Nietzsche's Affirmative Morality: An Ethics of Virtue

In this article I shall attempt to give a birds-eye view of Nietzsche's ethics, with special emphasis on its affirmative aspect. I will also attempt to show that there exists one relatively simple aspect of Nietzsche's ethics that has not been realized, but that makes it much more consistent and comprehensible. In summary: Nietzsche's ethics, unlike almost all thinking about ethics in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth was not act-oriented but character- or person-oriented. This kinship of Nietzsche's affirmative ethics with ethics of virtue has not been realized, but the interest in ethics of virtue during the last twenty years now also makes it easier to grasp Nietzsche's ethics.

Let me begin by summarizing Nietzsche's profound critique of morality. One of the most common dichotomies made in respect to moral judgments is that they must be based on either the consequences of an act or the intentions of the acting person. Nietzsche rejects both these possibilities. We have no knowledge of the future, and hence we can never know the consequences of an act. Perhaps we can know the immediate consequences, but the chain of causality never ends, and that which at first appears as a good result may well in the long run turn out to have negative consequences: "any action at all, it is and remains impenetrable; that our opinions about 'good' and 'noble' and 'great' can never be proved true by our actions because every action is unknowable." ¹

Those who emphasize that morality is based on the intentions of the acting person are not bounded by the consequences of the act. However, Nietzsche denies that we can ever know the intentions of any other human being. In fact, Nietzsche emphasizes the relative unimportance of conscious thinking, "consciousness is a surface," ² in favor of subconscious thinking and instincts. Hence, Nietzsche argues, not only can we not know the motives of other individuals, we cannot even know our own motives. This is a frequent theme in Nietzsche's writings, for example, "the most common lie is the lie one tells to oneself; lying to others is relatively the exception." ³

Furthermore, Nietzsche claims that we have no free will ⁴ and hence we have no moral responsibility. Closely associated to this argument is his view that man is an animal and part of the natural world in which there is no morality. In his genealogical discussions Nietzsche often attempts to show that the original reasons for many of our moral values were different (and often had a nonmoral origin) than they are today.

Moral principles, even relativistic moral principles, assume or presuppose moral opposites, presuppose good and evil things, thoughts and deeds. Nietzsche, however, rejects the belief in moral opposites. "Between good and evil actions there is no difference in kind, but at the most one of degree. Good actions are sublimated evil ones; evil actions are coarsened, brutalized good ones." ⁵ Nietzsche does not only reject moral opposites as opposites, but he also claims that that which is conventionally regarded as good and evil in fact belongs together and cannot be separated. Both good and evil are necessary in the development of personality and in the development of whole cultures:

there is a personal necessity for misfortune; that terror, want, impoverishment, midnight watches, adventures, hazards and mistakes are as necessary to me and to you as their opposites [. . .] for happiness and misfortune are brother and sister, and twins, who grows tall together, or, as with you, remain small together! ⁶

I have mentioned above a number of aspects of Nietzsche's thinking that are contrary to many of the assumptions and presuppositions of morality. I have referred to his claim that we cannot know the consequences of actions, or the motives behind those actions, his denial of free will, his denial of moral opposites and his belief that...