Nietzsche: Genealogy and the Spirit of Moral Revaluation

Abstract

Nietzsche is concerned with the lack of value that threatens the moral structure upon which man has relied for generations. He challenges us, therefore, to reflect upon our moral history in a new way. His use of a genealogy allows him to reveal the nuances and shades of our moral descent with minimal consideration of historical accuracy. Although it is this questionable accuracy that critics most often dispute, the perspective that his genealogy lends is most valuable. He uses the genealogy not to erect a firm foundation for a future morality, but to disturb the previous one. His study of the descent of morality is important in that it shows the stages through which man must pass before arriving at a more worthwhile valuation. In this way, Nietzsche's genealogy embodies both the sense of despair and hope that directs his revaluation. I focus on the aesthetic ideal as the embodiment of the will to power, that to which Nietzsche assigns highest value. He finds in this ideal the spirit of life and creation, qualities that give him reason to believe in man. The question around which my thesis revolves is whether basic standards of human value can be criticized and discarded without creating new values to fill that void that are potentially as groundless as the ones they replace. I arrive at the conviction, however, that Nietzsche cannot be reduced to this problem of methodologr without disregarding the spirit of his revaluation. He does not need to defend the accuracy of his valuation, because objectivity is not his claim. His genealogy is valuable for its spirit of revaluation, for its capacity to raise our moral consciousness.