Moral genealogy

Nietzsche, F. (1956), The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals, New York Anchor Books. 

Finally, a word about the title. When I first heard about a book by Nietzsche called Zur Genealogie der Moral, I assumed the translation would be On the Genealogy of Morality, since for me, die Moral meant ethics as a formal doctrine, in other words, morality in a grand and abstract sense which naturally comprised morals. I am more relaxed on the matter now, but still feel that to talk about morality as a singular entity and phenomenon is truer to Nietzsche s meaning. Everyone concerned with this book has had that consideration in mind, and a primary concern was to make Nietzsche accessible. 

On the Genealogy of Morality belongs to the late period of Nietzsche s writings (1886-8). It was composed in July and August of 1887 and published in November of that year. Nietzsche intended it as a supplement ... 

The Genealogy is a subversive book that needs to be read with great care. It contains provocative imagery of blond beasts of prey and of the Jewish slave revolt in morality which can easily mislead the unwary reader about the nature of Nietzsche s immoralism. In the preface, Nietzsche mentions the importance of readers familiarizing themselves with his previous books - throughout the book he refers to various sections and aphorisms from them, and occasionally he makes partial citations from them. The critique of morality Nietzsche carries out in the book is a complex one its nuances are lost if one extracts isolated images... 

Nietzsche s polemic challenges the assumptions of standard genealogies, for example, that there is a line of descent that can be continuously traced from a common ancestor, and that would enable us to trace moral notions and legal practices back to a natural single and fixed origin. His emphasis is rather on fundamental transformations, on disruptions, and on psychological innovations and moral inventions that emerge in specific material and cultural contexts. 

Nietzsche s positions on ethics and politics may not ultimately compel us but they are more instructive than is commonly supposed, and certainly not as horrific as many of his critics would have us believe. He is out to disturb our satisfaction with ourselves as moderns and as knowers. Although we may find it difficult to stomach some of his specific proposals for the overcoming of man and morality, his conception of genealogy has become a constitutive feature of our efforts at self-knowledge. 

November On the Genealogy of Morality A Polemic. May—August The Case of Wagner, finishes Dithyrambs of Z) OBjsas (published 1891). 

Acampora, Christa Davis (ed.). Critical Essays on the Classics Nietzsche s On the Genealogy of Morals (Lanham, MD and Oxford Rowman and Littlefield, 2006)... 

Ridley, Aaron, Nietzsche s Conscience Six Character Studies from the Geneahgy (hhiCA, NY and London Cornell University Press, 1998) Schacht, Richard (ed.), Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality Essays on Nietzsche s Genealogy of Morals (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London University of California Press, 1994)... 

I was given the initial stimulation to publish something about my hypotheses on the origin of morality by a clear, honest and clever, even too-clever little book, in which I first directly encountered the back-to-front and perverse kind of genealogical hypotheses, actually the English kind, which drew me to it - with that power of attraction which everything contradictory and antithetical has. The title of the little book was... 

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