Nietzsche's Genealogy

Nietzsche was a revolutionary author and philosopher who has had a tremendous impact on German culture up through the twentieth century and even today. Nietzsche's views were very unlike the popular and conventional beliefs and practices of his time and nearly all of his published works were, and still are, rather controversial, especially in On the Genealogy of Morals. His philosophies are more than just controversial and unconventional viewpoints, however; they are absolutely extreme and dangerous if taken out of context or misinterpreted. After Nietzsche's death it took very little for his sister to make some slight alterations to his works to go along with Nazi ideology.

When I think of the concept of “evil,” I think of The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. In The Consolation of Philosophy, Lady Philosophy stated:

Good and evil; two simple words that hold an infinite amount of power. Though they are similar in this aspect, it is a compelling argument that ‘evil’ is stronger and more powerful than ‘good.’ William Shakespeare wrote in his play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.” As true as this quote is, the fictional and modern proof accentuates the veracity of the statement.

Good versus Evil is an important concept. Evil sometimes overcomes our good but never exceeds good. The difference between evil and good is that good is an ability to have empathy and compassion towards other people. Evil is people who are selfish, self-absorbed and don’t have empathy towards others. Literature plays a vital role in developing concepts of good and evil and effectively portrays the morals of its time period. In the novels Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the authors explore the human nature of good and evil in men from different perspectives of Dracula, Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll.

Nietzsche then highlights the foundation of what is good and bad as one that sectionalises members of society into their respective classifications. The "good" qualities will be associated with the upperclassmen, the masters, all those who are superior in power; the "pathos of nobility and distance" (Nietzsche, page 113) has seen to it that words like "noble", "powerful", and "rich" tend to be desirable and have positive connotations, and that the lower-class men are almost always laced with terms that have "bad" implications, such as "poor", "weak", and "dishonest". Nietzsche stands behind the idea that notions of good and bad are essentially social constructions, conducted and coined freely by the privileged to establish themselves as an exclusively finer class of society. The lower-class common men, on the other hand, are imposed with generally "bad" features; the common man is often related to terms with negative undermeanings, such as

The debate of whether man is born entirely good or evil is a universal discussion that never seems to resolve. Even though a human is a complex individual who cannot be defined by a simple assessment, the people of today are convinced that there is a straightforward explanation as to why acts of wickedness exist. Some believe negative influences taint the naturally innocent heart of man, while others suppose evil men are born with an unavoidable capacity for darkness. This however, suggests that the wicked are created from birth without morals or the ability to be considered righteous. Despite the theories that exist, good and evil are not always separate. Man typically is neither solely good or bad, but a combination of the both. In the

People are always getting into situations that have two possible ways to go. That person can choose the right thing to do or the worse. There have been numerous amounts of people asking the question “what is good and evil?” Many have tried conducting experiments to try and find the roots of what makes people good/evil? Evil acts and evil itself can be shown through the social, economic, and mental environment.

Buddhism also views god and evil as innate and inseparable aspects of life. According to this view one particular individual cannot be labelled as fundamentally good or bad. A human being is capable of committing the greatest good as well as the worst of the evils. Good and Evil in Buddhism are not viewed as absolute, but as relative. Good and Evil are understood according to its consequences in our lives and its effect on others. Evil is mainly born of selfishness and of the feeling that our actions should be aimed at benefitting ourselves. In Buddhism while good represents

Humans beings face the perpetual conflict between good and evil throughout their lives. One’s understanding of good and evil comes from their own view of what is morally right. Their beliefs are influenced by life experiences, culture, and the sphere of people around them. Therefore, people base their actions off of their definition of good. However, whether they are seen as good or evil comes from the judgement of others. One’s view of good differs from another person’s. Consequently, there is often a misinterpretation of person’s actions throughout their life. There is no solid line that distinguishes someone as either good or evil. In East of Eden, Steinbeck claims that a person can only be deemed good or evil after his death. However,

What is to be considered good and evil is a common debate in modern day society. But furthermore, what is stronger, good or evil is the more contradictory question. In reality, good and evil co-exist and without one the other cannot exist. Although, many see evil as being weak and powerless, evil is stronger than good because it is harder to overcome, antagonists often have a higher impact on the protagonist and because good is dependent on evil.

In this Commentary of sections 1-7 of essay two in Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Genealogy of Morals, I will give a brief overview of the text, to help with showing the content that the comment covers, the go deeper into the individual sections and relate them to Nietzsche’s way of thinking and also look into any problems or solutions offered by those arguments.

Man’s development of “bad conscience” is a complicated process that sees its beginnings in slave morality’s doubling of the doer and the deed. According to Nietzsche, the slave (the weaker man) had developed ressentiment towards the noble (the stronger man), labeling the noble as evil and blaming him for slave’s suffering (20-22). The slave separated the noble (the doer) from his instinctive actions (the deeds) and claimed the noble possessed “free will;” the slave believed “the strong are free to be weak” (26). The slave set up the ideal of his own weak and passive instincts being “good” and the strong and active instincts of the nobles being “evil” (26-27). As stated by JHarden, when defining his weakness as good, “the slave turned [his] natural condition of suffering at the hands of others into a condition which should be desired” (JHarden). As religions developed, and the slave morality became dominant, this ideal of good and evil prevailed and forced man to become conscious of his instincts as separate from himself, something he could control.

Humanity’s natural aggression means that civilization is “constantly threatened with disintegration” and it must make every effort to ensure these urges are curbed, in order for its continued existence. He continues in this vein, by stating that, in order for people to “forgo the satisfaction of their tendency to aggression” civilization encourages us to form into groups, however for this to work their must continue to be “outsiders,” that the aggression can be turned towards. This is in accordance with On the Genealogy of Morals, where it is the Slaves ascetic nature that forces them to also control their instincts. Likewise, both Freud and Nietzsche assert that these restrictions cause people to internalise their aggressions, turning inward.

On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche is typically listed as one of the most important philosophical works of the modern era. It is only modern, of course, to philosophical standards, being a mere 129 years old. It is also one of the most controversial works of its time, having the dubious distinction of being connected to Nazi ideology; it also has a not very subtle racist, sexist, and Darwinist bent that is a reflection of Nietzsche himself. That being said, I think that it is also serially misunderstood. Nietzsche directly mentions the role of interpretation in ethical discourse in the Genealogy, and the interpretive element factors heavily into one’s understanding of the polemic and by extension, ethics philosophy as a whole. Throughout the book, Nietzsche uses interpretation as a tool in itself to make a constructivist and existentialist argument about the history of ethics as whole. His idea that man has used interpretation throughout history, and the interpretive elements in Genealogy outside of the historical analysis, seem to say that almost all ethics are derived from interpretation and therefore constructivist in nature, which is a heavily existentialist argument. For example, the entirety of the first essay is based heavily upon the role of interpretation in the development of the early ethical systems that Nietzsche argues are built on the

"Truth, beauty, and goodness are not eternal, objective realities which man discovers, but are the creative products of the human mind as it exercises its 'will-to-power'.  In other words, man is a creator of values." (Nietzsche) So what is good and evil, but that defined by man and therefore a purely subjective concept.  Could we, society, have one without the other?  By determining what is good, we in turn determine what is evil.  How do we know what they are; that is if they really exist?  One must first try to define what good and evil are before attempting to question their existence.