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Friedrich Nietzsche against moral narcissism: On morality, conscience, self-denial, arrogance, self-righteousness and more. And why it affects and hurts us even more today.

Friedrich Nietzsche, conscience and the dangers of self-denial: Beyond Good and Evil. The Antichrist. The Genealogy of Morals. -

With Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche did not simply launch a new value system – he dismantled the invisible but powerful architecture of moral thinking on which entire civilisations were built. He did not target individual commandments or concrete norms, but the very foundation itself: the tacit distinction between "good" and "evil" which, according to Nietzsche, was born less out of insight than out of weakness.

He does not see Western moral history as progress, but as pathology. His philosophy is not another call to virtue, but a diagnosis of moral exhaustion. It does not ask: What should we do? But rather: Who benefits from us thinking this way? Who is tamed, disciplined, standardised – in the name of goodness, conscience, charity?

What we call "good intentions," Nietzsche often calls masked impotence. It does not spring from active creative power, but from the need to morally enhance oneself – precisely because one lacks physical, psychological or social strength. In this sense, conscience is not an inner compass, but a product of training: the sedimented voice of the herd in the subject. It does not speak for autonomy, but for learned self-censorship.

The concepts of good and evil themselves become ideological fiction in Nietzsche's view. This fiction did not arise by chance, but through a historical act of moral reversal, which he reconstructs in The Genealogy of Morals: when the strong, the noble and the life-affirming could not be defeated by the weak, they were morally delegitimised. The result was slave morality – a worldview driven by resentment that elevates what one cannot be to virtue and declares what one cannot bear to be evil.

Nietzsche questions not only what morality is, but who needs it – and at what price. His philosophy rejects the assumption that morality is natural or reasonable. On the contrary, it is the result of a will – but not a will to truth, rather a will to power. Paradoxically, this will to power manifests itself precisely where it is denied: in moral superiority, in concerned solicitude, in silent indignation. According to Nietzsche, those who take a moral stance often do not want justice, but rather domination in the guise of humility.

In a world where self-denial is considered heroism and feelings of guilt are seen as a sign of maturity, his thinking detonates an explosive charge at the heart of bourgeois ethics. He exposes supposedly noble emotions as sublimated emotions of powerlessness: compassion, humility, self-sacrifice – for him, these are not signs of ethical sophistication, but symptoms of a morally concealed exhaustion with life. His criticism is aimed at what has become established in Western culture as a good conscience – a conscience that triumphs precisely when people belittle, deny and suspect themselves.

The Genealogy of Morals, his unsparing reckoning in The Antichrist, and his conception of the will to power are not systematic treatises in this context, but philosophical interventions. They are attempts to liberate themselves from a history of moral self-poisoning. Anyone who senses today that so-called "good people" often appear tired, bitter or covertly aggressive will recognise in Nietzsche's analysis not exaggeration, but a clear-sighted diagnosis: where morality becomes a way of life, the joy of life often dies.

Nietzsche offers no simple alternative – but he does offer a clear counter-image. Not selflessness as an ideal, but self-respect as a necessity. Not moral superiority, but existential honesty. Not the glorification of suffering, but the awareness that suffering does not have to be sacred. What Nietzsche proposes is not a new morality – but a way of thinking that operates outside morality. A way of thinking that has the courage to recognise guilt as blackmail, to expose virtue as an avoidance strategy, and to see human beings not through the prism of victimhood, but through that of creative power.

This post follows Nietzsche's central stages – not to teach his system, but to show why his philosophy remains so disturbingly relevant: as a thought experiment against moral fictions, against pathological self-deprecation – and as an invitation to re-evaluate all values.

What it's about:

In Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche presented a radical questioning of the moral foundations of Western culture.

His critique of the Christian-influenced conscience, his analysis of the emergence of slave morality, and his plea for a revaluation of all values challenge us to rethink concepts such as virtue, guilt, morality, and even evil.

This article guides you through the central stages of Nietzsche's thinking and shows why his philosophy continues to act as an explosive device against hypocritical ideals, self-destructive selflessness and moral narcissism.

1. What did Friedrich Nietzsche really mean by "Beyond Good and Evil"?

Friedrich Nietzsche did not write Beyond Good and Evil as a guide to moral improvement, but as a radical critique of the idea that morality is something natural, universal or valid in itself. The title itself is provocative: it refers to a space of thought that frees itself from the traditional dichotomy of good and evil – not through relativism, but through a genealogical deep dive into the history of our values, which questions the wisdom and usefulness of morality.

Nietzsche does not attack individual moral commandments, but rather the trust in their origin. For him, categories such as "good" and "evil" are not eternal truths, but historical inventions – brought about by psychological needs, social power relations and cultural revaluations.  , but a product of emotion, instinct and survival strategy. Its function was and is to control behaviour, secure power and tame conscience.

What Nietzsche means by "beyond good" is not a moral vacuum, but a position beyond conventional systems of evaluation – a return to what he calls the "physiological point of view." From this perspective, humans are not judged by obedience, but by vitality, instinctual quality and formal will. Morality is relegated back to the body, to its needs, tensions, aggressions and unbridled striving – in other words, to what Nietzsche understands as the "will to power".

This will is not simply a desire for dominance, but the basic principle of life itself – a dynamic urge to create that expresses itself in art, philosophy, politics and self-knowledge. Good is not the one who obeys, but the one who can create. Evil is not the one who hurts, but the one who destroys life – including their own, through self-denial and moral blackmail.

This is why Nietzsche rejects the figure of the "good person" – not out of nihilism, but out of a desire for truth. For him, this figure is a moral fiction: it is based on the idea that life can be ennobled through guilt, asceticism or obedience. In truth, according to Nietzsche, it thrives on resentment – on the inability to affirm life in its tragic ambiguity. The "good conscience" therefore often appears to him not as a sign of intellectual clarity, but as the product of a deep alienation from oneself.

Nietzsche is not concerned with destruction, but with re-foundation. His criticism is aimed at the premise of every moral system: the belief that there is such a thing as moral facts. But for him, moral concepts are "fictions" – narratives that legitimise claims to power. Those who are prepared to break away from this open themselves up to a different ethos: an ethos of self-examination, self-design and self-overcoming.

"Beyond good and evil" therefore also means stepping into the unknown. Into a way of life based not on norms, but on strength, clarity and creative courage.

2. How did our moral worldview emerge after Nietzsche?

In his Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche does not draw up a compendium of moral history, but rather a radically different history of the origins of morality: a history that does not begin with reason, as in " " (out of the reason of the world), but with resentment. Not with insight, but with resentment. Not with the discovery of the good, but with the experience of not being able to embody it oneself.

For Nietzsche, morality begins where powerlessness seeks expression. The decisive shift is not philosophical, but psychological: the weak, the oppressed, the dependent see themselves as incapable of achieving strength, vitality or freedom – and begin to despise them. Instead of admiring the "noble people," they portray them as "evil." Instead of admiration: moral revaluation. What was once admired – courage, independence, instinct, strength – is now defamed as cold, selfish, brutal. Conversely, the attributes of weakness – humility, obedience, compassion – are glorified as "virtues."

For Nietzsche, this revaluation is not an ethical insight, but a compensatory strategy: slave morality arises as an affect of the oppressed, as a subtle form of exercising power under the guise of morality. Its strength lies not in attack, but in the passive reversal of values – in the moral delegitimisation of the powerful. Evil is not the one who causes harm – but the one who reminds us that life needs strength.

The crux of this movement lies in the time lag. Nietzsche calls it a "spiritual revenge" that strikes with a delay: the master morality's evaluation – good is what is powerful, self-confident and creative – is subsequently undermined by slave morality. The "good person" is now the obedient, the quiet, the inhibited – a construct that does not live by its own power, but by the negation of the other. This form of morality is a form of cultural technique: it tames, slows down, directs inward – and creates the "bad conscience" as a cultural achievement.

The method Nietzsche uses to uncover these processes is genealogical: it does not ask about the justification of moral concepts, but about their origin. It does not ask: What is "good"? – but: Who designated something as good, when, and with what interest? Thus, moral history becomes power history, ethics becomes the pathology of emotions. Moral judgements no longer appear as expressions of rational universality, but as contrary to taste and shaped by the genealogy of morality. Fictions that are historically contingent – and yet produce enormous psychological effects.

This is how moral discourse is deconstructed in Nietzsche: as a narrative that glorifies suffering, defames power, suppresses emotions – and in doing so makes people the bearers of a morally distorted existence. This narrative has become deeply ingrained in the Western self-image. It shapes what we consider ethical, what we feel guilty about, how we evaluate strength – and how we despise ourselves when we fall short.

For Nietzsche, the real tragedy of modern culture lies not in the loss of moral values – but in their origin. He shows that what we today narrate as a moral narrative of progress is linked to a history of reactance, reinterpretation and the production of resentment. The genealogy of this morality reveals that Western morality is not developed, but prone to disease – precisely because it is based on suffering and morally ennobles it.

3. Why did Nietzsche criticise the Christian conscience so harshly?

Friedrich Nietzsche's description of Christianity as "Platonism for the people" was neither provocation nor mockery, but rather a diagnostic finding that questions the wisdom of morality. What he meant was the metaphysical hypocrisy of a system of thought that does not affirm life, but devalues it – that treats the body, instinct, sexuality, power and desire not as sources of meaning, but as sources of guilt. In this logic, every potential for living is made morally suspect – and thus delegitimised as "sinful".

According to Nietzsche, the Christian conscience does not arise from inner maturation, but from inner division: humans are pitted against themselves. Their emotions are not seen as an expression of strength, but as a problem. Their instincts are not seen as vitality, but as a danger. Their will is not seen as a creative force, but as pride. In this revaluation, conscience becomes a moral whip – an instrument of discipline anchored in one's own psyche. It "punishes" not through external violence, but through self-condemnation. This form of guilt, writes Nietzsche in The Genealogy of Morals, "belongs to pathology" – it is not a sign of morality, but of mental illness.

Christian morality reverses central vital functions: self-denial, not self-affirmation, becomes a virtue. Suffering, not joy, becomes the currency of spiritual depth. Not strength, but weakness becomes the moral ideal. Nietzsche calls this reversal "barbarism in the guise of morality." What appears to be holiness – asceticism, humility, abstinence, guilt – is, for him, an expression of a culture that forces life onto the defensive. The highest form of moral recognition is accorded to those who most successfully deny themselves.

At the heart of this dynamic lies a shocking thought: the figure of the "God of love" is transformed – in the inner logic of the guilt paradigm – into a God of punishment. Not because he punishes, but because he is experienced as omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent – and human beings always feel guilty towards him. The mere fact of living, wanting, desiring ( ) is enough to install a judge within oneself. The result: a self that does not unfold but controls itself; an existence that is not lived but morally mastered.

For Nietzsche, this moral self-devouring is not an individual transgression, but a cultural product. It is the price of millennia of domesticating emotions – of transforming humans into guilt-ridden animals. This animal is not filled with remorse, but with resentment: that silent, smouldering feeling of powerlessness that transforms itself into moral superiority and ultimately appears as a "good conscience". But this good conscience is deceptive. It is the self-image of a person who despises himself and calls his contempt a virtue.

Nietzsche's criticism is thus directed not only against the teachings of Christianity, but also against the psychological and cultural consequences of a morality of guilt that diminishes life in order to make it morally exploitable. His alternative is not a new doctrine, but a counter-gesture: the revaluation of all values. An ethic not of negation, but of affirmation. Not of obedience, but of creation. Not of penance, but of the courage to exist.

4. What distinguishes master morality from slave morality?

The central concept in Nietzsche's critique of morality is that of "masters and slaves". This distinction does not describe social classes, but psychological attitudes towards life. Master morality is affirmative: it says yes to life, to emotion, to instinct. Good is what is powerful, full of life, creative – evil is what is weak, sick, ugly.

Slave morality, on the other hand, defines the good in negative terms: good is what is not evil. It is based on denial, on negation, on an emotion of rejection. The slave is incapable of setting values himself – so he reverses the values of the strong into their opposite. Nietzsche sees this not only as a psychological attitude, but as a form of collective psychodynamics that shapes entire cultures.

This reversal lies at the heart of the moral crisis – and at the same time provides the starting point for liberating thought from false guilt.

5. To what extent is a "guilty conscience" a form of inner violence?

For Friedrich Nietzsche, the so-called "bad conscience" is not a sign of inner maturation, but the result of the historical taming of human beings – a profound diversion of emotions directed against life itself. It is not a moral achievement, but a report of psychological damage. According to Nietzsche in The Genealogy of Morals, it arose not out of insight, but out of necessity: People who are no longer allowed to fight externally begin to make themselves their own enemies. The aggression that was previously directed outward – against rivals, enemies, dangers – is shifted inward. What emerges is a state of internal siege – an ego that watches, accuses and punishes itself.

This internalised punishment is not a virtue, but a form of psychological self-mutilation. It is not based on free self-reflection, but on culturally generated self-suspicion. The individual begins to feel ashamed of his emotions, drives and impulses – not because they are destructive, but because they do not fit into the moral framework. Thus, conscience becomes a tormenting authority that does not judge, but condemns. It does not ask about proportionality or context, but operates with the severity of an authority that elevates itself above all doubt. It becomes, in Nietzsche's words, the "inner priest," the invisible disciplinary apparatus of culture.

For Nietzsche, the tragedy of this development lies in the fact that responsibility – once an expression of agency – now appears as the ability to feel guilt. Those who are particularly sensitive to guilt are considered particularly "moral" and are often hated by those who embody the will to power. But this kind of responsibility is not a freely chosen acceptance of consequences, but a culturally conditioned memory of pain. It replaces judgement with self-suspicion, freedom of decision with inner accusation.

A guilty conscience thus becomes the vehicle of slave morality, not because it is true, just or conducive to knowledge, but because it has become established. It is the product of a profound transformation of human beings: from self-determined subjects to guilt-ridden objects. According to Nietzsche, there is no progress in this transformation, but rather a profound misunderstanding of life. For life – as form, power, will – cannot be ennobled by guilt. It can only be paralysed.

And this is precisely the psychological effect of a guilty conscience: it robs people of their creative energy. It breeds passivity, indecision and self-doubt. People suffer, not because life causes them suffering, but because they no longer demand of themselves what is alive within them. Responsibility becomes self-suspicion. Self-examination becomes self-rejection. What remains is an existence that does not unfold, but disciplines itself – in the name of a morality that has more to do with retribution than with insight.

Nietzsche's diagnosis of a guilty conscience is therefore also a counterargument to the idealisation of guilt, restraint and moral pain. He does not see this as an expression of moral depth, but as the victory of a culture that is only capable of loving life when it feels guilty.

6. What role does the "will to power" play in the genealogy of morality?

For Friedrich Nietzsche, the will to power is not merely a desire for domination in the external sense, not a political lust for dominance, not a mere reaction to competition. Rather, he uses it to describe a fundamental impulse of life itself: the innermost urge of all living systems to assert themselves, to expand, to shape, to increase. It is a physiologically anchored energy, an affective drive for movement that aims not at possession but at creation – not at control but at intensity. The will to power is thus not a consequence of deficiency but an expression of abundance.

In The Genealogy of Morals, this concept becomes the decisive foil for any ethics based on humility, guilt and asceticism. For a morality that casts suspicion on emotion, suppresses instinctual impulses and chains desire works against the living dynamism of the will to power. It replaces creativity with conformity, self-realisation with self-denial, style with obedience. The result is a person who no longer lives, but administers themselves morally – under the constant suspicion that their strength is corrupt, their pleasure dangerous, their freedom sinful.

Nietzsche does not see moral depth in this, but rather a tragic misorientation of culture. For this culture – especially in its Christian-Western form – has not shaped the will to power, but rather pathologised it. It has suspected it, distorted it, recoded it – and then devalued it as "pride," "arrogance" or even "malice." Where life energy is felt, morality calls for humility; where strength appears, for pity; where independence lives, for remorse.

But Nietzsche is not concerned with legitimising crude fantasies of power. His concept of the will to power aims at inner sovereignty, at the ability to shape oneself. The alternative to moral asceticism is not recklessness, but style. The ethical challenge lies in not suppressing this power, but in giving it form – through conscious self-creation, through aesthetic rigour, through what Nietzsche calls the pathos of distance: the ability to organise oneself internally instead of submitting externally.

This reversal is not a political revolution, but an existential readjustment. Nietzsche does not want to abolish morality, but to expose its genealogical roots – to show that what we consider "good" is often a culture of belittlement. His counterfigure is the person who does not sacrifice their power, but refines it. Who does not make a problem out of their desires, but a work of art. Who does not hope for salvation, but takes responsibility – for themselves, for their instincts, for their form.

That is why, in Nietzsche's thinking, the will to power is not the enemy of morality, but its suppressed origin. Not morality as a set of rules, but morality as an expression of successful self-formation. Where this power is allowed to be lived, there is no arbitrariness, but dignity. No nihilism, but new values. No resentment, but creative life. In this sense, the will to power is not the problem – but the buried answer to a morality that no longer understands itself.

7. Why did Nietzsche see the Antichrist as the epitome of moral revaluation?

With The Antichrist, Friedrich Nietzsche did not present an attack on religion in general, but a precise deconstruction of Christian morality – that specific form of morality which he called the "religion of weakness". Christianity, according to his drastic judgement, is "the great error of mankind": not because it spreads false teachings, but because it systematically denies life. It elevates the sick above the healthy, the weak above the strong, the inhibited above the lively – and calls this virtue.

In this context, the Antichrist does not appear as the devilish adversary of a holy order, but as a philosophical counterfigure to the moral self-misunderstanding of the West. He stands for a mindset that refuses to romanticise suffering, sanctify guilt or ennoble weakness. The Antichrist is not the destroyer – he is the unmasker. He is not directed against people, but against systems that keep people down: against the ideal of the "good person" who prides himself on his moral superiority while being consumed by resentment, asceticism and guilt.

Nietzsche does not despise compassion, but its moral instrumentalisation. He does not reject care, but the moral self-aggrandisement that turns it into a substitute religion. In The Antichrist, he breaks with the idea that morality is identical with moral maturity. He shows that "custom" is often mere habit, "virtue" a product of training, "morality" an expression of collective fear of instinct, drive and freedom. In the revaluation of all values, the question is asked: what if what appears moral to us is in fact hostile to life?

In this sense, the Antichrist functions as a counterfigure to culturally internalised self-contempt. He does not embody evil, but rather the insight that moral concepts are contaminated – historically, psychologically, theologically. He shakes the fundamental conviction that moral good is timeless, divine or natural. Instead, it appears to be the result of thousands of years of deformation of the will to live.

This figure marks the moment of truth for philosophical criticism: an ethics that is measured not by convention but by vitality, not by obedience but by creative power. In this sense, the Antichrist is not merely a counter-image to Christianity, but to the entire tradition of the glorification of suffering. He stands for a morality beyond guilt – for a way of thinking that does not atone for life, but affirms it.

8. What does the birth of tragedy have to do with morality?

In The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, his first major work, Friedrich Nietzsche develops a cultural diagnosis that goes far beyond classical philology. He is not merely concerned with ancient dramas, but with two opposing ways of interpreting life: one tragic and one moral. The Dionysian, as he calls it, stands for that original dimension of existence that is uncontrollable, contradictory, intoxicating, vulnerable – a reality that cannot be ordered, but only endured, lived through, shaped.

In Greek tragedy – especially in the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles – Nietzsche recognises a cultural form that does not romanticise life, but neither does it morally devalue it. Guilt does not appear there as a moral flaw, but as part of being human. Suffering is not punishment, but fate. The tragic hero does not die because he acts unethically, but because he is human – a being caught between necessity and freedom, hubris and clarity, moderation and excess.

According to Nietzsche, this tragic worldview was destroyed by the Socratic turn. Socrates and, after him, Plato replaced the Dionysian with the logos, the insurmountable with dialectics, and fate with moral justification. Where aesthetic form once provided comfort, the idea of a "rational world order" now took its place. Anything that could not be justified was henceforth rejected as false, evil, irrational. Thus, in Nietzsche's view, it was not the rise of reason that began, but the triumph of slave morality. The loss of the tragic was the beginning of morality.

But Nietzsche does not want a return to barbarism, a nihilistic celebration of destruction. What he seeks is a new way of thinking that affirms life, even in its fragility. A way of thinking that does not make moral judgements, but is aesthetically grounded. A person who does not experience guilt as shame , but as a sign of their form of existence. For Nietzsche, the tragic attitude is not a weakness, but an expression of spiritual strength – because it does not romanticise suffering, but integrates it.

From this perspective, the tragic is not the opposite of the moral – but its surpassing. It is an ethos without morality, a yes to life with all its impositions. The tragic person knows that good does not always triumph, that guilt cannot always be resolved, that meaning is not always given. And yet: they live. Not because they have certainty – but because they have style.

9. Is the superhuman a response to the crisis of morality?

The superhuman that Friedrich Nietzsche sketches in Thus Spoke Zarathustra is not a superhero, not a triumphant saviour figure, not a figure of power fantasy – but a provocation: a thought experiment that opposes the moral human being without falling into moral opposites. He embodies the question of how life can succeed when old values have lost their binding force and humans have become disoriented between the loss of faith and the cynicism of nihilism.

Nietzsche contrasts the last man – that exhausted, comfort-seeking, morally resigned figure who no longer risks anything and believes in nothing – with the figure of the superhuman: not as a solution, but as a challenge. This person no longer lives according to the logic of good and evil, but according to a logic of becoming. He creates values instead of adopting them. He shapes himself instead of justifying himself morally. And above all, he doesn't live out of guilt, but out of inner abundance – out of a feeling of power that has nothing to do with domination, but with the will to create, with style, with creative consistency.

The superhuman does not live with a guilty conscience, but with a good one – not because he is perfect, but because he does not repress anything. He does not need to elevate himself morally because he does not belittle himself morally. His virtue does not consist in conforming to existing norms, but in his ability to examine, transform and transcend norms within himself. Nietzsche calls this self-overcoming: the willingness not to remain where one is – not in resentment, not in comfort, not in moral pride.

The figure of the Übermensch therefore embodies an ethic that is no longer based on any external foundation. It is not based on revelation, reason or convention – " " but on the inner necessity to give shape to one's own life. This shape is not a set of rules, but an expression: of a will that knows itself; of a body that respects itself; of an existence that does not justify itself, but affirms itself. The superhuman does not believe in meaning – he creates it.

Nietzsche does not provide a recipe with the Übermensch. He gives no maxims, no principles, no ethics of duty. What he proposes is a way out: out of guilt morality, out of the pose of virtue, out of the moral narcissism of the 'good person'. The superhuman does not stand above others – but above himself, above what was. His attitude is not arrogance, but depth. Not triumph, but sustainability. Not an ideal, but a touchstone for everything that purports to be ethics – without the courage to re-evaluate.

10. How can new values beyond morality be conceived today?

Friedrich Nietzsche remains relevant today because his critique does not cling to outdated dogmas, but touches on the structure of every value judgement. He forces us to ask: What is valid – and why? Who has power over the concepts of good and evil? Which emotions speak when we make moral judgements – and which remain silent?

The famous formula of the "revaluation of all values" therefore does not mean moral arbitrariness, but rather the highest responsibility. The focus is not on the abolition of values, but on their redefinition: from the perspective of life, not subjugation; from the power to shape, not from the fear of guilt. For Nietzsche, new values do not arise through mere negation, but through an inner act of self-transcendence: through the ability to detach oneself from the moral mirror images in which one previously wanted to recognise oneself as a "good person."

These values must be conceived beyond slave morality – beyond guilt, obedience, resentment, and utilitarian calculations. They must no longer be disguised as morality when they mean nothing more than inertia, conformity, or avoidance of power. What Nietzsche has in mind is an ethic that is not based on duties but on style: on the sense of form of the living, on the " " ability to order emotions without denying them. Values that arise from an instinct of strength – not from the fear of mistakes.

The ideal that emerges from this is not a moral one, but an aesthetic one. It does not ask: What should I do? But rather: What deserves form? What deserves permanence? Nietzsche suggests that we should no longer moralise life, but regard it as a work – not for the glorification of the self, but for the relief of guilt, for the recovery of existence. The person who sets values is not the one who obeys, but the one who creates. They do not stand above others, but for themselves – without applause, without absolution, without self-denial.

Such a person does not live in constant justification, but in constant testing. They do not measure themselves by rules, but by the density of their expression. They know that virtue is not a guarantee, but a risk. That not every decision is successful. And that nevertheless: life happens – where one begins to understand oneself not as a moral subject, but as a creative becoming.

Nietzsche's ethics is thus not a system, but a horizon. Not a command, but a call. Not a substitute for religion, but an attempt to break free from the shadow of moral legacies. The new values he calls for do not arise on paper. They arise where a person does not delegate the weight of their own life to others, but appropriates it, shapes it, carries it, and in doing so recognises the usefulness of their existence.

Conclusion

Nietzsche does not teach cynicism, but radical truthfulness. His philosophy does not represent a rejection of values, but rather their examination – with the aim of taking life seriously rather than moralising it.

He shows that
Morality is not an eternal order, but a historical web of power.
The Christian conscience does not produce salvation, but guilt.
Slave morality replaces vitality with resentment.
The will to power is not a vice, but an expression of a successful existence.
The superhuman does not think against morality, but outside its fictions.

Nietzsche thus remains not a moral opponent, but an existential challenger: he demands the courage to re-evaluate – and thus the courage to take responsibility for oneself.

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