On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic. By Way of Clarification and Supplement to My Last Book Beyond Good and Evil

Friedrich Nietzsche

Oxford University Press, UK, 1996 - Philosophy - 170 pages

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 4entral 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 a contemporary audience. - ;`Reason, seriousness, mastery over the emotions, the whole murky affair which goes by the name of thought, all the privileges and showpieces of man: what a high price has been paid for them! How much blood and horror is at the bottom of all "good things!"' 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 a contemporary audience. -

What people are saying

Review: On the Genealogy of Morals

User Review  - Teresa - Goodreads

"Enough! Enough! Let us leave these curiosities and complexities of the modern spirit, which excites as much laughter as disgust." - from part 27, "What is the meaning of ascetic ideals?" The above ...

Review: On the Genealogy of Morals

User Review  - Tombom P - Goodreads

Divided into 3 essays. The first is reasonably clear but pretty objectionable and not too well argued, the second is a little less clear but a lot more interesting and more convincing, the third is ...

About the author

Douglas Smith is Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Warwick. He is currently preparing a book on the reception of Nietzsche in France.

Bibliographic information

• Title: 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; World's classics
• Author: Friedrich Nietzsche
• Editor: Douglas Smith
• Translated by: Douglas Smith
• Contributor: Douglas Smith
• Edition: illustrated, reprint, reissue, revised
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, UK, 1996
• ISBN: 019283617X, 9780192836175
• Length: 170 pages
• Subjects: Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy; Philosophy / History & Surveys / General