To create conditions that enable the lamb to release its power, the lamb invents an alternative criterion of strength - moral strength, virtue, and goodness - that it can use to make its weakness powerful. The will to power is every individual’s drive “for an optimum of favorable conditions in which to fully release power” (76).

The lamb’s reaction to the bird is the result of the lamb’s will to power. In this reaction to the bird, the lamb compensates for its ressentiment at its powerlessness by becoming the stronger moral being despite the fact that it is physically weaker. Furthermore, the lamb declares itself as good because it is nothing like the bird.

The lamb, powerless to stop the bird from preying, labels the bird as evil for preying upon the lamb. One such narrative that is critical in understanding Nietzsche’s account of morality is his metaphor of a powerless lamb that is constantly preyed upon by a powerful bird of prey. In his book On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche attempts to explore the “value of values” (7) by investigating the origins of morality through a number of hypothetical narratives. While Nietzsche’s critique seeks to explore the effect of morality on the individual, Freud’s critique seeks to outline the function of morality in society as a whole. The disagreement between Freud and Nietzsche over the value of morality in human existence is a function of the different motivations that drive their critiques of morality. Freud, however, argues that morality is a necessary aspect of civilization and has enabled humans to peacefully live together. Nietzsche claims that reactive morality is “bad air” to humans and has prevented humanity from flourishing. Although Freud and Nietzsche both claim that morality is a reactive creation, they greatly differ in their accounts of the value of morality. Rather, they contend that morality has been created in reaction to the realities of human existence. Both reject the idea of morality as an instinctive or natural element of human life. Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud offer bold critiques of human morality that greatly differ from the commonly accepted views of virtue and ethics.

Superego train sketch