35 pages • 1 hour read
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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Beyond Good and Evil
The title of the work also shows up at numerous points within the body of the text as the goal at which the new philosophers must aim in the establishment of their morals, going “beyond good and evil” in the creation of new values. The traditional and customary notions of “good” and “evil” as they are held by the general public are nonsense, naïve and childish notions of the past that must be put on trial and rejected in favor of ideals that go “beyond good and evil” in their moral valuations. In the space “beyond good and evil,” the new values will be decided upon by the free spirits and by the strong, who will be able to swim against the tide and impose their own wills.
Will to Power
The will to power is the human life force that overflows in the strength of will that is able to create new values and ideals that fit a new way of viewing the world. It is Nietzsche’s philosophy of self-determination and is exhibited by the noble and most especially by the Übermensch, the “over-man” or “superman,” who will be able to rise above the teeming, weak, uneducated public and bring their own world into being by sheer force of will. While the term is never explicitly defined or explained by Nietzsche himself, the general sense of the term lends itself to this domineering and egotistical (in the literal sense of the word) interpretation.
The Free Spirit
The free spirit is the same figure as the true philosopher and the noble—they are the one who is able to break from the commonly accepted morality and the accepted public opinions and come to an original position. The free spirit is the one who is able to break with tradition and question every possible received ideal and value and put it to the test, keeping what is true and rejecting all that does not accord with their own reality and experience. Additionally, the free spirit is also the one who will be comfortable being a sign of contradiction and even an object of derision or martyrdom if it means being able to stand for the creation of new values and new ideals.
Morality
Morality is used in two mutually opposed ways in the text of Beyond Good and Evil. Most of the time it is a term used for the traditional and commonly accepted way of doing things, characterized most often by appeals to good and evil and a way of viewing the world in terms of black and white, distinct and unrelated modes of activity where one is right, and one is wrong. Morality is also used in the contrary sense when Nietzsche is discussing a new morality that must be imposed and created by the free spirits, a morality that accords with current experience and does not necessarily need to be universal. Morality in this new manner of speaking will be merely the will of the noble who impose their will on the world.
The Categorical Imperative
Nietzsche uses this term to refer to a concept with which he does not agree. The categorical imperative is a concept used by Immanuel Kant, a philosopher who lived and died in the previous century, to describe a moral value that can be universally applied to any individual regardless of their circumstances to determine the right course of action. Simply put, a thing can be called a categorical imperative if it can be made into a universal law for anyone, and it is only in this way the truth of morality can be discovered. Anything else would be subjectivist or relativist. For his part, Nietzsche despises the idea since it posits the concept of a universal system of ethics, which is a philosophy to which he does not ascribe.
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By Friedrich Nietzsche
