Friederich Nietzsche’s first essay in his work “On the Genealogy of Morals” is a piece titled, “Good and Evil, Good and Bad.” The essay seeks to trace the origin of morals, specifically the distinction made between good and bad and the subjective difference separating evil and bad. He elaborates that in the modern world the way we define good and bad is never questioned since we assume those definitions were reasonably created. Over time, Nietzsche argues, we lost sight of the origin of these words, pinpointing this moment as “when aristocratic value judgments declined” (Nietzsche 26). Nietzsche holds the ruling aristocratic class responsible for originally defining good and bad, while the common lower class followed with their own definition of good and its antithesis, evil.
The focus of Nietzsche’s essay is the search to define good, bad, and evil, and the response of the weak class to classifications of good and bad made by the powerful class. It is the resentment or as he calls the ressentiment of the commoners or the “slaves” to the noble class that creates the opposing idea of what constitutes good and what is bad or evil.
The original definition of good given by the powerful aristocratic class caused resentment among the lower classes. This weaker lower class turned the tables, claiming the actions of the nobles were not simply bad, a clear turn from good, but evil, and instead the inaction and weakness inherent in the lower classes was in fact good. Nietzsche argues that the commoner’s resentment of the powerful is more aggressive than the aristocratic contempt for the weak. This deep resentment further enslaves the weak into a downcast role since the weak only define t ...