Psychology, Physiology, Medicine: The Perspectivist Interpretation of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality

Abstract

Abstract This article introduces the perspectivist interpretation of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality (GM), characterized by two core theses. According to the results thesis, the three treatises of GM introduce three types of critical results, respectively: psychological claims about the value of morality for the interests of various character types; physiological claims about its value for the ‘progress of the species’; and medical claims about its value for health. According to the distinction thesis, the critical results of GM are descriptive, while their reader-specific implications (and therapeutic effects) are normative. This interpretation illuminates the genealogical method of GM by answering four fundamental questions about (Q1) its historical method, (Q2) the history of morality that it reveals, (Q3) the critical results of GM, and (Q4) their intended therapeutic effects. Challenging the widespread assumption that the critical results of GM are evaluative claims, the perspectivist interpretation reveals the novelty of Nietzsche’s “new demand” for a critique of values not only relative to his predecessors’ approach to critique, but also to his own previous works. GM offers a critique that is grounded on factual claims, at once extramoral and external to (Christian) morality, and internal to its readers’ evaluative perspectives, even those who remain beholden to (Christian) moral values. Consequently, its authority and therapeutic efficacy are not threatened by discrepancies between it and its readers’ affective-evaluative preferences.