Nietzsche on Ethics and Politics
Maudemarie Clark
Abstract
This book brings together fourteen chapters by a prominent Nietzsche scholar. Most have been published previously, some in obscure venues; three of them are new. The chapters included here focus on Nietzsche’s views on ethics and politics. Four chapters on metaphysics are also included as background to Nietzsche’s theorizing on ethics and politics, and to show connections between the normative concerns of this book and the metaphysical concerns of previous books. Published together, these chapters not only exhibit important developments in the topics under discussion, but they also fit togethe ... More
This book brings together fourteen chapters by a prominent Nietzsche scholar. Most have been published previously, some in obscure venues; three of them are new. The chapters included here focus on Nietzsche’s views on ethics and politics. Four chapters on metaphysics are also included as background to Nietzsche’s theorizing on ethics and politics, and to show connections between the normative concerns of this book and the metaphysical concerns of previous books. Published together, these chapters not only exhibit important developments in the topics under discussion, but they also fit together in a way that expresses a distinctive voice in the moral-political area of Nietzsche studies. The chapters on politics read Nietzsche as much less ‘conservative’ regarding equality, feminism, homosexuality, and other such social issues than he is generally taken to be. The chapters on ethics read Nietzsche as less comprehensively critical of ‘morality’ than is usually supposed: he is not hostile to the ideals of justice, the common good, and responsibility, for example, but only to the historically current interpretations of these. Yet he does most emphatically reject morality and a major focus of the chapters on ethics is understanding exactly how and why he does so. Nietzsche’s influence on Bernard Williams is explored, and a contrast is drawn between the book's approach to Nietzsche’s critique of morality, and Brian Leiter’s.
Keywords:
Nietzsche,
truth,
metaphysics,
knowledge,
ethics,
politics,
morality,
social issues,
Bernard Williams,
Brian Leiter
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199371846 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199371846.001.0001 |
