Nietzsche Essay, Research Paper

My name is Friedrich Nietzsche and I would like to explain the concepts of my work, On the Genealogy of Morality, to you. “Good” initially designated only the right of those individuals with social and political power to live their lives by sheer force of will. But a social class, motivated by their resentment of their natural superiors, generated a corrupt alternative that would appeal to those who were less capable, which turned values inside out. In the “slave morality” endorsed by religious establishments, forceful action which should be admired gets labeled as “evil,” while the cowardly tendency to think through everything in advance is transformed into the supposed virtue of wisdom. the slave morality enforced by social punishment and religious guilt. Only the noble one can rise above all moral distinctions to achieve a healthy life of truly human worth.

Genuine independence could only mean freedom from all external constraints on one’s behavior. In this natural and admirable state of existence, each individual human being would live a life without the artificial limits of moral obligation. No other sanction on conduct would be necessary than the natural punishment involved in the victory of a superior person over a defeated enemy.

But the wish of lesser people to secure themselves against interference from those who are better gives rise to a false sense of moral responsibility. The natural fear of being overwhelmed by a superior opponent becomes internalized as the self-generated sense of guilt, and individual conscience places severe limits on the normal exercise of human desire. Therefore, the fundamental self-betrayal of the human race is to submit its freedom to the fictitious demands of an imaginary god. Afraid to live by the strength of our own wills, we invent religion as a way of generating and then explaining our perpetual sense of being defeated in life.