Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Nietzsche on Morality (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "A familiar, yet still curious, feature of Nietzsche's reception over the last century is that figures with radically divergent views and methodologies all claim the..." (more)
Key Phrases: internalized cruelty, prudential goodness, physiological casualties, Ecce Homo, Autonomy Condition, Twilight of the Idols (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

...offers one of the most comprehensive and compelling interpretations of Nietzsche's critique of morality to date. With its distinctive emphasis on naturalistic themes, it forms a very significant contribution to the study of Nietzsche, and is poised to become a work of reference in the field.
–Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

...offers one of the most comprehensive and compelling interpretations of Nietzsches critique of morality to date. With its distinctive emphasis on naturalistic themes, it forms a very significant contribution to the study of Nietzsche, and is poised to become a work of reference in the field.
–Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

...the most important full length study to date of Nietzsche's primary text on the subject...[T]he book sets the standard by which future treatments of this subject matter will be measured and I would expect it to be a primary point of reference for discussions of Nietzsche and ethics for quite some time.
–Peter Poellner, University of Warwick

...the most important full length study to date of Nietzsches primary text on the subject...[T]he book sets the standard by which future treatments of this subject matter will be measured and I would expect it to be a primary point of reference for discussions of Nietzsche and ethics for quite some time.
–Peter Poellner, University of Warwick

Leiter maintains a steady focus on important philosophical issues and ignores the trivia and nonphilosophical history of ideas to which so much of the secondary literature on Nietzsche is devoted. This is one of the clearest and best accounts of Nietzsche's moral philosophy and is a rare example of a book of considerable scholarly and philosophical merit that is accessible to a wide audience. Leiter's commentary on the Genealogy is very well done and can be recommended to both students and scholars. Leiter brings much needed rigor and clarity to Nietzsche studies. This is a very good book, and I highly recommend it to a wide audience.
.
–Tom Carson, Moral Philosopher at Loyola/Chicago

Leiter maintains a steady focus on important philosophical issues and ignores the trivia and nonphilosophical history of ideas to which so much of the secondary literature on Nietzsche is devoted. This is one of the clearest and best accounts of Nietzsches moral philosophy and is a rare example of a book of considerable scholarly and philosophical merit that is accessible to a wide audience. Leiters commentary on the Genealogy is very well done and can be recommended to both students and scholars. Leiter brings much needed rigor and clarity to Nietzsche studies. This is a very good book, and I highly recommend it to a wide audience.
.
–Tom Carson, Moral Philosopher at Loyola/Chicago

Leiter's book is both a major contribution to Nietzsche studies and a very helpful guide for students to Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality.
–Maudemarie Clark, Colgate University

Leiters book is both a major contribution to Nietzsche studies and a very helpful guide for students to Nietzsches Genealogy of Morality.
–Maudemarie Clark, Colgate University

The book is clear, crisply written, and engaging. It operates on a level wholly appropriate to its main intended readership, given that [Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality] itself is not the stuff of introductory undergraduate courses.
...the book does something novel and important, in seeking to expound Nietzsche's thinking specifically on morality to an undergraduate audience; while offering a highly stimulating reading of that thinking itself.
–Robert Hopkins, University of Sheffield

The book is clear, crisply written, and engaging. It operates on a level wholly appropriate to its main intended readership, given that [Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morality] itself is not the stuff of introductory undergraduate courses.
...the book does something novel and important, in seeking to expound Nietzsches thinking specifically on morality to an undergraduate audience; while offering a highly stimulating reading of that thinking itself.
–Robert Hopkins, University of Sheffield

Product Description

Nietzsche is one of the most important and controversial thinkers in the history of philosophy. His writings on moral philosophy are among the most widely read works in philosophy- many of his ideas are both startling and disturbing.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (August 31, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415152852
• ISBN-13: 978-0415152853
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #804,058 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Clear Book on Nietzsche's View of Morality, February 28, 2007

By	John Benintendi "J.K. Benintendi" (Ohio) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I must first confess that I am not a student of philosophy. I have become interested in the subject at the age of 38. I have now read books on Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hobbes, Hume and Schopenhauer. I have to admit that I don't think that I understand half of what I read. This is the reason why I don't read the actual work of the philosopher at this time. I need to understand a little more about the philosophy of the author before I can understand the actual works.

With that being said, I did read the Geneology of Morals by Nietzsche before I read the Guidebook. I was not sure I understand half of what Nietzsche had to say in the acutal work. Because I had read the actual work, I believe I got more out of the Guidebook. I would suggest reading the work first or at least each essay before that portion of the book.

The Guidebook is a very good book for a full and better understanding of Nietzsche's thoughts on morality. I was happy to learn that I understood more of the actual work than I thought I had. However, the Guidebook was a wonderful book to follow the reading of the actual work. Mr. Leiter has a wonderful way of explaining Nietzsche's writing. He is clear and concise and places the writing in its proper historical context.

If you are interested in Nietzsche's view of morality and don't quite understand it, then this book will assit you in that understanding. If you don't read the actual work, this book will still be clear enough so that you can understand Nietzsche's thoughts on morality.

I realize that some may not agree with Lieter's interpreation of Nietzsche's Geneology of Morality. However, in philosophy, I am not sure there is one correct way to interpret such writings. Therefore, in the end, this is one very good book on Nietzsche's morality.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A review based on actually reading the book, October 31, 2002

By	London student (London) - See all my reviews

...The book I read, which is unusually lucid
in its discussion of Nietzsche (and doesn't do anything to make
Nietzsche a syetematic moral philosopher like Kant!), in fact
contains detailed critical engagements with Nehamas, Nussbaum,
Clark, Ridley, and many other commentators. The line in the
preface which has our Californian so agitated is a reference to
the fact that there are almost no books on Nietzsche's moral
philosophy, which is true. I can think of only one, by Peter
Berkowitz, and it is fairly dreadful. In any case, I think
Maudemarie Clark, quoted on the dustjacket gets it about right:
"Leiter's book is both a major contribution to Nietzsche studies
and a very helpful guide for students." Cheers and happy reading!

11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Caution advised: two and a half stars, January 12, 2007

By	civilized discontent (UK) - See all my reviews

I can understand why many reviewers have found Leiter's Nietzsche accessible however I believe Leiter ultimately misleads his readers into believing that Nietzsche is in fact a ''classical realist''. Whilst such a metaphysical label may seem besides the point when dealing with Nietzsche's views on ethics readers should be advised that any reading of Nietzschean ''perspectivism'' will be highly significant in the interpretation of Nietzsche that follows, and and this is nowhere more clearly evidenced than in Leiter's ''guidebook''.

This is not to say that one should not read Leiter's book (which I had wanted to rate with two and a half stars) for it does supply a clear/jargon-free, if imperfect, reading of ''On the Genealogy of Morals'' as well as serving to introduce the reader to the contemporary contoversies surrounding exactly what Nietzsche's philosophical activity ammounts to.

Leiter's polemical interpretation is frequently dogmatic in its assertions, and in that it is aimed at undergraduates, and is written in an unambiguous analytical style, will no doubt prove highly influential to many budding students of philosophy. Knowing what undergraduates can be like I only hope that students coming to Nietzsche for the first time round will read Nietzsche themselves (don't forget his important prefaces) rather than simply viewing him through Leiter's ''lens''.

I advise reading both this book and Clark's ''Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy'' (Clark's reading of Nietzsche as an empirical realist is similar to Leiter's, and both authors agree to a certain extent in their (mis)interpretations of GM III: 12 and TI: IV), alongside Schrift's ''Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation'', Nehamas' ''Nietzsche: Life as Literature'', and Allison's introduction: ''Reading the New Nietzsche'' for balance. Of course whilst these texts will provide this balance for any academic study of Nietzsche you must read him for yourself (and preferably before you resort to commentary). I made the mistake of reading Schacht's detailed ''Nietzsche'' before reading Nietzsche himself which, despite also being a clear and detailed commentary on Nietzsche (in Routledge's ''Arguments of the Philosopher's'' series), initially misled me: it soon became clear that on reading Nietzsche's remarkable works all systematic, and often dogmatic, accounts of Nietzsche's ''philosophy'' eventually over-determine the primary texts - for this reason I find the pluralistic (not necessarily relativistic) commentaries of Nehamas, Allison and Schrift to be more appropriate interpretations.

However we read Nietzsche we should be aware that that he sought to expose the fundamentally perspectival nature of existence, and the Heraclitian, perpetual flux of becoming. How we understand this will dramatically effect the way we interpret Nietzsche, including how we understand his genealogy and psychology. Ultimately I believe that an unhasty reading of Nietzsche reveals a thinker very different from the one Leiter portrays in ''Nietzsche on Morality''. Best of luck.