Nietzsche, Agency, and Responsibility: “Das Thun ist Alles”

This article examines Robert Pippin’s most recent contributions to debates about Nietzsche’s views about agency and freedom in his Nietzsche, Psychology, and First Philosophy. In particular, I focus on his elaboration of Nietzsche’s claim, quoting Goethe, in On the Genealogy of Morality that “das Thun ist Alles”—the deed is everything. I highlight what I consider to be particularly promising features of Pippin’s expressivist reading of Nietzsche, suggest ways it might be developed even further, and indicate how such views about agency are relevant to Nietzsche’s anticipation of overcoming morality—particularly the sort that links value with intention—and to a revised conception of responsibility.