The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism (review)

In The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism, Bernard Reginster aims to provide a systematic account of Nietzsche's views concerning value. In claiming that Nietzsche's views are systematic in this way, Reginster does not mean that Nietzsche is attempting to answer every philosophical question but, rather, that Nietzsche's views on metaethics and normative ethics can be organized around one single aim: overcoming nihilism. Reginster's book thus deals with many Nietzschean themes in this context. The death of God, the overman, eternal recurrence, Nietzsche's critique of morality, the revaluation of values in general and of the value of compassion in particular, ressentiment, the ascetic ideal, the will to power—all of these figure in Reginster's account as components of the project of overcoming nihilism. Reginster thus provides an interesting way of thinking about Nietzsche's work in moral philosophy as unified in the pursuit of one goal. Those who are reluctant to think of Nietzsche as a systematic philosopher are bound to find Reginster's account problematic. But Reginster's claim that Nietzsche's work regarding value is organized around the overarching goal of overcoming nihilism is shown by his book to be an interesting, provocative, and promising way to approach Nietzsche's ethical views.

Reginster takes nihilism to be the view that life has no meaning or that there are no worthwhile goals. Nihilism, however, can take two forms: disorientation and despair. Accordingly, Reginster's account of how Nietzsche attempts to overcome nihilism is divided into two parts. In the first part, he provides an account of Nietzsche's metaethical project: to overcome nihilism as disorientation—nihilism as the loss of confidence in the values one holds. Disorientation is the result of antirealism, the view that there are no objective values. To the disoriented, human life is meaningless because there is nothing that is of real value and thus nothing objectively worth doing. According to Reginster, overcoming disorientation requires a metaethical revaluation that can take either a subjectivist or a fictionalist approach. Reginster says that Nietzsche is ambiguous between the two approaches and discusses different elements of textual support and philosophical considerations pulling in each direction. The subjectivist approach aims to show that the fact that values are not objective is not enough reason to reject them; subjective values can be proper guides. Disorientation is thus averted on subjectivist grounds by regaining confidence in values despite their lack of objectivity. The fictionalist strategy is to take values to be part of a make-believe practice. Disorientation is thus averted on fictionalist grounds by realizing that values can play a guiding role based on this practice alone without further objective backing. Reginster's discussion is informed by recent attempts to pin down Nietzsche as belonging to either the fictionalist or the subjectivist camp; of particular notice is Reginster's treatment of Nadeem Hussain's account of Nietzsche as a fictionalist. Reginster seems at times to prefer the subjectivist line but ultimately remains neutral on the matter.

The second part of the project of overcoming nihilism attempts to overcome despair, which is the result of believing that what is most important to us is unattainable. This part of the project requires substantive revaluation (i.e., first order as opposed to metaethical). Reginster takes the two projects (the metaethical project driven by disorientation and the substantive revaluation driven by despair) to both be part of Nietzsche's strategy for overcoming nihilism. If the metaethical revaluation alone is successful (on either the fictionalist or subjectivist grounds) while the values previously held are retained, disorientation will be averted but despair will still arise—the previously held values will be as unattainable as ever. On the other hand, if our first-order values are adjusted but we do not undertake the metaethical project, then worries about the objectivity of our new values will again arise, resulting in disorientation. There is a kind of symmetry between the two projects, then, as nihilism cannot...