Book · 1886
Beyond Good and Evil
by Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche argues that good and evil were invented categories, built by someone, for a reason, and asks who benefits from the invention.
What does Reddit think of Beyond Good and Evil?
The Reddit discussion of Beyond Good and Evil lives almost entirely in r/askphilosophy and r/philosophy, and it reads like a seminar, not a review thread: nobody's arguing whether to read it, they're arguing about what it means. The master-slave framing gets restated directly: one ↑127 comment lays out Nietzsche's case that slaves develop cunning and deceit out of necessity while masters, freed from labor, get to develop character instead. Another, ↑119, credits the book with the project of dismantling the good-versus-evil dichotomy outright, tracing the Zarathustra naming choice back to Zoroastrian dualism. The mask motif gets its own thread (↑134): concealment as a requirement for any philosopher willing to look at what's actually "black and deep" in human motivation. There's also a direct citation of the Stoicism critique, "you desire to live according to Nature," with Nietzsche's rebuttal that nature is indifferent, not a moral guide (↑142). None of this reads as consensus or disagreement in the recommendation-thread sense. It reads as people doing the reading.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Master-slave morality as a psychological account, not just a slogan
- · The mask as a requirement for philosophical honesty
- · Dismantling the good/evil dichotomy as the book's stated project
- · Direct rebuttal of Stoic 'live according to nature' ethics
Common praise
- + r/askphilosophy (↑119) treats it as the source text for dismantling the good-versus-evil dichotomy, tracing the argument to its Zoroastrian namesake.
- + The master-slave morality passage gets restated and defended on its own terms rather than reduced to a soundbite (↑127).
- + Generates real explanatory threads in r/askphilosophy aimed at first-time readers finding the prose difficult (↑244).
Common criticism
- − r/philosophy's discussion (↑231) drifts into adjacent territory, Mark Fisher's Vampire Castle essay, more than it stays anchored to the book's own arguments.
- − The prose difficulty comes up often enough that r/askphilosophy has a standing explainer response for readers who find it hard to absorb on a first pass (↑244).
Who it's for
Come in already caring about where moral concepts come from, not looking for a self-help gloss on transcending judgment. r/askphilosophy's patience with confused first-time readers (↑244) suggests the difficulty is real but survivable with the right scaffolding. Stoics specifically should brace for a direct hit; Nietzsche's rebuttal to "live according to nature" is aimed squarely at them (↑142). Anyone wanting plot, narrative, or emotional payoff is in the wrong aisle. This is aphorisms about psychology and power, argued one claim at a time.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for Beyond Good and Evil?
The most relevant excerpts across the subreddits where this book is mentioned — opinionated, argued takes first, then top-upvoted mentions. Click through to read the full thread.
“I think Nietzsche’s thought can’t be taken out of the context. He was an insanely intelligent man. I believe you can see what he thought when you extend the quote a little: **“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What…
“>I am an idiot- I have already established that for you-, and on top of that, I have an extremely difficult time absorbing + retaining information. Hey there. So first of all I wanted to address this a little bit. So many people think they should be able to just dive in to complex books, whether th…
“Abstract: The rise of call-out culture seems to have had a detrimental effect in regard to left wing discourse, perhaps even contributing to the rightwards shift of the Overton windows in Western states. In this essay, Mark Fisher analyses what he calls the 'Vampire Castle' - a construct which ill…
““You desire to live "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! **Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourse…
“In Beyond Good and Evil, the theme of the mask pops up now and again. Nietzsche considers it necessary for a philosopher (or free spirit) to conceal himself. Both from others, and himself. From others, because a true psychology would be shocking to society, laying bare the 'black and deep desires' o…
“Totally disagree with this analysis, like some others have done. In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche basically argued that slaves are cunning and deceitful out of necessity in order to survive, whilst the master is free of the shackles of work and so has the time and the means to develop a superior ch…
“Nietzsche had a few kind words for Buddha but for the most part considered Buddhism to be a life-denying, nihilistic religion akin to Christianity. "I dealt especially with the value of the ‘unegoistic’, the instincts of compassion, self-denial, self-sacrifice which Schopenhauer had for so long g…
“One of Nietzsche’s projects is to dismantle the Good vs. Evil dichotomy. One of his major works is *Beyond Good and Evil* and aims to do just this. He chose the name Zarathustra as he saw Zoroastrianism as one of the first religious-cultural systems to establish this good-evil concept. Thus, he (Z…
“I though this piece would have more to say on the folly of dividing the world up into binaries, but instead rejects the good-evil dichotomy outright as a mere fabrication of white Europeans (bafflingly ignoring its decidedly non-European roots), while unsurprisingly embracing its own false dichotomy…
“The video discusses the relationship between the views of the German philosopher Nietzsche and Buddhism. Although seemingly unrelated, Nietzsche wrote extensively about Buddhism, and examining his thoughts on the subject can provide a deeper understanding of his philosophy. Nietzsche believed that B…
“Nietzsche accused philosophers of being credulous in their assumption that the subject “I” is the condition of the predicate “to think”. Thoughts seem to manifest themselves whenever the thoughts want to, not when the subject wishes them to. From *Beyond Good and Evil*: “With regard to the supers…
“For Thomas Hobbes, violence is an unfortunate (but technically avoidable) side-effect of the natural state of humanity. One argument he gives for this is that the natural scarcity of the things we need to survive necessarily gives rise to an insecu…
“First, I must say that I think there is a correct way to read Nietzsche (N from here on), and that I think this correct way is especially difficult to comprehend. The answer as to why it is so difficult to read N correctly should help illuminate what reactionaries get wrong about N and what those wh…
“Personally, I feel Nietzsche is the example *par excellence* of philosophy as great literature. *Beyond Good and Evil* is so aesthetically beautiful, from a literary perspective, and *Thus Spoke Zarathustra* is practically a work of philosophical fiction by today's standards. Reading Nietzsche is al…
“Beyond Good and Evil is not a good book to start reading philosophy without having no knowledge of philosophy beforehand. This will get you nowhere other than perhaps the online Nietzsche fandoms, which are not very knowledgeable and serious communities. I suggest you check the many, many questions …
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Beyond Good and Evil — frequently asked
Is Beyond Good and Evil hard to read for beginners?+
Yes, and r/askphilosophy treats that as normal rather than a flaw. A ↑244 comment addresses a reader who calls themselves "an idiot" for struggling with it directly, reassuring them that diving into dense philosophy without scaffolding is hard for most people, not just them.
What is Beyond Good and Evil's argument about master-slave morality?+
That slave morality develops cunning and deceit out of necessity, while master morality develops character because it's freed from that pressure, laid out directly in an r/askphilosophy comment (↑127) that treats this as one of the book's central psychological claims, not just a famous phrase.
Does Beyond Good and Evil actually engage with Stoicism?+
Directly and critically. An r/askphilosophy excerpt (↑142) quotes Nietzsche's rebuttal to the Stoic ideal of living "according to Nature," arguing nature is indifferent and purposeless rather than a source of moral guidance.