Nietzsche's On The Genealogy Of Morals Summary

Nietzsche makes an important distinction between the words “evil” and bad” even though they are both considered the opposite of “good.” He says that it is the individual views of the common man and the noble man that created these different concepts. The word “bad” originated from the nobles, and the word “evil” came from the ressentiment of the common people. Another important reason that these two words have different meanings is because the nobles and the common people do not share the same concept of “good.” To a person of ressentiment, whatever is good to a noble man is evil. Nietzsche elaborates more on this when he illustrates an example of a lamb and bird of prey. He uses the relationship between these two animals to explain the relationship between the nobility …show more content…
He tells us the purpose of his book and what he is after. Nietzsche is concerned with the origin of morality and he offers his explanation of it. His knowledge of philology really helps his essay by offering a different insight of morality and by providing evidence to his claims. Although Nietzsche states that previous attempts at figuring out the origin are “by nature unhistorical.” The history he uses, however, is no better. He focuses solely on the Jews’ revolt against the Romans during the first century. Nietzsche uses a certain time in history to explain morality. That is the biggest problem with Nietzsche’s argument: his history is too simple. He does not provide us with a good moral system. This is not to say that there is one best moral system. The truth is, it is not easy to come up with and establish a system of morality. Our perception of what is good and bad, or good and evil will change over time. Nietzsche’s history happened centuries ago and our way of living has changed a lot over the years. Society and the way people are organized right now in the 21st century is not the same as in the first