The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche by Ken Gemes & John Richardson

Author:Ken Gemes & John Richardson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-05-21T16:00:00+00:00

5 Reductive Subjective Realism

Recall that the problem with simply ascribing an error theory to Nietzsche was that he often does seem to make evaluative judgments. The motivation I gave above for considering forms of subjective realism was the role we supposedly play in the generation of values. The first form of subjective realism we will look at, though, begins by focusing on the first-order evaluative claims Nietzsche seems to make.17

5.1 Will to Power Interpretation

Nietzsche’s own evaluative claims are often made in the context of rejecting other values. Nietzsche took as one of his central tasks something he called a “revaluation of all values.” It is not exactly clear what this involves. But certainly part of what it involves is an assessment of the value of a range of traditional values. Often these are labeled as Christian values but it is relatively clear that the problematic values that play a central role in Christianity do indeed appear in the set of values he critiques. At times Nietzsche just seems to use the term “morality” [“Moral”] to identify his target.18 Nietzsche’s job is to assess Christian values for the purposes, or so it initially seems, of revaluing our values where this might well include demoting, in some sense, Christian values and replacing them with others. This all makes it sound as though there must be some fundamental evaluative standard that Nietzsche is using in order to assess the value of the values, the value judgments, of morality:

[U]‌nder what conditions did man invent the value judgments good and evil? and what value do they themselves have? Have they up to now obstructed or promoted human flourishing [Gedeihen]? Are they a sign of distress, poverty and the degeneration of life? Or, on the contrary, do they reveal the fullness, strength and will of life, its courage, its confidence, its future? (GM Preface 3)

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.