Abstract
There is a wide scholarly consensus that Nietzsche's GM contains two principal projects. First, GM aims to explain—historically and psychologically—how some of morality's central strands emerged and evolved into their contemporary forms; and, second, GM aims to provide a critical assessment of the value of morality itself. Brian Leiter captures this consensus when he writes, "By investigating the origin of morality Nietzsche hopes to undermine morality or, more precisely, to loosen the attachment of potentially great human beings to this morality."1 But if the scholarly consensus is correct, the opening section of the preface to GM presents us with a puzzle. The opening passage bears no obvious...