Nietzsche’s Will to Power: Biology, Naturalism, and Normativity

The “will to power” remains one of Nietzsche’s most controversial philosophical concepts. In this article I argue that the will to power ties in directly with Nietzsche’s naturalistic discussion of normativity. The link between the will to power and normativity cannot be explained, however, along the lines of a psychological reading of Nietzsche’s naturalism; rather, Nietzsche’s naturalism is rooted in contemporary biological discussions. Biology comes first, psychology second. With the notion of a will to power Nietzsche seeks to describe the linkages between the natural and normative in a way that falls neither into the trap of physicalist reductionism, nor into the trap of idealist metaphysics: how can we obtain an understanding of the emergence of normativity without appealing to normativity as a standard separate from the agency, affects, conceptual commitments, and also cells and organs, that make us natural beings?