Monday, March 4, 2019

Will to Power, Axiology, Utilitarianism

On the basis of On the Genealogy of Morals, it might be concluded that Nietzsche is a Moral dualist--Master Morality vs. Slave Morality, a dualism rooted in Zarathustra's Yes vs. No.  However, as the title also connotes, and as Nietzsche explains in Ecco Homo, the work is actually an etiology of given Good vs. Evil dualism, culminating in a different issue--refuting Schopenhauer's concept of Will-lessness.  Such a refutation is requisite for Nietzsche's concept of Volition, with respect to which a denial of Will poses a potential counter-example.  But, his Will to Power is adequate to such a refutation, exposing the denial of Will as an exercise of Will to Power of the lowest grade.  Thus signified is an alternative dualism--Better vs. Worse, corresponding to stronger vs. weaker varying degrees of the exercise of the Will to Power, and entailed in his concept of 'order of rank' that is prominent in other contexts.  Thus, an Axiological kin of Will to Power is a doctrine to which it is otherwise radically distinguished--Utilitarianism, with its comparative evaluations derived from its calculus.

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