On the genealogy of morals
Subtitle: a polemic : by way of clarification and supplement to my last book, Beyond good and evil
By: Friedrich Nietzsche ; translated with an introduction and notes by Douglas Smith.
Contributors: Smith, Douglas, Dr.
Series: World's classics
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 170
Subjects: Ethics
Work titles: Zur Genealogie der Moral.
Description: On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) is a book about the history of ethics and about interpretation. Nietzsche rewrites the former as a history of cruelty, exposing the central values of the Judaeo-Christian and liberal traditions - compassion, equality, justice - as the product of a brutal process of conditioning designed to domesticate the animal vitality of earlier cultures. The result is a book which raises profoundly disquieting issues about the violence of both ethics and interpretation.

Nietzsche questions moral certainties by showing that religion and science have no claim to absolute truth, before turning on his own arguments in order to call their very presuppositions into question. The Genealogy is the most sustained of Nietzsche's later works and offers one of the fullest expressions of his characteristic concerns. This edition places his ideas within the cultural context of his own time and stresses the relevance of his work for a contemporary audience.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.