Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morality

Introduction

Nietzsches focus on the opposing meanings of good serves as the basis of his On the Genealogy of Morality, wherein the First Treatise contrasts the Roman good/bad paradigm with the Judaic/Christian good/evil paradigm. The former, according to Nietzsche, is assertive, noble and strongtaking pride in its strength; the latter is weak, bitter, and enviousseeking refuge in the soul out of a shameful sense of oppression and resentment. The good/bad paradigm is associated with an ancient aristocracy stemming from the Aryan race of warriors, the original Celts, in Nietzsches view. The slave morality of the Jews and Christians was born out of the fact that the oppressed, weaker people resented the aristocracy and their pride and strength and perverted the notion of the good to reflect their own inferiority. This is why Nietzsche refers to Christian and Jewish morality as slave morality for in his view it does not reflect anything noble, self-asserting, or self-determining; instead, it reflects only the humiliation of the weak and conquered, teaching as it does self-renunciation rather than self-love. Nietzsche believes that the master race is a noble, self-loving, self-asserting race because it refuses to be weak; it makes enemies and relishes in the fact. For Nietzsche, there is no good/evil paradigm, for he rejects the values of the Jews and Christians; for him, there is only the good/bad paradigm. For this reason, Nietzsche is an Ethical Egoist. This paper will explain Nietzsches Ethical Egoism by critically analyzing the First Treatise of On the Genealogy of Morality and identifying its rejection of virtue ethics and deontology in favor of egoism.

Who Are We?

When Nietzsche opens in his Introduction to his First Treatise with the statement, We are unknown to ourselves he does so in order to attack the traditional ethical norms that Western society had cultivated over the course of thousands of yearsfrom the ancient Greeks through the Christianization of the West and into the modern era (3). His argument is that by embracing a false paradigm of moralitya good/evil paradigm engendered primarily by Jews (an outcast and often subjugated people) and Christians (persecuted for hundreds of years prior to their ascent under Constantine)we knowers have lost knowledge of our true selves and the true natural law (3). The law is not one of good and evil, but rather of good and bad, he states. What is good is the self; what is bad is destruction of the self in Nietzsches ethical view.

Nietzsche lays out this view by first identifying the problem as one that relates to morality and to all that hitherto on earth...

He questions the legitimacy of this morality by asking about the origin of the terms good and evil and looking not in theology and ethics for the answers but rather to history. He finds in history a deviation from the original paradigm of good and bad, a deviation that resulted in the paradigm of good and evil taking hold in society. The original paradigm, he asserts, is the true, natural paradigm: The pathos of nobility and distancethe continuing and predominant feeling of complete and fundamental superiority of a higher ruling kind in relation to a lower kind, to those below that is the origin of the antithesis good and bad (Nietzsche 12). It is this natural order of thingsof a ruling people holding power over a weaker peoplethat Nietzsche views as the correct perspective on history. It is used to support his view of Ethical Egoism, because it is rooted in the idea of the ruling class coming to power simply by having the will to take power and retain it. Nietzsche admires this toughness of the will and sees it as the epitome of goodness. In the modern era, he despises the weak, the soft, the compassionate, as he sees these as attributes of a person constrained by the slave morality of the good/evil paradigm. We are driven by egoism to take for ourselves what we want and to rule over others as best we canand this, Nietzsche claims, is good.

Nietzsches Egoism

The presupposition of Nietzsche is that the good/evil paradigm of slave morality is ahistorical. He views it as outside the true origins of human endeavorsas a perversion of historical thought. The good/evil paradigm, however, has its own history and cosmology, and it posits that the human race is fallen, due to sin against God, and that good and evil do in fact exist in reality because these are the two forces in opposition to one another. It is explained by Christians and Jews according to their own religious contexts, but other peoples throughout history have explained these terms in accordance with their own cosmologies. Nietzsches presupposition, lurking behind his view, is that good and evil are not real but are, rather, fabrications of weak minds that refuse to harness their own will to power and assert themselves. Nietzsche believes their use of the term good to be unoriginal and his use of the term good to be consistent with its true original definition. And for that reason, he asserts, It is because of this origin that from the outset, the word good is absolutely not necessarily attached to unegoistic actions: as the superstition of these moral genealogists would have it (12). Thus, he argues that good should not be divorced from egoismbut it is because moral slaves are afraid of the ego.

The ego was represented by the aristocracy, in Nietzsches mind, because the aristocracy was strong, powerful and on top. The aristocracy possessed enough…