Camus published an essay entitled ‘Nietzsche and Nihilism,’ which was later incorporated into The Rebel . Camus' aim was to assess Nietzsche's response to the problem of nihilism. My aim is to do the same with Camus. The paper explores Camus' engagement with nihilism through its two major modalities: with respect to the individual and the question of suicide in The Myth of Sisyphus , and with respect to the collective and the question of murder in The Rebel . While (...) a Nietzschean influence thoroughly suffuses both books, it is in the second that Camus' most explicit, and most critical, engagement with the German philosopher takes place. The crux of Camus' critique of Nietzsche is that the absolute affirmation of existence he proposes as a response to nihilism cannot say ‘no’ to murder. In the terms of Camus' discussion in The Rebel , Nietzsche's philosophy is thus culpable in the straying of rebellion from its own foundations and its slide into bloody revolution. First, the paper argues that Camus' criticisms of Nietzsche are misplaced. Camus focuses his analysis on sections of the problematic text The Will to Power and misses important sections of Nietzsche's published texts which in fact support the condemnation of revolution which is the project of The Rebel . However, the paper argues that Camus moves beyond Nietzsche in radically democratizing the response to nihilism. While Nietzsche's hopes for the creation of meaning are focused on exceptional individuals, Camus insists that any response to nihilism needs to be accessible to the average person. Such a move is laudable, but it raises a number of questions and challenges regarding the type of problem nihilism is, and how these might be addressed. (shrink)

One of the very few matters of nearly universal agreement with respect to Nietzsche interpretation, one that bridges the great analytic/continental divide, is that Nietzsche was offering some sort of account of freedom, in contradistinction to the ‘ascetic’ or ‘slavish’ ways of the past. What remains in dispute is the character of this account. In this paper I present Nietzsche’s account of freedom and his arguments for the superior cogency of that account relative to other accounts of freedom, including irony (...) about the possibility of freedom. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s self-proclaimed ‘anti-political’(EH ‘wise’ 3; cf. TI 8.4) stance is often ignored.1 Commentators, that is, often interpret Nietzsche’s texts as responding to familiar issues within political philosophy, and as furnishing a novel position therein. This could indeed be the appropriate hermeneutic response. Dismissing one of Nietzsche’s proclamations is, on a variety of different grounds, hermeneutically reasonable. In this particular case, given all that Nietzsche has to say about sociality and the roles of public institutions in modern life, dismissal might even (...) seem compelling. Here, however, I wish to recuperate Nietzsche’s anti-political stance. That is, I shall argue that Nietzsche’s self-proclamation does in fact reflect his deep commitments, and thus compels a reassessment of the political interpretations of his thought. (shrink)

Interpreting Nietzsche’s writings on agency and responsibility through the lens of non-sovereignty generates interpretive and political-theoretical contributions. More specifically, I advance three arguments. First, Nietzsche’s genealogical critique of moral responsibility denaturalizes modernity’s conception of individual sovereignty and responsibility, by providing a naturalistic account of agency. Agency and responsibility are neither Kantian presuppositions of practical reason nor pieces of folk psychology to be abolished, but are normative, social, and historical achievements, and thus non-sovereign. Second, this implies a theory of responsibility that (...) is simultaneously more and less demanding than moralistic accounts: while, because agents are not autonomous, they do not bear sole responsibility for their lives, they are called upon to be responsible to and for the world, by maintaining the conditions of possible agency and flourishing. Third, Nietzsche provides both generative resources and cautionary tales for political theories of non-sovereign agency. While non-sovereign responsibility holds emancipatory and potentially democratic implications, Nietzsche’s explicit political writings demonstrate the risk that, rather than tempering existential resentment, this account could generate and intensify a resentful anti-political authoritarianism. Just as non-sovereignty provides a useful framework for making sense of tensions within Nietzsche’s thought, Nietzsche’s post-moral theory of agency and responsibility brings forward tensions, provocations, and paradoxes that must be engaged by theorists of non-sovereignty. (shrink)

A small subsection of the literature on Nietzsche’s political philosophy focuses on a key passage that appears in the sixth section of “Schopenhauer as Educator.” In this passage, Nietzsche claims that the individual’s life attains its highest value by living for the benefit of humanity’s rarest and most valuable specimens. Some philosophers, like John Rawls and Thomas Hurka, take this passage to be sufficient evidence of a larger commitment on Nietzsche’s part to aristocracy. Others oppose Rawls’ and Hurka’s interpretations, claiming (...) that this key passage is evidence of a commitment to democracy. However, both sides are incorrect. This particular section of “Schopenhauer as Educator” is actually evidence of Nietzsche’s commitment to divorcing cultural institutions from the influence of states in toto. I explain why Nietzsche is committed neither to aristocracy nor to democracy, and how the passage from “Schopenhauer as Educator” commits Nietzsche to a post-political position. (shrink)

Nietzsche's harsh attacks on modernity suggest a problem: if the modern age is so diseased, can we overcome it and move on to something higher? Or is the disease too severe? I examine the question by studying Nietzsche's view of spiritual health. Spiritual illness, even in the highest man, is nothing unusual or necessarily debilitating. Even the strongest have been infected since the earliest days of civilization. Indeed, infection with slave morality and bad conscience are requirements for spiritual elevation. And (...) the disease serves life by giving the strong something to struggle against, as well as making possible the spiritual greatness required to revalue all values. The higher man, then, is a mixture of health and disease. The revaluation of values is extraordinarily dangerous, but not impossible. Key Words: great politics • Nietzsche's revaluation of all values • On the Genealogy of Morals • spiritual health. (shrink)

Much of feminist theory takes issue with traditional, liberal theories of consent and obligation. Though none have proposed abandoning obligation outright, there has been a general shift among feminists towards a responsibility paradigm. Responsibility models acknowledge given relationships and interdependence, and so posit responsibilities as given, regardless of whether they are voluntary. But in theories that take freedom as a principal value, a move from a socially unembedded voluntarism to socially embedded responsibility leaves something missing. Constructive accounts of and prescriptions (...) for freedom must consider the reality of social life; yet acknowledging that relations are given need not require subordinating the role of voluntarism and consent in most relationships. In this paper I offer a commitment framework that seeks to supplant obligation while also reconciling relational given-ness and voluntarism. I propose an analysis of commitment that takes relations as the starting point and then show how the concept can: 1. guide actions 2. account for responsibilities 3. enhance freedom and 4. avoid a large share of coercive forces that are believed as necessary for reinforcing obligation and responsibility fulfillment. (shrink)