Pathos of distance is a motif that is found in Friedrich Nietzsche's later writings. It expresses the feeling of noble superiority and determines a position from which the aristocratic , high-minded person takes the right to "create values" and "coin names of values."
The judgment as to whether something is good does not come from those to whom goodness has been shown, but from the good themselves, the mighty, superior and distinguished. They felt their actions in contrast to the "low-minded" as the first rank, while usefulness was nothing to them. This is - as Nietzsche explains in the Genealogy of Morals - "especially with regard to such a hot outflow of the highest ranking, ranking-differentiating value judgments as foreign and inappropriate as possible."
The "pathos of refinement and distance" as the "permanent and dominant overall and basic feeling of a higher ruling species in relation to a lower species" is the "origin of the opposition between good and bad."
The pathos of distance as a “feeling of difference in rank” deepens the contrast to everything that is perceived as mean, low and rabble. The aristocratic society increased the human type. If a society believes in hierarchies and value differences, it also needs slavery. Without that pathos that arises from the “ingrained distinction of the classes” and the “constant practice in obeying and commanding, holding back and holding back”, that “other more mysterious pathos could not grow at all.” Here, in the Beyond Good and Evil , Nietzsche refers to the inner-soul expansion of distance, to more distant and extensive states and thus to the exaltation of the human typeand its "self-conquest" results. This pathos aims at the revaluation of values, which is ultimately based on the will to power .
