Nietzsche: The Immoral Origins of Morality

The idea that ‘the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves’ (Adorno & Horkheimer) is used to condemn — and to justify — the immorality of the elite. In his critique of morality, Nietzsche goes one step further than justification, arguing that the establishment of morality within the masses requires immorality on behalf of its leadership.

As we’ve seen previously, Nietzsche distinguished between the gregarious masses (the herd) and the independent elite (the beast of prey). Despite his disparaging assessment, he argues that the herd are not pathological ‘per se’, but rather, ‘invaluable’. The problem is, they’re ‘incapable of self-direction and must have a “shepherd”’ — whose qualities are the opposite of the herd:

My philosophy aims at the establishment of hierarchy, not at that of an individualistic morality. The herd mentality should prevail within the herd–but not extend beyond it; the herd leaders’ actions require a fundamentally different assessment, as do those of the independent ones, or the ‘beasts of prey’, etc.

In what was intended to be a political treatise entitled ‘On the Supremacy of Virtue: How One Helps Virtue to Prevalence’, Nietzsche facetiously says (in a tone reminiscent of a Disney villain), ‘who would want to prevent virtue from trying to…