On the Genealogy of Morals

Abstract

The Genealogy is a rich and complex work. In the interests of focusing on the topic of religion, I shall ignore a great deal of what it has to say. The work's title, however, is something which cannot be ignored. What demand discussion are the questions of what ‘genealogy’ is, and what purpose – or purposes – it has. GENEALOGY The answer to the first question is straightforward: it is an investigation into the ‘origins’ of – in the Genealogy itself – ‘our’ morality. In Human , which is Nietzsche's first attempt at a genealogy of Christian morality, it is called ‘historical philosophy’ (see p. 62 above). The second question, however, has proved much more difficult to answer. Most of the secondary literature (not to mention Nietzsche's deconstructionist disciples) assumes that there is just one purpose to Nietzsche's genealogy: critique. Thus Keith Ansell-Pearson, in his introduction to the Cambridge translation, claims that ‘Nietzsche's aim in writing this book can be stated quite simply as one of presenting a novel critique of morality’ (GM p. x). And Brian Leiter writes that ‘in the genealogy of morals, his [Nietzsche's] aim is critical not positive’. This monistic assumption seems to me to be mistaken. Certainly critique is a major purpose of Nietzsche's genealogy. But, so I shall suggest, genealogy has another purpose too, in particular a ‘positive’ one.