who immediately require them, or from being accustomed from childhood up to see others perform them, or from benevolence, since the practice of them creates joy and approving faces everywhere about one, or from vanity because they are praised. In other words, the original reason for the action (or the custom to which it conforms) is lost out of mind: the custom stands as a thing by itself—actions that conform to it are good on their own account. Now such actions are called moral particularly—not of course because they are done from any of the special minor motives mentioned, but because they are not done from motives of conscious utility.[1] l A late echo of such a view appears, I may add, in Kant's treating reverence for the law, irrespective of any utilitarian considerations, as the only properly moral motive. A second reason for the traditional contrast between morality and utility has been already hinted at. Communities had to struggle long with individuals seeking their own advantage or utility—so long and so hard, that every other motive came to be rated higher than utility. It appeared then as if morality had not grown out of utility, while in truth it grew out of social utility, which had great difficulty in putting itself through against all manner of private utilities.[2]
Customs and customary norms widely vary—indeed, so widely that, since morality is simply conformity to them, there may seem to be nothing really constant about it. And yet Nietzsche notes that some actions are quite universally regarded as good and others as evil, inasmuch as they affect a community's welfare in such direct and obvious ways. Amid all the variations of norms, benevolence, pity, and the like are universally regarded as useful, and at the present time it is pre-eminently the kindly, helpful individual who is called "good." So to injure one's fellows has been felt in all the moral codes of different times to be harmful, and today when we use the word "evil," we have the willing injuring of a fellow particularly in mind.[3]
"Good" and "evil" have been used thus far in quite gen-
