ABSTRACT

Friedrich Nietzsche intended the critical history of contemporary European morality that unfolds in his On the Genealogy of Morality to be grounded in concrete and documentable historical fact, whereas those written by his contemporaries such as Paul Ree, and predecessors such as David Hume, had proceeded much more abstractly. According to the philosophy professor Robert Wicks, "Lesser people under the same physical pressures might not have had the inclination to pick up a pen." One major element of Genealogy is Nietzsche's criticism of what he saw as a degenerate German culture. As such, many passages of the text—particularly the diatribes against the composer Richard Wagner and other contemporary German figures in the third essay—may hold less direct relevance. Nietzsche's lack of social contact may have contributed to the eccentricity of some of his views, particularly in his attitude toward race, women, and sex, and many of his remarks can seem outdated and even embarrassing to a modern reader.