Nelson asked:

I am struggling with Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. I do not quite understand the very notion of
'genealogy', which seems to integrate such diverse disciples as philology, history, psychology - to
name just three. In what ways this new method compares or opposes other philosophical methods of
dealing with moral questions? Would you, please, give some clues and specific bibliography (modern
European languages) about this subject?

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A 'genealogy of morals' as Nietzsche conceived it is an unmasking exercise. There are two main
contrasts with a 'philosophical' approach.

The first contrast, which is not exclusive to Nietzsche, but which you will find in any contemporary
writer on ethics who advocates a 'subjectivist' view, is between the explanation of why a certain belief
is held and a justification of that belief. A currently popular theory is that ethical beliefs are 'memes',
self-replicating ideas that survive in the competition between ideas because of their effects on the
behaviour of people who get 'infected' by them. This explanation says nothing about whether the
ideas are true or false. While the truth of a belief can, under certain circumstances, give it greater
ability to survive (like the belief that fire burns), an idea which has the ability to survive is not
necessarily true.

The second contrast is between a positive philosophical proof of the truth or validity of a given belief
and a negative, dialectical exposure of an illusion. There are two aspects to the unmasking of illusion.
You can show that the belief in question is incoherent or self-contradictory. That is what Nietzsche
does in Twilight of the Idolswhen he calls Plato's theory of Forms of the Good, the True etc the 'last
fumes of evaporating reality', or when he attacks Kant's 'categorical imperative' in the Genealogy.He
is saying that the metaphysical theories of Plato and Kant are bankrupt and therefore incapable of
justifying moral beliefs. The second aspect concerns the explanation of why we are tempted by the
illusion in the first place. This is where Nietzsche gets the chance to display his impressive mastery of
philology, history and psychology.

The best book to read on Nietzsche is still Walter Kaufmann's Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist,
Antichrist(Princeton). A good book to read from a modern analytic philosopher who advocates a
subjectivist approach is J.L. Mackie Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong(Penguin). Mackie bases his
'error theory' of ethics on what he terms the 'argument from queerness' and the 'argument from
relativity'. Moral beliefs are relative to different cultures, therefore cannot be objectively true.
Moreover, if moral beliefs were true, moral values would have to exist as 'queer' kinds of
metaphysical objects. But no such objects can exist. Therefore moral beliefs cannot be objectively
true.

Geoffrey Klempner