On the Genealogy of Morals,
Friedrich Nietzsche
Core Course 102-09
Spring 2000
| The Genealogy of Morals. Nietzsche
starts Essay 1 by briefly stating: "We are unknown to ourselves,
we men of knowledge." He goes on further down: who are we really?
... So we are necessarily strangers to ourselves, we do not comprehend
ourselves, we have to misunderstand ourselves." (Preface, 1.] In
his opinion, the main reason for this misurnderstanding lies in the grounding
of our value system (part of a set of moral prejudices)
in an ethic of guilt, bad conscience, and shame. These essays constitute
Nietzsche's hypotheses of the origin
or the genealogy of morality, a kind
of morality as practised in our society.
The Genealogy of Morals comprises three essays dealing with morality. The main question Nietzsche attempts to answer is: where does our morality come from? Morality as practiced by the modern Western world, if influenced by Greco-Roman culture, has been heavily shaped by Judeo-Christian traditions. As a result, it developed a life denying ethic unfairly binding human behavior (in the hope of future salvation) with feelings of guilt and bad conscience while thwarting the natural surge of the will to power to become master of something less powerful. [For more information, see Professor Gary Shapiro's Intoduction to Nietzsche] The essays attempt to go to the origins of moral phenomena. The first contrasts good and evil as characteristic of slave morality with good and bad as characteristic of master morality. Nietzsche argues that slave morality is born of resentment and that evil is its primary concept, with good as an afterthough. In master morality, which is basically affirmative, "good" is primary and "bad" is an afterthought, a term of contempt for what is undistinguished and not noble. Nietzsche plainly prefers master morality to slave morality, without accepting or preaching either; these are merely two types of morality. Contemporary Western morality, according to Nietzche, is an inconsistent mixture. The second essay deals with guilt, bad conscience, and related matters, and the third with the meaning of "ascetic ideals." [Paul Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopœdia of Philosophy, vol. 5, 1967, p. 509.]. Slave morality is based on envy (ressentiment) whereas master morality is positive and self-affirmative, and intrinsically good by opposition to bad. It was not until the slaves (the non nobles) revolted that a new binary set of values, good and evil (moral valuation) came about and has stuck with society for many centuries. N. B.: For more information on this text and other core texts, go the Genealogy Hypertext. Concepts and notions associated with Nietzsche: Will to power, Superhuman (Übermensch), slave morality, master morality, master race, ressentiment. Group 1: You have two main tasks for the next class:
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