Nietzsche: Virtue Ethics. . . Virtue Politics?

Daigle, Christine, 1967-

The Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Issue 32, Autumn 2006, pp. 1-21
(Article)
Published by Penn State University Press
DOI: 10.1353/nie.2006.0012

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/nie/summary/v032/32.1daigle.html

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Nietzsche: Virtue Ethics . . . Virtue Politics?

CHRISTINE DAIGLE

n this article, I propose to reconstruct Friedrich Nietzsches ethical teachings

and read them as a form of virtue ethics.1 This reading is partly inspired by
Kaufmanns generous rendering of Nietzsches ethics. In his classic study,
Kaufmann supposes that Aristotles philosophy had a great influence on
Nietzsches ethics. He also asserts that Nietzsches criticism of Christianity cannot be rightly appreciated without noting the Aristotelian ethics that inspired it.2
Kaufmanns assertions are grounded in a connection he establishes between the
Aristotelian notion of megalopsychia found in Nicomachean Ethics and the
figure of the bermensch. I will approach this connection in a variety of ways
in the first section of my essay and will show how we must go beyond Kaufmann.
If one chooses to dismiss the connection between Aristotles and Nietzsches
ethics, as I will do, this does not mean that Nietzsches ethics cannot be read as
an instance of virtue ethics. In the second section, I will articulate how it is
possible to interpret the ethical ideas of Nietzsche as forming a type of virtue
ethics that focuses on the character development of the agent. I will define virtue
ethics and show how Nietzsche can be seen as a virtue ethicist. I will explain
how he shares the critical moment found in the revival of virtue ethics mostly
articulated in the twentieth century and also how he shares in the constructive
program found therein.3 In a third section, I will address the problem that awaits
those who want to read Nietzsche generously, as I do, as a virtue ethicist. This
problem arises with respect to his aristocratic politics found in certain texts. It
will then become clear that an articulation of his ethical ideas with respect to his
political ideas is problematic. I will attempt to solve this problem, though my
proposed solution will emphasize a certain part of the corpus while necessarily
overlooking another.

Nietzsche and Aristotle

In an article titled Aristotle and Nietzsche: Megalopsychia and
Uebermensch, Bernd Magnus argues that the Aristotelian reading of Nietzsche,
initiated by Walter Kaufmann, must be dismissed. In the classic Nietzsche:
Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, Kaufmann suggests that Aristotles conception made a tremendous impression on Nietzsche, so much so that his
JOURNAL OF NIETZSCHE STUDIES, Issue 32, 2006
Copyright 2006 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.

CHRISTINE DAIGLE

opposition to Christianity can only be understood in those terms. According to

Kaufmann, Nietzsches debt to Aristotles ethics is considerable. His assertions
stem from a connection he establishes between Aristotles conception of pride in
book 4 of the Nicomachean Ethics, also referred to as greatness of soul, and the
bermensch. Magnus argues that Kaufmanns reading of the proud man and the
bermensch is a superficial reading of both. Magnus continues: Aristotles
ethicseven his conception of pridehas very little to do either with Nietzsches
moral philosophy, or with his conception of Uebermenschen.4 He is inspired by
aphorism 198 of Beyond Good and Evil in which Nietzsche rejects Aristotelian
ethics as an instance of [m]orality as timidity.
Magnuss main point has to do with the Aristotelian concepts of eudaimonia
and phronesis. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle talks about the one good
that is sought by human beings by nature: eudaimonia, that is, happiness.
Happiness is the only overarching good that we seek. The good for the human
is the fulfillment of ones distinctive function, which, according to Aristotle, is
the activity of reason. The concept of eudaimonia specifies that one lives a
flourishing life if one is engaged in the successful development and active
exercise of ones nature, characteristically human capacities across time.5 For
Aristotle, the human capacity in question is rationality in thought and action.
Therefore, the individual lives a flourishing life if one lives a rational life, that
is, a life guided by phronesis, practical wisdom. The phronemos is the person
who possesses this practical wisdom that allows him to determine virtue, which
is understood as the mean between a vice by excess and a vice by default. He
determines virtue in view of the good, happiness, which is ultimately a life of
intellectual activity. Using reason as the foundation for happiness, Aristotle
establishes virtue as the way to ones own flourishing. Essentially, virtues are
those character traits that we need to flourish as human beings. Virtues are
chosen by the phronemos in view of his maturation as a human being, that is,
the development of his distinctive quality, rationality. Because he is practically
wise, he cannot fail in identifying proper virtues in certain situations in relation
to himself. That being said, the practically wise person does not choose virtues
for what they will yield but, rather, for their own sake. Charles M. Young
explains:
Having the correct conception of human flourishing, that of N[icomachean]
E[thics] 1.7, [the virtuous] will see themselves as beings whose essence is the
capacity for the realization of rationality in thought and action. Since acting on the
principles of rational choice constitutes rationality in action, the virtuous will see
their acting on these principles as constitutive of who they are. This is a perspective that is unavailable to the nonvirtuous. They cannot see what they do as the
expression of who they are, for they lack the correct conception of who they are.6

Magnus rightly points out that Aristotles good life could not appeal to Nietzsche
because it is too intertwined with the contemplative or rational activity of the

VIRTUE ETHICS . . . VIRTUE POLITICS?

soul. As another instance of Platonic rationalism, Aristotles view of the moral

life must be rejected by Nietzsche. Indeed, Nietzsche, who rejects this view of
the human as an essentially rational being, would certainly resist such a view of
morality in which an individual moderates his or her own flourishing by using
practical reason to establish the mean in every course of action. The other aspect
that would have been displeasing to Nietzsche is that of eudaimonia. It is not
morality as goal oriented that Nietzsche would reject so much as Aristotles conception of happiness. In Antichrist 2, Nietzsche is clear: What is happiness?
The feeling that power increasesthat a resistance is overcome. Happiness
comes upon the exercise of will to power, when ones own self is the expression
of this will to power. This assertion of power is in no way the same as the contemplative life advocated by Aristotle.7
Lester Hunt agrees that Nietzsches ethics pertains to human flourishing and
character building. He also considers that Nietzsches views have little to do
with Aristotles ethics. Nietzsches claims about virtues present them as lacking
prudence and cleverness, which are two essential ingredients in the Aristotelian
phronemoss virtues. Nonetheless, according to Hunt, Nietzsche holds a pure
ethics of virtue. A pure ethics of virtue, as Trianosky defines it, is a form of virtue
ethics that holds that only judgments about virtue are basic in morality, and that
the rightness of actions is always somehow derivative from the virtuousness of
traits. [. . .] [F]or the pure ethic of virtue the moral goodness of traits is always
both independent of the rightness of actions and in some way originative of it
as well.8 According to Hunt, Nietzsches pure ethics of virtue is one in which
vitalism is the key to goodness. The only intrinsic good for Nietzsche is life; all
the goods that human beings seek are only good to the extent that in some sense
they promote life.9 We will return to this.
I agree with Magnus and think that Kaufmann goes too far when he equates
the two ethics based on a minor similarity between the two represented figures.
As Cameron says in his book Nietzsche and the Problem of Morality, when
Nietzsche talks about Aristotle, it is mostly to his rhetoric and poetics that his
attention is devoted. Nietzsche was familiar with the Nicomachean Ethics and
the Politics but did not generally deal with Aristotle as ethician. Cameron points
out that, generally, Aristotle escapes harsh condemnation from Nietzsche, but
that, in itself, is not enough to make Nietzsche an Aristotelian. In many instances,
Nietzsche presents direct or indirect positive assessments of Aristotles thought.
For example, in Antichrist 7, Nietzsche talks about Christianity as the religion
of pity and, in the process of doing so, declares that Aristotle, as is well known,
saw in pity a morbid and dangerous condition that one did well to get at from
time to time with a purgative: he understood tragedy as a purgative. Nietzsche
would have to appreciate such a stance, one coming from a morality that requires
a toughness of character. However, there are also instances where Aristotle suffers
some blows. As Cameron says, Since Nietzsche regards Aristotles philosophy

CHRISTINE DAIGLE

as anti-Dionysian, and labels his own morality as der Dionysos-Moral, one can
conclude that Nietzsche did not feel a moral kinship with Aristotelian ethics
despite the fact that both emphasize human excellence.10

Nietzsche and Virtue Ethics

Now that I have established that a connection between Aristotle and Nietzsche
is not possible, it remains for me to show how one can read Nietzsche as a virtue
ethicist. I think that his ethical thought is best understood as being akin to virtue
ethics as we find it in its twentieth-century revival. What is twentieth-century
virtue ethics really about? We need to say more than, Virtue ethics focuses on
character rather than rules, and, Virtue ethics talks about virtues instead of
right actions. Of course the aforementioned affirmations are correct but far
from complete. We need more specifications if we are to decide whether
Nietzsches ethics is an instance of virtue ethics.
The definition of virtue ethics presents a theory that focuses on the inner states
of the moral agent rather than on the moral agents performance of certain actions.
Virtue ethics is concerned with determining the virtuousness of actions. It does
so by concentrating not on the actions but, rather, on the character and virtuousness of the agent. Robert Louden suggests that virtue ethics has two complementary aspects: a critical program and a constructive program.11 First, I would
like to examine the critical program. What exactly is the critical program? Virtue
ethicists always criticize, explicitly or implicitly, traditional views of morality.
This is essentially the reason why they present us with an alternative. The traditional moralities under attack are deontological-Kantian and utilitarian-consequentialist ethics. Specifically, the points called into question in traditional
moralities are the following: the overreliance on rule models of moral choice, the
overly rationalistic accounts of moral agency, and the formalism inherent in such
theories. The first point calls attention to the universal rules and principles presented in some theories as the ultimate guides for action. The second point calls
attention to the negation of any active role on the part of emotions and desires in
the moral life. The criticism uttered by virtue ethicists in relation to the second
point says that the people we most admire morally are not simply those who do
their duty and act on the correct principles, but those who do so with the right
kinds of desires and emotions.12 Virtue ethicists can be said to be in favor of a
rehabilitation of emotions and desires, that is, nonrational parts of ourselves. With
respect to formalism, the third point, virtue ethicists note that morality is more
than a mere conceptual analysis of duty concepts and logical arguments. They
want to include other methodological approaches in ethical thinking.
Now I will turn to the second aspect, the constructive program. What exactly
is the constructive program? Having discarded traditional ethics, virtue ethicists

VIRTUE ETHICS . . . VIRTUE POLITICS?

have an alternative to offer.13 Briefly, the constructive program aims to refocus

attention on the moral agent and on a determination of virtues. In doing so, virtue
ethics presents a view of human flourishing. There is a distinction to be made
between those ethics that concentrate on the character of the agent and those
that busy themselves with a determination of virtues. The brand I find more
interesting in terms of ethical potential is the character-based one. Indeed, its
focus on the agent and his or her character allows for the development of an
ethics that has the flourishing of the individual as its strict preoccupation. If a
virtue ethics makes proposals that accommodate the flourishing of individuals,
it is, of necessity, relativistic or broad enough so that various individuals are
allowed to flourish in their own way. That is a tenet of Aristotle, who claims that
virtue is relative both to the agent and to circumstances. However, there is a way
to avoid an extreme relativism that would relegate virtue ethics to the ranks of
those ineffective ethics.
Here I want to consider a suggestion made by Christine McKinnon. She presents a virtue ethics based on a naturalistic approach. She says that virtue theories show us how the putative gap between the descriptive and the normative is
to be closed: by showing what it is naturally good for humans to care about, they
show why a life centered around these cares is a good life for humans.14 She
says that virtue ethics is unique in its proposition of various models, but she also
argues that virtues can be established objectively by considering the nature of
individuals. To support this claim she gives the example of the coyote. For the
coyote, given its nature, possessing a warm coat is an intrinsically good thing,
and the subjective evaluation of the coyote has nothing to do with it.15 Similarly,
for McKinnon, human virtues are good things to possess for humans given the
kind of beings that humans are, independent of any teleological consideration
or preference. What distinguishes the human from a coyote is the fact that virtues
are not innate and one has to choose a virtue in order to possess it. The human
being is not born with virtues but, rather, with the capacity to cultivate them.
McKinnon defines virtues as dispositions to act in certain ways, what she calls
dispositional properties. Accordingly, agents choose virtues as dispositions that
can lead them to a flourishing human life by way of beneficial actions and decisions entailed therein.16
It is to be noted that a virtue ethics that adopts such a naturalistic approach
will still present a variety of possibilities for the flourishing of moral agents
while connecting the flourishing-conducive virtues to their nature. Not any
chosen character trait will qualify as virtue. Virtue ethics that concentrates on
the character of agents is thus a character-building theory. The agent chooses
virtues to build his own character. Given the kind of being an agent is, she will
have an ultimate goal in view (Aristotle considered it was happiness, but it can
be something else) and will build her character in such a way as to bring her
closer to this goal. The process and the attainment of the goal may be coined

CHRISTINE DAIGLE

human flourishing. Virtue ethics is thus an ethics that is primarily concerned

with this flourishing.
Is Nietzsches ethics an instance of virtue ethics in its renewed, nonAristotelian sense? Brian Leiter would say no, as he has argued that Nietzsches
ethics cannot be understood as an instance of virtue ethics.17 He argues that
Nietzsche only shares in the critical program of virtue ethicists. Not only that,
but according to Leiter, Nietzsche goes much further in his rejection of morality than virtue ethicists, in that he rejects not only traditional morality but also
all forms of morality. Contra Leiter I think that there is an ethical program in
Nietzsche even if it reveals itself unsystematically and might be in need of reconstruction. Leiter is right in saying that Nietzsche shares the critical program of
Morality Critics, as he calls them, but is mistaken with respect to Nietzsches
immoralism.
Interestingly, Michael Slote, a contemporary virtue ethicist, has approached
Nietzsche with prudence and questioned the lack of openness to fellow humans
in Nietzsches program as a possible disqualifier. After careful deliberation Slote
concludes that Nietzsche is an ethicist who thinks we should promote the good,
but who has a distinctive and controversial view of what that good is.18 Because
Nietzsche has a good in mind and gives prescriptions on how to achieve that
good, he certainly qualifies as an ethicist. Slote further argues that this type of
ethical thinking would be close to an agent-based virtue ethics that concentrates
its efforts on the development of the character of the agent and not on the performance of specific actions. I agree with Slote that this is the approach one
must take with Nietzsches ethical program. Let us see how this agent-based
virtue ethics is proposed by Nietzsche.

Nietzsches Virtue Ethics

In this section, I will delineate Nietzsches own brand of virtue ethics. It should
be clear that Nietzsche does indeed share the critical program of virtue ethicists.
His attacks against the traditional view of morality and the nihilism he proposes
make clear that, for him, traditional morality is alienating to any human life. In
The Gay Science he says: In the main all those moral systems are distasteful to
me which say: Do not do this! Renounce! Overcome thyself! On the other hand
I am favorable to those moral systems which stimulate me to do something, and
to do it again from morning till evening, to dream of it at night, and think of nothing else but to do it well, as well as is possible for me alone! [. . .] I do not like
any of the negative virtues whose very essence is negation and self-renunciation
(304). Elsewhere, in Twilight of the Idols, he talks about a sin of morality: The
most general formula at the basis of every religion and morality is: Do this and
thisand you will be happy! Otherwise. . . . Every morality, every religion is

VIRTUE ETHICS . . . VIRTUE POLITICS?

this imperativeI call it the great original sin of reason, immortal unreason
(Errors 2). Nietzsches view of traditional morality can be found throughout
his writings; however, I think these quotations are satisfactory for our purpose.
These two clarify the spirit with which Nietzsche approaches morality. The problem with traditional morality is that it does not take into consideration human
nature. It does not look at the individual as he is and aim to embrace what he is
but, rather, aims to impose a model on him that has no ground in the reality of
the human. This model is of a transcendent nature and does not fit the immanent
nature of the human being.
Let us remember the three points under criticism in the critical program of
virtue ethicists: the overreliance on rule models of moral choice, the overly rationalistic accounts of moral agency, and the formalism inherent in such theories.
If we did not know that we are talking about virtue ethicists, we would readily
say that this pertains to Nietzsche. Nietzsche does reject rule models. His ethics
of creativity argues that one must create values for oneself and not rely on any
external (transcendent) rule. Nietzsche also fiercely rejects the rationalistic
account of moral agency. He struggles to rehabilitate the repressed parts of
human nature, claiming that reason is but a very small part of ourselves. He talks
of the human being in terms of a fiction (see D 105). We are wronged in the conception of ourselves: we are led to believe that we are neatly divided between
reason and instinct. But this division is illusory. The human being is a social
structure of many souls (BGE 19). We possess a soul that is a social structure
of the instincts and passions (BGE 12). Nietzsche says further that [i]f we
desired and dared an architecture corresponding to the nature of our soul (we
are too cowardly for it!)our model would have to be the labyrinth! (D 169).
We are indeed very far from the traditional picture of the self and also far from
the superiority of reason that is proposed by traditional philosophical approaches
and moralities in particular. Last, it is also evident that Nietzsche rejects the
formalism inherent in traditional moralities as he would generally reject any
formalism in thought.
Nietzsche does share the critical program of virtue ethicists. The nihilism he
proposes is supposed to remedy the alienating traditional philosophical (and
religious) discourse. But does he stop at the nihilistic moment? Is his program
purely nihilistic, as Leiter suggests? I have argued elsewhere that far from being
purely nihilistic, Nietzsches philosophy is entirely constructive.19 His challenge
consists in rejecting the existing morality to construct anew. The old systems
deficiencies cannot be adjusted by reorganization. One must erase everything and
start from scratch. This is where his attacks on morality come into play. In this
moment Nietzsche announces the death of God and its metaphysical import.
Nietzsche is clear about his self-attributed immoralism: At bottom my expression
immoralist involves two denials. I deny first a type of man who has hitherto
counted as the highest, the good, the benevolent, beneficent; I deny secondly a

CHRISTINE DAIGLE

kind of morality which has come to be accepted and to dominate as morality in

itselfdcadence morality, in more palpable terms Christian morality (EH
Destiny 4). His rejection of morality is thus clearly identified by him as a rejection of traditional morality. He also says of fellow immoralists, they see [their]
honor in affirming (TI Morality 6).20 There is no question of abandoning ethics.
Ethics is needed and will be his preoccupation for the first steps of his reconstruction, for it was a preoccupation before his reconstruction as it lead to the
rejection of the defective ethics. Nihilism is a necessary step toward this reconstruction. As he says in The Gay Science: We deny, and must deny, because something in us wants to live and affirm itself, something which we perhaps do not as
yet know, do not as yet see! (307).
What is it that wants to affirm itself? In Schopenhauer as Educator, Nietzsche
says that We are accountable to ourselves for our own existence; consequently,
we also want to be the real helmsmen of our existence and keep it from
resembling a mindless coincidence (1). The bermensch, in Thus Spoke
Zarathustra, is the figure who is successful in becoming his own master. He is
an Overman, more than a man, a human being that is human and more. Why
more? The bermensch is the individual who has overcome the fragmentation
inherent in tradition. It is the person who has reunited himself, who has decided
to live fully as he is. It is also the person who knows that life is will to power
and that he himself is an instance of this will to power. Accordingly, he wishes
to embody and respect the will to power within himself. In addition to all of this,
he accepts the eternal return hypothesis. He is ready to suppose that the actions
and decisions he makes during his life will return eternally the same. The change
from man to bermensch is tremendous. So much so that we cannot talk about
an elevation from man to bermensch but really of a transfiguration, as
Nietzsche himself refers.21 Even the highest type of human being present in
Nietzsches writings, the strong man, is far below the bermensch. He says:
Your souls are so unfamiliar with what is great that the Superman would be
fearful to you in his goodness! And you wise and enlightened men, you would
flee from the burning sun of wisdom in which the Superman joyfully bathes his
nakedness! You highest men my eyes have encountered! This is my doubt of
you and my secret laughter: I think you would call my Supermana devil!
(Z Manly Prudence).
The bermensch is an ideal type of human being. Every individual should
emulate this figure as an illustration of what one can become if only one were
to engage oneself in the way of creation. When I speak of an ideal type, the
bermensch, I mean that it is a figure toward which one must strive, not to be
confused as a state one can reach. For one thing, it is not clear in Nietzsches
mind whether there will ever be bermenschen. For another thing, I think we
should interpret the figure he presents to us as a dynamic state of being. If the
bermensch accepts life and himself as an instance of the will to power, he will

VIRTUE ETHICS . . . VIRTUE POLITICS?

be in constant becoming. The drive for more power, characteristic of Nietzsches

being, will lead the individual into a continuous flux and constant overcoming
of oneself. This is how one should understand the ber of bermensch. But
even if we are talking about a state of flux, this is a state that one should strive
to acquire while engaging in the process of attainment. According to Nietzsche,
there are certain things that one must do in order to approach this excellence and
in turn become an bermensch. Among these things are the creation of oneself
and the creation of values that is essential in supporting a new ethics.
The human being should be the creator of oneself. She should be her own
master and define her own rules (which is what is truly meant by the famous, or
infamous, Master morality).22 Once the sky of values has been emptied, the
task is to fill it again for oneself. The individual should no longer rely on any
transcendent to provide these values, as the previous experiment of Christianity
and its transcendent morals has proven that its only possible result is alienation.
Human beings must create an ethics for human beings. The individual must
create an ethics that respects ones nature as human and as will to power. This
is expressed in Nietzsches maxim: What Saith thy Conscience?Thou shalt
become what thou art (GS 270). You must flourish! Note that there is nothing
in Nietzsches writings until Beyond Good and Evil that indicates that the way
of the bermensch is bared for certain individuals. He makes clear that this
potentiality exists in every individual. It is only a matter of the individual choosing to actualize his or her own self as will to power.23 Thus the emphasis is placed
on the flourishing of the agent via the adoption of certain virtues in line with
ones own being.
To this, one must add the vitalism of Nietzsches philosophy. This is expressed
most clearly in Antichrist 2 where he says: What is good?All that heightens
the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. What is bad?All
that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness?The feeling that power
increasesthat a resistance is overcome. As Hunt argues, according to Nietzsche,
Life is the only thing that is good in itself, and is the standard by which the value
of everything else is to be measured.24 We could state his fundamental moral
principle in the following manner: Anything that affirms, creates, and augments
life is good. Values chosen by individuals must be chosen with this principle in
mind because, as Hunt puts it, all the goods that human beings seek are only good
to the extent that in some sense they promote life.25 In that, human beings will
only promote themselves and their own being as an instance of life. The individual will be true to him- or herself. Only then can one be said to flourish as a human
being. So we are right to say, along with Hunt, that even if one fundamental rule
can be derived from the will to power, Nietzsches focus is on the development of
character and not on rules.
What about virtues? Hunt suggests that, according to Nietzsche, no list of
the virtues could be complete. [. . .] Each occurrence of a virtue is different in

10

CHRISTINE DAIGLE

kind from all others. There really is no virtue other than the peculiar virtue of
each man (GS 120).26 As Hunt points out, we can find two lists of virtues in
Nietzsche: in Daybreak and Beyond Good and Evil. In these works, Nietzsche
proposes courage, generosity, politeness, honesty, insight, sympathy, and solitude as virtues. However, one senses that more virtues exist, because the lists
are not exhaustive and there is no recipe on how to be virtuous as there is in
traditional moralities that say: acquire these virtues and you will be virtuous. In
Nietzsches mind, virtues are relative to the individual. However, virtues can
conflict with one another. All the virtues that one adopts for oneself in
Nietzsches new ethics are adopted in view of ones own accomplishments, in
view of ones own flourishing. In addition to this, we can see how central the
notion of character is in relation to that of virtue. Virtues are adopted in view of
the development of character. Character is what needs improving. We can determine if it is good when we examine the question as to how it enhances the will
to power. The actions that are then accomplished by the virtuous agent are good
because of the agent being virtuous, and some will be good in themselves as
actions that promote life. This is how vitalism comes to be articulated with the
virtue ethics.
Besides the bermensch and the will to power, the notion of the eternal return
plays a major role in Nietzsches ethical thought. I will begin by saying that I
do not think that we should see the eternal return as an ontological notion.
Nietzsche does not want to say what the world is like; rather, he wants to produce
a thought experiment that could serve as a guide for action.27 It is an ethical
hypothesis. As such, it serves to validate the choice of action. The individual
must ask himself whether the course of action he is about to undertake is something that he would like to see coming back eternally. One must choose as if that
choice is going to recur eternally. Under the perspective of the eternal return, I
cannot choose something that would make me unhappy or that would make me
resentful because this unhappiness and resentment would haunt me in this life
and forever! Further, unhappiness or resentment cannot lead to a flourishing life.
So, ones choice must be made in view of the flourishing life; thus will it be a
good choice, that is, one that we will want to eternally recur.
In the determination of what a good human life is, that toward which every
human must strive, the notions of will to power and eternal return serve as guides
for choice. A choice will be good if it promotes life as will to power. A choice
will also be good if one can will that it eternally recurs. The two considerations
go hand in hand, as one can will that ones choice eternally recur only if it leads
to the flourishing life one pursues, a flourishing life that will come about through
the realization of ourselves as will to power. Nietzsches injunctions and prescriptions (if we can call them that) do not seem to be fit for a perfect world. He
requires of us that we become who we are, but he also demands of us that we
become strong. Our flourishing does not lie in quiet satisfaction but, rather, in

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11

a constant overcoming. His virtue ethics and the requirements it has for human
agents are indeed very demanding.

Nietzsches Virtue Politics?

In Antichrist 2, Nietzsche says that we should seek [n]ot contentment, but more
power; not peace at all, but war; not virtue, but proficiency (virtue in the
Renaissance style, virt, virtue free of moralic acid). This is his plan as he
describes it following his description of his moral principle grounded in vitalism.
It is followed by a statement of Nietzsches own philanthropy: The weak and
ill-constituted shall perish[. . . .] And one shall help them to do so (A 2). What
are the political implications of this?
It seems to me that there is an overwhelming tension in Nietzsches philosophy
between his ethics and his politics. If we have a good rationale for reading
Nietzsche as a virtue ethicist, one who is concerned with the flourishing of all
individuals, how can we make sense of the things he says when he speaks politically?28 Potentially, everyone can engage in the path of self-overcoming. As
every individual is an instance of will to power, it is open to everyone to undertake it as a task to actualize his or her own being. Some will, and some will not.
If they do not, they are then the lower types of human beings. But there is nothing,
from the start and from an anthropological point of view, that would bar the way
of becoming an bermensch.29 Given this, it seems to me that Nietzsche needs
to advocate a political system that would favor the flourishing of all.
This is what a virtue politics would be. It would be a politics that would be
concerned with the flourishing of individuals in a group. A virtue politics would
want to build a social structure in which every individual would have an equal
chance at flourishing. No one would be placed in such a position of oppression
or dire need so that he would be incapable of pursuing his own development. A
virtue politics that looks after the flourishing of all individuals within a group
would advocate an equality of opportunities. This does not necessarily entail
that an equality of results would follow. Again, in the Nietzschean picture, some
individuals will choose to be bermenschen, and others will not. The idea is
that society or the political order should not play a determining role in deciding
whether the individual chooses to be an bermensch or not or even has the
ability to choose. It should be the individuals own decision. What kind of regime
would a virtue politics advocate then? It seems that a democracy or even socialism (a genuine form of socialism and not some mock socialism as we found in
some countries in the twentieth century) would be the best form of government
to maximize an equality of opportunities.
What shall follow? We know how Nietzsche despised those two forms of
political regimes. He loathed democracy and ridiculed socialism. He says, [T]o

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CHRISTINE DAIGLE

us the democratic movement is not only a form of the decay of political organization but a form of the decay, namely the diminution, of man, making him
mediocre and lowering his value, and further:
The over-all degeneration of man down to what today appears to the socialist
dolts and flatheads as their man of the futureas their idealthis degeneration and diminution of man into the perfect herd animal (or, as they say, to the
man of the free society), this animalization of man into the dwarf animal of
equal rights and claims, is possible there is no doubt of it. Anyone who has once
thought through this possibility to the end knows one kind of nausea that other
men dont knowbut perhaps also a new task! (BGE 203)30

This is where the tension lies in Nietzsche.31 When he gets political, it is not
clear at all that he is a virtue politician. In many texts, he seems to adopt an
aristocratic, if not Platonic, stance that is concerned with the flourishing of only
a select group of individuals.32 In many places, he seems to be advocating a
politics of oppression that does not cohere with the virtue ethics I delineate. In
Beyond Good and Evil he says very clearly that [e]very enhancement of the
type man has so far been the work of an aristocratic societyand it will be so
again and againa society that believes in the long ladder of an order of rank
and differences in value between man and man, and that needs slavery in some
sense or other (257). Again in the same book he says:
Even the body within which individuals treat each other as equals, as suggested
beforeand this happens in every healthy aristocracyif it is a living and not a
dying body, has to do to other bodies what the individuals within it refrain from
doing to each other: it will have to be an incarnate will to power, it will strive to
grow, spread, seize, become predominantnot from any morality or immorality
but because it is living and because life simply is will to power. [. . .] Exploitation
does not belong to a corrupt or imperfect and primitive society: it belongs to the
essence of what lives, as a basic organic function; it is a consequence of the will
to power, which is after all the will to life. (BGE 259)

Now, unless one thinks that weaker human beings will flourish on their own
terms under the wise guidance and gentle oppression of bermenschen, it seems
impossible to reconcile the aristocratic politics with a virtue ethics concerned
with flourishing.
When providing a rationale for every individuals valuation of the freedom
of others, Simone de Beauvoir says that we need to actively promote the
liberation of other individuals so that they can do the same for us reciprocally.33
Her ideal society is one in which everyone is engaged in the liberation from
oppression, that is, engaged in making everyone else free from in order that
they be free to (be authentic, exert their freedom, make their own choices,
actualize their own project). If the goal is for everyone to flourish as authentic
free beings, one needs the collaboration of all in a society that advocates an
equality of opportunities. Beauvoirs ideal society would be a socialist society.

VIRTUE ETHICS . . . VIRTUE POLITICS?

13

In the context of explaining how every individual must work for the liberation
of the other, she criticizes Nietzsches view in the following fashion.34 She says
that a philosophy of will to power where every individual tries to exert her own
will to power would see only clashes and conflicts between individuals. No
collaboration is to be expected if indeed the exertion of will to power is to be
understood as the exertion of pure force. However, we know that will to power
is not about exerting brute force. Nietzsche would even consider that as an
instance of decadence or declining will to power.35 Surprisingly, and probably
to the dislike of Beauvoir, one can use the same argument that Beauvoir works
out to support a virtue politics in Nietzsche. Because every individual is an
instance of will to power and seeks to flourish as an instance of that, everyone
should collaborate in creating the best conditions for everyones ability to
flourish. In Beauvoirs pattern, human flourishing as a free authentic individual
is pursued, whereas in Nietzsche, it is the flourishing of an authentic individual
as an expression of will to power that is to be pursued.36
But again, it is difficult to articulate this with the bulk of Nietzsches texts,
which favor an aristocratic form of politics. One is tempted to ask the following question: Is it, then, that Nietzsche is serious when he talks of eugenics and
eliminating the weaker individuals? Does he really mean it when he says that
the weak ones and the ill-constituted should perish and that we should help
them?37 He calls this his own brand of philanthropy. Are we dwelling in
metaphor, or are these concrete statements for a politics of the future? In a sense,
a scary one, eliminating the weak ones erases the tension aforementioned. If all
you have in your society is strong individuals, then you can have a nonoppressive
politics that favors the flourishing of all and that would cohere with virtue ethics.
However, in other passages, Nietzsche describes a society where you need
weaker individuals to take care of business while bermenschen take care of
their own flourishing. For example, in Beyond Good and Evil he says:
The essential characteristic of a good and healthy aristocracy, however, is that it
experiences itself not as a function (whether of the monarchy or the commonwealth) but as their meaning and highest justificationthat it therefore accepts
with a good conscience the sacrifice of untold human beings who, for its sake,
must be reduced and lowered to incomplete human beings, to slaves, to instruments. (258)38

Could it be, then, that Nietzsche has a different kind of virtue politics in mind
than the one I earlier defined?
I said that virtue politics is concerned with the flourishing of individuals
within a group. Could we have another kind of virtue politics that would be concerned with the flourishing of individuals as a group? In this case, it seems that
a society that has oppression as one of the conditions for the flourishing of
stronger individuals would be acceptable if it were to lead to the flourishing of

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CHRISTINE DAIGLE

the group. Individual flourishing would not matter; rather, it would be the flourishing of the whole that would be of primary focus. In a way, one can say that
the ancient Greek society was organized in such a way that the oppression of a
large portion of inhabitants of the city-state was a condition for the well-being
of that state. It has been stressed that ancient Greek democracy was able to
flourish as it did only because of the large number of slaves it relied on to take
care of the menial tasks while the higher individuals were involved in higher
tasks. Although Nietzsche certainly admired some features of the ancient Greek
city-states, it is difficult to imagine him in agreement with this given what he
has said of the bermensch.
One of the ancient Greek political models Nietzsche could relate to would be
that of Plato. In The Republic, Plato talks about an ideal city-state that would be
organized in three classes: the guardians, the warriors, and the artisans and
farmers. Plato explains that the children of the warriors will undergo a very strict
educational program where their capacities will be tested so that only the best
of them will complete the program and become guardians. In a way, there is
some equality of opportunities for the children of the warrior class. All of them
have an opportunity to become guardians. However, this opportunity still
depends on the existence of the lower strata of the pyramid, the artisans and
farmers. Consequentially, we still do not have a system that favors the flourishing
of all; rather, we find ourselves with a system that favors the flourishing of a
select group of individuals.
Again, from an anthropological point of view, there is nothing in Nietzsches
position that justifies advocating a system that would favor the flourishing of
only a group of individuals. In my opinion, it is impossible to talk about a virtue
politics in the second sense, that is, a virtue politics that would promote the
flourishing of individuals as a group, because it would imply that some individualsflourishing would de discarded in favor of that of others. What is needed,
then, is a virtue ethics that favors the flourishing of every individual, and that is
possible only if you adopt as a political system the very systems that Nietzsche
criticizes and rejects. How are we then to find our way out?
Could it be that in political matters as well as in moral matters we need a
reevaluation of values? In morality, one of the tasks that Nietzsche takes on is
to criticize and reject existing values. He also criticizes and rejects morality. All
morality? No, as we saw earlier, only a certain kind of morality is rejected, that
is, morality that is detrimental to the human. So Nietzsche reevaluates morality
in order to present it in a new form. The idea of a morality, then, is not thrown
overboard, but only a certain particular conception is done away with. Could it
be the same with democracy? What if Nietzsche really is criticizing and rejecting
a certain particular form of democracy? What if he wants to get to a political
regime that would favor the flourishing of all (who would choose to flourish,
i.e., an equality of opportunities)? His best choice is a democratic form of

VIRTUE ETHICS . . . VIRTUE POLITICS?

15

government. But democracy as he saw it in his days leads to mediocrity.

Democracy breeds the mediocre individual and favors the cultivation of
Christian virtues, virtues for the weak. But does it need to be that way? Nietzsche
thinks that there is an adequation between the two, democracy and Christianity.
But we can conceive of a transfigured democracy at least as much as we can
conceive of a transvaluation of values in the realm of morality. A democracy
that would adhere to the new morality that Nietzsche advocates would not end
up breeding a weaker kind of individual. Instead, it would be the kind of regime
that embodies the virtue politics we need in order to cohere with Nietzschean
virtue ethics. To my opinion, this is the only way we can equate the political
Nietzsche and the ethical Nietzsche.

Conclusion
I have made clear in the last section that it is very difficult to articulate the ethical
views and the political views of Nietzsche. Reading him as an aristocrat, as many
do and as some texts allow, excludes the virtue ethics approach that I have
delineated: one that seeks to favor the flourishing of all individuals as instances
of will to power. Indeed, one can interpret Nietzsches ethics as being perfectionistic and akin to virtue ethics without universalizing it. In this context, an
aristocratic politics that caters to higher individuals flourishing is fine.
However, this is not the line of interpretation I have adopted. Given that I
consider Nietzsches virtue ethics to be universalizable, the aristocratic politic
comes as a clash. An easy way out would be to say that there is no real political
program in Nietzsche. Indeed, one often gets the impression that Nietzsches
individual, the ethical individual, is a loner. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a good
example of said perception. Zarathustra talks to people, he does not talk with
them. We do not have a Thus Conversed Zarathustra but, rather, a Thus Spoke
Zarathustra. Zarathustra is a loner. Nietzsche includes the virtue of solitude in
his listanother biographeme?39 If one is alone and attends to ones own flourishing, then virtue ethics is fine. But no man is an island. We do live together
and need an ethics and a politics that will allow us to live together successfully.
What, then, would a society of bermenschen be like? What is the virtue politics
that we need in order to cohere with the seemingly desirable virtue ethics
program? I think a revalued democracy is the virtue politics that we need, that
is, a democracy that no longer levels down but, rather, seeks to bring the
individuals higher, a democracy that favors the flourishing of all.40
Brock University

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CHRISTINE DAIGLE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank Leah Bradshaw for her close reading of a previous draft of this article and for her insightful comments. Thanks are also due to Martine Bland, who
also commented on some of my ideas on Nietzsches politics with a most welcome
severity. Brian Lightbody contributed to the polishing of the latter sections of this
article with the comments he made on one of my presentations that addressed the
connection between the ethics and the politics in Nietzsches thought.

NOTES
1. Thomas H. Brobjer presents an interesting article in which he discusses Nietzsches
ethics of virtue. Though I agree with most of what Brobjer says, my approach is very different
than his. He focuses on other elements of Nietzsches affirmative morality than I do here. One
point that struck me as inaccurate is the one he makes at the outset (and reiterates toward the
end): This kinship of Nietzsches affirmative ethics with ethics of virtue has not been realized
(2003, 64). As will become apparent in a later section of my article, this kinship has been both
realized and debated by people like Christine Swanton, Lester H. Hunt, Michael Slote, and
myself.
2. See Kaufmann 1968. Cf. Magnus 1980, 262.
3. Twentieth-century virtue ethicists articulate their views on a critique of the ethical tradition
they inherited. They oppose this tradition (the critical moment of their program) and then propose
a constructive ethical program in its stead (the constructive program). This will be explained in
more detail below.
4. Magnus 1980, 262.
5. Young 1980, 138.
6. Young 1980, 15051.
7. In her Outline of a Nietzschean Virtue Ethics (1998), Christine Swanton argues that any
virtue ethics needs to address at least two basic issues that she identifies as (1) the question of
what it is that makes an action right and (2) the question of what it is that makes a character trait
a virtue. Her whole article is a defense of the argument that Nietzsche addresses both issues,
although perhaps he does so in a disturbing way. What I want to note particularly is the
interesting suggestion Swanton makes to explain the difference in tone between Nietzsches
brand of virtue ethics and Aristotles own version. Aristotle talks about eudaimonia as being the
happiness one reaches through the exercise of virtues. But Swanton indicates, Though in utopia
eudaimonism would be our virtue ethics, in actual bad worlds we need our virtue ethics to be
driven by another value: the escape from mediocrity (1998, 33). Because we live in an
imperfect, corrupt world, we need a specific virtue ethics, one that will promote values that a
virtue ethics in a perfect world would not necessarily promote. Aristotles ethics would thus be
best suited for a perfect world, whereas Nietzsches ethics would be a better fit for this imperfect
world. However in both cases, virtue ethics deals with human flourishingflourishing of a
different kind.
8. Trianosky 1990, 336.
9. Hunt 1991, 112. This book is very interesting. I agree with much of what Hunt has to say
therein. However, his approach is different than mine. Hunt focuses on the virtues, whereas I focus
on the development of character and the notion of flourishing. Nonetheless, his analysis of virtues
and vitalism is illuminating.
10. Cameron 2002, 154. See especially Nietzsche pro or contra Aristotelian Morals?
(Cameron 2002, 14658) for a detailed examination of the connection between the two thinkers.
Camerons position opposes mine on the presentation of Nietzsche as a virtue ethicist. He says:

VIRTUE ETHICS . . . VIRTUE POLITICS?

17

Clearly, then, Nietzsche does not belong to the classical Greek tradition of virtue ethics with
its emphasis on reason and moderation. Instead, his critique of the aretaic tradition is meant to
stand virtue ethics on its head, rather than to show that he and Aristotle are of one mind.
Nevertheless, if virtue ethics is defined exclusively as pertaining to human excellence or personal
distinction, then one may be inclined to situate Nietzsche within this tradition, while still
acknowledging certain differences among its contributors. But this is not my position. (2002,
15758)
Cameron wants to talk about a Nietzschean ethics of human flourishing that would not be a
virtue ethics.
11. Louden 1998.
12. Louden 1998, 493.
13. An interesting approach to the said constructive program is taken by Justin Oakley in
Varieties of Virtue Ethics (1996). Although I will not follow Oakleys detailed definition in this
essay, I think his views are worth presenting here. Oakley identifies six claims that are common
to all forms of virtue ethics. The first says [a]n action is right if and only if it is what an agent
with a virtuous character would do in the circumstances (Oakley 1996, 129). Character is
primary in the determination of the rightness or wrongness of an action. One could object that we
are dealing with circular reasoning here: an action is right because it is chosen by a virtuous agent,
and a virtuous agent is the one who performs right actions. But virtue theories generally derive
virtuous character traits from notions of what is admirable in an agent or what contributes to
flourishing and thus escape the charge of circular reasoning. The second claim simply states that
we must first determine what the good is, i.e., human good, in order to determine the rightness or
wrongness of actions in relation to that good. The third claim says that virtues are irreducibly
plural intrinsic goods that embody irreducibly plural valuesi.e. each of them is valuable in a
way which is not reducible to a single overarching value. The fourth claim holds that [t]he
virtues are objectively good. This is related to the third claim and merely states that virtues are
good independent of desire, i.e., of our desiring the virtue. The fifth claim divides among agentrelative goods and agent-neutral goods in saying that some goods such as friendship are agent
relative whereas others such as justice are agent neutral. Finally, the last claim holds that [a]cting
rightly does not require that we maximize the good (Oakley 1996, 13940). All versions of virtue
ethics make these six claims. I want to leave aside the further differentiations proposed by Oakley
(along with this cited article, readers might be interested to consult Oakleys A Virtue Ethics
Approach [1998], which explores the features of virtue ethics again but also discusses
implications for bioethics). What is interesting to note is the fundamental distinction between
virtue ethics that focuses on character and virtue ethics that focuses on virtues. Oakleys approach
is remarkable, but my focus will be slightly different and inspired by McKinnons work (on which,
more below).
14. McKinnon 1999, 10.
15. True enough, this could be seen as an instrumental good, as the coyotes fur is an
instrument for the coyote to survive cold desert nights. However, McKinnon is using this
example to illustrate her point about human virtues. There are certain fundamental human
characteristics that demand that we be virtuous in a certain way. For the coyote, the fur is a
fundamental characteristic, and the coyote must have a warm coat to flourish. Similarly, as I
explain, the human has certain characteristics that he or she must see to it to develop in order to
flourish as an individual.
16. According to McKinnon, one chooses virtues to build ones own character. For her,
character building is the essential feature of ethics. She attempts to reconcile this view with the
unity of virtues theory that is usually related to virtue-focused virtue ethics. In McKinnons view,
unity is an intrinsic value. A life must be unified to be worthwhile. It can be unified only when
provided continuity by its own author, i.e., the character-focused virtuous agent. For such an

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CHRISTINE DAIGLE

agent, unity is brought about by choosing virtues according to what is seen as a good human life.
The unity of virtues theory, held by McKinnon, differs slightly from the traditional theory. The
traditional thesis holds that one must possess all virtues. McKinnons thesis proposes that there is
unity of virtues when the agent chooses his or her own virtues with consideration to the
flourishing human life as a lifelong goal. One need not choose all the available virtues, but one
must choose all of ones virtues with this goal in mind. For this, one must make use of practical
reason, phronesis. Virtues may be different for different individuals, but to qualify as virtuous, one
must be practically wise. In what follows, I will not claim that Nietzsches brand of virtue ethics
is the same as that proposed by McKinnon. For one, he would not agree with what I just explained
about phronesis. Nonetheless, I find McKinnons approach worthwhile and think that it does shed
light on the process of selecting virtues to pursue. There is a sense in Nietzsche that one must be
selective in choosing ones virtues and that there is a unity to be found underlying this choice, i.e.,
the flourishing of oneself as an instance of will to power. There will be more on this later. I must
acknowledge, however, that McKinnons version of virtue ethics is indeed similar to that of
Magnus, as a reviewer kindly remarked.
17. Leiter 1997.
18. Slote 1998, 23. This is something Swanton would agree with. Slote further explains that
Nietzsche is a perfectionistic consequentialist. An ethical view is perfectionistic when it holds that
moral value is intrinsically linked to a conception of the human good.
19. See my Le nihilisme est-il un humanisme? tude sur Nietzsche et Sartre (2005).
20. Philippa Foot sets out to examine the question of Nietzsches, sometimes self-attributed,
immoralism in an article on Nietzsches revaluation of values. She notes that Nietzsche is
sometimes ready to throw away notions of justice and the common good in favor of the production
of stronger and more splendid men. For Foot, this is the source of Nietzsches immoralism
because, according to her, morality is necessarily connected with such notions of justice and
common good. Foot then asks herself how it is possible that we continuously get the feeling that
Nietzsche has much in common with the moralist. Her answer is as follows: [I]n much of his
work he can be seen as arguing about the way in which men must live in order to live well. It is
the common ground between his system and that of traditional and particularly Greek morality that
makes us inclined to think that he must be a moralist after all. [. . .] [H]e himself was interested,
one might say, in the conditions in which menat least strong menwould flourish (1978, 92).
In this, Foot is already tracking the fundamental problem related to reading Nietzsches ethics as
an instance of virtue ethics, namely, how to make sense of his political ideas in such a context.
21. I am thinking of certain passages in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, specifically Of the Vision
and the Riddle.
22. See the interesting development of this idea by Volker Gerhardt in Selbstbegrndung.
Nietzsches Moral der Individualitt (1992).
23. Given that Nietzsche claimed that he was saying the same thing in both Thus Spoke
Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, my coming claim will be problematic. In the next section,
I will argue that the virtue ethics with the figure of the bermensch needs a political program,
which goes against what Nietzsche says in BGE. It is difficult to reconcile the views expressed in
Z and BGE relative to the bermensch because of the order of rank of which Nietzsche makes so
much in the later text.
24. Hunt 1991, 112.
25. Hunt 1991, 113.
26. Hunt 1991, 78.
27. In the following, I favor the published material and not the posthumous fragments.
Specifically, I take section 341 of GS as being the most explicit passage in Nietzsches writings
about the notion of the eternal recurrence and its meaning. It is formulated as a conditional and is
presented as a test.

VIRTUE ETHICS . . . VIRTUE POLITICS?

19

28. True enough, a virtue ethics does not necessarily constitute an ethical program for all
human beings. However, as I mentioned earlier, the way of overmanliness, which is attainable by
practice of virtue ethics, is opened to all up until Beyond Good and Evil.
29. It has been objected to me that the theory of types that we find in Nietzsche prevents any
reading like mine. In fact, one would be determined to be of a higher or lower type. Physiology
will play a role in this determination. However, I firmly believe that there is no such
determinism in Nietzsches philosophy. Indeed, physiology will be determinant but only to a
certain extent. The individual may still act on her own physiology and engage in the ascending
path, the way of overmanliness. I think the example of Nietzsche himself is enlightening in that
relation. Nietzsche always considered himself as a decadent, as physiologically decrepit.
However, by a strong act of will close to asceticism, he subjected his physiology to the necessary
control so as to be of an ascending rather than declining type. (See Daniel W. Conways
Nietzsche and the Political [1997] for an interesting discussion of asceticism in Nietzsche.)
Nietzsche considered himself successful enough in this shaping of oneself to qualify himself
as a free spirit, a figure close enough to the bermensch. This Nietzschean selfexperimentation is revealing of Nietzsches belief in the power of the will. Further, he expresses
this faith by his many appeals to his readers. Indeed, why appeal to ones readers if those are
entirely determined by their type?
30. This is in no way a unique outburst. For example, in the later text Twilight of the Idols
Nietzsche says: Democracy has always been the declining form of the power to organize: I have
already, in Human, All Too Human, characterized modern democracy, together with its imperfect
manifestations such as the German Reich, as the decaying form of the state (Expeditions 39).
But democracy is not entirely bad, as he explains in BGE 242, in that the conditions we find in
democratization are likely in the highest degree to give birth to exceptional human beings of the
most dangerous and attractive quality.
31. A sign of this tension is the amount of literature devoted to the political thought of
Nietzsche and the debate that is raging between the aristocratic/agonistic reading and the
democratic/agonistic reading. The former finds a noteworthy representative in Daniel W. Conway
(1997); the latter, in Lawrence Hatab (1995).
32. It has been pointed out to me that it is not many texts but, rather, that the balance of
textual evidence clearly lies on the side of the aristocratic reading. I want to grant this point.
However, it does not mean that coherence would not require otherwise. Again, my claim is that if
Nietzsche is a virtue ethicist as I have delineated, then coherence requires that he be a virtue
politician, i.e., with a democratic leaning.
33. It is quite interesting and fruitful to appeal to Simone de Beauvoir. My work on her ethics
has led me to rethink some aspects of Nietzsches own philosophy. Her critique of Nietzsche is
quite interesting and, I think, to the point. However, she is still pretty close to some Nietzschean
positions like the notion of self-overcoming. Because some of her ethical proposals are almost
Nietzschean, it is interesting to see how she bridges the gap between ethics and politics to see if
it can be of any help in our examination of the Nietzschean problem. I have provided some hints
regarding the potential comparison between Beauvoir and Nietzsche in my The Ambiguous
Ethics of Beauvoir (2006).
34. This critique by Simone de Beauvoir is found in The Ethics of Ambiguity (1948, 72).
35. Many passages in Nietzsches work point to the fact that one should not exert brute power
or cruelty toward weaker ones but, instead, should display a healthy form of pity. An bermensch
would be self-affirming and powerful enough so that his power would overflow, allowing him to
be pitiful of lower human beings. Nietzsche goes so far as to make it a higher individuals duty to
be gentle toward weaker individuals: When an exceptional human being handles the mediocre
more gently than he does himself or his equals, this is not mere politeness of the heartit is
simply his duty (A 57).

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CHRISTINE DAIGLE

36. I doubt that there is much difference in this case between the freedom that Beauvoir is
talking about and the will to power that Nietzsche sees at the core of the human being. The
difference between these two views could be related to the fact that where Nietzsche says that he
finds will to power in everything that lives and in the universe as a whole, Beauvoir talks about
freedom only in relation to the individual.
37. See A 2 and also TI Expeditions of an Untimely Man 36.
38. See also BGE 61 and the whole section What is noble in BGE.
39. Biographeme is a term I borrow from Jean-Franois Louette in his Sartre contra Nietzsche
(1996) that means a theme taken out of an authors own biography. In this case, we know that
Nietzsche led a very lonely life. Nietzsche would then transpose this aspect of his life into his own
writings, making his own solitude a virtue.
40. Is this present in Nietzsches writings in latent form? That remains to be established, and
this exegetic work is beyond the scope of this article. If it proves impossible to establish, it will
remain that a virtue politics of the kind I propose is the logical outcome of his ethical program
with or without Nietzsche being its advocate.

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