Friedrich Nietzsche was basically the original disruptor. Long before Silicon Valley started talking about "breaking things," this 19th-century German philologist was busy smashing the very foundations of Western civilization. He didn't just disagree with your politics or your religion. He thought the way you distinguish right from wrong—the core of your identity—was a psychological trap. Nietzsche on good and evil isn't just some dusty academic subject; it's an autopsy of the human soul.
If you’ve ever felt like your "conscience" was actually just a fear of getting caught, you’re already halfway to understanding him.
Most people think being "good" is a natural, objective fact. We assume that kindness, humility, and self-sacrifice are just... better. Nietzsche looked at this and asked a terrifying question: What if our morality is actually a sickness? In his 1886 masterpiece, Beyond Good and Evil, and later in On the Genealogy of Morality, he argues that our modern values didn't descend from heaven. They were cooked up in the "stink" of history by people who were too weak to fight back.
📖 Related: Why images of salt and pepper are harder to get right than you think
The Slave Revolt in Morality
Honestly, his most controversial take is the idea of "Slave Morality."
Imagine ancient Greece or Rome. For the "Masters"—the aristocrats and warriors—the word "Good" meant being powerful, healthy, wealthy, and happy. It was about excellence. "Bad" wasn't a sin; it was just being pathetic, weak, or sick. This was a "Yes-saying" attitude toward life. It focused on the self. It was about arete, or virtue in the sense of functional excellence.
But then something shifted.
Nietzsche argues that the oppressed, the weak, and the "slaves" of the world couldn't compete on those terms. They felt a deep, simmering resentment—what he calls ressentiment. Since they couldn't be powerful, they decided that power itself was evil. They flipped the script. They said, "If the masters are 'Evil' (cruel, selfish, lustful), then we, the opposites, are 'Good' (meek, humble, chaste)."
It’s a genius move, really. They turned their weakness into a choice. They didn't fail to be strong; they chose to be "good."
The Invention of the Soul
This wasn't just a PR campaign. It changed how we think about our minds. By creating the concept of "Evil," the weak forced the strong to feel guilty about their own nature. Nietzsche points out that we don't blame a bird of prey for eating a lamb. It’s just what the bird does. But "Slave Morality" tries to convince the bird that it's "evil" for hunting and that the lamb is "good" for just standing there.
It’s a way of shackling the exceptional.
✨ Don't miss: Light show christmas lights: Why your neighbors' house looks so much better than yours
- Master Morality: Defined by "Good vs. Bad." It is active, self-affirming, and values pride and strength.
- Slave Morality: Defined by "Good vs. Evil." It is reactive, born of hatred for the "Other," and values pity and selflessness.
Walter Kaufmann, perhaps the most famous Nietzsche scholar of the 20th century, spent decades trying to explain that Nietzsche wasn't advocating for cruelty. He wasn't telling you to go out and be a jerk. He was asking you to look at why you value what you value. Are you being kind because you love people, or because you’re afraid of conflict?
God is Dead and We’ve Run Out of Glue
You’ve heard the quote. "God is dead." But people rarely read the second half: "And we have killed him."
Nietzsche wasn't celebrating. He was terrified. He realized that Western morality was built entirely on the Christian framework. If you pull the rug out from under the religion, the morality shouldn't stay standing. Yet, we still cling to these "slave" values—pity, equality, self-denial—without the theological foundation that made them make sense.
He saw a coming age of nihilism. If there is no objective "Good" or "Evil" written in the stars, then nothing matters. Everything is permitted. This is where he gets misunderstood the most. He wasn't a nihilist; he was the guy warning us that nihilism was the final boss of the modern world.
How do we fix it? We move beyond good and evil.
This doesn't mean becoming a criminal. It means becoming a "creator of values." Instead of inheriting your morals from your parents, your church, or your Twitter feed, you have to forge them yourself. This is the path to the Übermensch—the Overman.
The Will to Power is the Only Real Metric
Everything else is a mask. Nietzsche believed that at the root of every living thing is the Will to Power. This isn't just about conquering countries. It’s about self-mastery. It’s the drive to grow, to expand, to overcome your own limitations.
Even the person who starves themselves for a religious cause is exercising a Will to Power—a power over their own body.
When you look at Nietzsche on good and evil through this lens, you realize that "Good" is anything that heightens the feeling of power, and "Evil" is anything that comes from weakness. But "power" here is often intellectual and creative. Think of an artist struggling against a canvas. That’s the Will to Power. It’s messy. It’s difficult. It’s definitely not "nice."
Why This Makes People Uncomfortable
It’s because Nietzsche hates pity.
He thought pity was a "depressive" emotion. When you pity someone, you’re essentially saying, "I see your suffering and I’m going to suffer a little bit too." Now there are two people suffering instead of one. Great. Thanks.
He’d rather you offer "joy" or "strength." He believed that our obsession with "equality" was actually a way of dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator. If nobody is allowed to be better than anyone else, then greatness becomes impossible.
Misconceptions That Won't Die
We have to address the elephant in the room: the Nazis.
Nietzsche’s sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, was a hardcore anti-Semite and a nationalist. While Friedrich was catatonic in his final years, she edited his unpublished notes into a book called The Will to Power. She distorted his words to fit her hateful ideology.
The truth? Nietzsche hated anti-Semites. He hated German nationalism. He actually wrote that he wanted to have all anti-Semites shot. He saw them as the ultimate example of ressentiment—weak people blaming others for their own failures. He wasn't a proponent of "Aryan" supremacy; he was a proponent of individual excellence.
Another big mistake is thinking he was "anti-moral." He was actually hyper-moral. He just wanted a morality that was honest about life's cruelty and beauty. He wanted a morality that said "Yes" to the world as it actually is, not some imaginary "Otherworld" where the last shall be first.
Living Beyond Good and Evil
So, what do you actually do with this? You can't just ignore Nietzsche once you've seen the "Genealogy" of your own beliefs. It’s like seeing the code in the Matrix.
You have to start auditing your "virtues."
- Audit your "Kindness": Is it genuine empathy, or is it a "people-pleasing" reflex because you're scared of being disliked?
- Audit your "Modesty": Are you actually humble, or are you just hiding your lack of talent?
- Audit your "Outrage": When you get angry at "Evil" on the news, are you actually helping, or are you just enjoying the feeling of moral superiority (ressentiment)?
Nietzsche’s philosophy is a call to take responsibility. If there is no cosmic judge, then you are the judge. You are the one who decides what your life is worth. This is incredibly lonely. It's also the only way to be truly free.
He calls this "Amor Fati"—the love of fate. You shouldn't want anything to be different, not in the past, not in the future, not for all eternity. You accept the "Evil" parts of life (the pain, the struggle, the unfairness) as necessary components of the "Good" parts (the growth, the victory, the joy). You can't have the mountain peak without the climb.
🔗 Read more: Finding a Race Car Women Costume That Doesn’t Look Cheap or Childish
Actionable Steps for the Modern Individual
Nietzsche didn't write "how-to" guides, but his work points toward a specific way of existing in a world that has lost its traditional compass.
Practice Self-Overcoming Every Day Stop trying to "find yourself." You aren't a lost set of keys. You are a work in progress. Identify one habit or fear that "owns" you and conquer it. This is the Will to Power in its purest form. It’s about becoming more than you were yesterday.
Challenge Your Moral Defaults Pick a value you hold dearly. Now, try to argue the opposite. If you value "selflessness," ask yourself if you’re using it to avoid the hard work of building your own life. If you value "honesty," ask if you’re using it as a weapon to hurt people. The goal isn't to become a liar, but to understand why you hold the values you do.
Build Your Own "Tablet of Values" Stop waiting for a consensus. If the world feels chaotic, it’s because the old "Good and Evil" labels are peeling off. Define what "Excellence" looks like for you. Is it discipline? Is it aesthetic beauty? Is it intellectual honesty? Write these down. Live by them even when they are inconvenient.
Reject Ressentiment The next time you feel a surge of bitterness toward someone more successful, richer, or "luckier" than you, stop. That is the "Slave Morality" kicking in. It is a poison that destroys the container it's in. Instead of labeling them "Evil" to make yourself feel "Good," figure out what they have that you want and work to get it—or decide it's not worth the effort and move on.
Nietzsche’s work is a "preface to a philosophy of the future." He knew his ideas would be dangerous. He knew they would be misused. But he also knew that for the few who could stomach the truth, it offered a chance to live a life that is actually theirs. No more ghosts, no more inherited guilt, just the raw, terrifying, beautiful reality of a world beyond good and evil.