Introduction

As secularized accounts of morality’s social origins, the theories of Italian Renaissance political thinker Niccolo Machiavelli and the 19^th century German continental philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche call for a transvaluation of morality. If we analyze their systems of thought through the distorting, reductive lens of conventional modern connotations, we see the repugnancy of Nietzsche’s sexism or 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 unlearned and replaced with a more detailed examination of how these figures redefine the notions of good and evil as the foundations of their philosophy and political theory, respectively. Over the course of describing their ethical theories and the ways in which they transvalue the moral standards of their times and attempt to show that vice can legitimately constitute virtue, I would like to explore the question: to what degree can Nietzsche and Machiavelli be defined as consequentialists? Finally, I will touch on the relationship between transvaluation and consequentialism.

Transvaluation Defined

One of the reasons that Nietzsche and Machiavelli have been studied for so long is the sense of theoretical novelty and innovation stemming from their transvaluations; both thinkers seem particularly sensitive to the importance of re-evaluating standards and social mores which facilitates philosophical progress. The concept of “transvaluation” is usually attributed to Nietzsche, rather than Machiavelli; however, the term aptly applies to both. In On the Genealogy of Morals Nietzsche explicitly states the project of such a genealogy, or history of morals, and writes about the “need” for a transvaluation, which he defines as a “critique of moral values, the value of these values themselves must first be called in question... (20) Nietzsche’s project involves seeing value from the perspective of a meta-cultural stance. The process of transvaluation is essentially a re-assessment of concepts; one takes a step back from the internal, socially constructed systems of value to look at the larger picture, even if this means tearing down their foundation. There is also a shift from a view of morality as something that has objective, intrinsic worth to a view of it as having a subjective, socially and extrinsically determined worth.

Transvaluation: What is being “Transvalued”?

Nietzsche and Machiavelli, in their renunciation of traditional “popular morality”, criticize the Christian ethics which permeated their respective time periods in order to make way for new secular modes of thinking (On the Genealogy of Morals 45). Christian values are precisely what the two aim to attack and transvalue. Machiavelli draws on his own transvaluation of values for the purposes of providing a blueprint for the success of the state. Just as Nietzsche describes a moral dichotomy (slave morality and noble morality), Machiavelli explores two sets of morality: traditional Christian ethics and a political morality. He rejects the former in lieu of acceptance of the latter. Bernard Crick acknowledges that there are two seemingly incompatible spheres of morality, which he divides into the Christian and the Pagan worlds. There exists a conflict between Christian ethics, or “morality of the soul”, and political Pagan morality, or “morality of the city”, and one is forced to operate within one sphere or the other (Crick 67). Machiavelli points out the often mutually exclusive natures of both spheres and is emphatically anti-Christian. A political thinker more than a systematic philosopher, he never undertakes the task of attempting to reconcile the two spheres. This negative view of Christianity is further promoted in The Discourses, in particular sections 11-15. In these sections, Machiavelli makes an important distinction: he is not anti-religion, although he is opposed to Christian dogma. What makes Christianity so distasteful to him is the underlying element of passivity. Such a biblical command as “Turn the other cheek” is completely at odds with Machiavellian principles. Machiavelli’s play La Mandragola delineates the importance of action with the protagonist Callimaco, who says, “I’ve got to try something, be it great, dangerous, harmful, scandalous” (17). It is of further interest that Machiavelli’s works are grounded in unflinching secular realism. Focusing on the present world, he rejects the Christian view that life on earth functions as a spiritual test for soul-making and developing morally significant characters in order to ultimately gain entry to Paradise in the afterlife. As Mansfield states, Machiavelli is interested in establishing prosperity in the world of the here and now (Machiavelli’s Virtue 48). Let us act, he seems to be saying, as if there is no “next world”, and do our best to work with the present conditions. However, on a more general level, Machiavelli recognizes the social utility of religion; it inspires the armies, gives them courage, and unites the people under a common ideological bond. Religion for Machiavelli is a positive thing if it acts a catalyst for the people to political action, but deleterious if it leads to stasis (as Christianity does, according to Machiavelli’s interpretation).

Nietzsche’s obsession with the flaws of Christianity is concisely and elegantly formulated in the “In Attempt at a Self-Criticism” in The Birth of Tragedy:

Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life’s nausea and disgust with life… Hatred of ‘the world,’ condemnation of the passions, fear of beauty and sensuality… For, confronted with morality (especially Christian, or unconditional, morality), life must continually and inevitable be in the wrong, because life is something essentially amoral. (23)

For Nietzsche, Christianity is so destructive to the interests of man because it is rooted in a denial of life, and, moreover, constitutes a kind of perversion in that it restrains the instincts of human nature. The Christian religion teaches that natural sexual impulses and human evil are things of which we should be ashamed, and as such, it is necessarily life-negating; life, Nietzsche points out, encapsulates more than simply what human moral constructs deem “good.” To truly be considered life-affirming, we have to recognize that life is intrinsically supramoral, and we must embrace both halves of the whole, the light and the dark. Nietzsche attempts to critique morality; if the so-called purpose of morality is to label and prescribe what is beneficial as good, he advises that we critique the value of values to determine if the good is actually beneficial. Nietzsche tries to tear down the Christian traditional ethical concepts of self-sacrificing, self-denying moral goodness. Nevertheless, there are positive ethical assertions being posited.

Transvaluation: The Ethical Theories of Nietzsche and Machiavelli Explained

The Genealogy of Morals is a historical, psychological, etymological account of the origins of the meaning of morality. Nietzsche’s approach leads him to a documentation of control conflicts between socio-economic classes, a power-fueled process of assertion and retaliation, or competitive desires for supremacy. Moral valuation, according to Nietzsche, actually splits into a dichotomy relative to two social groups: the aristocracy, or the highest order in the social hierarchy, and the lowest rank, which is that of the slave. The aristocratic sense of the good is synonymous with power and centralized in self-affirmation. Using language as an instrument or expression of power, the aristocracy proves their supremacy by identifying and labeling as good the very actions the ruling class takes, notably making no distinction between the action and the executor of the action. From the noble’s self-justifying perspective, he is inherently good, and thus his behavior is but a perceptible manifestation of his good nature, rendered good by the mere fact that it originates from him, the source of goodness. In master “Roman” morality, power equates to goodness. Occupying the opposite end of aristocratic ethical values is “badness”, which is more or less all that is not the aristocracy, namely the lowest social class. The plebian is deemed bad automatically on the grounds that he is by definition deprived of power, and therefore indisputably separate from the aristocracy and their concept of goodness. The noble regards the commoner with indifference, seeing him as being of no consequence. He is actually incapable of feeling enmity towards the lower class, as he is not considered worthy of his attentions.

Slave morality consists of the polarities of “good and evil”, rather than the aristocratic valuations of “good and bad.” Under this reactionary ethical system, the slave despises the aristocrat, who in his eyes possesses the ability to choose weakness, yet remains in power. The weak, resenting the powerful, delude themselves into believing that their weakness is virtue, while the seemingly unattainable power is renamed vice, and thus gain superiority in the only sense they are capable: the transvalution of the pre-existing aristocratic morality. By redefining the aristocratic good as “evil”, the slave himself secures a degree of control over the nobles, the self-validating social tyrants. He linguistically transforms his impotence and subjection into his very sense of worth (On the Genealogy of Morals 56). This moral value generates from hatred, and the slave’s joy consists in the suffering of the nobles. Slave morality is, in contrast with self-affirming aristocratic morality, spiteful, vindictive, and actively negating. Furthermore, the slave’s good is in fact his evil; it is rooted in hate and malicious delight in diminishing the authority of and even inflicting pain upon the oppressive nobles, exemplifying our traditional concept of vice. In Nietzsche’s phrase “beyond good and evil” we see his desire for philosophy to move beyond a slave conception of morality (Ibid., 55).

While Nietzsche criticizes conventional morality and even morality in general by boldly claiming that “every morality is, as opposed to laisser aller, a bit of tyranny against ‘nature’ also against ‘reason’”, he never successfully escapes from the very oppositional thinking which he so adamantly detests (Beyond Good and Evil 100). Nietzsche, although he claims to despise morality, is clearly making a positive moral assertion of his own. The “life-affirming versus life-negating” opposition that is so salient in his writing forms a kind of new morality in its own right. Leila Haaparanta, in her article A Note on Nietzsche’s Argument, attempts to reconstruct Nietzsche’s critique of moral philosophy in strictly logical terms and also offers insight on his positive ethical theory and supports the interpretation that Nietzsche is asserting a life-affirming morality (494). Nietzsche observes that the polytheistic religions of antiquity are superior to Christian monotheism because in that epoch “There was only one norm, man” (The Gay Science 191). Nietzche’s morality, then, may be reduced to a simple and noble calculation: a true morality justifies man as perhaps an intrinsically moral being. It is his very natural instincts which Nietzsche labels as morally good, and the conscious repression of them as amoral. His moral prescription is essentially that vitality and natural impulses are the only ethical standards by which we should live. We have to accept the chaos and the dissonance, i.e. not only what is deemed by Christian values to be “good”, but also the “evil”.

In Book I of The Discourses, Machiavelli promotes his own view of the origins of morality. Like Nietzsche, he identifies the establishment of moral terms with power conflicts and social classes. In the earliest days of human history, people lived in primitive independence of social structure, organization, and law (106). As populations began to increase, so did interactions between people, until eventually more or less isolated individuals or small groups of individuals banded together in the name of the utility-steeped purpose of increasing the chances of survival. They chose a leader, a man of mental and physical distinction, to augment a sense of social cohesiveness and guide them as an early stages executive figure. This figure, not doubt, was a paradigm of the Machiavellian idea of virtu¹; he exemplifies the political role in Machiavellian thought which Pitkin identifies as the Founder, “a male figure of superhuman or mythical proportions, who introduces among men something new, good, and sufficiently powerful so that it continues beyond his lifetime on the course he has set” (The Founder 52). As such, the people felt a sense of obligation and indebtedness to their leader, or Founder, for the prosperity of the collective. After the establishment of governments, Machiavelli explains, people formed a notion of justice based on the way their leader was treated. Thus original concepts of good and evil were rooted in other individuals’ exhibitions of gratitude or ingratitude towards the Founder; when instances of ingratitude arose, men were filled with resentment for the ungrateful, and came to associate ingratitude with evilness and vice, while instances of gratitude shown to their leader induced valuations of goodness and virtue (The Discourses 107). Laws were created to accommodate these vicarious feelings, i.e. to punish the ungrateful and reward the grateful. Justice for Machiavelli is a purely subjective term revolving around the well-being of the leaders of the state. Moral judgments were formulated by the appropriation of gratitude towards the Founder, who had made social success possible, not because of inherent goodness or badness, and it is these relativist foundations of traditional morality which Machiavelli seeks to expose but also manipulate to the advantage of the whole.

Machiavelli’s transvaluation of values is most apparent in the infamous work The Prince. Espousing the ideals of civic duty and the common good, Machiavelli’s notion of virtue is inextricably bound up with classical republicanism. Good and evil are transvalued according to ends, i.e. the noble republican goal of liberty, preservation and expansion of the state, and the overall well-being of the people within the state are re-defined as the good. What society traditionally deems to be “evil” is even, at times, a necessary means to achieve the good. Evil in Machiavellian terms constitutes what is harmful to the republic.

…[A] ruler, and especially a new ruler, cannot always act in ways that are considered good because, in order to maintain his power, he is often forced to act treacherously, ruthlessly or inhumanely, and disregard the precepts of religion. Hence he must be… capable of entering upon the path of wrongdoing when this becomes necessary. ( The Prince 62)

Machiavelli’s concept of good actions and moral behavior is tied to social and political action and a sense of necessity. “Wrongdoing” for Machiavelli should be a term in quotations, since it so-called evil actions are justified and made good by the positive outcomes his actions produce. Bernard Crick articulates this sentiment rather bluntly, but accurately, with his recognition in the introduction to The Discourses that the impetus behind the action of Machiavellian figures is the understanding that “[s]omeone has to take up the dirty work” (64). For example, the people may despise a ruler for raising taxes and call him miserly, but when the state later needs these funds, the stability of the country which his prudence and foresight maintained will outweigh the initial financial inconveniences. Machiavellian virtue utilizes acts that would be classified as Christian evil as instruments to achieving higher goals. Methods of cultivating the collective good vary with one’s position in society; the task of redefining morality falls upon the ruler of a principality or republic. He must exercise virtu and the willingness to take part in such ethical transvaluations as the circumstances demand, while the citizen must demonstrate civic virtue and carry out the deeds which his government requires of him for the betterment of the state. It could even be argued that if there are two spheres are morality, the political and the Christian, the former requires evil and transvaluation, while the latter is concerned solely with goodness in the deontological sense.

Transvaluation of the Concept of Violence: Ethical Behavior Made Compatible with Violence

Machiavelli and Nietzsche’s views on violence clearly stem from their ethical transvaluations, in which they both recognize the need for “evil”. To recapitulate, in Nietzsche’s case, evil is to be embraced simply on the basis that it composes only part of a unity, that is, extramoral life. In Machiavelli’s case, this “evil” is necessary at times to achieve the greater good of the well-being of the republic, and thus “evil” and cruelty become in a sense vindicated, and made good, by the attainment of the ends. Violence is most often viewed as a form of moral evil because it involves humans choosing a wrong action from a set of morally significant actions, and hence it functions as an effective paradigm of Nietzschean and Machiavellian ethical transvaluation theory in application. An expansionist, Machiavelli acknowledges the inevitability of inter-nation conflict, as well as the need for conflict within the state. The former is highlighted in the form of military virtue in The Art of War, in which Machiavelli labels expertise in battle as a necessary evil, but one which even the generals, the executors of that evil, must only resort to it with the utmost reluctance. Furthermore, good generals and soldiers must be first and foremost good citizens. Machiavelli underscores the significance of patriotic necessity-driven motives in warfare. The art of war is not a craft which truly good soldiers will want to pursue in times of peace, and violence is not something which they will actively seek out (The Art of War 18). Additionally, Machiavelli discusses the positive influence of institutionalized conflict on the state’s overall prosperity in The Discourses. He posits that the violence which erupts between the two social groups of the plebian and the Senate actually facilitates legislative progress, and thus leads to the betterment of the republic (113).

Nietzsche views violence as an essential facet of human nature, which is inclined towards cruelty and schadenfreude. In the Second Essay of On the Genealogy of Morals, he describes the origins of guilt. This state arises from a financial relationship: the debtor-creditor relationship. Guilt is, in a modern context, largely associated with the failure to meet a responsibility, but initially it simply meant that the debtor needed to pay off his debt. If the debtor failed to make his payment, the creditor would be allowed to torture him as payment. Punishment functions as sharp and vivid memory aid to fulfill our promises (On the Genealogy of Morals 61). However, morality causes us to brand these creditor instincts as wrong. No longer having the ability to take our aggression out on others causes us to turn our cruel tendencies inward, replacing sadism with masochism. This internalization of cruelty is what breeds bad conscience. Nietzsche departs from Machiavelli in the sense that for Machiavelli, violence is a rather unpleasant undertaking, the only means available of attaining a higher, nobler goal. For Nietzsche, suffering takes on another dimension: it is an end in itself and is to be promoted for its own sake (On the Genealogy of Morals 67). It is in this essay that he explores the idea of a cheerful suffering. His concept of an ideal society would be one devoid of traditional morality, where cruel instincts are allowed free reign, under the sole confines of the debtor-creditor contract. Nietzsche calls for us to do away with moral oppositional thinking, implying that it is preferable to live in such a natural state of ritualized physical violence and torture rather than to cope with the bad conscience of the moral era which traditional morality imposes upon us.

Machiavelli and Nietzsche’s recognition of the essential nature of violence is a direct result of their ethics, and has caused many to accuse them of simply being immoralists. While it may appear that both Nietzsche and Machiavelli are not actually positively asserting a moral code of their own, Nietzsche’s is a kind of life-affirming, humanity-affirming morality, and Machiavelli’s is a classical republican morality. While he operates according to reason of state, the concept that different standards of morality apply to the political arena, Machiavelli is clearly not devoid of idealistic motivations, as frequent charges of realpolitik would suggest, and like Nietzsche, who, despite explicitly voiced aversions to moral constructs, he is not calling for a complete abolishment of morality. Machiavelli’s agreement with such extreme instances of violence, particularly the sons of Brutus case, in which he praises the conduct of a man who killed his two sons because they were acting against the state, strikes the modern Western reader as radical (The Discourses 393). To refute immoralist charges, we must take into consideration Machiavelli’s admonition against the employment of excessive violence, or cruelty that does not serve a noble end (The Discourses 132). Machiavelli emphasizes the importance of the ends, and condemns action for the sake of action, or violence merely for the sake of violence. In Machiavelli’s world, everything that is noble serves a greater political purpose, and every action should be justifiable to be considered worthy and good. In the process of maintaining any state, violence is a fundamental component, and Machiavelli does not attempt to sugarcoat its undeniable necessity. The Machiavellian leader maneuvers around the problematic rigidity of traditional morality to live according to the exigencies of the moment (The Discourses 430). Republicanism becomes an epistemological matter; the populace often do not know what is best for them, and it takes a leader equipped with virtu, a preternatural understanding of actions which will bring about the best consequences, to know when to transvalue and resort to violence.

The Problem of Determinism: Evidence against the Formulation of Positive Ethical Theory?

The concept of free will plays an important role in any ethical theory, and has been an object of contention in the philosophical traditions of both modernity and antiquity. The crux of the problem appears to be: if a philosophy relegates the concept of free will to a mere fiction and takes a deterministic approach, then it logically follows that, since we have no control over our actions, we cannot be held morally responsible for them. If this is the case in Machiavelli and Nietzsche’s theories, then what role can any kind of moral code play? I would argue that determinism does not provide an impediment to the formulation of their ethics.

Nietzsche’s views of free will are extremely complex; for the most part, he claims that free will is an empty idea, but other aspects of his work would suggest otherwise. On the one hand, we see Nietzsche’s professed disbelief in free will in On the Genealogy of Morals: “there is no ‘being’ behind doing, effecting, becoming; ‘the doer’ is merely a fiction added to the deed—the deed is everything” (45). It is a human prejudice to distinguish an action from the subject, Nietzsche says. However, in reality, there is no causal chain involving two separate entities: a performer of an action and the action itself. There is no free will that enables the subject to choose to act or to refrain from acting in such a way, as with action, there is always necessity. Contrastively, in Aphorism 341 of The Gay Science, Nietzsche presents the idea of eternal recurrence, the concept that life repeats itself over and over again into eternity. Instead of lamenting this “greatest weight” to no end, Nietzsche suggests that we revel in this escape from the unbearable weightlessness of nihilism. The fact that every event and thought inevitably occurs again and again regardless of human actions or attempts to evade it is not in fact a source of anxiety or depression. There seems to be an element of choice here, beyond the overwhelming determinism. Through amor fati, love of fate, we can in a sense choose to transcend the conditions beyond our control, as Nietzsche declares, “I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who makes things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth!” (The Gay Science 223).We may not be able to ward off eternal recurrence, but we can freely control our psychological attitudes towards it. In other words, we can choose to fatalistically despair, resigned to Hamlet-like nausea at the futility of human action, or we can laugh like the ubermensch in the face of the eternal recurrence (Beyond Good and Evil 68). Similarly, free will in Machiavelli emerges with restraints, but still intact. Prevalent throughout his works is the figure of Fortuna, a female personification of fortune. Departing from the medieval view of a Fortuna who turns a single wheel that determines the Fate of men, he constructs a worldview marked by a plurality of options. According to Pitkin’s view of Machiavelli, there are multiple wheels “so that it may be possible for men to choose among them, or to jump from one to another… the stress on activism and human choice in Machiavelli’s vision is really new” (Fortune 146 Pitkin). With Machiavelli too, then, there is some wiggle room for free will. Furthermore, in Chapter XXV of The Prince, Fortuna is described as not only a fickle and cruel woman, but also a viciously raging flood. Executing virtu and foresight, as well as carefully preparing for the future, can eliminate some of the woe brought about by Fortuna. Of course, there is always a degree of unpredictability, as there are clearly many variables working against any given person, no matter how much virtu he practices, but Machiavelli stresses in his constant exhortation to action that we can and must do our best to conquer the half of human behavior which is within our power to control (85). We can conclude, then, that in both Machiavelli and Nietzsche’s thought, free will is given some degree of validity, and this enables the development of their particular moral codes.

Nietzsche and Machiavelli’s Consequentialism as Ethical Egoism and Ethical Altruism

Despite the shared basis of transvaluation in their ethical theories, Machiavelli looks beyond the self for the moral justification which he assigns to human behavior, while Nietzsche is primarily concerned with the self. These views of the value of the individual versus the collective lend themselves to a self-oriented form of consequentialism, or ethical egoism, and a common good-oriented consequentialism, or ethical altruism. Consequentialism is a broad category of normative ethics which is based on the idea that the value of an action derives not from any intrinsic value to the action, but from the consequences that arise from it. The value of an action, then, is extrinsic and not intrinsic. Machiavelli’s political ethics would be best characterized as ethical altruism.² The clearest formulation of his consequentialist orientation is in The Discourses: “ It is a sound maxim that reprehensible actions may be justified by their effects, and that when the effect is good… it always justifies the action” (132). This work in particular highlights Machiavelli’s other-regarding love and altruism. In Section 9 of Book I, he presents his concept of the ideal leader: one whose sense of self-interest drops out completely for the attainment of the common good (Discourses 132). This leader must eliminate his sense of self and his own desires, as he exists for the service of the republic.

While Machiavelli’s works are steeped in the classical republican value of the greater good, a kind of ethical altruism, in The Gay Science, Nietzsche presents his ideal of the lonely intellectual immersed in the vita contemplativa, the contemplative life. Furthermore, in On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche rejects the judgment that the herd, the majority, should be considered above the interests of the nobles, the minority (56). Placing this kind of noble individual above the relatively ignorant, intellectually unremarkable masses, he values the process of self-development, or self-becoming. Nietzsche refuses to equate the “good” with the “useful” or “expedient”; nevertheless, he certainly is concerned with the consequences of behavior at the level of the individual. How we choose to behave determines whether or not we will, in his terms, become who we really are, that is, come closer to the ideal of a true self. Failing to act on our own impulses and learning the habit of obeying the interests of others above our own results in the breeding of bad conscience. Nietzsche’s morality is one defined by ethical egoism, the view that it is right to always act in our own best interests. We should always say “yes” to ourselves, as to deny our own desires is unnatural, or un-vitalistic, and hence unethical. Whether an action is right or wrong depends on whether or not it is good for the self.

Conclusion: The Relation between Consequentialism and Transvaluation

Having analyzed the ethical theories of Nietzsche and Machiavelli, including their views of the self, free will, and violence, and the anti-Christian sentiments featured therein, as well as Machiavelli and Nietzsche’s ethical transvaluation and versions of consequentialism, I think we can see that there is a relation between transvaluation and consequentialism: consequentialism itself is a form of transvaluation. In Nietzsche and Machiavelli a transvaluation involves the redefinition of moral valuation away from the “intrinsic”, deontological notion of an action’s value. Instead of looking at the actions themselves, they look at whatever causally follows it to determine whether an action is right or wrong. Nietzsche evaluates good in terms of consequences for the self in his ethical egoist picture, while the ethical altruist Machiavelli evaluates good in terms of consequences for others.

Works Cited

Gilbert, Felix. “Machiavellianism.” Machiavelli. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998.

Haaparanta, Leila. “A Note on Nietzsche’s Argument.” The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 153. (Oct., 1988), pp. 490-495.

Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Discourses. Trans. Leslie J. Walker, S.J. Ed. Bernard Crick. New York: Penguin Classics, 1984.

Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Ed./Trans. Quentin Skinner. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.

Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Art of War. Trans. Christopher Lynch. Chicago: Chicago UP, 2003.

Machiavelli, Niccolo. La Mandragola. Trans. Mera J. Flaumenhaft. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1981.

Mansfield, Harvey C., Machiavelli’s Virtue. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals. Trans. Walter Kaufmann and RJ Hollingdale. New York: Random House, Inc., 1967.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, Inc. 1966.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, Inc., 1967.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, Inc., 1974.

Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel. “Fortune.” Fortune is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought of Niccolo Machiavelli, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel. “The Founder.” Fortune is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought of Niccolo Machiavelli, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel. “The Passion of Liberty.” Fortune is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought of Niccolo Machiavelli, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

2 The term “Machiavellianism” is predicated on a portrayal of Machiavelli as indulging in pure self-interest; however, Felix Gilbert looks into the etymological history of the word, just as Nietzsche researches the history of the concepts of “good and evil.” He illuminates the fact that the negative connotations of the word are based on a misreading of Machiavelli and comments that it simply came to mean “evil” in the twentieth-century (Machiavelli 174). In common usage, we tend to attribute Machiavelli with the term “utilitarianism” and a rational-to-the-point-of-inhuman utilitarian calculus. To say that Machiavelli is a utilitarian is really a misuse of the word; people intend to use it to mean the selfishness of the fox’s wiles and the lion’s machismo as methods to attain personal success in a monarchy. Any act which maximizes utility, i.e. increases total happiness, is moral. To think of the republican consequentialist end of the “public good” as interchangeable with “utility” might be a step in the wrong direction. Firstly, utilitarianism has aims of a universal scope, but the utility of all people everywhere, independent of spatial political boundaries, is not Machiavelli’s concern. Machiavelli’s patriotism, his specifically Florentine nationalist sympathies, highlights this concept; Pitkin acknowledges Machiavelli’s sentiment that we should value our own political state above others, and the domestic above the foreign (The Passion of Liberty 153). According to Machiavelli, your state is your moral obligation, not the happiness of mankind. Secondly, Machiavelli is entirely silent on human happiness, and his political theory is not concerned with achieving it. Civic duty and the practice of virtu do not necessarily increase overall happiness, but they will contribute to long-lasting institutions and a flourishing state. The goal of classical republicanism seems to be the satisfaction of the abstract “good” of the people; not their psychological well-being, but solid socio-political structures and greatness of an Empire. There is the overriding notion in Machiavelli’s works that what is “best” for the republic, the attainment of things like economic prosperity and state longevity, does not always coincide with the happiness of its citizens.

Helen Ciacciarelli (’09) is a Philosophy and English Literature major at Rutgers University.

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, ultimately fails to satisfy. For instance: why did no other ideals form? Was it impossible to create an alternative ideal and, if so, why? From these questions, one sees that there must be more at work behind the ascetic ideal, a more convincing reason for its triumph. This reason is “that something was lacking, that man was surrounded by a fearful void,” and that “the ascetic ideal offered man meaning,” by placing “all suffering under the perspective of guilt” (3:28, 162). This interpretation hinges upon two key conditions: that suffering constitutes a part of being human and that man cannot bear undirected suffering, suffering without a purpose.

The theme of human suffering pervades all three books of the Genealogy of Morals. When Nietzsche refers to “the whole herd of the ill-constituted, disgruntled, underprivileged, unfortunate, and all who suffer of themselves,” he is not talking about an outcast minority group (3:13, 120). The above herd is led by the ascetic priest, whose life’s purpose it is “to exploit the bad instincts of all sufferers for the purpose of self-discipline, self-surveillance, and self-overcoming,” (3:16, 128) whose “degenerating life” is the source from which sprung the ascetic ideal (3:13, 120). This suffering herd encompasses virtually all of humanity. Additionally, Nietzsche sees progress as impossible without suffering: “Every small step on earth has been paid for by spiritual and physical torture” (3:9, 114). When analyzed on its own, the slave revolt in morality, discussed in the First Essay, can be interpreted as a clever ploy by the Jews to alleviate their earthly suffering by inverting the current value hierarchy. Their invention of heaven, with piousness rewarded, turned the prevailing definition of bad, under which they suffered, into good. The point of these examples is clear enough: suffering is a central part of the human condition.

That man suffers is not enough of an initial condition to give rise to the ascetic ideal; man must be driven mad by meaningless suffering. In fact, because man has suffered throughout his history, “he desires it [suffering], he even seeks it out, provided he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering” (3:28, 162). Man must be shown such a meaning so that he has a target at which he can direct his emotions because “the venting of his affects represents the greatest attempt on the part of the suffering to win relief” (3:15, 127). While this sort of emotional response may seem the hallmark of revenge, of reactive anger, Nietzsche points out a difference: revenge prevents future suffering but does not explain past suffering or give meaning to it. The release of affects, referred to above by Nietzsche, attacks the source of suffering in a much more fundamental way.

This release which gives meaning to man’s suffering must have a target; that is what had been lacking before the ascetic priest offered an explanation for the source of suffering. While every “sickly sheep” (notice the language of the herd) thinks “‘I suffer: someone must be to blame for it,’” the ascetic priest finally gives man a source for this blame: “But you alone are to blame for it-you alone are to blame for yourself!” (3:15, 128). Thus the ascetic priest gave all sufferers, which is virtually all man, a meaning for his suffering: guilt. While the ascetic ideal “brought fresh suffering with it, deeper more inward, more poisonous, more life-destructive suffering,” it is actually a life-preserving force because, “it placed all suffering under the perspective of guilt” (3:28, 162). If man did not have such a perspective, he would have no target upon which to release his affects and would thus see no meaning to his suffering. Pointless suffering, according to Nietzsche, could be said to be the bane of man’s existence: if we suffer continuously and for no apparent reason, we will be driven to a “suicidal nihilism” (3:28, 162). In giving man a meaning for his suffering, the ascetic ideal prevents suicidal nihilism; therefore, while being a seemingly life-denying force (because asceticism’s trademark is a lack of sensuality), the ascetic ideal is actually the ultimate life-preserver. For as Nietzsche reminds us multiple times in the Third Essay: the human will “needs a goal-and it will rather will nothingness than not will” (3:1, 96).

While I earlier contended that there was no alternative ideal to the ascetic one, many would argue that atheism, as the lack of all ideals, appears to be an alternative. But pure atheism, the pure lack of ideals, does not exist among any “free spirits”: they still have the will to truth, the constant desire to know and to know objectively. It will later be shown that these spirits are not, in fact, free. Because this will is the backbone of philosophy and science, one might believe that these endeavors are free from asceticism.

An ancient monastery for Hindu ascetics.

The ascetic ideal is at work in philosophy in two ways: in a very literal, although spiritual, sense and as a precondition to philosophy’s existence. In the literal sense: “ascetic ideals reveal so many bridges to [physical and metaphysical] independence that a philosopher is bound to rejoice” (3:7, 107). The sensual deprivation, the absence of tempting pleasures, that the ascetic ideal produces are highly conducive to the act of philosophizing. One can interpret Descartes’ approach in the Meditations as the ascetic practice of philosophy taken to its extreme: by withdrawing from society, Descartes would have no distractions blocking his will to truth. In the ascetic ideal, the philosopher finds “an optimum condition for the highest and boldest spirituality” because it entails “freedom from compulsion, disturbance, noise, from tasks, duties, worries,” et cetera [2] (3:8, 108). That so many major philosophers have remained unmarried serves as a testament to a fundamental relationship between philosophy and asceticism; viewed as such, Nietzsche regards Socrates’ marriage as an intentionally ironical one.

While the ascetic ideal is directly at work in philosophy as shown above, Nietzsche also shows that “the ascetic ideal for a long time served the philosopher as a form in which to appear, as a precondition of existence” (3:10, 115). Nietzsche uses a discussion on the nature of ancient contemplative men to explain why this relationship exists. The most ancient of such men live lives where, “when not feared, they were despised” (3:10, 115). Because the values of ancient society opposed the values of philosophy and its will to truth, a philosopher had to strike fear in others in order to live. By resorting to self-torture, the Brahmans and King Vishvamitra were able to gain power over themselves and their societal conditioning so as to willingly practice philosophy and innovation. From these origins arose contemplative man, the earliest philosopher. Their stories illustrate Nietzsche’s point that “the philosophic spirit always had to use as a mask and cocoon the previously established types of the contemplative man” (3:10, 115). For modern philosophy, this previously established type was the ascetic ideal. The modern philosopher had to represent the ascetic ideal to avoid continual physical and spiritual torture; to represent the ideal, he had to believe it.

In science, the story is slightly different: it is the exaltation of truth that makes science “the latest and noblest form” of the ascetic ideal (3:23, 147). Just as the ascetic ideal is a denying force, so too is science: it denies even the possibility that absolute truth does not exist. While scientists may seem like the ultimate free spirits in that they do not follow the traditional faith of the ascetic ideal, they are in fact constrained by an “unconditional will to truth” that is “faith in a metaphysical value, the absolute value of truth” (3:24, 151). This faith is in fact the same faith that is behind the ascetic ideal because it is a complete denial. As guilt causes sensual denial in the general form of the ascetic ideal, so does faith in truth cause denial among scientists. While science first appears completely antagonistic to the ascetic ideal, “it opposes and fights, on closer inspection, not the ideal itself but only its exteriors, its guise and masquerade, its temporary dogmatic hardening and stiffening” (3:25, 153). At its core, science is just another embodiment of the ideal it purports to oppose. Science seems faithless, free from asceticism, but its ardent belief in itself, in its own supreme value, (this belief can be said to be the strongest will to truth) is in fact an ascetic belief.

For many of the purposes of this essay from here on, science and philosophy can be treated as one. They are both related to the ascetic ideal in their will to truth. In Nietzsche’s treatment of science, he writes:

these hard, severe, abstinent, heroic spirits who constitute the honor of our age; all these pale atheists, anti-Christians, immoralists, nihilists…these last idealists of knowledge…believe they are as completely liberated from the ascetic ideal as possible, these ‘free, very free spirits’ (3:24, 148-150)

Above, this belief in liberation was shown false. While philosophy is absent from that long list, as an umbrella discipline, it covers the belief systems above. Like scientists, philosophers are guilty of being “idealists of knowledge” in the sense of possessing a will to truth. While the two disciplines go about searching for truth (and here there is a distinction between truth and knowledge) very differently, they still possess the same will to truth that links their disciplines to the ascetic ideal.

The distinction between truth and knowledge mentioned above is a very important one. Most importantly: “There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective ‘knowing’; and the more affects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our ‘concept’ of this thing, our ‘objectivity,’ be” (3:12, 119). From this we see that knowledge is inherently perspectival. Everything one knows has been influenced by the perspective from which he/she learned it. While this passage may seem to be a defense of relativism, it is in fact not: Nietzsche does not deny that objective truth exists (he does not explicitly affirm it either), but argues that we cannot know it. If we extend the knowledge-as-seeing analogy from the passage, one could say that the object upon which our knowledge gazes is truth in an objective sense. But there are an infinite number of perspectives (affects in Nietzsche’s terms) from which to view this truth and thus we can never know an objective truth. Hence the quotation marks around “objectivity.” The objectivity he is speaking of is a partial objectivity: by letting more eyes gaze upon a thing, we do learn more about its objective truth than one person alone could, but complete objectivity can never be reached.

From this new conception of knowledge and truth arises a problem with the methods of philosophy and science: the will to truth is a pretension that knowledge is objective truth. These ardent seekers of truth, who exalt truth above all else, fail to acknowledge the perspectival nature of human knowledge. All scientific research, all philosophical inquiry, is driven by the motivations of the respective truth-seekers. Nietzsche refers to this blindness as a “general renunciation of all interpretation,” and shows that it, “expresses, broadly speaking, as much ascetic virtue as any denial of sensuality” (3:24, 151). From this angle, one sees the will to truth not just as denial that truth could not exist, but as a denial of other perspectives because scientists and philosophers choose to pretend that what they discover is the Truth. But research yields only knowledge, and in this renunciation of interpretation one denies oneself a more complete picture of reality, a more complete objectivity in the words of the original passage from 3:12.

Nietzsche believes one must try to overcome the ascetic ideal in philosophy and science by calling into question the value of truth. To do so would mean being honest with ourselves and becoming more self-aware as truth-seekers. To realize that our knowledge is merely one perspective is the first step to overcoming the ascetic ideal. Scientists and philosophers are, to Nietzsche, “weary and played-out people who wrap themselves in wisdom and look ‘objective’” (3:26, 158). They blind themselves into thinking that they are opponents of the ascetic ideal, that they alone can know truth. But being guided by personal motivations, this can never be the case. To properly pursue science is to recognize that what one discovers is only a piece of the picture, one angle of viewing an object.

Raising the idea of such an overcoming, Nietzsche asks the startling question: “[W]hat meaning would our whole being possess if it were not this, that in us the will to truth becomes conscious of itself as a problem?” (3:27, 161). Perhaps our “objectivity” would actually become more objective. Instead of the intense competition that is found in academic and industrial research, this self-awareness could create a sense of collaboration among all truth-seekers in the world. To fight amongst scientists and philosophers is to rob oneself of other perspectives, to deny oneself more knowledge of the object (since one person alone cannot possess an objective truth), to succumb to the ascetic ideal.

Nietzsche quotes his book Gay Science: “[W]e men of knowledge of today, we godless men and anti-metaphysicians, we, too, still derive our flame from the fire ignited by a faith millennia old, the Christian faith, which was also Plato’s, that God is truth, that truth is divine” (3:25, 152). While it is hard for many of us, especially at a research university like Johns Hopkins, to deny the divinity of truth, overcoming the ascetic ideal and accepting the value of knowledge for what it truly is might actually ignite that flame more. If one research group cannot truly know the nature of its object, then all of human knowledge today is but a small, small slice of objectivity. We still have a long way to go.

Works Cited

Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals. Trans. Walter Kaufman. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.

Footnotes

(1) Citations are from Walter Kaufman’s translation of On the Genealogy of Morals and have the format (Essay:Section, Page)

(2) Nietzsche goes on listing for an entire paragraph.

Shane Steinert-Threlkeld (’11) is a Mathematics and Philosophy major at Johns Hopkins University.

Note: Art courtesy of University of Louisville’s Hite Art Institute Morgan Lectures.

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 to rebel against the higher and noble masters. As Nietzsche attempts in Genealogy of Morals “to produce a history of the origins of morality” (GM Essay 1; 1), morality is never absolute and values change over time. “Revolutions” then occur which change humanity’s current values. Ressentiment, in a sense, is the catalyst that causes a revolution within morals. But what is ressentiment exactly and what is this “creative force” of ressentiment that Nietzsche describes within Genealogy of Morals? What values are born after this “creative force” gives birth to a new set of values? This paper will attempt to reveal the slave revolt Nietzsche describes and how ressentiment is the mechanism that brings about a reevaluation of morals. This paper will also describe the “creative force” that ressentiment brings about in the slaves in their assault against the masters and explains what values are born. The paper will explain the important weaknesses that these detrimental values create and make sense of Nietzsche’s reasoning for a new revolution and revaluation in morals.

Nietzsche developed the concept of ressentiment methodically by analyzing human history and the emergence of what he describes as “slave morality” in human history. He criticizes the so-called “ascetic ideal” that slave morality supports for its dehumanization of the human race. But how did this “ascetic ideal” dominate current morality in the first place? Nietzsche explains that the slave revolt of the lower class brought about this ideal. To understand the slave revolt Nietzsche describes, master and slave morality must be defined. Nietzsche defines master morality as the morality of the strong-willed. These particular individuals value nobility, strength, courage, confidence and power as “good” and consider weakness, pettiness, and cowardice as “bad.” In the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche states that “the noble type of man experiences itself as determining values; it does not need approval; it judges, ‘what is harmful to me is harmful in itself’; it knows itself to be that which first accords honour to things; it is value-creating” (GM Essay 1; 11). In this sense, master morality is the recognition that the master measures all things, being the one “who stands alone” (BGE Part 6; 210). Masters can be thought of as creators while slaves can be thought of as individuals who merely react to conditions of oppression created by the masters. In contrast to master morality, slave morality originates in people who are weak and uncertain of themselves, and oppressed and abused by the masters. Because of this oppression, the slaves develop and possess characteristics of pessimism and skepticism which make them suspicious of anything that their masters value as “good.” Slave morality can be seen as essentially utilitarian because good is what is best for everyone (GM Essay 1; 2). Masters who adhere to the master morality are very few in number compared to the masses of the slaves who adhere to slave morality. The weak can gain power over the strong by treating the “good values” of master morality as inherently “evil” and the values that enable the weak and suffering to endure and improve their lives as inherently “good.” This is the “slave revolt in morality,” an era of resentful hatred by the slaves on the strong-willed, noble masters. The good qualities of excellence and power revered by the masters are considered “evil” and the survival of the common people is considered “good.” As Nietzsche added, “The ‘well-born’ felt themselves to be ‘happy’; they did not have to establish their happiness artificially by examining their enemies, or to persuade themselves, deceive themselves, that they were happy (as all men of ressentiment are in the habit of doing)” (GM Essay 1; 10). Ironically, the definitions of ‘bad’ and ‘evil’ for master and slave morality pretend to be the opposites of the same word ‘good.’ As Nietzsche emphasizes however, ‘bad’ and ‘evil’ are opposites and two completely different conceptions of what is good.

Nietzsche states that the cause of the “slave revolt in morality” is ressentiment. There are multiple philosophical definitions of ressentiment but Nietzsche holds it as a state of subdued feelings and desires which become the  generative source of values. Ressentiment is a reassignment of pain created when an individual senses his or her own inferiority and failure then projects it onto a scapegoat. The individual’s ego creates an illusion of an enemy that is the “cause” of his or her inadequacy. By issuing blame onto the scapegoat, this leads the individual to desire revenge or the possibility of revenge against this enemy. Nietzsche states that this “lust” for revenge can take multiple forms such as the socialist conception of revolution and Christianity’s conception of the End of Days and Final Judgment. In fact, ressentiment is rampant in much of Nietzschean thought, especially regarding Judaism and Christianity. He believed that both Judaism and Christianity were born from the desires of the slaves to invert the current master morality of the world to establish the supremacy of weakness over strength. Nietzsche gives a couple of examples of this process. For example, Judaism’s position of weakness within the Roman Empire was the derivation of its ressentiment. The strength and might of the Roman Empire could never be overpowered which caused Judea’s inferiority to manifest as hatred for the Romans. This manifestation caused hatred for Roman superiority, which in turn caused the Jews to deem them as “evil” just because the Romans were exhibiting master qualities. Nietzsche also believed that Christianity was responsible for the falling of the Roman Empire because Christian ressentiment brought inversion of values such as power and strength. As Nietzsche stated about Judaic and Christian views, “only those who suffer are good; the poor, the powerless, the low are the only good people; the suffering, those in need, the sick, the ugly are also the only pious people; only they are blessed by God; for them alone there is salvation. By contrast, you privileged and powerful people, you are for all eternity the evil, the cruel, the lecherous, the insatiable, the godless-you will also be the unblessed, the cursed, and the damned for all eternity” (GM Essay 1; 10). If ressentiment is the cause of hatred against the strong-willed, how does ressentiment become a creative force that “gives to birth to values?”

It is easier to understand the slave’s ressentiment and its creative force by contrasting the contempt felt by the masters towards the slaves. In Nietzsche’s view, masters do not concern themselves with the “bad” of the master morality which merely becomes an afterthought. Masters look down on the slaves with mere disrespect. “The noble man cannot take his enemies, his misfortunes, even his bad deeds seriously for very long-that is the mark of strong, complete natures, in whom there is a surplus of plastic, creative, healing power, as well as the power to forget” (GM Essay 1; 10). The masters do not simply care at all about the slaves. In contrast to the masters, the slaves’ ressentiment is a consuming hunger. It poisons their mind and makes them skeptical, pessimistic, and bitter. Unlike the masters who merely shrug with contempt, the slaves’ ressentiment is the focus of all their energy and attention. This brings about the creative force of ressentiment, the use of any means necessary, in creative ways such as through faith and spiritual well being, to overthrow the dominating values of the “arrogant” and “evil” masters and replace them with the values of “humble” and “just” slaves. Ressentiment is undoubtedly the central creative force behind Nietzsche’s conception of slave morality. An example of this creative force in action is found in Christianity. For Nietzsche, Christianity and its ascetic practices is the crown of Jewish ressentiment. Nietzsche, in Genealogy of Morals, traces the birth of Christian ideals through its ressentiment stating that “the Jews, that priestly people, who in opposing their enemies and conquerors were ultimately satisfied with nothing less than a radical revaluation of their enemies’ values, that is to say, an act of the most spiritual revenge. For this alone was appropriate to a priestly people, the people embodying the most deeply repressed priestly vengefulness” (GM Essay 1; 7). With the emergence of Christianity, the successful slave revolt in morality gives birth to a new set of values and virtues. The innovative way that the Christian slave revolt was able to reject master morality virtues such as honor, prestige, political power, wealth, strength, beauty, and pride, characteristic of ‘master’ Roman noblemen, through the manipulation of the masses and exertion of faith brought the lowly slaves to rise above against the masters.

Ressentiment brought the creative force that eventually helped the slaves topple the masters, and thus a set of new values and virtues were born. But what are these new values exactly? The virtues and “good”s linked to the hated nobility came to be hated as “evil” while the traits and values found practical for absolute survival of the weak are elevated to the status of being “virtuous.” Therefore, the weakness of the subjugated is completely altered into virtue while the original strength and power of the noble is considered sinful and evil thereby becoming the morality of Christianity. The values that are born from the creative force of ressentiment are the Christian values of “self-sacrifice,” “love,” and so forth. Nietzsche argues that the institution of Christianity has bastardized the teachings of Jesus and created values from within his teachings that inherently make weak and subservient individuals. This, according to Nietzsche, is the greatest weakness of the values that are born from the slave revolt in morality. Nietzsche clearly states that “Christianity came into existence in order to lighten the heart; but now it has first to burden the heart so as afterwards to be able to lighten it. Consequently it shall perish” (Human s.119). His criticism of slave morality stems from the fact that it develops out of denial and hatred, and evades the present reality. The weaker masses are promised an afterlife and this afterlife becomes the focal point of all their hope. By putting trust in this afterlife, the slaves put their faith in a metaphysical being who hardly even thinks of them. This lack of emphasis on self and on the present is the most prevalent criticism of the current moral value system. As a result, Nietzsche claims that Europe has been infected by slave morality which has made it insipid and monotonous because it has given up all sense of ambition and the present. In Nietzsche’s book The Antichrist he struggles to figure out how Christianity has become the ideology created by institutions like the churches and how these churches have failed to embody the life of Jesus Christ. He makes an important distinction between the religion of Christianity and Jesus. Unlike agnostic and atheist thinkers of the Enlightenment who regarded Christianity as false, Nietzsche went beyond this and claimed that Paul the Apostle proliferated the religion as a psychological weapon within the Roman Empire. “The result, expressed in moral-psychological terms, is “selflessness,” “sanctification”; and expressed in physiological terms: hypnotism. It is the attempt to attain for human beings something approaching what winter hibernation is for some kinds of animals and what summer sleep is for many plants in hot climates, the minimum consumption and processing of material stuff which can still sustain life but which does not actually enter consciousness. For this purpose an astonishing amount of human energy has been expended. Has it all gone for nothing?” (GM Essay 3; 17). This is a form of concealed revenge brought about by ressentiment. The institution of Christianity comes into contrast with Jesus who Nietzsche regarded as an exceptional individual who established his own moral conduct. Nietzsche may have viewed Jesus as a potential Übermensch¹. Unlike the Übermensch who embraces the idea of life, Jesus denies reality for “the kingdom of God.” Jesus’ refusal to defend himself strips him away from ever achieving the possibility of Übermensch and causes Christianity to use Jesus in a terrible manner to manipulate him merely as a means to an end. Nietzsche analyzes Christian history and finds that as time goes on, the teachings of Jesus becomes more distorted. By turning Jesus into a martyr and his life into a story of redemption for mankind, the Apostles took control of the masses. Nietzsche finds this act by the Apostles to be crude, offensive, and cowardly. He concludes that by the nineteenth century Christianity has the world dictated by slave morality and not by master morality, a total inversion of what the world should be.

The greatness weakness according to Nietzsche is the manner in which the devaluation of life is caused by slave morality. The Christian ressentiment brings us away from ourselves and the present and puts our attention into trivial things. Though ressentiment may be used to bring a revolution of new values and morals to better the advancement of humanity, the Christian ressentiment has only deterred human development. Because of this we become less assertive, creative, and motivated. It creates people that are no longer driven to improve themselves. This in turn creates more slaves and fewer masters which Nietzsche believes destroys any form of human progress. Nonetheless, there is a need for a revaluation of values before humanity is succumbed by slave morality permanently.

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Works Cited

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Genealogy of Morals, in the Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann.

……….(New York: Random House, 2000).

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil, in the Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann.

……….(New York: Random House, 2000).

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Antichrist, in the Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann.

……….(New York: Random House, 2000).

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Human, all too Human. in the Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann.

……….(New York: Random House, 2000).

1. German term for “Overman” or “Superman.” Hence, in the philosophy of Nietzsche, an extraordinary individual who transcends the limits of traditional morality to live purely by the will to power.

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Cuong Q. Nguyen (’11) is a Philosophy major at Johns Hopkins University.