This article asks whether we can identify a vitalistic undertow in Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy that would make sense for contemporary political and constitutional theory as well. The arguments are presented by contrasting Nietzsche’s philosophy with the social theory of Herbert Spencer. After an introduction, the first main part discusses Spencer and his so-called ‘organic analogy’ in which he draws parallels between natural organisms and the body politic. Spencer’s social theory is a paradigmatic example of vitalism and organic state theory and, (...) as a counterpoint, can help tease out Nietzsche’s vitalism as well. The article then examines Nietzsche’s admittedly fragmentary encounters with Spencer and his flirtations with vitalism and organic state theory. In the conclusions, the reconstructed narrative about Nietzsche’s vitalism is linked with Nietzsche’s main philosophical works in the hope of provisionally extracting a Nietzschean ‘constitutional theory’ from his notion of will to power. (shrink)

Weber’s conception of politics has long been interpreted in relativistic and “agonistic” terms. Such interpretations neglect Weber’s notion of “objectivity” as well as the complex links between politics as “community,” on the one hand, and as “value sphere,” on the other. Seen against this backdrop, Berufpolitik becomes a balancing act in which the pursuit of subjective values is objectively constrained not only by the ethic of responsibility, but more generally by the political imperative to safeguard the preconditions for communal order (...) and, in late modernity, of liberal freedoms. Without them, neither the objective “clarity” generated by science nor the subjective political commitments based on “clear vision” would be possible. (shrink)

The problem I raise here is not what ought to succeed mankind in the sequence of species (- the human being is an end -): but what type of human being one ought to breed, ought to will, as more valuable, more worthy of life, more certain of the future. (Friedrich Nietzsche1) The question which leads us beyond the grave of our own generation is not 'how will human beings feel in the future', but 'how will they be' ... We (...) do not want to train up feelings of well-being in people, but those characteristics we think constitute the greatness and nobility of our human nature. (Max Weber2). (shrink)

Peter Lassman, ed., Max Weber. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2006. 674 pp. £165.