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Hello, what price of human animals pay to become civilized?

That's one of the questions posed by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in

on the genealogy of morality, a polemic, which he published in 1887 towards the end of his working life.

In three essays, he argues that having a guilty conscience is the price of living in a society with other humans.

He suggested Christian morality with its consideration for others grew as an actor revenge by the weak against their masters,

the blond beast of prey as he calls them, and the price for that revolt is endless self-loathing.

These other ideas were picked up by later thinkers, perhaps most significantly by Sigmund Freud.

You further explored the tensions between civilisation and the individual set out in these Nietzsche's essays.

We're in with you to discuss Nietzsche's genealogy of morality, our Stephen Mellhall, Professor of Philosophy,

and the fellow Intusa at New College University of Oxford.

If you're only Hughes, Senior Lecture in Philosophy at the University of Essex,

and Keith Ansel Pearson, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kablewark.

Stephen Mellhall, what distinguished Nietzsche at an early age?

Well, at an early age, in many ways, the educational path he was taking up with quite typical of the time.

In 1844, in Saxony, a province of Prussia, his family, his father and his grandfather were both through and ministers.

They had connections with the Royal Court and the government, but his father died when he was five, as did his only brother,

and that meant that the family suffered various kinds of financial difficulties.

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