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)

by Friedrich Nietzsche

208 pages

English language

Published Feb. 17, 1999

ISBN:: 978-0-19-283617-5
Goodreads:: 80449

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(14 reviews)

On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) is a book about the history of ethics and about interpretation. Nietzsche rewrites the former as a history of cruelty, exposing the central values of the Judaeo-Christian and liberal traditions - compassion, equality, justice - as the product of a brutal process of conditioning designed to domesticate the animal vitality of earlier cultures. The result is a book which raises profoundly disquieting issues about the violence of both ethics and interpretation. Nietzsche questions moral certainties by showing that religion and science have no claim to absolute truth, before turning on his own arguments in order to call their very presuppositions into question. The Genealogy is the most sustained of Nietzsche's later works and offers one of the fullest expressions of his characteristic concerns. This edition places his ideas within the cultural context of his own time and stresses the relevance of his work for …

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enzyme reviewed On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche

Review of 'On the Genealogy of Morals' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Nietzsche makes some interesting points in his exposition. Some are culturally dated, and thus reveal his philosophy is a product of his time rather than revealing an eternal, innately human character. Nevertheless, much of his writing does hold today. His frequent forays into linguistic asides makes a quite entertaining read, although his vocabulary is dense in each language he writes.

decadent_and_depraved reviewed On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche

Review of 'On the Genealogy of Morals' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Morality came from somewhere, it came about somehow, and for some reason. Morality and everything that is connected to it is ruthlessly researched and lucidly analyzed by Nietzsche in this book. Preface and the first two essays ("‘Good and Evil’, ‘Good and Bad’" and "‘Guilt’, ‘Bad Conscience’ and Related Matters") are probably the finest work Nietzsche has ever produced, but I cannot help but somewhat scorn the last essay. In the third essay ("What Do Ascetic Ideals Mean?"), Nietzsche is less playfully affirmative, less vigilantly free-spirited, and more bitter. "Old man" sort of bitter.