Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality
A Critical Guide

This book features original scholarly essays by leading philosophers, which bring to life Nietzsche's most challenging work of ethics.

Simon May (Edited by)

9781107437234, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 November 2014

356 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.48 kg

'This collection is a showcase for some of the best contemporary scholarship on the Genealogy of Morality, and will prove invaluable to both scholars of Nietzsche as well as moral philosophers with an interest in moral psychology. Taken together, these articles make an excellent argument for the vitality, modernity, and urgency of Nietzsche's genealogical challenge to morality.' Judith Norman, Trinity University

On the Genealogy of Morality is Nietzsche's most influential, provocative, and challenging work of ethics. In this volume of newly commissioned essays, fourteen leading philosophers offer fresh insights into many of the work's central questions: How did our dominant values originate and what functions do they really serve? What future does the concept of 'evil' have - and can it be revalued? What sorts of virtues and ideals does Nietzsche advocate, and are they necessarily incompatible with aspirations to democracy and a free society? What are the nature, role, and scope of genealogy in his critique of morality - and why doesn't his own evaluative standard receive a genealogical critique? Taken together, this superb collection illuminates what a post-Christian and indeed post-moral life might look like, and asks to what extent Nietzsche's Genealogy manages to move beyond morality.

List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Note on texts, translations, references
Introduction Simon May
1. The future of evil Raymond Geuss
2. On the nobility of Nietzsche's priests R. Lanier Anderson
3. The genealogy of guilt Bernard Reginster
4. Why Nietzsche is still in the morality game Simon May
5. Who is the 'sovereign individual'? Nietzsche on freedom Brian Leiter
6. Ressentiment and morality Peter Poellner
7. The role of life in the Genealogy Nadeem Hussain
8. The relevance of history for moral philosophy: a study of Nietzsche's Genealogy Paul Katsafanas
9. Why would master morality surrender its power? Lawrence Hatab
10. 'Genealogy' and the Genealogy Peter Kail
11. The promising animal: the art of reading On the Genealogy of Morality as testimony Stephen Mulhall
12. Nietzsche and the 'aesthetics of character' Edward Harcourt
13. Nietzsche and the virtues of mature egoism Christine Swanton
14. Une promesse de bonheur? Beauty in the Genealogy Aaron Ridley
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900 [HPCD]