Chapter VII: Our Virtues

Nietzsche suggests that modern Europeans (twentieth century) will have virtues aligned with their secret inclinations and desires rather than the massive, sincere virtues of their grandfathers. He implies that seeking one's own virtues is similar to the old notion of good conscience.

Nietzsche argues that modern people are influenced by multiple, conflicting moral frameworks simultaneously, resulting in ambiguous or motley-colored actions rather than unequivocal moral conduct.

Nietzsche observes that loving enemies is now practiced widely and unconsciously, and that morality is no longer performed as attitude or formula but expressed implicitly through action, which he views as an advance.

Nietzsche warns against those who pride themselves on moral subtlety and discernment, as they become vindictive when caught in mistakes and will inevitably slander those around them.

Nietzsche criticizes French psychologists for endlessly analyzing bourgeois stupidity and recommends instead studying the subtle instinctive intelligence through which mediocrity navigates around superior spirits.

Nietzsche argues that moral judgment and condemnation is the favorite revenge of intellectually shallow people seeking to equalize themselves with the intellectually privileged through moral standards and belief in God.

Nietzsche argues that so-called disinterested actions are actually deeply interesting to those who perform them, and that all actions—including love and self-sacrifice—ultimately serve the actor's own interests and desires.

Through the voice of a moralistic pedant, Nietzsche argues that universal moral systems are tasteless and harmful because they impose the same morality on people of different ranks and capacities, which wastes the virtues of superior types.

Nietzsche claims that the modern preaching of sympathy and fellow-suffering actually expresses the self-contempt of the modern European, reflecting a century of Europe's uglification and the dissatisfaction of modern man with himself.

Nietzsche suggests that modern Europeans are hybrids who need historical costumes to dress themselves since none fit properly, but their ability to study and parody all styles and beliefs may be their unique invention.

Nietzsche argues that the modern European historical sense—the ability to appreciate all cultures and periods—arises from semi-barbaric democratic chaos and is ultimately ignoble because it prevents the refined taste and firm judgments of noble cultures.

Nietzsche scorns hedonism, pessimism, and utilitarianism for measuring worth by pleasure and pain, and argues that great suffering is the only discipline that has produced human elevation and higher spiritual development.

Nietzsche asserts that he and others like him, though called immoralists and without apparent duty, are actually woven into a net of duties from which they cannot disengage.

Nietzsche declares honesty the only virtue from which free spirits cannot escape and calls for commitment to it with all their perversity, defiance, and devilish will to power.

Nietzsche criticizes all previous moral philosophy as tedious and soporific, and particularly attacks English utilitarians for their plodding adherence to Bentham without original thought or dangerous inquiry.

Nietzsche presents his central thesis that almost all higher culture is based on the spiritualizing and intensifying of cruelty, which operates from Roman arenas through tragedy to the seeker of knowledge.

Nietzsche explains that the spirit has a fundamental imperious will to be master and to incorporate and simplify foreign elements, though it also has a countervailing tendency to deny and shut out knowledge.

Nietzsche argues that while learning changes us, at the bottom of our souls lies an unteachable granite of spiritual fate that determines our solutions to fundamental problems and our self-knowledge.

Nietzsche claims that women seeking independence and scientific enlightenment about themselves represents one of the worst developments in European uglification, as it would expose women's concealed pedantry and superficiality.

Nietzsche uses three famous intellectual women as examples of comical women rather than proof of feminine capacity, claiming they demonstrate the weakness of arguments for women's emancipation.

Nietzsche argues that women's lack of understanding about food and poor cooking has retarded mankind's development by preventing the discovery of important physiological and healing facts.

Nietzsche praises Madame de Lambert's advice to her son to permit only folly that brings great pleasure, calling it the wisest remark ever addressed to a son.

Nietzsche suggests that noble women will oppose Dante and Goethe's ideas about the eternally feminine drawing men upward, believing instead that the eternally masculine draws women upward.

Nietzsche presents seven witty epigrams about women addressing ennui, virtue, appearance, gratitude, aging, courtship, and speech.

Nietzsche describes how men have traditionally treated women as delicate, fragile, wild birds that must be caged to prevent their escape.

Nietzsche argues that denying the profound antagonism between man and woman or dreaming of equality is a sign of intellectual shallowness, and that truly deep men must regard women as Eastern property predestined for service.

Nietzsche observes that as women gain rights and stop fearing men, they lose their essential womanly instincts and deteriorate, sacrificing their natural weapons and superiority through failed imitation of masculine weakness.