Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil

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FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

With an Introduction by
CHRISTOPHER JANAWAY

This edition first published 2020
Introduction copyright Christopher Janaway, 2020

The material for Beyond Good and Evil is based on the edition translated by Helen Zimmern, originally published in v. 12 of The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (1909-1913), Edinburgh & London: T.N. Foulis, 1909-1913 and now in the public domain. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm This edition is not sponsored or endorsed by, or otherwise affiliated with Friedrich Nietzsche or heirs.

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ISBN 9780857088482 (hardback) ISBN 9780857088543 (ebk)
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BY CHRISTOPHER JANAWAY

There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

In Beyond Good and Evil we find Nietzsche at the height of his powers as a writer and as a thinker. It is regarded by many as his greatest, most concentrated work.

In some ways it is quite easy to read. Full of energy, the book has many short sections that appear more or less self-contained. It is not bogged down by long-winded arguments and qualifications, and so is not like much traditional philosophical writing.

Nietzsche excites, amuses, provokes, shocks, and questions. We the readers are not just addressed but engaged. The very first line of the book is Supposing truth is a woman what then? We as readers have to make up our own minds what to do with the truths he reveals. What do they mean for society and civilization, and for our own lives?

Nietzsche wrote that the book was in essence a critique of modernity, including modern science, modern art even modern politics along with indications of an opposite type who is as un-modern as possible, a noble, affirmative type.

He might have said a critique of modern values. For, as the books title already intimates, values are its primary concern. For Nietzsche, good and evil are the values that define the morality of modern Europe, and of the Christian religion out of which it has grown. He puts both Christianity and morality itself in the judgement dock.

Though he famously dismisses Christianity as a slave morality, his bigger questions are: What are values as such? How do we come by them? How do they show up in our behaviour, in our science, our art, and in the way we do philosophy itself? Which values might we get beyond and no longer believe in, and what might we replace them with?

Such questions have been asked by many philosophers, but Nietzsche takes things a lot further: Is suffering really bad? Is compassion really good? Is self-denial a form of seeking power? Is seeking power bad? Is truth good? Are truths always a kind of error?

Although Nietzsche pursues these themes in all his subsequent works, its in Beyond Good and Evil that they get his deepest and most penetrating attention.

The book is also about human possibility and potential. When we go beyond morality and modernity, where does that leave the individual? Well find out why Nietzsches philosophy of the will to power might fuel success, yet also be dangerous if in the wrong hands.

Nietzsche published Beyond Good and Evil, subtitled Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, in 1886, during the most productive decade of his life.

Between 1879 and 1889 he wrote many startlingly original books that display a mix of explosive pronouncement and incisive critique. Before 1879 he was Professor of Classical Philology (the study of ancient texts and languages) at the University of Basel in Switzerland. He was known principally for producing an unorthodox piece of classical scholarship,