Beyond Good and Evil · Chapter
Chapter 77 explained
A brief aphorism exploring the psychological motives behind a person's adherence to principles, arguing that principles serve underlying personal ends like domination, justification, or concealment of habits, and that identical principles c
What happens
A brief aphorism exploring the psychological motives behind a person's adherence to principles, arguing that principles serve underlying personal ends like domination, justification, or concealment of habits, and that identical principles can mask fundamentally different individual goals.
Themes in this chapter
Psychology as the Fundamental Science
The excerpt is a pure exercise in psychological unmasking, analyzing the hidden, often contradictory, personal drives (domination, justification, concealment) that underlie the adoption of seemingly objective principles.
Characters to notice
- The Narrator
Presents the psychological analysis of principles and their underlying motives.
Key passages
“With his principles a man seeks either to dominate, or justify, or honour, or reproach, or conceal his habits: two men with the same principles probably seek fundamentally different ends therewith.”
Principles are not held for their own sake but as tools for personal aims like controlling others, self-justification, or hiding one's true nature. Even when people share the same principles, their underlying motivations are likely completely different.
Core argument: principles are instrumental to hidden psychological drives, not expressions of objective truth.