most constant about it is its form; but within limits the content of it tends to be constant, too.
Historically speaking, that conduct is always moral, ethical (moralisch, sittlich, ethisch) which conforms to a long-established law or tradition. The fundamental antithesis is not between "unegoistic" and "egoistic," but between being bound and not being bound by traditional law. To practise revenge is moral, if revenge belongs to established custom—as it did among the older Greeks. A feeling of respect for what is authoritative is the fundamental note; and the older, i.e., the more authoritative the custom, the greater the respect, until at last the custom becomes holy and the respect turns into reverence. The morality of piety, Nietzsche remarks, is a much older morality than that which calls for unegoistic actions.[1] For most of us even now the content of conscience is what was regularly required of us apart from any reason when we were young by those whom we revered or feared: when we ask "why?" we leave the realm of conscience proper.[2] "Good," as more than "moral," is applied to those who obey the traditional law as if by nature, after long inheritance, hence easily and gladly.
How the customs of a community arise is another question—one which belongs rather to history or sociology than to ethics. Only after they exist do moral distinctions have a meaning. Nietzsche attributes them broadly at this time to the community's instinct for self-preservation. Such and such practices are seen [supposed] to be useful to the community, hence they are favored. They may be of the most varied character—some may not really be beneficial to the community, but being thought to be they become part of customary law.[3] Moral action is thus at bottom adoption by the individual of the community's point of view. Utility is the standard, but public not private utility.[4] The logic is: the community is worth more than the individual, and a lasting advantage is to be preferred to a fleeting one, hence the lasting advantage of the community
