What exactly does Nietzsche mean when he uses the term ‘bad conscience’?

This question is regarding On the Genealogy of Morality. I am using the translation by Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen
This question is regarding On the Genealogy of Morality. I am using the translation by Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen. This quote might help ““I take bad conscience to be the deep sickness into which man had to fall under the pressure of that most fundamental of all changes he ever experienced – the change of finding himself enclosed once and for all within the sway of society and peace” (56)
I am actually looking at a few thinkers and their conceptions of morality. I was looking at Freud and he uses the same term ‘bad conscience’. If anyone has any information on this, that would be greatly appreciated since I am freaking out about this term paper becasue it is 40% of our grade.

In a state of nature men are wild and we go about life unconsciously and violently, as animals. For example, the instinct to hunt and destroy are innate. However, with civilization, we are forced to use our conscious mind to survive, and so our natural violent instincts cannot be expressed. As a result, this violence is turned inward and we wage war against our instincts. This is where Nietzsche asserts bad conscience arises.

In Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents, man has a natural, instinctual freedom much like Nietzsche’s, and it must be repressed, in much the same way, when he enters society because of the demand to conform. Freud, like Nietzsche, argues that many of man’s instincts, including killing and sexual desire, are detrimental to society if left unrestrained, and so laws against murder, rape, etc. are formed, and those who violate laws are severely punished. The result is a “discontent” among men who have been forced to repress their instincts (essentially the superego vs. the id).

If you’re looking for another thinker, Hobbes’ work is along similar lines. He claims a similar state of nature, one in which men are completely free and driven to violence in order to fulfill their natural desires. However, because this constant state of war actually impedes the satisfying of natural desires, namely survival, they will a state peace. As a result, there is a simultaneous transfer of the right to harm others to a third party (a sovereign who rules). As in Freud and Nietzsche, man must give up some natural freedoms to enter society, and the sovereign acts to punish those who break the social contract (though Hobbes believes that the threat is enough to prevent any actual violation, since men always will what is best for them).

Hope that helps.

Samual Ladd Clark

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