On the Genealogy of Morality

"On the Genealogy of Morality" is Friedrich Nietzsche's darkest and cruelest work. Its first treatise deals with the contrast between the concepts of "good" and "evil," as well as the subsequent transformation of their meaning through Judeo-Christian interpretation. The second treatise analyzes bad conscience, whose cause in primitive times was guilt understood not in the sense of moral responsibility, but as equivalent to material debt. The last part, which announces the new ideal of the Übermensch, analyzes the meaning of asceticism.