Beyond Selflessness
This chapter concerns the persuasiveness of Nietzsche's critique of morality, and the new values he advocates in its place. The prime effect of Nietzsche's critique is likely to be not the abandonment of moral values but a recognition of their historical contingency, a suspension of confidence in morality as the sole possible system of values, and an acknowledgement that if we baulk at giving them up, the explanation may lie in our psychological inability to do so, rather than in any deeper justification. Nietzsche's new values lie in the ideals of self-affirmation and self-satisfaction. The former (allegedly tested by the thought of eternal return) implies truthful confrontation with one's whole life; the latter, selection and artifice concerning oneself. This tension may not be harmful within Nietzsche's thought. Finally, conventional assumptions about methods of enquiry in philosophy are implicated in Nietzsche's critique of the values of impersonal objectivity and selflessness.
Keywords: critique of morality, eternal return, new values, persuasiveness, self-affirmation, self-satisfaction
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