---
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
category: philosophy
date: '2025-08-13'
description: what is good and evil, what is consider morally good and wrong.
finished: 2024
id: Beyond Good and Evil
language: german
modified: 2026-06-05 15:07:58 GMT-04:00
posters: '[[library/posters/beyond-good-and-evil.jpg]]'
status: evergreen
subcategory: ethics
tags:
  - philosophy
title: Beyond Good and Evil
year: 1886
authors: Friedrich Nietzsche
created: '2025-08-13'
published: '2025-08-13'
pageLayout: default
slug: library/Beyond-Good-and-Evil
permalink: https://aarnphm.xyz/library/Beyond-Good-and-Evil.md
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full: https://aarnphm.xyz/llms-full.txt
---
tl/dr: N critiques the herd mentality, rather he challenges the rigid moral bindings. We all know his attack against Christianity, in a similar fashion as we are observing in technical [[thoughts/Determinism|determinism]] [^advances]

[^advances]: The idea that technology dictates progress, an extension of [techno-optimist manifesto](https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/).

    In essence, it builts on top of the idea for a free market and pushes the wheel of civilisation forward. I’m pretty much a techno-optimist at the core, but consider software and technology as a catalyst for changes.
    We still have to fix the human-[[thoughts/Alignment|alignment]] problem in order to create social goods.

### Prejudices of Philosophers

[Source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/nietzsche/1886/beyond-good-evil/ch01.htm)

- Begins by critiquing the traditional approaches of [[thoughts/Will to Truth|truth]] and morality, deemed it “hazardous enterprise”. From a perspective of a philosophers, who are “deemed to pursue the truth” doesn’t seem to fully understand why

### The Free Spirit

[Source](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/nietzsche/1886/beyond-good-evil/ch02.htm)

> \[!note\] Aphorism 24
>
> What strange simplification and falsification mankind lives! One can never cease wondering once one has acquired eyes for this marvel! How we have made everything around us clear and free and easy and simple! How we have been able to give our senses a passport to everything superficial, our thoughts a godlike desire for wanton gambolling and false conclusions! - How from the beginning, we have contrived to retain our ignorance as to enjoy an almost inconceivable freedom, frivolity, impetuosity, bravery, cheerfulness of life, so as to enjoy life!

Man lives in blissful ignorance, and it is this ignorance that allows him to enjoy life.

Contains a deliberate overlooking or misunderstanding of complexity and depth of reality, such that one grant one’s thoughts the freedom to roam superficially.

> And only on this solidified, granite-like foundation of ignorance could knowledge rear itself hitherto, the will to knowledge on the foundation of a far more powerful will, the will to ignorance, to the uncertain, to the untrue! Not as its opposite, but — as its refinement!

Nietzsche posits that humans have contrived to retain their ignorance in order to enjoy life with freedom, lack of scruple, heartiness, and gaiety. This foundation of ignorance allows knowledge to rise, but it does so on the foundation of a far more powerful [[thoughts/Will|will]] --- will to ignorance to uncertainty, to the untrue.

Nietzsche juxtaposes a paradox at our existence: a foundation of ignorance is actually built upon our will to knowledge. Will to knowledge is not opposed to ignorance, rather a refinement. Will to ignorance is actually a strategy of [[thoughts/Will to Power|power]], as it motivates [[thoughts/Giles Deleuze#active and reactive forces.|force]].