Nietzschean Freedom

Bibliographic Data

ID23134377
AuthorsPeter Poellner (corresponding author)
Year2009
Pages151-180
Publication date2009-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueNietzsche on freedom and autonomy (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199231560.003.0008
OpenAlexW4234818351
ISBN9780199231560
LanguageNL
Citations received6

This chapter argues that Nietzsche's work contains a compatibilist theory of freedom. There are two distinct but complementary conceptions of freedom in Nietsche's later works: (i) freedom or autonomy as a ‘transcendental’ condition of personhood; and (ii) freedom as a substantive ideal (the ‘free spirit’). With respect to (i), it is argued that, for Nietzsche, formal conditions (such as a unified system of desires) are not sufficient for autonomous personhood, but that a proper account of autonomy requires in addition an explanation of what enables an agent to identify with some of her desires and motives. Such identification requires an agent's understanding of her affectivity as being intentional, and as potentially revealing value features of the phenomenal world. This view is consistent with Nietzsche's rejection of a strong realism about values, i.e., with his view that there are no actual values in the world without valuers. With respect to (ii), it is argued that a central component of Nietzsche's ideal of the free spirit is indifference to the metaphysical will to truth and to the metaphysical status of the practical values guiding one's life.

Autonomy · Compatibilism · Epistemology · Free will · Ideal (ethics) · Incompatibilism · Metaphysics · Personhood · Political science · Principle of sufficient reason · Realism · Transcendental number · Value (mathematics) · Law · Mathematics · Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Hegel · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism

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