Friedrich Nietzsche
Beyond Good and Evil - Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future
Unabridged
8 hours 23 minutes
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Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche - is a book by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that covers ideas in his previous work Thus Spoke Zarathustra but with a more polemical approach. It was first published in 1886 under the publishing house C. G. Naumann of Leipzig at the author's own expense and first translated into English by Helen Zimmern, who was two years younger than Nietzsche and knew the author.
According to translator Walter Kaufman, the title refers to the need for moral philosophy to go beyond simplistic black and white moralizing, as contained in statements such as "X is good" or "X is evil". At the beginning of the book (§ 2), Nietzsche attacks the very idea of using strictly opposite terms such as "Good versus Evil".
On morality and religion
In the "pre-moral" period of mankind, actions were judged by their consequences. Over the past 10,000 years, however, a morality has developed where actions are judged by their origins (their motivations) not their consequences. This morality of intentions is, according to Nietzsche, a "prejudice" and "something provisional [...] that must be overcome" (§ 32).
Nietzsche criticizes "unegoistic morality" and demands that "Moralities must first of all be forced to bow before order of rank" (§ 221). Every "high culture" begins by recognizing "the pathos of distance"[3] (§ 257).
Religion has always been connected to "three dangerous dietary prescriptions: solitude, fasting and sexual abstinence" (§ 47), and has exerted cruelty through demanding sacrifice according to a "ladder" with different rungs of cruelty, which has ultimately caused God himself to be sacrificed (§ 55). Christianity, "the most fatal kind of self-presumption ever", has beaten everything joyful, assertive and autocratic out of man and turned him into a "sublime abortion" (§ 62). If, unlike past philosophers such as Schopenhauer, we really want to tackle the problems of morality, we must "compare many moralities" and "prepare a typology of morals" (§ 186). In a discussion that anticipates On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche claims that "Morality is in Europe today herd-animal morality" (§ 202)-i.e., it emanates from the ressentiment of the slave for the master (see also § 260, which leads into the discussion in Genealogy, I).
Nietzsche argues that more than what they value as "good" distinguishes noble and base. Even where agreement exists over what is good, what men consider a sufficient sign of possessing what is good differs (§ 194). Nietzsche describes love as the desire to possess a woman. The most unrefined form of the desire is also the most readily identifiable as a desire to possess another: control over the woman's body. A subtler desire to possess her also wants her soul, and thus wants her to be willing to sacrifice herself for her lover. Nietzsche describes this as a more complete possession. A still more refined desire to possess her prompts a concern that she might be willing to sacrifice what she desires for a mistaken image of her lover.
According to translator Walter Kaufman, the title refers to the need for moral philosophy to go beyond simplistic black and white moralizing, as contained in statements such as "X is good" or "X is evil". At the beginning of the book (§ 2), Nietzsche attacks the very idea of using strictly opposite terms such as "Good versus Evil".
On morality and religion
In the "pre-moral" period of mankind, actions were judged by their consequences. Over the past 10,000 years, however, a morality has developed where actions are judged by their origins (their motivations) not their consequences. This morality of intentions is, according to Nietzsche, a "prejudice" and "something provisional [...] that must be overcome" (§ 32).
Nietzsche criticizes "unegoistic morality" and demands that "Moralities must first of all be forced to bow before order of rank" (§ 221). Every "high culture" begins by recognizing "the pathos of distance"[3] (§ 257).
Religion has always been connected to "three dangerous dietary prescriptions: solitude, fasting and sexual abstinence" (§ 47), and has exerted cruelty through demanding sacrifice according to a "ladder" with different rungs of cruelty, which has ultimately caused God himself to be sacrificed (§ 55). Christianity, "the most fatal kind of self-presumption ever", has beaten everything joyful, assertive and autocratic out of man and turned him into a "sublime abortion" (§ 62). If, unlike past philosophers such as Schopenhauer, we really want to tackle the problems of morality, we must "compare many moralities" and "prepare a typology of morals" (§ 186). In a discussion that anticipates On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche claims that "Morality is in Europe today herd-animal morality" (§ 202)-i.e., it emanates from the ressentiment of the slave for the master (see also § 260, which leads into the discussion in Genealogy, I).
Nietzsche argues that more than what they value as "good" distinguishes noble and base. Even where agreement exists over what is good, what men consider a sufficient sign of possessing what is good differs (§ 194). Nietzsche describes love as the desire to possess a woman. The most unrefined form of the desire is also the most readily identifiable as a desire to possess another: control over the woman's body. A subtler desire to possess her also wants her soul, and thus wants her to be willing to sacrifice herself for her lover. Nietzsche describes this as a more complete possession. A still more refined desire to possess her prompts a concern that she might be willing to sacrifice what she desires for a mistaken image of her lover.
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