翰所说，尼采的道德故事解释了为什么我们有这些信念，却没有解释它们是否正确。在这一点上，肯提出了担忧。尼采是在说我们不应该有道德吗?如果这就是他所倡导的规范性立场，那么没有道德，我们该如何生活? The fear is that, once morality is undermined, anything and everything will be acceptable—the doctrine of “anything goes”. But Leiter believes there is little ground for this worry. It would not, he argues, be a mistake to believe in selflessness, equality, the importance of suffering, and the overcoming of bodily pleasures. These of course are the very things in the Judeo-Christian morality and ethical theories that Nietzsche critiques But if he were to claim that such beliefs were wrong or false, he couldn't hold himself to be a moral skeptic. Nietzsche thought that no moral belief system could be objectively true or false, not even his own beliefs about morality.

• Roving Philosophical Report(Seek To 00:04:15): Amy's report begins with an episode of the Sopranos in which A.J. Soprano, an angsty teenager, discovers existential philosophy and the philosophy of Frederich Nietzsche in particular. As a way to rebel against his parents, he refuses to get confirmed as a Catholic, citing Nietzsche's claims that God is dead and life is meaningless. However, unlike A.J.'s sullen interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy, Nietzsche thought that the fact that life is ultimately absurd was not a reason for angst but a cause for celebration, self-creation, and artistic fervor.

• Sixty-Second Philosopher(Seek To 00:37:23): Schopenhauer, the man who claimed to know the unknowable world postulated by Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason.

• Conundrum(Seek To 00:49:10): Andrea calls in from San Francisco. She is a biologist and has been thinking about the question of why people are gay. She knows a lot of gay people in the city and has had many discussions with them about how gayness comes about. She has tried to argue that being gay is a choice, but the majority of the gay people she knows reject this claim. Society doesn't tolerate homosexuality very well, and some people wouldn't have chosen to be gay if they felt they could have a decision in the matter. Even so, Andrea has consistently stuck to the idea that choice should supercede biology. She asks whether she should abandon this line of argument.