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  3. Nietzsche's Ethics
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
December 2019
Print publication year:
2020
Online ISBN:
9781108634113
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108634113
Series:
Elements in Ethics
Subjects:
Philosophy: General Interest, Ethics, Philosophy
Information

Book description

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 (On the Genealogy of 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.

References

Bibliography

Nietzsche’s Works

Abbreviations and Translations

Citations of Nietzsche’s works use the following abbreviations, typically followed by an aphorism number. Translations are from the listed edition, unless otherwise stated.

A =

The Antichrist [Der Antichrist], translated by R. J. Hollingdale. London: Penguin Classics, 1990.

BGE =

Beyond Good and Evil [Jenseits von Gut und Böse], translated by Walter Kaufmann in Basic Writings of Nietzsche. New York: The Modern Library, 2000.

BT =

The Birth of Tragedy [Die Geburt der Tragödie], translated by Ronald Speirs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

CW =

The Case of Wagner [Der Fall Wagner], translated by Walter Kaufmann in The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner, New York: Vintage, 1967.

EH =

Ecce Homo, translated by W. Kaufmann in Basic Writings of Nietzsche. New York: The Modern Library, 2000. References to this work also include an abbreviated section name.

GM =

On the Genealogy of Morality [Zur Genealogie der Moral], translated by Carol Diethe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

GS =

The Gay Science [Die fröhliche Wissenschaft], translated by Josefine Nauckhoff, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

HH =

Human, All Too Human [Menschliches, Allzumenschliches], translated by R. J. Hollingdale, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

KSA =

Kritische Studienausgabe, edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, 15 volumes. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1988. References give volume and fragment number. For example, ‘KSA 13: 11[370]’ refers to the fragment entitled ‘11[370]’ in volume 13.

OTL =

‘On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense’, in The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings, translated by Ronald Speirs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

TI =

Twilight of the Idols [Götzen-Dämmerung], translated by R. J. Hollingdale, London: Penguin Classics, 1990. References to this work include an abbreviated section name.

UM =

Untimely Meditations [Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen], translated by R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. References to this work are followed by the essay number.

Works by Other Authors

Anderson, R. Lanier. 2005. ‘Nietzsche on Truth, Illusion, and Redemption’. European Journal of Philosophy 13 (2): 185–225.
Aschheim, Steven E. 1992. The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany: 1890–1990. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Beiser, Frederick C. 2016. Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860–1900. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bernasconi, Robert. 2010. ‘The Philosophy of Race in the Nineteenth Century’. In The Routledge Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy, edited by Moyar, Dean, 498–521. London: Routledge.
Bernasconi, Robert 2017. ‘Nietzsche as a Philosopher of Racialized Breeding’. In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race, edited by Zack, Naomi, 54–62. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bittner, Rüdiger. 2000. ‘Masters without Substance’. In Nietzsche’s Postmoralism: Essays on Nietzsche’s Prelude to Philosophy’s Future, edited by Schacht, Richard, 34–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brobjer, Thomas H. 2008. Nietzsche’s Philosophical Context: An Intellectual Biography. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Brobjer, Thomas H. 2016. ‘Nietzsche’s Reading and Knowledge of Natural Science: An Overview’. In Nietzsche and Science, edited by Brobjer, Thomas H. and Moore, Gregory, 21–50. New York: Routledge.
Darwin, Charles. 1871. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Vol. 1. 2 vols. New York: Appleton.
Dellinger, Jakob. 2015. ‘“Du Solltest das perspektivische in jeder Werthschätzung begreifen lernen.” Zum Problem des Perspektivischen in der Vorrede zu Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I’. Nietzsche-Studien 44 (1): 340–79.
Emden, Christian J. 2014. Nietzsche’s Naturalism: Philosophy and the Life Sciences in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Forster, Michael N. 2019. ‘Nietzsche on Free Will’. In The New Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, edited by Stern, Tom, 374–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1977. ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History’. In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, 139–64. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Gemes, Ken. 2001. ‘Postmodernism’s Use and Abuse of Nietzsche’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (2): 337–60.
Gemes, Ken 2013. ‘Life’s Perspectives’. In The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, edited by Gemes, Ken and Richardson, John, 553–75. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Geuss, Raymond. 1997. ‘Nietzsche and Morality’. European Journal of Philosophy 5 (1): 1–20.
Geuss, Raymond 1999. ‘Nietzsche and Genealogy’. In Morality, Culture, and History: Essays on German Philosophy, 1–28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Geuss, Raymond 2002. ‘Genealogy as Critique’. European Journal of Philosophy 10 (2): 209–15.
Geuss, Raymond 2019. ‘Nietzsche’s Germans’. In The New Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, edited by Stern, Tom, 397–419. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Golomb, Jacob, and Wistrich, Robert, eds. 2002. Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism? On the Uses and Abuses of a Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Green, Michael Steven. 2002. Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Hartmann, Eduard von. 1869. Philosophie des Unbewussten: Versuch einer Weltanschauung. Berlin: Duncker.
Hatab, Lawrence. 2011. ‘Why Would Master Morality Surrender Its Power?’ In Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality: A Critical Guide, edited by May, Simon, 193–213. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hatab, Lawrence 2019. ‘The Will to Power’. In The New Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, edited by Stern, Tom, 329–50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Higgins, Kathleen, and Magnus, Bernd. 1996. The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Holub, Robert C. 2002. ‘The Elisabeth Legend: The Cleansing of Nietzsche and the Sullying of His Sister’. In Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism?, 215–34. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Holub, Robert C. 2016. Nietzsche’s Jewish Problem: Between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Judaism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Holub, Robert C. 2018. Nietzsche in the Nineteenth Century: Social Questions and Philosophical Interventions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Huenemann, Charlie. 2013. ‘Nietzsche’s Illness’. In The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, edited by Gemes, Ken and Richardson, John, 63–82. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hussain, Nadeem J. Z. 2004. ‘Nietzsche’s Positivism’. European Journal of Philosophy 12 (3): 326–68.
Hussain, Nadeem J. Z. 2011. ‘The Role of Life in the Genealogy’. In Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality: A Critical Guide, edited by May, Simon, 142–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hussain, Nadeem J. Z. 2013. ‘Nietzsche’s Metaethical Stance’. In The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, edited by Gemes, Ken and Richardson, John, 389–412. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Janaway, Christopher. 2007. Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche’s Genealogy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Katsafanas, Paul. 2018. ‘The Antichrist as a Guide to Nietzsche’s Mature Ethical Theory’. In The Nietzschean Mind, edited by Katsafanas, Paul, 83–101. London: Routledge.
Koelb, Clayton, ed. 1990. Nietzsche as Postmodernist: Essays Pro and Contra. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Kohler, Josef. 1885. Das Recht als Kulturerscheinung. Einleitung in die vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft. Würzburg: Stahl.
Lecky, William E. H. 1921. History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne. Vol. 1. 2 vols. New York and London: D. Appleton.
Luchte, James, ed. 2008. Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Before Sunrise. London and New York: Continuum.
Mainländer, Philipp. 1879. Die Philosophie der Erlösung. Berlin: Theodor Hofmann.
Melamed, Yitzhak Y. 2013. ‘Charitable Interpretations and the Political Domestication of Spinoza, or, Benedict in the Land of the Secular Imagination’. In Philosophy and Its History: Aims and Methods in the Study of Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Mogens Laerke, Justin E. Smith, H, and Schliesser, Eric, 258–77. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moore, Gregory. 2002. Nietzsche, Biology and Metaphor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nehamas, Alexander. 1985. Nietzsche: Life as Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
O’Connell, Jeffrey. 2017. ‘Nietzsche’s Rejection of Nineteenth-Century Evolutionary Ethics’. In The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Ethics, edited by Richards, Robert J. and Ruse, Michael, 28–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pippin, Robert B. 1988. ‘Irony and Affirmation in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra’. In Nietzsche’s New Seas, edited by Strong, Tracey and Gillespie, Michael, 45–74. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pippin, Robert B. 2006. ‘Lightning and Flash, Agent and Deed’. In Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals: Critical Essays, edited by Acampora, Christa Davis, 131–45. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Porter, James I. 2013. ‘Nietzsche and the Impossibility of Nihilism’. In Nietzsche, Nihilism and the Philosophy of the Future, edited by Metzger, Jeffrey, 143–57. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Reckermann, Alfons. 2003. Lesarten der Philosophie Nietzsches. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.
Rée, Paul. 2003. ‘The Origin of the Moral Sensations’. In Basic Writings, edited and translated by Small, Robin, 85–168. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Richards, Robert J. 2009. ‘Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection and Its Moral Purpose’. In The Cambridge Companion to the ‘Origin of Species’, edited by Ruse, Michael and Richards, Robert J., 47–66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, Robert J 2013. ‘The German Reception of Darwin’s Theory, 1860-1945’. In The Darwin Encyclopedia, edited by Ruse, Michael, 235–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, Robert J 2017. ‘Evolutionary Ethics: A Theory of Moral Realism’. In The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Ethics, edited by Richards, Robert J. and Ruse, Michael, 143–57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richardson, John. 2013. ‘Life’s Ends’. In The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche, edited by Gemes, Ken and Richardson, John, 127–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rolph, William Henry. 1884. Biologische Probleme zugleich als Versuch zur Entwicklung einer rationellen Ethik. Zweite, stark erweiterte Auflage.Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann.
Roux, Wilhelm. 1881. Der Kampf der Theile im Organismus. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann.
Ruse, Michael. 2017. ‘Darwinian Evolutionary Ethics’. In The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Ethics, edited by Ruse, Michael and Richards, Robert J., 89–100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schank, Gerd. 2000. ‘Rasse’ und ‘Züchtung’ bei Nietzsche. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter.
Scheibenberger, Sarah. 2016. Nietzsche-Kommentar: Ueber Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinne. Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter.
Schopenhauer, Arthur. 2014. The World as Will and Representation, Volume 1. Translated by Janaway, Christopher, Norman, Judith, and Welchman, Alistair. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schopenhauer, Arthur 2018. The World as Will and Representation, Volume 2. Translated by Janaway, Christopher, Norman, Judith, and Welchman, Alistair. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Small, Robin. 2001. Nietzsche in Context. Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Small, Robin 2005. Nietzsche and Rée: A Star Friendship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sommer, Andreas Urs. 2010. ‘Nietzsche mit und gegen Darwin in den Schriften von 1888’. Nietzscheforschung: Jahrbuch der Nietzsche-Gesellschaft 17: 31–44.
Sommer, Andreas Urs. 2012. Nietzsche-Kommentar: Der Fall Wagner; Götzen-Dammerung. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
Sommer, Andreas Urs. 2013. Nietzsche-Kommentar: Der Antichrist; Ecce Homo; Dionysos-Dithyramben; Nietzsche Contra Wagner. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
Sommer, Andreas Urs. 2016. Nietzsche-Kommentar: Jenseits von Gut und Bse. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
Sommer, Andreas Urs. 2019. Nietzsche-Kommentar: Zur Genealogie der Moral. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
Spencer, Herbert. 1879. The Data of Ethics. London and Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate.
Stern, Tom. forthcoming. ‘Against Nietzsche’s Theory of Affirmation’. In Nietzsche on Morality and the Affirmation of Life, edited by Came, Daniel. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stern, Tom 2015. ‘Against Nietzsche’s “Theory” of the Drives’. Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (1): 121–40.
Stern, Tom 2016. ‘“Some Third Thing”: Nietzsche’s Words and the Principle of Charity’. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 47 (2): 287–302.
Stern, Tom 2017. ‘Nietzsche, the Mask, and the Problem of the Actor’. In The Philosophy of Theatre, Drama and Acting, edited by Stern, Tom, 67–87. London: Rowman and Littlefield International.
Stern, Tom 2018. ‘Must We Choose between Real Nietzsche and Good Philosophy? A Streitschrift’. Journal of Nietzsche Studies 49 (2): 227–83.
Stern, Tom 2019a. ‘History, Nature, and the “Genetic Fallacy” in The Antichrist’s Revaluation of Values’. In Nietzsche and The Antichrist: Religion, Politics, and Culture in Late Modernity, edited by Conway, Daniel W., 21–42. London: Bloomsbury.
Stern, Tom 2019b. ‘Nietzsche’s Ethics of Affirmation’. In The New Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche, edited by Stern, Tom, 351–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Volz, Pia Daniela. 1990. Nietzsche im Labyrinth seiner Krankheit: Eine medizinisch-biographische Untersuchung. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
Williams, Bernard. 2002. Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Woodward, Ashley, ed. 2011. Interpreting Nietzsche: Reception and Influence. London and New York: Continuum.

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