Carlon Robbins

RELS 6622-001
9 April 2010

Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals is one of his major philosophical projects in

which he traces the history of the development of what he calls “slave morality.” According to

Nietzsche, “slave morality” manifested in history in the form of a revolt with the coming to

dominance of Christianity. This “revolt” was against what Nietzsche terms “master morality,”

which he argued was the type of morality held by the ancient Greeks prior to Socrates and the

eventual arrival of Christianity. Essentially, “herd morality” involves ressentiment (re-

sentiment), which is the revaluing, or devaluing, of values that affirm life. According to

Nietzsche, the “slaves” or the “herd” are those whose worldview or outlook on life flowed in the

opposite direction to the “masters” whose values affirmed life. The “slaves” operate according to

what Nietzsche refers to as the “herd instinct;” they are the life deniers, pessimists, etc, who

posited a transcendental world beyond the material.

Nietzsche argues that in the ancient world there were two types of people, categorized by

their psychologies (i.e. the “masters” and the “slaves). Here Nietzsche’s language can read

problematic in some instances due to his placement of “slave morality” as arising from the Jews,

as opposed to the “master morality” stemming from the “noble peoples,” at times with the

reference to Aryans, and other moments attributing such characteristics to the Greeks, and still

other places as simply “higher men.”

[I]n the majority of cases, they designate themselves simply by their superiority in
power (as “the powerful,” “the masters,” “the commanders”) or by the most
1
 clearly visible signs of this superiority, for example, as “the rich,” “the
possessors” (this is the meaning of arya;1 and of corresponding words in Iranian
and Slavic). But they also do it by a typical character trait: and this is the case
that concerns us here. They call themselves, for instance, “the truthful”; this is so
above all of the Greek nobility.2

Nevertheless, the “master” morality, or instinct, is equated with an affirmation of life and

includes attributes of power, activity, physicality, abundance, health, battle, the hunt, etc.3 In

other words, the “masters” maintain the vital impulses to forge their creativity and excellence

continuously striving for perpetually evolving and ascending4 goals. Thus, the “herd instinct,”

“slave morality,” and ressentiment are fundamentally counterintuitive to this “higher” mode of

existence.

Nowhere else has the “herd instinct” become more prevailing than in Christianity which

deemphasizes the life of the natural world, and the natural drives, instincts, cravings, and

passions of the human body. The problematic aspect of Nietzsche’s text with regard to this

concept rests on the fact that he claims the ancient Jews, referring to them as the “priestly

people,” were the first to formulate the “herd instinct” into organization (i.e. in the religion and

culture of Judaism). However, it remains the offshoot of Judaism, Christianity, in which

ressentiment is fully realized. In the place of the valuation of life in its natural condition of flux

and evolution, Christianity has generated the “Ascetic Ideal.”

1
The word arya stems from the Indo-Aryan languages that the ancient speakers of these dialects used as their
ethno-national self-reference. The word itself means “noble,” thus gives an indication to Nietzsche’s claim that
ancient peoples demarcated themselves from others by use of such language-thought.
2
Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Genealogy of Morals,” The Basic Writings of Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter
Kaufmann. (New York: The Modern Library. 1992), 465-466.
3
Ibid., 469
4
I think it is crucially important to consider the dichotomy Nietzsche presents between the “masters” and allusions
to ascent, and the reference of “higher” type, versus his equating the “herd instinct” with symptoms of decline and
decadence. This seems to suggest a dualistic condition of Becoming with which potentialities between progressive
continuance of evolution, and regressive sublimation, or devolution.
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 The idea at issue here is the valuation the ascetic priest places on our life: he
juxtaposes it (along with what pertains to it: “nature,” “world,” the whole sphere
of becoming and transitoriness) with a quite different mode of existence which it
opposes and excludes, unless it turn against itself, deny itself: in that case, the
case of the ascetic life, life counts as a bridge to that other mode of existence. The
ascetic treats life as a wrong road on which one must finally walk back to the
point where it begins, or as a mistake that is put right by deeds—that we ought to
put right: for he demands that one go along with him; where he can he compels
acceptance of his evaluation of existence.5

At the heart of Nietzsche’s argument here, is the juxtaposition of philosophical and

psychological modalities of Being and Becoming. Christianity (as well as most other

forms of religion and the various schools of philosophy beginning with Socrates) for

Nietzsche has posited the element of otherworldliness. By devaluing life as “evil” and/or

sinful, the Christian ideal is in the world beyond—the transcendent world of Heaven and

God. Thus, human existence, according to this way of thought, is devalued and is reduced

to being merely a means of acquiring salvation through ascetic denial of the body and

denial of the impulses of life.

Ultimately, according to Nietzsche, the “slave revolt” in morality inverted the

ethical categories good/bad of the “masters” to good/evil of the “slaves.” All qualities and

characteristics the “masters” identified in themselves, or others, as noble or exceptional,

which they classified as “good” were revalued as “evil” because of ressentiment.

Christian ethics thus represents the most developed form of the “slave” morality, which

equates all the natural impulses, and desire for strength, strife, power, and excellence—

those so-called noble virtues. In Nietzsche’s view, this “slave morality” disseminated

throughout the Western world, and even in spaces no longer recognized as particular

Christian this type of decadence is seen and felt—the result is nihilism.

5
Ibid., 553.
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