Nietzsche's Posthuman Political Vision

Bibliographic Data

ID3969896
AuthorsPaul O’mahoney (0000-0003-3221-5105, Independent Scholar, 4 Newlands Drive, Clondalkin, Dublin 22, Ireland, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume25
Issue1
Pages1-19
Publication date2020-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe European Legacy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1084-8770 • E-ISSN: 1470-1316
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10848770.2019.1653726
OpenAlexW2969630137
LanguageEN
References cited22

In repeated rejections of the reality of free will, agency, self-consciousness and moral accountability, Nietzsche espouses views consistent with “cosmic” determinism. The salient features of determinism all follow from Nietzsche’s own view of organic reality as will-to-power. His position denies also the substance of any ascription of merit or blame, hence any stable ground for the ranking of human ends or types. The crises Nietzsche forecasts, and the demands he makes on humanity, all fundamentally political, arise from this nihilistic stance. It projects the inevitable arrival of an era when Nietzsche’s “deadly truths” are accepted by the great mass of humanity, sketching an essentially posthuman future. The article argues that Nietzsche’s fundamental position is the reality of determinism and rejection of free will and even the coherence of the concept of willing; further, that a Nietzschean age when this is accepted remains to come, and in closing that appreciating these facts permits access to the key conceits of Nietzsche’s philosophy, the will to power, the eternal recurrence and the Übermensch, and to amor fati as his formula for greatness

Aesthetics · Determinism · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Free will · Humanity · Political science · Politics · Posthuman · Sociology · Theology · Will to power · Law · Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Hegel · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics