On the Genealogy of Morals

⚖The case for it

Nietzsche's most sustained argument: morality has a history, and that history is ugly. Master morality versus slave morality. Ressentiment as the engine of Western ethics. The ascetic ideal as life turning against itself. Three essays that demolish the idea that our values are natural or inevitable. 'There are no moral facts, only moral interpretations.' The most dangerous book in philosophy. Handle with amor fati.

— the canon

✕The case against

Nietzsche's 'history' of morals is conjecture in philology's robes: no dates, no documents, etymologies pressed into the service of a verdict reached in advance. The first essay's Rome-against-Judea framing has fed readers he would have despised, and the blond beast hands them their vocabulary. Read it for the diagnosis of ressentiment; just don't mistake the genealogy for history.

— the honest librarian