Is the morally good really “good,” or just a means of control? In “The Genealogy of Morality,” Nietzsche Challenges Everything We Think We Know
We build our lives on the basis of morality, but have we ever stopped to ask where it comes from? In “The Genealogy of Morality,” Nietzsche analyzes what we commonly consider good and evil, with the goal of dismantling these concepts. This revolutionary work, first published in 1887, rejects the idea that moral values are given from above or that they can be derived from reason. Instead, Nietzsche argues that they stem from power struggles, from the ways in which people are psychologically manipulated into accepting them, and from deep feelings of resentment and resentment. Let’s explore them in turn.
FROM THE QUESTION “WHAT IS FAIR?” TO “WHERE DOES MORALITY COME FROM?”
Philosophers before Nietzsche had tried to define what morality should be-whether that of reason (according to Kant) or of utility (according to Bentham and Mill). But Nietzsche turned the question upside down: he no longer asked what is right, but where morality itself comes from. For him, values are not universal or absolute. They are products of power relations, psychology, and history. This is Nietzsche’s genealogical stance-he observes how morality evolves over time, without assuming the existence of an eternal morality. Just as Darwin saw the evolution of species for survival, Nietzsche believed that values also evolve within social and historical contexts. The ancient values of warrior cultures-power, pride, bravery-were cast aside by religious values that promoted humility, submission, and guilt.
TWO MORALITIES: THAT OF MASTERS AND THAT OF SLAVES
Nietzsche’s radical discovery was that morality is not a gift from God or reason-it is a creation of the powerful to serve their own interests. So our current values may not be as “natural” or “good” as we think. And if humans invent morality, do we have the right to challenge and rewrite it? In the book, Nietzsche divides morality into two camps: the Morality of the Masters and the Morality of the Slaves-born of two different kinds of people.
The morality of the Gentlemen comes from the great, the strong, and the powerful – the aristocracy, the rulers, the warriors. For them, “good” was what was associated with strength, courage, health, power. Weakness and failure were “bad.” Think of Greek heroes like Achilles – ambitious, proud, invincible.
The morality of the Slaves, on the contrary, was born of the weak, the oppressed, the bitter. They inverted morality: weakness became virtue, suffering became holiness, submission became goodness. Humility, gentleness, and obedience were elevated to a pedestal-values that suited the powerless but that limited human energy.
CHRISTIANITY – THE FINAL VICTORY OF SLAVE MORALITY
Nietzsche saw Christianity as the ultimate triumph of slave morality. Pride became sin, power became cruelty, suffering became salvation. Instead of honoring heroes, morality began to honor martyrs. And the question he raises remains poignant: Are our values truly our own, or have we blindly inherited them from a morality that aims to weaken us?
THE INNER GRIEVANCE OF THE WEAK
Nietzsche called this feeling “ressentiment” – a deep resentment, not just jealousy or anger, but a hidden hatred of power, that drives the weak to invent their own morality. They do not accept their place – they overturn the system: they make misery a virtue and power a sin. In ancient Rome, virtue was strength, heroism, and conquest. But with the spread of Christianity, these were declared evils: pride became a vice, humility became a virtue, and martyrdom was sanctified. Morality was no longer created by the powerful, but by those who hated power.
NICE Latest EVENTS: FROM POLITICS TO VICTIM CULTURE
This analysis is not just about history. Nietzsche would argue that even today, ideological wars, cultures of victimization, and political conflicts follow the same dynamics. Many modern movements build their “goodness” on resentment against power, turning weakness into a new form of strength. Thus, Nietzsche asks: Are we building our values on power, or are we letting resentment blind us?
GUILT AND “BAD SENSE”
Have you ever felt guilty about something, even though you didn’t do anything? Nietzsche says that this “bad conscience” is not natural – it is planted by society. In the beginning of humanity, morality was not about internal guilt, but about retribution. If you harmed someone, you didn’t feel guilty – you paid compensation. But over time, punishment turned from outside to inside. Society began to control you through consciousness. Laws, religion, social norms became an internal part of man.
Christianity deepened this: now man not only had to pay, but also felt spiritual guilt, as a sinner who had to suffer to be cleansed. Guilt became an instrument of control. Freud later described something similar in his concept of the “super-ego” – an inner voice that stops us, that makes us feel shame and guilt. But Nietzsche asks: Is the feeling of guilt truly moral, or just a way to keep us in subjection?
“FORCE OF WILL”: THE ALTERNATIVE TO NICE
According to Nietzsche, existing moralities often promote suffering, sacrifice, and the denial of pleasure-he called these “ascetic values.” From religious monks who sought purity through fasting to modern professionals who believe that feelings are an obstacle to reason-all pursue the same ideal: the subjugation of life. But Nietzsche accuses these “preachers of pain” of deceiving us all. These values do not improve life-they make man spiritually sick and separated from his creative nature.
Instead, he proposes willpower – the power to create, to grow, to transcend oneself. Not to suppress desires, but to transform them into constructive energy. This remains relevant today. From extreme diets, to minimalist lifestyles, to ideologies that glorify “suffering for a cause,” Nietzsche would ask: Are we limiting ourselves because we feel empowered to do so, or are we following orders that impose this pain on us?
THE LEGACY OF NICE
“The Genealogy of Morality” is not just a philosophy book – it is a shake-up of the foundations of morality. It changed the way we think about good and evil. Existentialist and postmodern philosophers were inspired by it: Foucault used the genealogical approach to analyze how power works in institutions; Deleuze showed how morality shapes the individual; Derrida asked whether there is any immutable moral truth. In psychology, Freud and Nietzsche saw guilt as an internal product of society, while Jung saw it as an opportunity for self-knowledge – a process he called “individuation.”
But Nietzsche’s ideas remain controversial. Some believe they lead to moral relativism – that there is no longer any right or wrong. Others fear they could produce extreme egotism, where one thinks only of oneself. Yet his books are still read because they raise the most fundamental question: Why do we trust values just because they are old?
WHAT IS LEFT BEHIND?
Nietzsche shows us that ancient ideas about good and evil were born of power and life-affirmation, but were replaced by a morality that glorifies guilt and control. We have inherited this way of thinking, often without realizing it. Instead of encouraging us to develop, morality often commands us to remain obedient and restrained. So Nietzsche’s final question is this: Are we truly free people, or are we still taught to fear our potential-like an animal that is forbidden to do its tricks because every time it tries, someone scares it away?
