Key Idea: Nietzsche asks a question no one thought to ask: not 'which morality is true?' but 'where did our morality come from, and does it serve life?' He traces our ideas of good, evil, guilt and self-denial back to their roots — and argues they grew from weakness and resentment, not from timeless truth. You study the book in full. Master this text and you have a ready-made answer for Paper 2 — a 25-mark, open-book essay on this one book, where you sit the exam with a clean copy of the text beside you.
🧠 The five moves, one card each
Text 10.5 at a glance
- 10.5.1 · The genealogical method — Nietzsche's new question: not 'is this value true?' but 'where did it come from?' Trace a value back to its birth and you can judge it instead of just obeying it. His yardstick is life: does a value make us stronger and fuller, or smaller and sicker?
- 10.5.2 · Master vs slave morality — Two opposite sources of the word 'good'. In master morality the strong call themselves good out of pride; 'bad' is a mild afterthought. In slave morality the weak first brand the strong 'evil', then call their own meekness 'good'. Our morality, he claims, descends from the second.
- 10.5.3 · Ressentiment — The engine of the slave revolt: a bottled-up resentment in those too weak to strike back, so they take revenge in imagination. They re-value the world — strength becomes 'evil', helplessness becomes 'virtue'. It poisons the one who feels it.
- 10.5.4 · Guilt and bad conscience — Guilt begins not as sin but as debt — the debtor who cannot pay is punished. When aggression can no longer point outward, it turns inward: 'bad conscience' is cruelty aimed at oneself, the raw material of guilt and self-punishment.
- 10.5.5 · The ascetic ideal — Why would anyone worship self-denial? Because a meaning — even a life-denying 'no' to the world — beats no meaning at all. The ascetic ideal gave suffering a purpose. Nietzsche's call: re-evaluate these values and ask whether they still serve life.
Nietzsche's master move is genealogy: morality has a history, so it can be judged. Our 'good' didn't fall from the sky — it grew, he argues, out of the weak's ressentiment toward the strong. Once you see that values have origins, you can ask the real question: do they still serve life, or hold it back?
✍️ Bring it together — a Paper 2 question
Evaluate Nietzsche's claim that our present-day moral values grew out of the resentment of the weak toward the strong, and should therefore be re-examined. [25]
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
📖 Using your text in the open-book exam
Using your text in the open-book exam
- Bring a CLEAN copy — IB rule: the copy of the Genealogy you take in must be un-annotated — no notes in the margins, no underlining, no highlighting. A marked-up copy can be refused, so revise from a separate set of notes and take a clean text into the room.
- Know the map — Memorise which essay holds each move — good/evil and slave morality (First Essay), guilt, debt and bad conscience (Second Essay), the ascetic ideal (Third Essay) — so you can turn to it in seconds. Make your own separate study notes as you learn; you can't write in the exam copy.
- Quote to evidence, then EVALUATE — Open-book means you can cite the text precisely to back a point — do it, but never just summarise. A short accurate reference then your own critical judgement earns marks; page after page of retelling does not.
- Plan then write — A quick argument map — position, support, objection, reply, verdict — beats flipping through pages mid-essay. Note the one or two passages you'll quote, then write. Watch the clock: the book is a resource, not a script.
Important: Just retelling Nietzsche's story instead of evaluating it — or misusing the open text by copying it out. Narrating 'master morality, then slave morality, then ressentiment...' with no judgement earns few marks. State his argument accurately AND weigh it — press the genetic-fallacy objection, give his re-evaluation reply, and reach a reasoned verdict.
✅ Check yourself
If you can answer these six, you have the spine of the whole text.
What is the genealogical method? Asking where a value came from rather than whether it's 'true', so you can judge it — using the yardstick of whether it serves or denies life.
Master vs slave morality? Master: the strong call themselves 'good' out of pride. Slave: the weak first brand the strong 'evil', then call their own meekness 'good'. Opposite starting points.
What is ressentiment? The bottled-up resentment of those too weak to strike back, who take revenge in imagination and re-value the world — strength becomes 'evil', helplessness 'virtue'.
Where does guilt come from, for Nietzsche? From debt: the debtor who can't pay is punished. When aggression can't point outward it turns inward — 'bad conscience', cruelty aimed at oneself.
What is the ascetic ideal? The worship of self-denial. Nietzsche says it gave suffering a meaning — and people would rather have a life-denying meaning than no meaning at all.
What is the genetic fallacy (the key objection)? Inferring that a value is false or bad from where it came from. Origin doesn't settle worth — so genealogy re-examines values, it can't refute them by itself.
Exam tips
- Paper 2 is a 25-mark essay on THIS text — an accurate account of Nietzsche's argument plus your own evaluation, in balance.
- Lead with the genealogical method; master/slave morality, ressentiment, guilt and the ascetic ideal all hang off it.
- The objection examiners reward most is the genetic fallacy — raise it, then give Nietzsche's 're-evaluate, don't refute' reply.
- Never just retell the story: judge whether tracing origins can really challenge our values, and end on a reasoned verdict.