By Helen Ciacciarelli
As secularized accounts of morality’s social origins, the theories of Machiavelli and Nietzsche call for a transvaluation of morality. If we analyze their systems of thought through the distorting, reductive lens of modern connotations, we see the repugnancy of Nietzsche’s anti-Semitism or the cold, calculating, seemingly self-interested tactics of Machiavelli; as a consequence, we fail to delve deeper into the complexity of these works. This dismissive approach needs to be replaced with a detailed examination of how these figures redefine the notions of good and evil as the foundations of their philosophy and political theory.

By SHANE STEINERT-THRELKELD
The ascetic ideal is a seemingly self-denying force characterized by “poverty, humility, chastity” (3:8, 108) [1]. It is piety embodied, sensuality restrained. That such an ideology has flourished and recurred (as Nietzsche references with India) throughout societal development is a seeming paradox: the dominant ideal of humanity is a life-denying one. How, or rather why, then, has the ascetic ideal triumphed? Where does it come from? One easy answer is that there were no competing ideals. This answer, because it is elliptical, …

By CUONG NGUYEN
In Friedrich Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals, he states the “the slave revolt in morality begins when ressentiment itself becomes creative and gives birth to values” (GM Essay 1; 10). This idea of ressentiment is prevalent in Nietzsche’s philosophy because it corresponds to the idea of master and slave morality and, most importantly, explains how the lower slaves are able to overcome the higher masters and change the dominant morality to the slave morality. Ressentiment is the driving force that causes the anger and hatred of the slaves …