Nietzsche: Meta-Ethics

“Another Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality?” one might be excused for asking at the sight of Simon May’s new collection. This volume has to contend for shelf space with homonymic monographs by Lawrence Hatab (2008) and David Owen (2007), as well as Daniel Conway’s (2008) Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals, a compilation of the same name edited by Christa Acampora (2006), and Brian Leiter’s Nietzsche on Morality (2002). Add to this that Hatab contributes to May’s collection, Owen and (...) Conway contribute to Acampora’s, and Christine Swanton contributes to both, and the question of redundancy becomes even more pressing. Is Nietzsche’s Genealogy – whether of morality or morals – sufficiently rich, difficult, and interesting to merit such a hubbub of scholarly voices, and, if it is, does the attention paid in May’s new volume significantly advance our understanding of it? The answer to both questions is an unequivocal “Yes.”. (shrink)

Is suffering really bad? The late Derek Parfit argued that we all have reasons to want to avoid future agony and that suffering is in itself bad both for the one who suffers and impersonally. Nietzsche denied that suffering was intrinsically bad and that its value could even be impersonal. This paper has two aims. It argues against what I call ‘Realism about the Value of Suffering’ by drawing from a broadly Nietzschean debunking of our evaluative attitudes, showing that a (...) recently influential response to the debunking challenge (the appeal to phenomenal introspection) fails. It also argues that a Nietzschean approach is well suited to support the challenge and is bolstered by the empirical literature. As strangers to ourselves, we cannot know whether suffering is really intrinsically bad for us. (shrink)

Far from being indiscriminately critical of the ideas he associated with the morality system, Bernard Williams offered vindicatory explanations of its crucial building blocks, such as the moral/non-moral distinction, the idea of obligation, the voluntary/involuntary distinction, and the practice of blame. The rationale for these concessive moves, I argue, is that understanding what these ideas do for us when they are not in the service of the system is just as important to leading us out of the system as the (...) critique of that system. I then show how regarding the aspiration to shelter life from luck as the system’s organizing ambition explains why the system elaborates and combines these building blocks in the way it does. Finally, I argue that the ultimate problem with the resulting construction is its frictionless purity. It robs valuable concepts of their grip on the world we live in, and, by insisting on purity from contingency, threatens to issue in nihilism about value and scepticism about agency. (shrink)

A review of the following for books, plus some reflections on Nietzsche's moral psychology and ethics: Alfano: Nietzsche’s Moral Psychology (Cambridge University Press 2019). Leiter: Moral Psychology with Nietzsche (Oxford University Press 2019) Ridley: The Deed is Everything: Nietzsche on Will and Action (Oxford University Press 2018) Stern: Nietzsche’s Ethics (Cambridge University Press 2020) These four books are broadly on Nietzsche’s moral psychology and ethics. The books differ widely in their aspirations: Ridley’s is focused solely on Nietzsche’s notion of action, (...) whereas Leiter’s is more synoptic. And they also differ widely in their conclusions: Leiter presents Nietzsche as a nearly infallible figure who has not only solved longstanding philosophical problems but has even managed to anticipate recent results in empirical psychology. Stern, on the other hand, presents Nietzsche as a rather amateurish philosopher, who picks up dribs and drabs from his cultural context and amalgamates them into interesting and provocative, but indefensible, positions. Between these extremes, we have readers like Ridley and Alfano, who are not averse to pointing out lacunae in Nietzsche’s arguments but who nonetheless see him as deeply insightful. Although each of these books is worth reading, I will argue that they have various degrees of success. Alfano’s book is, to my mind, the most successful at achieving its stated aims; while I point out some potential oversights and some areas that could benefit from further development, Alfano’s book is both novel and important. Leiter’s book is clearly written and presents the arguments in an admirably forthright manner, but some of its conclusions are vitiated by lapses and mischaracterizations. Stern gets Nietzsche’s basic view right, but does not probe it very deeply and is too quick to present Nietzsche as confused; I see the confusions as emanating less from Nietzsche’s texts and more from Stern’s reading of them. Ridley’s book is original and provocative, but I find the central claim—that Nietzsche endorses an expressive account of action—ultimately unconvincing. Nonetheless, even the books I regard as flawed are valuable, for reasons I will point out along the way. (shrink)

Moral Psychology with Nietzsche, by Brian Leiter. Oxford: OUP, 2019. Pp. x + 198.

The title of the book was chosen due to inspiration from Nietzsche’s famous book ‘Beyond good and Evil’, which has marked an unprecedented turning point in the history of philosophy. Hence, the book titled ‘Beyond Civilization and History’ is intended to outline the politico-historical debate, since the dawn of the 20th century. The discussion in the book will cover pre-modern, modern and post-modern discourse of the history of civilizations. The debate mainly focuses on the modernist and post-modernist historical context especially (...) surrounding the writings of Oswald Spengler, Norman Angell, Arnold J. Toynbee, and Alexander Dugin. (shrink)

This Element explains Nietzsche's ethics in his late works, from 1886 onwards. The first three sections explain the basics of his ethical theory – its context and presuppositions, its scope and its central tension. The next three sections explore Nietzsche's goals in writing a history of Christian morality, the content of that history, and whether he achieves his goals. The last two sections take a broader look, respectively, at Nietzsche's wider philosophy in light of his ethics and at the prospects (...) for a Nietzschean ethics after Nietzsche. (shrink)

An overview of Nietzsche's philosophy of action.

This paper argues that besides the critical and historically informed genealogies of his later work, Nietzsche also sketched genealogies that are not historically situated and that display an under-appreciated affirmative aspect. The paper begins by looking at two early examples of such genealogies where datable historical origins are clearly not at issue, which raises the question of what kind of origins Nietzsche is after. It is argued that these genealogies inquire into practical origins—into the original point of certain conceptual practices (...) given certain needs, and that this reflects Nietzsche’s instrumentalism about concepts. It is then argued that this focus lends the genealogies an affirmative dimension, because they present their object as naturalistically intelligible and practically indispensable. Finally, it is shown how the nature and limits of this affirmative dimension can be tentatively sharpened by connecting it to Nietzsche’s later notion of the economic justification of morality. (shrink)

This paper argues that Nietzsche is a critic of just the kind of genealogical debunking he is popularly associated with. We begin by showing that interpretations of Nietzsche which see him as engaging in genealogical debunking turn him into an advocate of nihilism, for on his own premises, any truthful genealogical inquiry into our values is going to uncover what most of his contemporaries deem objectionable origins and thus license global genealogical debunking. To escape nihilism and make room for naturalism (...) without indiscriminate subversion, we then argue, Nietzsche targets the way of thinking about values that permits genealogical debunking: far from trying to subvert values simply by uncovering their origins, Nietzsche is actively criticising genealogical debunking thus understood. Finally, we draw out the consequences of our reading for Nietzsche’s positive vision. (shrink)

This chapter looks at Nietzsche's notion of the affirmation of life. It begins with the origins of the concept in Schopenhauer and in the Schopenhauerian philosophy known to Nietzsche. It then examines affirmation in three phases of Nietzsche's writing: early, middle and late. It relates affirmation to other key Nietzschean concepts like the Apollonian and the Dionysian, eternal recurrence, amor fati and will to power.

I argue that the rarely discussed Antichrist can serve as perhaps the best guide to Nietzsche’s mature ethical theory. Commentators often argue or assume that while Nietzsche makes many critical points about traditional morality, he cannot be offering a positive ethical theory of his own. This, I argue, is a mistake. The Antichrist offers a substantive ethical theory. It explicitly articulates Nietzsche’s positive ethical principles, shows why these principles are justified, and uses them to condemn traditional Christian morality. The chapter (...) reviews and explains Nietzsche’s ethical theory. It also considers why commentators so often assume that Nietzsche cannot have an ethical theory: I argue that commentators tend to be driven by the assumption that all ethical theories embrace seven commitments. These commitments are, I suggest, definitive of Enlightenment ethical theory, but not of ethical theory as such; Nietzsche’s rejection of them in no way precludes his having a positive ethical theory of his own. (shrink)

Review of Tsarnia Doyle, Nietzsche's Metaphysics of the Will to Power: The Possibility of Value.

Thomas Hurka has argued that Nietzsche’s positive ethical views can be formulated as a version of perfectionism that posits an objective conception of the good as the maximization of power and assigns to all agents the same goal of maximizing the perfection of the best. I show that Hurka’s case for both parts of this interpretation fails on textual grounds and that the kind of theory he proposes is in conflict with Nietzsche’s general approach to morality. The alternative reading for (...) which I argue defends a form of perfectionism as the value perspective of a ‘noble type’ that may emerge in the wake of a revaluation of all values. The basis of this perfectionism is an individual’s projection of an ideal of life to which she ascribes intrinsic value and in terms of which the value of other things is assessed. Justifying this reading requires drawing a distinction between life-denying ideals – forms of the ‘ascetic ideal’ – and life-affirming ‘counterideals’. It also requires recognizing that the perfection of the noble type is expressed in an individual ideal that cannot be shared with others, as opposed to a common ideal of human perfection. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed a flurry of interest in Nietzsche's metaethics — his views, if any, on metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and psychological issues about normativity and normative language and judgment. Various authors have highlighted a tension between Nietzsche's metaethical views about value and his ardent endorsement of a particular evaluative perspective: Although Nietzsche makes apparently "antirealist" claims to the effect that there are no evaluative facts, he vehemently engages in evaluative discourse and enjoins the "free spirits" to create values. Nearly (...) every major type of metaethical "-ism" has been ascribed to Nietzsche in response. This chapter provides a critical introduction to Nietzsche's metaethics, focusing on matters concerning the nature and grounds of normativity. I begin by examining and raising challenges for Nadeem Hussain's prominent interpretation of Nietzsche as a revolutionary fictionalist. I argue that a constructivist interpretation (developed elsewhere) provides an improved account of the connections, for Nietzsche, between evaluative attitudes and the nature of value, and among practical nihilism, art, and value creation. Values, on this view, are treated as grounded purely in facts about creatures’ evaluative attitudes. The chapter concludes by considering several alternative subjectivist, constitutivist, and non-cognitivist interpretations. A nuanced understanding of the space of metaethical theories brings into relief a plausible normative and metanormative view that we can attribute to Nietzsche. (shrink)

Nietzsche and Hume agree that desire drives all human action and practical reasoning. This shared view helps them appreciate continuities between human and animal motivation and sets them against a long tradition of rationalist rivals including Kant and Plato. In responding to Kant, Nietzsche further developed the Humean views that Kant himself was responding to. Kantians like Christine Korsgaard argue that reflective endorsement and rejection of options presented by desire demonstrates reason’s ability to independently drive reasoning and action. In Daybreak (...) 109, Nietzsche provides a simpler Humean explanation: reflective endorsement and rejection involve reflecting on one desire from the viewpoint of another, with desire as the only motivational force. This explains the attentional and hedonic phenomenology of reflective endorsement without ascribing any motivational force to rational processes independent of desire. (shrink)

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to claim Nietzsche’s place within the philosophical tradition of projectivism. Indeed, as will be shown, although Nietzsche is almost unanimously ignored by scholars working on projectivism, during the whole development of his philosophical thought, he holds a position which can be reasonably defined as “projectivist”. -/- Resumo: Este artigo tem por objetivo reivindicar o lugar da filosofia nietzschiana na tradição filosófica do projetivismo. Com efeito, como mostrarei, mesmo se Nietzsche é quase unanimemente ignorado (...) nas obras dos especialistas nessa tradição, ele mantém, ao longo de seu desenvolvimento filosófico, uma posição que se pode com razão definir como “projetivista”. (shrink)

Nietzsche often writes in praise of self-overcoming. He tells us that his humanity consists in “constant self-overcoming” 1 and that if someone wanted to give a name to his lifelong self-discipline against “Wagnerianism,” Schopenhauer, and “the whole modern ‘humaneness,’” then one might call it self-overcoming. He says that his writings “speak only” of his overcomings, later claiming that “the development of states that are increasingly high, rare, distant, tautly drawn and comprehensive … are dependent on the constant ‘self-overcoming of man’”,2 (...) and that “the most spiritual people, being the strongest, find their happiness where other... (shrink)

While Nietzsche's rejection of metaphysical free will and moral desert has been widely recognised, the sense in which Nietzsche continues to use the term freedom affirmatively remains largely unnoticed. The aim of this article is to show that freedom and agency are among Nietzsche’s central concerns, that his much-discussed interest in power in fact originates in a first-person account of freedom, and that his understanding of the phenomenology of freedom informs his theory of agency. He develops a non-reductive drive-psychological motivational (...) theory: reflective judgement and reasons can motivate by means of affective orientations agents have due to their drives. In particular, due to a standing desire or 'instinct for freedom' agents can generate, in mental simulations, the necessary motivational affects to unify their drives in view of certain long-term goals. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Much has been made of the apparent tensions in Nietzsche's ethical and metaethical views. In this essay I examine a kind of value standard available to Nietzsche that is present in his work. I offer an interpretation of honesty as both a Nietzschean virtue and a means of ethical assessment. Despite Nietzsche's well-known criticisms of truth, he upholds honesty as the only remaining virtue of his free spirits. Honesty has been treated in the literature primarily in the contexts of (...) truth or life affirmation, but I argue that we should instead recognize honesty as a virtue within the context of valuing. I defend honesty as a distinct kind of truthfulness and sincerity involving what I call confrontation. The seeds of Nietzsche's mature view are first evident in his work on tragedy, then developed further in Zarathustra, ultimately revealing a constraint on valuing that is essential to Nietzsche's broader normative projects. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s discussions of nihilism are meant to bring into view an intriguing pathology of modern culture: that it is unable to sustain "higher values". This paper attempts to make sense of the nature and import of higher values. Higher values are a subset of final values. They are distinguished by their demandingness, susceptibility toward creating tragic conflicts, recruitment of a characteristic set of powerful emotions, perceived import, exclusionary nature, and their tendency to instantiate a community. The paper considers Nietzsche’s arguments (...) for the claim that we are committed to instituting some set of higher values. The cost of not doing so is vitiating our deepest aim and precluding a central form of happiness. (shrink)

The author gives an account of how a set of themes that we nowadays call metaethics contributes to shaping Nietzsche’s approach to morality. Initially, moral judgement, or value judgement, in order to be acceptable for the philosopher, should be similar to a judgement made in the field of natural sciences. The impossibility of moral judgement to satisfy such a requirement precipitates the loss of morality, at least in Nietzsche’s “first way” (in Human too Human). The position thus joined comes with (...) a great disadvantage: it removes action. Faced with such a disadvantage, Nietzsche is forced to change his way of understanding the nature of moral judgement. At this point, in his “second way”, he embarks in experiments engaging a completely different approach to moral judgement. It is as such that he becomes almost a “metaethician”, while ultimately leaving the status of moral judgement in indecision. (shrink)

Nietzsche takes moral judgments to be false beliefs, and encourages us to pursue subjective nonmoral value arising from our passions. His view that strong and unified passions make one virtuous is mathematically derivable from this subjectivism and a conceptual analysis of virtue, explaining his evaluations of character and the nature of the Overman.

Nietzsche’s metaethics is a topic which, especially in the last decade, has gained ever increasing attention among Anglo-American Nietzsche-scholars. Conversely, this topic has been almost ignored by continental philosophers. This paper aims to give a general overview of the ongoing discussion, focusing on several problems originating from the attempt to give a coherent and non-contradictory picture of both Nietzsche’s negative and positive metaethical position. Attention will be first directed to Nietzsche’s moral perspectivism (1) and then to his alleged proto-error theory (...) (2). Subsequently, the focus will be on Nietzsche’s moral projectivism and the question of whether this position necessarily requires a non-cognitivist view of moral discourse (3). Finally, the last section will be devoted to a discussion of how to reconcile Nietzsche’s negative metaethics with his positive metaethics (4). (shrink)

This article discusses how a wide range of apparently conflicting metaethical theories have been ascribed to Nietzsche. It reviews the major kinds of contemporary metaethical theories and the initial textual evidence for ascribing some version of each kind to Nietzsche. It then considers the objections to such ascriptions as well as arguments in favor of claims of the relative plausibility of ascribing one metaethical interpretation to Nietzsche over another. The article concludes with a serious consideration of the view that perhaps (...) Nietzsche simply does not have a considered metaethical stance. (shrink)

Near the beginning of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche writes that “psychology is once again the path to the fundamental problems” (BGE 23). This raises a number of questions. What are these “fundamental problems” that psychology helps us to answer? How exactly does psychology bear on philosophy? In this conference paper, I provide a partial answer to these questions by focusing upon the way in which psychology informs Nietzsche’s account of value. I argue that Nietzsche’s ethical theory is based upon (...) the idea that power has a privileged normative status: power is the one value in terms of which all others values are to be assessed. If this is the correct interpretation of Nietzsche’s ethical theory, though, it raises a question: how could power have a privileged status, given that Nietzsche denies that there are any objective facts about what is valuable? I argue that Nietzsche’s account of psychology provides the answer: he grounds power’s privileged status in facts about the nature of human motivation. In particular, Nietzsche’s account of drives entails that human beings are ineluctably committed to valuing power. So Nietzsche’s ethical theory follows from his philosophical psychology. (shrink)

This article examines Nietzsche’s influence on analytic philosophy, focusing on the field of analytic ethics. It presents some key rationales motivating his re-evaluation of values and, in particular, his critique of modern morality. To demonstrate his influence on the work of Charles Taylor, Alasdair Macintyre, and Bernard Williams, the role of Nietzsche’s genealogical method in his re-evaluative project is considered. This is followed by a discussion of Nietzsche’s critique of the value of moral values and its relation to similar objections (...) developed by more recent morality critics. (shrink)

This dissertation seeks to investigate what Nietzsche sees a being the origin of morality. The various systems of morality and ethics that make up specific religious practises and different ideologies are all derived from a similar system of cruelty and seemingly arbitrary ritualizations of behaviours.

Nietzsche never presented a worked-out normative ethical theory and appeared to regard any attempt to do so as woefully misguided. He poured scorn on the main contenders for such a theory in his day, and in ours – Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. Moreover, he repeatedly referred to himself as an 'immoralist' and gave one of his books the title Beyond Good and Evil, thus seeming only to confirm the impression that he was more interested in demolishing, and even abolishing morality (...) altogether than in making any constructive contribution to the subject. While the topic of morality appears as a central and almost obsessive interest in his works – especially in the sequence of books from Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality (1881) to On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) – it generally does so as the target of relentless criticism. Many have concluded, not surprisingly, that Nietzsche, rather than being interested in replacing an existing conception of morality with a better one of his own, was in the business of advising us to abandon morality altogether – to live, in some sense, without morality. (shrink)

Bernard Reginster, in his book The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism, takes up the challenge of figuring out what Nietzsche might mean by nihilism and the revaluation of values. He argues that there is an alternative, normative subjectivist interpretation of Nietzsche's views on nihilism and revaluation that makes as much sense as—indeed, he often clearly leans toward thinking that it makes more sense than—a fictionalist reading of Nietzsche. I argue that his arguments do not succeed. Once we have (...) looked carefully at the details of the positions and the arguments ascribed to Nietzsche, the fictionalist option is the more charitable interpretation of the texts. I focus on the metaethical issues that play a central role for Reginster in his articulation of Nietzsche's nihilism and Nietzsche's strategy for overcoming nihilism. (shrink)

Though Nietzsche traditionally often used to be interpreted as a nihilist, a range of possible metaethical interpretations, including varieties of realism, subjectivism and fictionalism, have emerged in the secondary literature. Recently the possibility that Nietzsche is a non-cognitivist has been broached. If one sees Hume as a central non-cognitivist figure, as recent non-cognitivists such as Simon Blackburn have, then the similarities between Nietzsche and Hume can make this reading seem plausible. This paper assesses the general plausibility of interpreting Nietzsche as (...) a non-cognitivist. Non-cognitivism can mean various things and so some attempt is made to lay out the various kinds of non-cognitivism one might ascribe to Nietzsche. As part of the overall assessment of the plausibility of a non-cognitivist Nietzsche, the paper considers in detail the arguments of Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick on behalf of a non-cognitivist reading. It argues, however, that there is insufficient evidence to justify the interpretation and that the analogy to Hume is unhelpful. (shrink)

Cheryl Chase has argued that “the problem” of intersex is one of “stigma and trauma, not gender,” as those focused on medical management would have it. Despite frequent references to shame in the critical literature, there has been surprisingly little analysis of shame, or of the disgust that provokes it. This paper investigates the function of disgust in the medical management of intersex and seeks to understand the consequences—material and moral—with respect to the shame it provokes.Conventional ethical approaches may not (...) provide quite the right tools to consider this affective dimension of the medical management of intersex, but we find in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality a framework that allows us a profound appreciation of its moral significance (Nietzsche 1887/1998). Understanding doctors' disgust—and the disgust that they promote in parents of those born with atypical anatomies—as a contemporary expression of ressentiment directs us to not focus on the bodies of those born with intersex conditions, which have been the privileged objects of attention both in medical practice and in criticisms of it, but moves us to consider instead the bodies of those whose responses constitute the motivating force for normalizing practices in the first place. (shrink)

In THE GENEALOGY OF MORALITY Nietzsche assess the value of the value judgments of morality from the perspective of human flourishing. His positive descriptions of the “higher men” he hopes for and the negative descriptions of the decadent humans he thinks morality unfortunately supports both point to a particular substantive conception of what such flourishing comes to. The Genealogy, however, presents us with a puzzle: why does Nietzsche’s own evaluative standard not receive a genealogical critique? The answer to this puzzle, (...) I argue, lies in recognizing the centrality of the notion of “life”, and its connection to power, in Nietzsche’s overall account. Leiter has argued that his “Millian Model” provides the most charitable reconstruction of appeals to a privileged evaluative standard of power; this model ascribes an inference from a strong doctrine of the will to power according to which only power can be desired. I propose a “Benthamite Model” that ascribes an inference from the inescapability of a tendency towards power, a tendency that is essential to life. I argue that this model avoids the objections Leiter directs at the Millian Model. (shrink)

The Genealogy takes a historical form. But does the history play an essential role in Nietzsche's critique of modern morality? In this essay, I argue that the answer is yes. The Genealogy employs history in order to show that acceptance of modern morality was causally responsible for producing a dramatic change in our affects, drives, and perceptions. This change led agents to perceive actual increases in power as reductions in power, and actual decreases in power as increases in power. Moreover, (...) it led agents to experience negative emotions when engaging in activities that constitute greater manifestations of power, and positive emotions when engaging in activities that reduce power. For these reasons, modern morality strongly disposes agents to reduce their own power. Given Nietzsche’s argument that power has a privileged normative status, these facts entail that we have a reason to reject modern morality. (shrink)

A significant portion of recent literature on Nietzsche is devoted to his metaethical views, both critical and positive. This article explores one aspect of his positive metaethics. The specific thesis defended is that Nietzsche is, or is plausibly cast as, a reasons internalist. This, very roughly, is the view that what an agent has normative reason to do depends on that agent's motivational repertoire. Section I sketches some of the metaethical terrain most relevant to Nietzsche's organising ethical project, his “revaluation (...) of all values”, and lays out three “design-requirements” that an adequate account of Nietzsche's metaethical views must satisfy. Section II introduces the basic internalist position. Sections III–IV provide textual support for the internalist reading of Nietzsche, with Section V showing how it meets each of the design-requirements. Section VI concludes by showing how the internalist apparatus also illuminates Nietzsche's views about the process of revaluing values. (shrink)

This article argues that Nietzsche's transvaluation project refers not to a mere inversion or negation of a set of values but, instead, to a different conception of what a value is and how it functions. Traditional values function within a standard logical framework and claim legitimacy and bindingness based on exogenous authority with absolute extension. Nietzsche regards this framework as unnecessarily reductive in its attempted exclusion of contradiction and real opposition among competing values and proposes a nonstandard, dialetheic model of (...) valuation. (shrink)

Any interpretation of Nietzsche’s criticisms of morality must show whether or not Nietzsche is entitled both to deny free will and to be concerned with furtheringhuman freedom. Here I will show that Nietzsche is entitled to both claims if his theory of freedom is set in the context of a naturalistic drive-psychology. The drive-psychology allows Nietzsche to develop a modified but recognizable account of freedom as autonomy. I situate this development in Nietzsche’s thought through a close reading of Daybreak (Morgenröte). (...) In conclusion I contrast Nietzsche’s naturalistic account of autonomy with the transcendental account developed by Kant. (shrink)

There is a widespread, popular view—and one I basically endorse—that Nietzsche is, in one sense of the word, a nihilist. As Arthur Danto put it some time ago, according to Nietzsche, “there is nothing in [the world] which might sensibly be supposed to have value.” As interpreters of Nietzsche, though, we cannot simply stop here. Nietzsche's higher men, Übermenschen, “genuine philosophers”, free spirits—the types Nietzsche wants to bring forth from the human, all-too-human herds he sees around him with the fish (...) hooks, as he says, of his books—seem to engage in what looks like valuing. These free spirits are supposed to revalue the old values—revaluing, as is clear from the texts, is not simply to remove the old values from circulation (Nietzsche uses “umwerten” and not “entwerten”)—and they are supposed to create new values. And, of course, Nietzsche himself, free spirit that he is, takes on the task of revaluing all values and seems to assert many a strident evaluation. So we need to say more here. What are Nietzsche and his free spirits up to when they engage in what looks, for all the world, like a practice of valuing? What is the practice of valuing Nietzsche is recommending for his free spirits? I argue for two claims: (i) First, we end up facing an interpretive puzzle when we attempt to explain how Nietzsche's free spirits are supposed to engage in a practice of valuing. (ii) Second, we can solve the interpretive puzzle by taking Nietzsche's free spirits to be engaged in a fictionalist simulacrum of valuing. (shrink)

This volume capitalizes on a growth of interest in Nietzsche's work on morality from two sides -- from scholars of the history of philosophy and from ...

_A Companion to Nietzsche_ provides a comprehensive guide to all the main aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy, profiling the most recent research and trends in scholarship. Brings together an international roster of both rising stars and established scholars, including many of the leading commentators and interpreters of Nietzsche. Showcases the latest trends in Nietzsche scholarship, such as the renewed focus on Nietzsche’s philosophy of time, of nature, and of life. Includes clearly organized sections on Art, Nature, and Individuation; Nietzsche's New Philosophy (...) of the Future; Eternal Recurrence, the Overhuman, and Nihilism; Philosophy of Mind; Philosophy and Genealogy; Ethics; Politics; Aesthetics; Evolution and Life. Features fresh treatments of Nietzsche’s core and enigmatic doctrines. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of Nietzsche's re-evaluation of values that seeks to satisfy two desiderata, both important if Nietzsche's project is to stand a chance of success. The first is that Nietzsche's re-evaluations must be capable of being understood as authoritative by those whose values are subject to re-evaluation. The second is that Nietzsche's project must not falsify the values being re-evaluated, by, for example, misrepresenting intrinsic values as instrumental values. Given this, five possible forms of re-evaluation are distinguished, (...) and, of these, four are argued both to satisfy the specified desiderata and to feature more or less prominently in Nietzsche's later work. The conclusion of the paper is therefore that Nietzsche's project has at least the right general shape to succeed, and that the reasons for this depend upon acknowledging the importance of the desiderata and of the distinctions to which the paper draws attention. (shrink)

Despite its centrality for an understanding of Nietzsche's thought, the term ressentiment does not appear in his writings before Beyond Good and Evil. This article argues that the roots of the idea of ressentiment appear in his middle period writings when he discusses vanity [die Eitelkeit].

Using Alasdair MacIntyre as a foil, I defend what I take to be a viable Nietzschean genealogical account, showing that a proper perspectivism is neither perniciously subjectivist nor absolutist. I begin by arguing against MacIntyre’s assertion that genealogists are committed to the view that rationality requires neutrality and that as there is no neutrality, there is no rationality. I then continue by offering something of a reconstruction of Nietzsche’s view, designed partly to clarify the error pinpointed in MacIntyre’s arguments, but (...) primarily to amplify the Nietzschean solution. This reconstruction involves claiming that Nietzsche is committed to three different senses of “truth:” the “Truth” (with a capital “T”) of correspondence theories, “truth” which is really pragmatic knowledge that helps us survive, and, finally, “truth” that is nothing more that “metaphors and metonyms” which are falsely taken to be useful to survival. (shrink)