Abstract Kant and the «Natural History» of European Morality. The Role of Kantian Morality in the Fifth Section of Beyond Good and Evil . At the outset of the fifth section of Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Nietzsche announces his intention to establish a «typology of morals» by translating moral phenomena into affects. Considered within the broader framework of the section, however, this typology serves a more specific purpose: the construction of a natural history of modern European morality, followed by its critical evaluation. Nietzsche indeed distinguishes between different «types» of morality, but only insofar as such distinctions contribute to the analysis of the morality of «today,» namely the dominant moral framework of Europe in his own time. In pursuing this analysis, Nietzsche appears to privilege the examination of a particular moral system: Kantian morality. Although Kant is explicitly mentioned only in BGE 187 and 188, the Kantian moral imperative permeates the entire fifth section. This article argues that Kantian morality functions both as Nietzsche’s point of entry into the natural history of morality and as a key to understanding the internal dynamic governing «herd animal morality», that is, modern European morality.
Timothée Morel (Tue,) studied this question.