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Friedrich NietzscheBeyond Good And Evil
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1886A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Chapter 1 Summary: “Prejudices of Philosophers”
Nietzsche introduces his concept of the “Will to Truth” (5), a problem that is set before all, and the author questions the precise nature of this will to truth. Not only is the problem of the will to truth the principal obstacle but also the very nature of truth is at stake. The fundamental tenet held by all philosophers is “the belief in antitheses of values” (6), and this is itself a prejudice. The whole logical procedure of every philosopher of every age is this system of belief in antitheses, of the existence of opposites in the realm of truth. This fundamental belief must be put to trial.
When truth is seen as a matter of yes/no propositions where there is either truth or falsehood, then reality is not seen clearly. We must recognize that untruth is simply a matter of course. However, a philosophy that is willing to push this traditional mode of thinking to the side is one that is able to place itself “beyond good and evil” (8). The fact that most philosophers seem unable or unwilling to do this makes the public view them with suspicion and mockery. Kant makes himself a spectacle and Spinoza works his magic on the unwitting by means of almost mathematical, logical ethics.
Even living in accord with nature as the Stoics claim to do is a falsehood, for what is desired is not to live in accord with nature but to bend nature to one’s own will. Pride is at work in attempting to dictate morals to nature itself, and it is puritanical to prefer surety of trust in nothing rather than to be uncertain about something truly real. Even teleology must be rejected, all is centered on the life and action of the will, and the oft-misleading significance of language is to be doubted. The act of willing, so often construed as something simple is really quite complex, and it is a popular prejudice to view it otherwise since it is a complex emotion. If any of the philosophers are to be forgiven for their errors it is simply because “separate philosophical ideas are not anything optional or autonomously evolving, but grow up in connection and relationship with each other” (24); there is a genealogy to these ideas that are inevitable. These “moral prejudices” (27) have penetrated to the depths of academia and members of the intelligentsia, obstructing the truth of the matter.
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Free Spirit”
Reality is marked by a simplicity that cuts through all that is artificial and false, and the philosophers of the current age must take care not to be martyrs for the sake of truth even in their own defense. A devotion to simplicity and care not to be a martyr for any specific cause is the mark of a good philosopher, who should retain something of his good humor at all times rather than fall victim to “the stupidity of moral indignation” (31). This humor, along with a healthy skepticism and cynicism, will serve this new breed of philosopher well. This new breed will unfortunately be a member of quite a select few whose whole reason for existence will be to propose those things which seem to the common crowds foolish and even dangerous.
This is the fundamental difference between this new breed and the average citizen—what commonfolk believe to be virtues would actually be vice and wickedness to the philosopher. Anything to do with what is commonly accepted is to be shunned: “books for the general reader,” where the average person goes “to eat and drink,” and “churches” are all impure in this way (37).
Over the course of history, there seem to be three different ages: the pre-moral period; the moral period; and the ultra-moral period. The pre-moral period is the one in which actions are judged based on their consequences. The moral period is that in which actions are judged based on their intentions and the origin from which they come. In the time to come, the ultra-moral period, actions will finally be judged on the reality of their subconscious origins. This period will be the one in which finally morality can be side-stepped and surmounted. The surest thing that we can know at the current time is simply that the world is full of error, and the positing of a black and white universe where good and evil are easily discerned is foolish.
Instead, we must be content with the reality that there are rather “degrees of seemingness, and as it were lighter and darker shades” (41) in which we exist. This is largely because our wills, our intellects, our very selves are generally just the juxtaposition of random impulses and the complex web of our feelings and passions. Only the simple deny the fact that our happiness does not really depend on the truth, or what is commonly called good; many of those who are most happy are those who the same would call wicked. In fact, the crafty and severe are generally those who prove best able to develop into independent spirits and philosophers. This new breed of philosophers desire, actually, to remain mysterious and enigmas. They delight in being puzzling; they should even be called by a new name, “tempters” (47). They will love truth but not be wedded to any one individual truth, and they will be “very free spirits” (47). It is only they who will be able to admit that “everything wicked, terrible, tyrannical, predatory, and serpentine in man, serves as well for the elevation of the human species as its opposite” (48).
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Religious Mood”
The Christian religion is about sacrifice, self-subjugation, and the removal of all pride and self-interest. The person of modernity has difficulty understanding and assimilating to the language and concepts of the religion that puts ““God on the Cross” (53). It is a religion that reverses all values, and that gives the slave and the downtrodden a chance to turn the tables on the powers of the world. With religion, however, comes religious neuroses: “[W]e find it connected with three dangerous prescriptions as to regimen: solitude, fasting, and sexual abstinence” (53). These are absurd and are evidence of superstition; and this great feeling for God often comes out in the strangest of ways, pushing even the mightiest of men and the strongest of personalities to bow down before Christian saints.
The Hebrew scriptures are an example of a religion that elevates justice and honor, a monument to the greatness of humanity. The New Testament, by contrast, is a text that subverts this greatness, appealing to the small and the petty, and the conjunction of these two texts is “perhaps the greatest audacity […] which literary Europe has upon its conscience” (58). Atheism is the refutation of God’s fatherhood since this father has proven himself to be a silent one; modern philosophy has adopted this atheism in large part as a part of its epistemological skepticism. The old concepts of religion and God will one day seem as worthless as childhood toys (the existence of theologians in the universities is still a curiosity).
For those in power, however, religion can be a marvelously effective tool of statecraft. It can be used to attain peace among the populace, and it can be used to give the commonfolk a sense of purpose and ennoblement, yet the effects of Christianity have been paradoxical. The Christian church has given Europe more than it could be thankful for, yet it is precisely due to this religion’s desire to lift up the lowly that Europe has become diseased. Christianity has preserved too much of what should have been allowed to die out, and the weak and the suffering have been allowed to continue on when by all rights they should have faded into the past.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The issue at hand in Beyond Good and Evil is the very nature of truth and right as they are understood by the common masses, the so-called philosophers, and the free spirits who are the true philosophers. The first chapter begins by critiquing the individuals who are commonly called philosophers and who style themselves to be such and believe in various antitheses of values, in right and wrong, and in objective moral truths. This dichotomy, according to Nietzsche, is a false one, for it presupposes the same things will be right and wrong for everyone at all times and in all places. Often, he will single out Kant and his categorical imperative in this regard, but this proposition (according to the author) could not be further from the truth.
The idea that there is an objective valuation of morals and antitheses set in stone must be put to the test. When the world is viewed in this black and white manner, reality ends up being obscured, and the truth is impossible to ascertain since life itself is messy; it’s complex, and this two-value system cannot possibly allow one to discern the truth of things. It is for this reason that every philosopher who has ever adhered to this worldview is intrinsically unphilosophical. The true philosophy will be able to push beyond good and evil as naively held propositions and will be able to see the true morality inherent to reality. The variety of dichotomous philosophical systems held by figures like Kant or Spinoza, for instance, are foolish in this regard.
Even going back to the schools of ancient Greece, it can be seen that philosophies such as Stoicism are filled with errors in their desire to live naturally, or according to nature. Moreover, believes Nietzsche, living according to nature is a fool’s errand, for it is nature itself that must be ruled and bent to one’s own will. Most foolish of all in this ancient worldview is the belief in teleology—natural ends that are intrinsic to all creation—for this would deny the power of the will in shaping reality. The will is the most complex of things with which we are in contact, and the moral prejudices that would subordinate the will to outside forces must be cast off. Academics, in fact the whole world, must come to the realization that the prejudices and biases of ages past must be cast off in favor of the truth of things.
Reality is, in truth (as Nietzsche asserts in the second chapter), absolutely simple, and anyone who would argue otherwise is to be silenced. Even worse than taking a stance on the complexity and mystery of truth are those who would lay down their lives for the sake of the truth as they estimate it in their own eyes; the truth is never so serious and never such a thing as to be broken upon. Nietzsche is clear to point out that the truth is to be created, and so to submit oneself to death for the sake of truth as it is seen in another person’s eyes is completely antithetical to his project. Cynicism is to be the word of the day, for the cynic is the one who will be comfortable being a sign of contradiction. The true philosophers are necessarily going to have to be contrary figures, swimming against the current and viewed as something of a court jester.
The contrariness of the real philosopher is going to be their true mark, and this is the dividing line between this new breed of thinker and creator and the average person. The average person is going to be comfortable going with the flow, being part of the crowd, always content not to rock the boat. The philosophers will have to do the opposite. Even in the arena of morality, their virtues and vices will sometimes appear at odds and as mirror images, for what is going to be right and necessary for the philosopher, the strong man, may not necessarily be right for the average citizen. Anything, says Nietzsche, that smacks of commonality, is to be avoided like the plague.
History itself is reflective of this shifting perspective, as he divides the whole of history into three separate and distinct ages: the premoral period, the moral period, and the ultra-moral period. The premoral period is one in which the actions and the individuals are judged on the consequences of their actions; the final result is surveyed, and then the moral calculus is done with this final result in mind. The moral stage, in which Nietzsche currently places his own time, is that in which it is not the consequences but the intentions that are judged. Here he shifts the moral weight from the end back to the beginning, as he discerns the great masses of people to primarily judge people on their intentions, either for good or for ill.
The period that he has designs on moving toward is the ultra-moral period, in which the judgment is found in an even more primal origin than one’s intentions: This third period will be one in which the judgment will occur at the level of the subconscious. Here, morality will be pushed to the side as something objective and in the arena of personal decision, but it will be moved into the arena of necessity. If our morality is based on something beyond our control, in the subconscious and in our nature, then we are ultimately responsible for acting within the confines of traditionally defined good and evil. In this new universe, the black and white will fade into various shades of gray, and it will be a universe in which the strong will be able to operate with the most efficiency.
These new philosophers will be the free spirits who will be able to create their own realities within this world of shadows and varying degrees of surety. They will be comfortable with seeming like enigmas, having no intention of their audience being perfectly clear on what they mean, and aiming on turning the old order on its head.
The greatest symbol and representative of this old system is, of course, the Christian religion. In the third chapter Christianity is singled out for particular ridicule as a philosophical system that venerates and glorifies sacrifice, submission, humility, sympathy, and love—all ideals that prove to weaken the human race. The reversal of values in the Christian religion is more apt to be called a neurosis, in which the various goods of wealth, power, and intimacy are abandoned for poverty, obedience, and chastity. This is a powerful and pernicious superstition in the eyes of Nietzsche, and it is all the more ridiculous sprouting as it does from the people and the writings of the Hebrew scriptures—the Christian Old Testament—which were a paragon and monument of human achievement (having set up justice as the ultimate ideal). Christianity has preserved the weak and the downtrodden of humanity, and in this it has actually served to fracture the world, allowing those who should have faded into the dusty pages of history to continue in a pathetic existence.
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