On the Genealogy of Morals
by Friedrich Nietzsche · Zur Genealogie der Moral
Assigned by 4 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1887
- Form
- Treatise
- Language
- German
- Length
- Short · 160 ppunder 120 pages
- Difficulty
- Difficult4 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendOn the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, translated by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. HollingdaleVintage, 1989The standard classroom translation, bound with Nietzsche's late self-portrait.
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Three connected essays on where our moral concepts came from. The first traces good and evil to a slave revolt in morality, in which the weak, driven by resentment, inverted the noble values of the strong. The second finds the origin of guilt and bad conscience in the creditor-debtor relation and the turning inward of cruelty once society forbids its outward expression. The third asks what ascetic ideals mean and argues that science and modern atheism are their latest form. Nietzsche's most systematic book.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns On the Genealogy of Morals are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
