Abstract

I propose that the interpretation which I present of Nietzsche's central text, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, enables us to construct an account of his positive contribution to moral philosophy. I maintain herein that Nietzsche advances an aretaic moral program. That is, he is primarily concerned not with promoting right action, but with promoting a virtuous state of character. ;Negatively stated, my thesis represents a challenge to the standard interpretation of Nietzsche as an amoral critic who equates the good life with a voluntaristic legislation of anti-social values. I maintain that Nietzsche's famous debunking of the canonical values of the Western moral tradition is in fact designed to clear the way for a revaluation of our approach to morality as an enterprise. According to Nietzsche, virtually all accounts of moral excellence hitherto have presupposed the deficiency of mankind. The moral enterprise has thus been understood as a systematic campaign to improve mankind by redeeming this original deficiency. In short, Nietzsche's critical position comes down to this: man cannot very well flourish if his pursuit of happiness is predicated on a view of himself as morally deficient. ;Nietzsche therefore recommends a moral program which pre- supposes the sufficiency of mankind: human nature requires no improvement in the traditionally moral sense. I have identified as the exemplar of these virtues of self-sufficiency the notorious Ubermensch; here again my interpretation of Nietzsche runs counter to the standard readings of his philosophy. The Ubermensch as a virtuous type is characterized by his command of a coherent and meaningful agency: because his pursuit of the good life is predicated on a prejudice in favor of his own sufficiency, he flourishes. ;Because of the unique problems of presentation which would attend a moral program based on man's sufficiency, I concentrate my attention on a non-standard philosophic text, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Indeed, I propose that Zarathustra embodies Nietzsche's oblique contribution to moral excellence. That is, after having exposed the practicum absurdum of slave morality, he cannot then reject it on moral grounds without thereby compromising his original commitment to man's sufficiency. He therefore restricts himself to an aesthetic critique of slave morality