Beyond Good and Evil: A Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future is probably the book where Nietzsche's characteristic philosophy is best and most thoroughly developed. That said, it is far from a clear book. It is unsystematic—no Kantian systematics or even numbered system of premises as in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. This is the philosophical equivalent of Schoenberg in a Phil Spector mix: a wall of seemingly cacophonous sound that, when listened to closely, makes frightening sense. It is a mix of bitingly humorous arguments, aphorisms, and parables. It is also the prelude to the philosophy of the present.

Nietzsche begins by bitingly sweeping aside the 19th century's characteristic philosophies: British empiricism, French romanticism, and German idealism. It seems that the only person he doesn't have complete contempt for is Hume, but even he, to Nietzsche, is weak because he didn't have the courage of his convictions. He was, after all, a man who figured out in a way what Nietzsche figured out about morals and reality, but when faced with the possibilities of his discovery of absolute freedom and will, turned back to whist and good Scottish common sense. Nietzsche, on the other hand, did not shy away.

Nietzsche thinks that previous philosophers have been far too beholden to Christianity. He makes a genealogical critique of Christian influence, arguing that there was an original belief that stronger and smarter is better, and weaker and dumber is worse. But, he argues, Christianity—especially Matthew 5–7—turns this basic "bigger is better" attitude on its head, and makes humility and weakness virtues. In this way, it is a "slave morality." It is an ideology that seeks to subordinate the strong to the weak through taking over their minds and morals. This is opposed to the "noble" or aristocratic morality of bigger is better.

However, Nietzsche turns about and says that God is dead; it is now impossible (or so he says) for any educated European to believe in God in the same way that medievals and early moderns did. This opens up the freedom of the "bigger is better" party to take over again. Definition of morals, thus, becomes a matter of self-definition, a matter of pure will. In this way, Nietzsche goes further than his intellectual forebear, Hobbes. Hobbes might have been an ethical egoist, but he always assumed that a person would aim at things that were self-evidently good, such as food, clothing, children, and so forth. Nietzsche asserts the right of the noble person to choose what he likes; there is no universal good or evil. He is free to choose; he has moved beyond good and evil.

In the face of this very complex and compelling philosophy, it is difficult to see how secular humanists can get to where they do. The idea of a universal morality is pretty much foreclosed by Nietzsche's arguments. One would think that the modernist project would have died within a few months of Beyond Good and Evil's publication. But it didn't—and the New Atheists, e.g., Dennett, Dawkins, and Hitchens, among others—continue the project. It's unclear to me why, or why they aren't asked some serious, and ultimately unanswerable, questions.

When presented with the Nietzschean objections (or its blander cousin, existentialism) the New Atheists are stuck asserting something that looks a lot like natural law. At base, they all believe in morality. Especially Hitchens believes in a universal morality applicable to all people. They are not relativists per se. But where does this morality come from? Is it a bald assertion? Is it a universal aspect of reason—a sort of Kantian construct? Dawkins might assert that it comes from evolution. But then he's simply asserting that what is moral is what best fulfills the natural desires of human beings. At that point, he sounds more like Aristotle than anything else. Dennett, on the other hand, is stuck simply asserting "humanist" values, whatever those might be. To the extent they are anything, they seem to be simply asserted, rather than any known quantity.

So, ultimately, Beyond Good and Evil raises a lot more questions than it answers. I think that it acts as a fairly comprehensive demolition of most types of rationalism, and most types of Fundamentalist Christianity—and even punches some good holes in Reformation Christianity, especially Calvinism. But Nietzsche leaves open Patristics and 20th century theories of language as avenues forward in the face of his theories. Only time will tell.