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On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic. By way of clarification and supplement to my last book Beyond Good and Evil (Oxford World's Classics)

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On The Geneology of Morals -- This work is clearest when read as a sequel to Beyond Good & Evil. I don't suggest starting here. The prose is more straightforward than BG&E, he is attemting polemic in essay form. Yet still, it is still a voice in your head, consipring with you, coaxing you toward understanding. Here, the prose style of BG&E becomes apparent.

Ecce Homo -- This would seem like a very pretentious work. It is not. He comes off almost modestly here. This too, clears the air of all that is rotten about what has been said about him. It is as if he had guessed what evil things would be said about him.

Especially if this is your first Nietzsche book, I suggest, instead of buying this, buying the Basic Writings of Nietzsche which contains these two books, as well as three others (Beyond Good & Evil, which is a better place to start anyway; The Birth of Tragedy, and The Case of Wagner), by the same translator, and which costs only a few dollars more now that it's out in paperback.

having read most of Nietzsche's works in bother german (my native tounge) and english, i must say that if one is unable to read one of the four greatest masters of the german language (with Goethe, Heine, Kafka), walter kaufman translations are the only works that come close to the style and intentions that Nietzsche (presumably) had. in other, especially early translations one can wittness a 'over-nietzschification' that puts supposed nietzschean intent or thought into the works and hence distorting language and content. kaufman, who is first a philosopher and secondly a translator does not fall into this trap. it can only enthusiastically be reccommended.

Undoubtedly Nietzsche's most penetrating and philosophical work, the "Genealogy of Morals" is a shattering indictment of science, Judaeo-Christian morality and modern Western values such as liberalism, socialism and feminism. It identifies these phenomena with the reactive, self-preservative "ascetic ideal" - the oppressive "will to truth" - that aims to constrain and deny life. In opposition, Nietzsche propounds art and culture as a counteragent and champions the "Diyonisan tragic artist" who will affirm and celebrate life. - Also a pioneering text for deconstruction and poststructuralism in its analysis of historicism and interpretation.

Nietzsche's complex sequel to Beyond Good and Evil is a remarkable achievement of philosophy, philology, and history. It laid the groundwork for such 20th century thinkers as Foucault and Deleuze, though they would never reach Nietzsche's complexity and moral sophistication. In the preface to the book, Nietzsche proposes the project of investigating the origins of morality on the grounds that human beings are unknown to themselves. He is ultimately concerned with the development of moral prejudices, and the value of morality itself. He criticizes mankind in its acceptance of moral principles, and writes: "we need a critique of moral values, the value of these values themselves must first be called in question-and for that there is needed a knowledge of the conditions and circumstances in which they grew, under which they evolved and changed" (456).
Nietzsche begins the essay (Good and Evil, Good and Bad), with a philological examination of the words and roots of the words related to good and evil, and a delimitation of their evolution. He makes a connection between the creations of words and places them within the historical context of rulers and nobility. Linguistically, Nietzsche has discovered that the `good' is linked with nobility. He writes: "everywhere `noble,' `aristocratic' in the social sense, is the basic concept from which `good' in the sense of `with aristocratic soul,' `noble,'" (464). Alternatively, words associated with the `bad' invariably were linked with the `plain,' `simple,' and `low.' In this way, morality as a human construction is an extension of power, wealth, and civilization. The origin of evil is intertwined with priestly aristocracies.
Nietzsche moves into a discussion of a shift in the history of morality, in which the morality of the priestly aristocracy is superceded by Jewish morality. For Nietzsche, the Jews inverted the morality of nobility and established a system which places value on the lower order of mankind. He indicates that the Jews believed "the wretched alone are the good; the poor, impotent, lowly alone are the good; the suffering, deprived, sick, ugly alone are pious, alone are blessed by God" (470). Nietzsche describes this turn as `the slave revolt' of morality. He describes the triumph of Judeo-Christian morality over the previous system of values, and indicates that this turn is a triumph for the herd instinct, and for ressentiment. He writes: "The slave revolt in morality begins when ressentiment itself becomes creative and gives birth to values: the ressentiment of natures that are denied the true reaction, that of deeds, and compensate themselves with an imaginary revenge" (472). Noble morality develops as an affirmation of itself, while slave morality always says No to what is external to it. For Nietzsche, the need to constantly turn outward to an external `other' and place judgment on it is the essence of ressentiment.
In the proceeding section of the treatise, Nietzsche discusses civilization's taming of man the animal. Here he writes: "Supposing that what is at any rate believed to be the `truth' really is true, and the meaning of all culture is the reduction of the beast of prey `man' to a tame and civilized animal, a domestic animal, then one would undoubtedly have to regard all those instincts of reaction and ressentiment through whose aid the noble races and their ideal were finally confounded and overthrown as the actual instruments of culture" (478). Nietzsche insists that Europe's taming of man is a tremendous danger, for we are made to be weary of our own being. For Nietzsche, this weariness and fear of man has compelled us to lose our love for him, to turn our backs on our instincts, to reject affirmation.

I read On the Genealogy of Morals for a graduate seminar on ethics, and in particular his writings regarding the virtue of courage. I found Walter Kaufmann's translation the best of several I looked at. Often regarded in philosophical circles as the first "postmodern" philosopher, Nietzsche is very critical to all of modernity's philosophical attempts to create a scientific or rationally based approach to ethics. Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals is in part a refutation of Kant's ethical theory, arguing that Kantian ethics as well as other modern ethical theories were more interested in defining ethical values and not concerned with questioning their usefulness or whether they were derived from what Nietzsche believed were irrational psychological forces feeding people's illusions. Another purpose of the Genealogy is to examine the history of how morals were created in Western culture. Nietzsche's extensive philological studies of ancient Greek literature led him to argue that there needed to be a historical and psychological approach to understanding how ethical values came into existence. Thus, one of Nietzsche's goals in his Genealogy is to provide a critique of ethical values, such as courage, and to examine, "...the conditions and circumstances in which they grew, under which they evolved and changed." (456, GM I, 6). Another important aspect of Nietzsche's Genealogy is found in Nietzsche's ethical notions finding common ground with Aristotelian virtue ethics. Only Aristotelian virtue ethics can fit well with Nietzsche's moral ethics. Thus, I find that an interesting outcome of Nietzsche's examination of Greek culture leads him down a path back to the first evolutionary stage of the virtue of courage in particular, and to the classical Greek inception of virtue ethics in general. Nietzsche enthusiastically followed this path and reintroduced the world to the critical need for the classical Greek interpretation of the virtue of courage to help shape the "postmodern" world.

Nietzsche recognized in ancient Greek poetry that heroes are not content with just living, but are compelled to perform courageous acts even at the peril of their own lives. In fact, for Greek heroes, gaining fame and glory at the expense of often suffering a courageous death seemed to be their raison d'ętre. Nietzsche recognizes this phenomenon in Greek poetry, which alerts him to the notion that the ancient and classical Greek citizens accepted the idea that part of the nature of life was that it could be tragic, dark, and foreboding; however, the Greeks who were noble of character did not despair. This notion was readily accepted by Aristotle but not by Plato, who thought that Greek tragedy taught the citizenry the wrong lessons about life. They knew that to be virtuous was to engage in a constant agon or [contest] to overcome the pitfalls of life. This literary fact causes Nietzsche to understand that like the ancient Greeks, the best of contemporary society, such as philosophers and artists whom he calls the "masters," have to rely on their virtues, such as courage, to constantly struggle to overcome life's limits. Nietzsche's observation of Greek culture leads him to define a theory of master and slave morality, which lays the foundation for his notion of returning to the classical Greek virtue of courage.

Nietzsche understands master morality as the ideals of virtuous characteristics epitomized by the best of Greek aristocracy. On the other hand, slave morality according to Nietzsche, grew out of the Judeo-Christian ethic supporting love and justice over power. Master morality acknowledges "good" and "bad" in the world; while slave morality acknowledges "good" and "evil." Nietzsche recognized the masters as "active" people, and whatever helps them achieve greatness is good. Thus, Nietzsche defines the good and bad characteristics in master morality in the following way. Character traits such as courage, conquest, aggression, and command that engender the feelings of power in people are deemed `good,' while traits of weaker people such as cowardice, passivity, humility, and dependence are deemed `bad.' Furthermore, Nietzsche argues that within the master and slave morality what is good can only be good for the master, because the slave morality is essentially based on a number of opposing ideals from the master morality. Therefore, an important argument for Nietzsche is, that according to slave morality, anything that opposes, destroys, or conquers is evil and should be eliminated from human relations. Nietzsche argues that slave morality espouses humility, selflessness, and kindness as ruling traits for all people as a condition of self-perseverance against master morality. These are all character traits central to Judeo-Christian morality, and are diametrically opposed to the aggressive character traits of the master morality, which were central to the power of the Roman Empire when Christianity was conceived. Against the backdrop of master and slave morality, Nietzsche examines the classical Greek cardinal virtues, and he specifically looks into the virtue of courage, which is so central to master morality.

When Nietzsche contemplates the future of virtues, he laments the lack of courage displayed by people in modern society. Nietzsche sounds a clarion call for artists to once again courageously take their place as masters of society. Nietzsche sees courage as something which is good for the people who have it, in that it enables them to win contests which they would lose without it. In addition, Nietzsche recognizes that in order for people to act courageously, they also need to overcome their emotions of fear. "But there is something in me that I call courage; that has so far slain my every discouragement." Once again, Nietzsche is using Aristotle's virtue ethic model of practical reasoning to show that a person with noble intentions, or in Nietzsche's parlance, a master can will themselves to overcome their fears. After examining Nietzsche's extensive writings on the history of ethics, I find that his description of courage fits well within the classical Greek model of the virtue of courage.

Nietzsche's philosophical project pertaining to the virtue of courage is centered on the idea that those who were the masters in Greek society actually desired to face and conquer dangerous situations. In essence, Nietzsche demilitarized the Greek emphasis on battlefield courage and applied it to the people he thought could be the masters of society of his time and into the future--artists and philosophers. The power Nietzsche yearns for is the power of creative activity. Creativity is the "will to power" that this much maligned philosopher was truly advocating.

This is a complex, often confusing, yet a very important book, because it gets at the bottom line of one of the thorniest conundrums ever to face man: The problem of where his morals originate. Although several books have readdressed this issue in light of new findings in psychology (Freud in his Civilization and its discontents), social psychology (Robert Wright's Moral Man), and Anthropology (Ernest Becker, Angel in Armor) just to name my three favorites, none have done so with either the emotional intensity or philosophical depth as has Nietzsche.

In this, Nietzsche last book, he locates the origins of morality at the intersection of man's transition from hunter-gathers to agrarian societies. With the advent of agrarian societies, there was a crossover in the survival value of violence versus that of cooperation: man's instinct for violence cease to have the survival value equal to that of cooperation. And as a result, he was forced to learn to outwardly suppress his violent instincts by more and more turning them inward. This conversion of outward violence into an inner struggle, allowed man to use his conscience to carve out an inner life, which was a mixed blessing as there were both collateral benefits and penalties. Along with guilt and bad conscience, man also acquired a sense of beauty. The upshot of his inner struggles was that they eventually got resolved through the development of religion: Bad conscience and moral guilt could be redeemed or forgiven through the grace and mercy of a higher, morally perfect, being.

With this as introduction, Nietzsche's story of morality takes place in three parts over the span of three essays, each of which elaborates a different aspect of the details of his theory.

The first essay deals with Good and Evil, and examines the evolution of two different kinds of moral codes: that of the master and that of the slave. The second essay deals directly with guilt, bad conscience and related moral concepts and issues. Here, Nietzsche notes that initially guilt lacked moral overtones, and was more like a monetary debt, in which the debtor was due payment and the debtor, was punished. The third essay struggles with the question of: What is the meaning of Ascetic Ideals, or, with why different cultures pursued a life of self-denial. Nietzsche's answer is that self-denial gives the individual more power and control over himself and is therefore life affirming rather than life denying.

Nietzsche's writing is dense and not for the faint-hearted, but ultimately rewarding. Five stars.

Nietzsche gives an historic account of how morality has developed in the world. Unlike many others, Nietzsche takes a historical approach to the development of morality and gets into the etymology of the the ancient languages. The "good vs. bad/good vs. evil" distinction is very important to get a grasp of as well as the concepts of guilt, conscience, and the ascetic ideal. Along with Beyond Good and Evil, this book should be one of the first by Nietzsche that you should read, in my opinion, to get a good grasp on Nietzsche's thought. Great analysis of Christianity too!

Perhaps the most readable book for a Nietzsche neophyte, yet a stunningly accurate and psychologically valid glimpse into the "moral," and an explanation of what that realistically entails. This book takes its reader on a tour of many souls: from the Dionysian aristocracy who once held the world for their pleasure, to the vengeful slave who despises the world for his inferiority. A warning, however: this will probably offend those who believe in modern democratic ideals.

I should note up front that my review refers to the Vintage edition--the review and the rating pertain to Kaufmann's translation only, not to Nietzsche's text. Nietzsche's work is a classic and should be read by anyone with an interest in philosophy or related fields. That point, I think, goes without saying. What does need to be said is which translation you should choose to read it in. Kaufmann's is, pretty much, the standard translation. And, for the most part, his translation is true to Nietzsche's German. But it suffers in one important way, and that is how it conflates Hegel's idealism and Nietzsche's thought through the use of a Hegelian, idealist vocabulary. To be sure, Nietzsche draws on Hegel a lot, but Kaufmann's translation misleads the reader into thinking that there are more similarities than there actually are. It also makes this translation unbearably difficult to read.

The second problem I have with this particular edition is that Kaufmann's notes are so shallow, and not really helpful at all. A perfect example is on the first page of the first essay, where Nietzsche abandons his native German for a moment and refers to the English Psychologists pushing the "partie honteuse" of our inner world into view. Kaufmann leaves the phrase untranslated, as he ought, and lets a note do the work of translating it. His note says simply, "shame." In my view, it may be as if he had just omitted the note altogether, because this tells me almost nothing about what Nietzsche means, and doesn't even attempt to get at his metaphor. If one were to turn to Clark and Swenson's translation, put out by Hackett (On the Genealogy of Morality), however, one would learn that the phrase means "shameful part" and when pluralized it is equivalent to the English phrase "private parts." This is a helpful note which explains Nietzsche's metaphor and the connotations he's aiming for.

I'll give this edition three stars because I have to compare it to others, such as Clark and Swenson's, above, or Douglas Smith's translation in the Oxford World Classics edition (On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic. By way of clarification and supplement to my last book Beyond Good and Evil (Oxford World's Classics)). In many ways Smith most avoids the "Hegel-ization" of Nietzsche (although it is possible to overdo it, and Smith might be guilty). But in my estimation, Clark and Swenson's is the best, deserving five stars, and Smith's is a close second, perhaps deserving four and a half, or four and three-quarters, not least because Clark and Swenson's notes are better. (Smith's would get five stars if I reviewed it.) Kaufmann's is so far behind these that I cannot justify giving it more than three stars. For a more formulaic, objective approach, you can subtract one star from the translation for at times confusing Nietzsche's thought, and doing so in a confusing way, and subtract one from the edition in general for having mediocre notes. Then you also end up with my three-star rating.

The translation is very good in this book and it has enough remarks from the translator to not be overwhelming but still give you the information you need to understand some of the things Nietzsche references from his time. The paper and binding are a good quality. The way I read tends to wear down bindings, but this one had no trouble.

The content itself is great. Genealogy of Morals is extremely insightful into the human psyche and explains very well where a lot of our morality stems from. What's even more interesting, in my opinion, is that he talks at length about what the psychology of this morality causes in society.

Ecce Homo is great on another level. It's rare to see a great thinker make great note of his faults. He talks about his thought process for each book he wrote. While this may not seem greatly informative I think this books main purpose it to encourage people to not deify him the way we tend to do with long dead figures.

Nietzsche is a great writer, but if this is your first book of his I would strongly recommend reading it in entirety before agreeing or disagreeing with it. He likes to speak in extremes. I find this a great approach when it comes to understanding his entire book, but it's easy to get the wrong idea if you only read part of it. For instance, he's call the Jews some of the most harmful forces in human history and then many pages later (and with some of these things even books later) he will say that despite that their general mentality is essential to our survival and that any form of antisemitism is horrifically misguided. In general it's best not to quote Nietzsche, rather paraphrasing tends to be more accurate. He writes so that you have to actually read his work, not just read the wiki on him.