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WillowOne's Positions

Beyond Good and Evil

Overview

Nietzsche's attack on the philosophers who came before him, whom he accuses of dressing up their prejudices as discoveries, and a sketch of what might come after. The book introduces the distinction between master and slave morality, the idea that there are no moral facts but only moral interpretations, the will to power as the basic drive, and the perspectivism that denies any view from nowhere. It is written in numbered aphorisms, some a line long and some several pages, and it is deliberately provocative throughout.

Notes

Nietzsche is not someone I agree with so much as someone who got to several of my conclusions first and then kept going. That there is no objective morality, and that a morality is a tool serving somebody's interest, is here in 1886. Where he goes from there, to contempt for the weak and the herd, I do not follow, and I think the move is a mistake: the discovery that morality is made by people is an argument for making it carefully, not for abandoning it. But he saw the problem clearly, and he is very funny when he wants to be.

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