Nietzsche and Kant: Self-legislation and the rational will in Zarathustra's ethics

Abstract

Friedrich Nietzsche's wonted derision of Immanuel Kant has long-obscured striking parallels between the two philosophers' moral thought. In this essay it will be argued that the autonomous self-legislating rational will is as pivotal to the ethical project at the heart of Nietzsche's 'Thus Spake Zarathustra' as it is to Kantian ethics. Indeed it will be seen just how closely Kant's concept of the 'good will' can be mapped onto Zarathustra's vision of a creative will that through the faculty of discernment ('Erkenntniss') and its attendant powers of judgment and understanding has not only the ability and the right to devise and implement new values but the discipline to obey its self-imposed rationally-guided laws. By means of a radical re-evaluation and re-appropriation of the three Christian 'evils' of voluptuousness ('Wollust') lust for power ('Herrschsucht') and selfishness ('Selbstsucht') Zarathustra teaches how the genuinely free man can assume sovereignty over subjective motivation and direct his will towards an uncompromised and uncompromising ethical goal. © W. S. Maney & Son Ltd 2013. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.