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Friedrich Nietzsche
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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) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Friedrich Nietzsche (Author), Douglas Smith (Author, Editor, Translator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 213 ratings
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`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.
ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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  1. ISBN-13
    978-0199537082
  2. Edition
    1st
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    OUP Oxford
  5. Publication date
    November 5, 1998
  6. Language
    English
  7. File size
    706 KB
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

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.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B006RQ1082
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ OUP Oxford; 1st edition (November 5, 1998)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 5, 1998
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 706 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 158 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 213 ratings

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Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
213 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

G. Goltz
5.0 out of 5 stars I've been told.
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2014
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Some very close Friends of Mine suggested this book. I've not read too much of It as yet as I'm finishing up another book in My spare time, It looks like an experience tho. The book came in great shape just as the Seller described, "If not Better" I thank Them and You. Have a Happy and Healthy 2014.
3 people found this helpful
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Luis Feliciano
5.0 out of 5 stars Food for thought
Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2015
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One needs to read any of Nietzsche's works several times before one begins to understand him. Be patient, it is all worth it.
9 people found this helpful
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Fuzzarilly
5.0 out of 5 stars great book
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2013
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I ordered this book for my son for school and he passed the class so I would assume that the book was what he needed. Would definitely recommend.
2 people found this helpful
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WhiteSummerSky86
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2015
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Not one of my favorite Nietzsche books about the high priest and relations to will and man and morals.
2 people found this helpful
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Brenda Lafko
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2017
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Item was as described and arrived on time.
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Louise Milone
3.0 out of 5 stars Living in his mind
Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2013
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I know I should fall over from the sheer joy of the experience of Nitzsche but mostly I was just falling over
5 people found this helpful
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TonyKeller
5.0 out of 5 stars Good translation
Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2018
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Very readable translation!
3 people found this helpful
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Jamie Brown
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2015
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One of the 19th century's greatest authors. This is one of his classics.
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Top reviews from other countries

Noemi
5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting book!
Reviewed in Canada on July 31, 2022
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Had to read this for school, it's pretty interesting and I love collecting the oxford classics!
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Pedro
2.0 out of 5 stars Confusing and dated premises, despite posing nice questions
Reviewed in Brazil on June 27, 2021
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I’ve read someone’s opinion that “half of the time you are loving Nietzsche: his wit, his criticism of the current state of affairs and his capacity to “look under” the cultural constructs that guide our society. The other half you are disagreeing with most of his premises”. I could not better synthesize my feelings about this book, but I would add another recurrent theme: very long and confusing rants, in which one cannot hope to understand where he is getting at.

This work was written as a “companion” of sorts to Nietzsche’s "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" and "Beyond Good and Evil". Supposedly, the philosopher would be more direct in his ideas here, this book being frequently mentioned as a good intro to his opinions. While indeed the book seems more direct, it has not the clearer presentation so often mentioned. Nietzsche’s style relies heavily on analogies and his prose is convoluted, showing a technique heavily geared towards declamation. Despite this not being an exclusive of this work, I’ve felt that Nietzsche is much more economical in trying to expound on his ideas here than in "Beyond Good and Evil", for instance, spending a greater deal of time disparaging against his numerous philosophical adversaries. What we are left with is a book that rarely hits the spot, is very confusing to read due to stylistic choices and requires you to bear a lot of gratuitous ranting.

I don’t feel very confident to criticize the validity of Nietzsche’s thesis, but I was left with an impression that some of his premises are weak at best. However, whenever he can get a hold of his anger and write in a clearer form (though this is not as frequent as one would want), he asks very interesting questions and provides nice interpretations. One can see the reach of the questions he asks in numerous fields: his views on the <i>ressentiment</i> and how this can generate traumas (somewhat an embryo to Freud’s psychoanalysis), his broad study of morals and culture being something determined by a dominating class as means to validate it (something developed in depth by the Neo Marxists and the Frankfurt School), his arguments against an intellectual ascetic class, science being a new religion, etc.

Nonetheless, it seems to me that his work relies heavily on the hypothesis that any suppression of instinct by mankind is inherently negative, providing little justification to this. When he does it, the argument has a very shallow, somewhat Social Darwinistic tone. Another pillar for his critique, his etymological interpretation of words, seems like a longshot, with cherrypicked examples and extrapolations. Additionally, this argument ends up contradicting his own position that “culture changes to accommodate the meaning of certain segments of society”: if so, how can we hope to accurately derive objective meanings of words from the original connotations of them? Despite framing many of his premises as the views of an individual of another time (much like his frequent misogynist views), I wondered how much this reduces the validity of his conclusions.

As a final criticism, this is the first work of Nietzsche I’ve read after getting familiar with some of Rene Girard’s work and I must say that his arguments on the anthropological role of Christianity weaken enormously the efforts of Nietzsche: I’ve caught myself repeatedly going through his confusing arguments and unraveling them through Girard’s mimetic theory. What surprised me the most is how Nietzsche laid very carefully all the elements of the “mimetic cycle” but always went with a grandiloquent argument favoring violence and primordial aggression of the pagan societies.
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Solidus Snake
5.0 out of 5 stars What is the Meaning of Existence, if indeed there is a meaning?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 21, 2022
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Nietzsche essentially argues that humanity created morals and religions as a set of systems to cope with the meaninglessness of existence, the seemingly arbitarily absurd nature of life and the self-annhilating drive of recognising that horrific unknowability of the world.
Nietzsche begins by exploring the 'ascetic priest', defined as the prophets, seers and priests of all civilisations, discussing the ancient Brahmins of India and the Christian priest, Nietzsche sees the 'ascetic priest' as 'liars' and who created stories and fables and concepts such as that of morality and God.

Yet Nietzsche argues that these 'ascetic priests' acted with profound compassion when crafting these sacred stories, these supposed 'lies'. He describes the 'ascetic priest' as akin to a doctor who attempts to heal the sickness of humanity. That sickness that arises when man realises the meaninglessness of existence, the ephemerality of life, when he suffers injustices and horrors, disease and injury, death and loss, pain and misery, he sees these all as the afflictions inevitable to the human condition.

Yet conversely Nietzsche infact argues that these 'ascetic priests' were the wisest and greatest of all men, for they dared to peer into the 'Abyss' itself, they saw the meaninglessness of existence, they dared to stare into the Void and in doing so they felt the immensity of dread at the realisation of the absence of a true purpose, meaning, surety or God. Thus they themselves set about inventing God/Higher Reality/Absolute/Truth, they crafted sacred stories, and teachings of compassion and justice. Because as Nietzsche describes they truly felt deep compassion for humanity and seeing its suffering. Religion and morality were the best 'drug' to help humanity cope with this frightening realisation, sacred stories, moral injunctions of being just and kind and compassionate arose according to Nietzsche because they allowed humans to feel some power over others, that doing of good or giving to charity was the 'drug' that made them feel joy a sense of being able to change reality even briefly or in small instances. Hence did those ancient priests craft religion and morality to remedy humanity's symptomatic suicidal tendency at recognising the absence of meaning in the world. The 'ascetic priest' hence lied from a place of compassion and love, he saw that he must save humanity from losing the 'The Will' to life, he must give it a higher meaning, a sense of purpose and framework in which to operate. The 'ascetic priest' would thus become the saviour of humanity, he would take the burden upon his shoulders to vanquish suffering, by waging a war against meaninglessness by creating meaning. His prayers, his teachings and his concept of 'God' soothed the sick souls, giving them hope and purpose, joy and compassion, justice and integrity.
Like a doctor prescribing placebos, the effects worked, humanity felt joy and compassion and a 'Will' to life sprouted.
Nietzsche heavily praises ancient India and it's Brahmin ascetic priests in many verses, emphasising their ability to see the suffering of humanity and remedy it, he sees their ascetic renunciation of the world as being steeped in a deep sense of compassion to feel the pain of the masses, to suffer the suffering of people below them and be moved to a profound compassion. Yet he criticises the ascetic ideal as itself self contradictory as it seeks to affirm life by denying it, by suppressing it. He sees this ideal as reaching its extreme conclusions in Christian 'slave' morality, which he so despised, an ideal taken to the extreme that destroys and can lead to the regression of humanity through a narcotic haze of delusion.

Nietzsche ends his third essay by stating that the Atheist is in a sense the most 'honest' of the 'ascetic priests' for he can lie no longer and admits to the final lie, the lie of God. Nietzsche often attacks Christianity and Judaism, seeing the Abrahamic religions as overly concerned with 'anasthetising' suffering and conversely heavily praises ancient Indian religions like Hinduism and Buddhism in their dealing with the existence. Yet he sees the 'deep-sleep' of union of the Atman (self) and Brahman (Universal Absolute) and Buddhism's Nirvana, as one and the same in that they transcend the suffering of reality in profound serenity by in essence being metaphorical 'deep sleeps' or cessation of existence.
Nietzsche praises Buddhism's ancient atheism which he remarks occurred, '500 years before the Christian calendar' and praises Buddhism's very potent anasthetic; some religions Nietzsche discusses to try and combat the seeming meaninglessness and absurdity of existence, did away with existence itself, they reduced reality itself to a mere illusion, as in the case of Buddhism.

Overall Nietzsche's work is profoundly beautifully written (as conveyed by the translation), it is an intensely provocative yet thought provoking piece of work, one that expounds Nietzsche's personal philosophical views on the nature of morality and especially in book 3 about the origins of religion and the role of the 'ascetic priest' in engineering religion as the supreme medication for the symptomatic pain of existence's meaninglessness. Nietzsche's work is essential for anyone interested in Existentialist philosophy, as well as the philosophy of the history of religion and morality. It is extremely controversial and especially provocative in the context of Nietzsche's dismantling of religion as a mere set of 'lies' told by charlatans, but beneath this seeming criticism is a profound melancholic sorrow at the death of religion in post-Enlightenment Europe's intellectual circles, which Nietzsche felt may propel society to a pessimistic nihilism.
Nietzche ultimately sees the 'ascetic priests' as almost necessary and religion and God, even if they are indeed stories as necessary to instigate a universal desire to live and a higher ideal for society to strive towards, as it creates a meaning out of what is in Nietzsche's view a world devoid of any inherent meaning or objective truth.

I strongly appreciate Nietzsche's work however and found it a moving read by an insightful philosopher, though I myself do not agree with his Atheism, I appreciate and understand his stance and philosophy behind it. I myself believe that there is a God, but regardless appreciated Nietzsche insights and perspectives into the essential origin of religion and morality. A must read, even if you are religious, give it a careful reflective reading there is much that is thought provoking, and almost poetically conveyed. You may not agree with everything he says, but you must concede he was a man of powerful words.
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Nabanita Das
2.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy.
Reviewed in India on April 25, 2021
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Kudos to Oxford UP for the cover n spine👍👍however what held them from providing good quality text is a mystery for posterity. The notes following each topic are helpful, though.
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Nabanita Das
2.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy.
Reviewed in India on April 25, 2021
Kudos to Oxford UP for the cover n spine👍👍however what held them from providing good quality text is a mystery for posterity. The notes following each topic are helpful, though.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on April 26, 2017
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The purest translation of this book that is available. Buy this
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