beyond good and evil
Past ethical binaries
Beyond good and evil describes a philosophical stance that transcends or rejects conventional moral categories of right and wrong.
The phrase is most associated with Nietzsche, who argued that traditional morality—particularly Christian morality—represented a "slave morality" that superior individuals should overcome.
In broader use, it characterizes anyone or anything operating outside normal ethical frameworks, whether through claimed enlightenment or simple amorality: The dictator saw himself as beyond good and evil, answerable to no one.
- ÜbermenschSelf-surpassing human ideal
- herd mentalityTendency to follow crowds
- moralityRight and wrong principles
- moral relativismValues vary by context
- existentialismPhilosophy stressing self-created meaning
postmodernism · will to power · Apollonian · nihilism · self-overcoming · value creation · Dionysian · free spirits · metaethics · relativism · transcendence · autonomy · absurdism · utilitarianism · deontology · symbolic art · dystopian fiction · immoralism
beyond good and evilgood versus evil
Core ethical dichotomy
Manichaean · right and wrong · virtue and vice · slave morality · heaven and hell
beyond good and evilblack-and-white morality
Ethics without nuance
moral certainty · categorical imperative · puritanism · righteousness
beyond, good, evil, better, best, goodness, goodly, evilly, evilness