Interpretations of Nietzsche as a virtue theorist have proliferated in recent years as commentators have sought to read him as a modern eudaimonistic philosopher while also attempting to show what makes his contribution to this tradition valuable and distinctive.1While some commentators still contend that interpreting Nietzsche as a eudaimonist is antithetical to his overtly-stated philosophical aims,2 over the last decade there has been a upsurge of support for such readings, especially from commentators who emphasise what they claim is the pervasive (...) influence of the Hellenistic tradition on his work. Keith Ansell-Pearson has argued that Epicurus was a key influence on Nietzsche’s middle period, for example; whereas Michael Ure has claimed that the Stoic thought of Seneca and Epictetus was also highly influential.3 Nevertheless, even those commentators who agree that Nietzsche can be informatively situated, or is even best situated, within the Hellenistic tradition cannot agree on two seemingly-intractable puzzles which any virtue-theoretical reading must solve in order to give a full account of his moral philosophy. The puzzles can be stated as follows: Puzzle 1: Which character traits does Nietzsche endorse as virtues? Puzzle 2: What is Nietzsche’s ethical ideal? This article offers an exegetical strategy to shed light on both puzzles, especially the first one regarding which character traits Nietzsche endorses as virtues which, as we shall see, is tougher to answer by a straightforward appeal to his texts. To elucidate this puzzle, I will propose that his approving comments regarding excellence-based moral philosophy indicate that his own ethics is also structured in terms of an ethical ideal with a requisite set of virtues which, following his ancient philosophical influences, he views as fundamentally connected. As Julia Annas notes, one the most distinctive ‘assumptions which ancient theories make [is] the relationship of [our] virtues to our final end’,4 and given Nietzsche’s interest in, and apparent endorsement of, ancient eudaimonism – especially compared to his invariably scathing remarks on the modern deontological and utilitarian traditions – we have reason to think that he shares this view.5 What is significant for this article, however, is that Nietzsche’s commitment to a kind of eudaimonism modelled on the ancient world offers a potential way to solve both puzzles. If his virtues and ethical ideal are connected in a similar way to ancient eudaimonistic theories, then understanding his ethical ideal allows us to infer which character traits he endorses as virtues, and vice versa. Although it might be objected that a method tackling both puzzles in tandem would be unworkable if their solutions were contained in each other, in what follows I will show that Nietzsche’s extensive comments on his ethical ideal of ‘becoming what one is’ positions us in a strong position to infer which character traits he prizes most highly. I will call these character traits ‘virtues of self-cultivation’. (shrink)

Nietzsche and Levinas are the most prominent contemporary philosophers who have emphasized on the necessity of passing over rational subjectivity. They tried to rethink the meaning of ethics in a world where neither religion nor other moral philosophies could create a strict and reliable source for the crisis of the contemporary human being. In an attempt to overcome rational subjectivism, Nietzsche and Levinas redefined concepts such as morality and the subject. The purpose of the paper is to describe the attitudes (...) of Nietzsche and Levinas towards their critiques of rational subjectivism. Then examine Nietzsche’s naturalistic reading and Levinas’ transcendental reading of the subject and their encounter with the other and also introduce their critiques of traditional ethics and propose a new kind of ethics in their thoughts. We will then evaluate their alternative concepts in the problem of overcoming rational subjectivism and finally, we will compare these two attitudes. Although Nietzsche and Levinas initially adopted common points of view for the critique of subjectivism and traditional ethics and common criticisms in the field, they presented different results, goals, and methods. Based on these approaches, each has proposed different principles and conclusions about ethics and overcoming rational subjectivism. Nietzsche’s problem is the genealogy of values, and Levinas’s question is the possibility of a moral condition. The answer to the first question is not related to the second question. The present paper shows that both Levinas and Nietzsche have presented different insights into the meaning of subjectivity. Their efforts to find the meaning of subjectivity have also been accompanied by the necessity to destruct the meaning of morality. Accordingly, by focusing on the overman and the other, they have sought to reevaluate values ​​ and asymmetric moral responsibility. In this regard, they have adopted a completely different view from the traditional view of ethics. Although both of them start with a common point of view, their methods, interpretations, and results are different. With a genealogical approach, Nietzsche considered the will of power in the active subject and the birth of the overman to be desirable and practical to end the history of the development of nihilism. And Levinas, with a phenomenological approach to the concept of asymmetric responsibility in the passive subject, has put an end to the history of neglect of the other and rational subjectivism. The final suggestion is that Nietzsche and Levinas are both looking for a new meaning of morality that resides not in the mind but in the body. In Levinas, the relationship between the body and morality is evolving and transcendental, with concepts of responsibility and suffering, but in Nietzsche, this kind of connection fluctuates between naturalistic and transcendentalist views and considers the concepts of power and instinct important. Nietzsche’s attitude about the human being is a combination of a naturalistic and over-humanist approach, and with the precedence of selfhood, he has expressed a negative view of the other. However, Levinas’ philosophy is more humanistic and inter-subjectivity because of ethical ideals, and ethics begin with recognition of the priority of the other. (shrink)