Abstract
In Ecce Homo Nietzsche (1844–1900), termed himself an ‘immoralist’ (EH IV:2); and in a great many of his writings he is harshly critical of what he often simply calls ‘morality’. Yet he was preoccupied with moral matters throughout the whole of his philosophical life. One of his primary concerns was to effect a radical transformation in our entire approach to and assessment of morality, preparing the way for a new understanding of its place in human life and for the possibility of ‘higher moralities’ contrasting significantly with those which have prevailed throughout most of human history, both past and present. Nietzsche’s efforts along these lines belie the simplistic caricatures of his views with respect to morality so often attributed to him by both his critics and his admirers. Indeed, they constitute an impressive and important moral philosophy (at least in the sense of a philosophical examination of morality), entitling him to a prominent place in the history of ethics—and in contemporary moral-philosophical inquiry as well. Moreover, his hostility to what he frequently simply calls ‘morality’ is actually directed only against the sway and consequences of certain types of morality, and against certain ways of conceiving of it. There is much more than this to his thinking with respect to it, and his treatment of it is far more complex, subtle and ultimately constructive than is generally recognised.
Morality in Europe today is herd animal morality—in other words, as we understand it, merely one type of morality beside which, before which, and after which many other types, above all higher moralities, are, or ought to be, possible.
Beyond Good and Evil, 2021
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Bibliography
Some Editions of Nietzsche’s Collected Works
Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe,Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, 30 vols (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967–78).
Werke: Musarionausgabe, 23 vols (Munich: Musarion, 1920–29).
Werke in drei Banden, Karl Schlechta (ed.), 3 vols (Munich: Carl Hanser, 1954–56); with an Index in a fourth volume (1965).
The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Oscar Levy (ed.), 18 vols (New York: Macmillan, 1909–11; reissued New York, Russell & Russell, 1964 ).
Some English Translations of Specific Works
The Birth of Tragedy (1872), trans. Kaufmann, with The Case of Wagner ( New York: Vintage, 1966 ).
Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (1870–73), trans. Marianne Cowan ( South Bend, Ind.: Gateway, 1962 ).
On the Use and Abuse of History (1873), trans. Adrian Collins ( New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957 ).
Schopenhauer as Educator (1874), trans. J. W. Hillesheim and Malcolm R. Simpson ( South Bend, Ind.: Gateway, 1965 ).
Untimely Meditations(1873–76), trans. R. J. Hollingdale (London: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Includes the essays David Strauss, Confessor and Writer (1873) and Richard Wagner in Bayreuth (1876) as well as On the Use and Abuse of History and Schopenhauer as Educator.
Human, All Too Human (1878–80), trans. R. J. Hollingdale (London: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Includes the original vol. I (1878) and subsequently added two parts of vol. II: Assorted Opinions and Maxims (1879), and The Wanderer and His Shadow (1880).
Daybreak (1881), trans. R. J. Hollingdale ( London: Cambridge University Press, 1982 ).
The Gay Science (1882), trans. Kaufmann ( New York: Vintage, 1974 ).
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–85), trans. Kaufmann (New York: Viking, 1966); also in The Portable Nietzsche (New York: Viking, 1954 ); trans. Hollingdale ( Harmondsworth and Baltimore: Penguin, 1967 ).
Beyond Good and Evil (1886), trans. Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 1966 ); trans. Hollingdale ( Harmondsworth and Baltimore: Penguin, 1973 ).
On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), trans. Kaufmann and Hollingdale, with Ecce Homo ( New York: Vintage, 1968 ).
The Case of Wagner(1888); see The Birth of Tragedy.
Twilight of the Idols (1888), trans. Kaufmann, in The Portable Nietzsche (New York: Viking, 1954 ); trans. Hollingdale, with Antichrist ( Harmondsworth and Baltimore: Penguin, 1968 ).
The Antichrist (1888), trans. Kaufmann, in The Portable Nietzsche (New York: Viking, 1954); trans. Hollingdale, with Twilight ( Harmondsworth and Baltimore: Penguin, 1968 ).
Nietzsche contra Wagner (1888), trans. Kaufmann, in The Portable Nietzsche ( New York: Viking, 1954 ).
Ecce Homo (1888), trans. Kaufmann, with Genealogy (New York: Vintage, 1968); trans. Hollingdale ( Harmondsworth and Baltimore: Penguin, 1979 ).
The Will to Power (1883–88), trans. Kaufmann and Hollingdale ( New York: Vintage, 1968 ).
Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. and ed. Christopher Middleton (University of Chicago Press, 1969).
Nietzsche: A Self-Portrait from His Letters, trans. and ed. Peter Fuss and Henry Shapiro ( Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971 ).
Selected Studies of Nieizache in English
Alderman, Harold G., Nietzsche’s Gift (Colombus, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1977 ).
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Love, Frederick, The Young Nietzsche and the Wagnerian Experience ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963 ).
Magnus, Bernd, Nietzsche’s Existential Imperative ( Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1978 ).
Morgan, George A., Jr., What Nietzsche Means (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1941; New York: Harper & Row, 1965 ).
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Strong, Tracy, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of Transfiguration ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975 ).
Wilcox, John T., Truth and Value in Nietzsche ( Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1974 ).
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© 1989 Richard Schacht
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Schacht, R. (1989). Nietzsche. In: Cavalier, R.J., Gouinlock, J., Sterba, J.P. (eds) Ethics in the History of Western Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20203-4_9
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