The Philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche: Genealogy of Morals

Friedrich Nietzsche stands as one of the most famous and influential philosophers of all time and is certainly one of the most famous of western European intellectuals in the past several centuries. Specifically, his philosophical writings on the nature of good and evil, the concept of the slave revolt of morality, and the idea of “ressentiment” lay at the core of Nietzsche’s brilliant contributions to the field of philosophy and will form the basis of this essay.

In his seminal work On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche first establishes his blatant criticism of the ways in which the “English” psychologists of his time have argued and fussed about with the origins of morality in contemporary society. In the first section, Nietzsche attempts to understand and analyze how morality can be determined in its current forms. For Nietzsche in the first part of the Genealogy of Morals, it is argued that the English psychologists had created a system through which “unegoistic actions” can be called good (Nietzsche, 1967). Actions driven by one’s individual ego, then, are determined to be bad, or evil. This account, however, is something that Nietzsche disagrees fundamentally.

At the core of the first section of the Genealogy of Morals is the basic idea that good and evil are not objective products of the universe, but are rather outcomes of biased sociocultural processes that favor the wealthy and powerful. Indeed, as civilization advances, we see that the concept of “good” became defined by those who had the capacity to wield power over others (Robinson, 1999). In essence, the elites in society came to control and define what could be considered good, and they did this by presenting themselves as embodiments of good. If, as Nietzsche argues, the elites in society are allowed to define the nature of good and evil, they will naturally define themselves and their actions as what can be considered good.

As a result of control by society’s elites, the words “good” and “evil” become part and parcel of language and culture. The traits that the elites have, the traits that define them and their role in society, come to be seen as good, right, and proper, whereas the traits of those they lord over are seen as bad and evil (Nietzsche, 1967). Thus, as time progresses, the idea of wealth and power comes to define the construction that is good, whereas weakness, poverty, and helplessness come to define the idea of bad. These are not objective, universal truths; rather, these definitions come as a result of the dominance of elites in the world.

This leads to the development of what Nietzsche calls “master morality” and “slave morality”. The first, master morality, refers to a system of morality established by the masters in society. In other words, the “winners” of the social order are the ones that are allowed to define for themselves the nature of good and evil. Master morality, then, chooses to define good with the traits of strength, power, and material wealth. In contrast, the system of slave morality is one where the weak or victimized in society are seen as weak, impotent, disgusting, and unhealthy. These are traits of “bad” that ensure that slave morality is always seen as inferior to that of master morality (Robinson, 1999). In this system, there is little recourse available to the individuals who suffer from the position of the slave, as their entire social being and structure are based on the core idea that their traits and values are seen as inferior, weak, and bad.

In return, then, the shifts in the language of society and culture come to embody these ideals even more purely. The rise of Judaism and later Christianity allowed for the creation of a new entity in the body politic—that of the priestly caste. The priests are an elite group, much like the nobles, yet acquire their own terminology and language that warps the meaning of good and evil for their own agenda. The concept of purity becomes matches with that of the priestly caste and comes to mean abstinence and freedom from worldly desires. For Nietzsche, it is the rise of Judaism that culminates with the creation of Christianity that creates a break in this established system. Christian morality loves the weak and idolizes suffering, pain, and helplessness. This acts as a break with previous conceptions of good and evil, as for the first time in history, a large group of people understands the world in opposition to decades past (Vivas, 1937). The rise of Christianity is, in effect, the ways in which the system of morality in the world is changed to become something altogether different—what used to be good is now considered evil, and the relationship of traits of power vs. powerless have been reflected in the new understanding of what is good and bad in society.

This system, however, is not to last. It is not sustainable that a system of master and slave morality can continue indefinitely, and the inevitable course of action is what Nietzsche refers to as the “slave revolt of morality”. This revolt is, in short, a clear rejection of the ideals of master morality in favor of the values stressed in slave morality. Slave morality is oppositional in nature, meaning it defines itself in opposition to the existing power structure. Where master morality would say that strength, wealth, and power are traits that are inherently good, the slave revolt of morality rejects this in favor of embracing the philosophical opposite—in this new system, weakness and poverty are signs of good and of selflessness, whereas prior to the “revolt”, they had been indicators of weakness, failure, and evil (Vivas, 1937). It is, at its core, a negative reaction to the existing status quo in the sense that whatever the master morality was, the revolt of the slave morality must define itself in opposition to those who have power.

The question then becomes how to explain how this process comes to be. The slave morality comes about when the concept of “ressentiment” becomes imbued with a certain active element. Ressentiment, or resentment, is a form of hatred and resentment that focuses on an external source to focus the blame of one’s current frustrations (Robinson, 1999). Resentment, then, allows the slave to choose for himself who will be the object of his anger and frustration caused by his poor position in life and allows the slave to define himself in opposition to master morality. The slave focuses his resentment on the master, which then allows him to define himself in opposition to the mater’s values and subsequently degrade and devalue with the master’s idea of morality. What is good for the master becomes what is evil for the slave, and vice versa.

Moreover, for the master, he views the plight of the slave with little concern. It is unfortunate, perhaps, but it is a fact of fate and destiny that there will always be those without power. The master, then, cares little for the slave in the sense that the master cannot find anything but contempt and rejection for the situation of the slave. The slave, however, despises the master for the perceived oppression. Instead of passive negativity and contempt like the master has towards the slave, the slave hates the master with every ounce of his soul. The worse off the slave is, the more the slave will actively hate and detest the one he thinks put him there. The master is a man that allows himself to live life as it comes to him and rejects the idea of creating festering levels of hatred and emotion, something that the slave embraces as fundamental in his approach to alleviating his suffering in this world.

For Nietzsche, it is not possible for the master, or noble, to become afflicted with resentment. He who has power does not allow himself the chance or likelihood to put the blame of his misfortune on others. Instead, he understands what has happened, and, as he has power, can act to prevent it from occurring again. The slave, however, lacks these remedies and must, by the virtue of his position, focus his hate, anger, and frustration on the perceived instigator of his problems (Nietzsche, 1967). Here, Nietzsche then begins to develop this distinction between what is “evil” and what is “bad” and discusses his views on the faults of slave morality.

At its core, Nietzsche argues in favor of a system of morality based on power. Slave morality, like the sort of moral judgment systems that existed in Europe during Nietzsche’s time and have persisted to this day, is based on the false idea of slave morality. Slave morality glorifies weakness and selflessness and hinges all its hopes on suffering through life in this world in the vain hope of an afterlife where the roles of the weak and powerful will be reversed. For Nietzsche, there is no sense in living a failed life for the mere hope of an afterlife where the world will magically become better; instead, he advocates living in the present and valuing life as it comes. Slave morality glorifies passivity and acceptance and weakness, whereas Nietzsche prefers a system of morality that values the present and the future, so long as the latter is not prolonged to mean the afterlife. Nietzsche’s preferred system is one of self-activism, passion, yet control in order to achieve the best that life can offer (Guay, 2010). Master morality is not the ideal as it prefers violence and barbarism, but slave morality is seen as the ultimate in weakness and failure.

Throughout Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche offers an understanding of his concept of moral definitions of good and bad, the impact of the slave revolt of morality, and the ways in which contemporary society has succumbed to the weakness that is slave morality. He argues that the growing resentment of the slaves to the masters in the world led to a revolution in moral systems where weakness and selflessness become glorified and where Europeans had lost their sense of living for the present. Instead of a system of morals where individuals are able to live a powerful, strong life, they are constrained and seduced by the idea of a perfect afterlife, a byproduct of the control of society by religious leaders and the “priestly caste”. With the sense of slave morality permeating the world in which Nietzsche lived, the author found himself angered and upset at the decline of European action and thought, and clearly despises the pathetic love that his contemporaries had for the ideals of weakness, selflessness, and poverty.

References

Guay, R. (2010). Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of Morals": A Reader's Guide. Journal of Nietzsche Studies(40), 96-100.

Nietzsche, F. W., & Kaufmann, W. A. (1967). On the genealogy of morals. New York: VintageBooks

Robinson, D. (1999). The Genealogy of Morals. Nietzsche & Postmodernism, 24-26.

Vivas, E. (1937). Nation, 144(25), 710-711.