ABSTRACT
The core argument of the Second Essay occurs in three parts. First, there is an explanation of how animals like us acquired a conscience, in the sense of an ability to remember one's debts that expand upon earlier discussions, what Friedrich Nietzsche called "the morality of custom". Second, there is a first inquiry into the real question, the origin of bad conscience, using once again an etymological clue: the fact that the German Schuld can mean both debt and guilt. An actual answer to this question does not begin to appear, however, until the third part of the argument, which introduces the basic thesis about bad conscience as the product of the internalization of cruelty. If conscience a capacity to remember one's promises arises from the "social straitjacket" of the "morality of custom", together with the mnemonics of pain, this still does not explain bad conscience, in particular, the consciousness of guilt.
