An Interpretation of the Ideals of Sovereignty, Wholeness, and Becoming What One Is in Nietzsche's Practical Philosophy.

Abstract

My dissertation deals with three important ideals that Nietzsche recommends: the ideals of Sovereignty, of Wholeness, and of Becoming What One Is. I locate the main texts where Nietzsche addresses each of these topics and I offer a consistent and coherent interpretation of them.

On my reading, the ideal of Becoming What One Is involves a process whereby we become mature and give expression to our own uniqueness. This process requires an active self-reflection on our part and a dynamic practice of relinquishing and regaining our capacity to be the cause of our own behavior (the capacity for autonomous self-control). Besides emphasizing the ideal’s connection to authenticity and our capacity to be autonomous, my interpretation provides a more detailed description of the mechanisms whereby one attains this ideal than that offered by other commentators.

In the case of the ideal of Sovereignty, I argue that for Nietzsche becoming sovereign entails accepting and even embracing one’s susceptibility to moral guilt. For Nietzsche, having a sovereign conscience means understanding oneself as a morally responsible agent. This self-understanding confers on us a freedom that other creatures do not have, but at the cost of becoming subject to blame and guilt for our wrongdoings. In this respect, my account is at odds with the propensity in the secondary literature to characterize Nietzsche as a staunch opponent of the moral notion of guilt.

Finally, my interpretation of Wholeness runs against the grain of the prevalent readings that characterize this as an ideal of psychic unity aimed at restructuring the various parts of the agent’s mind into a harmonious whole. I argue, on the contrary, that wholeness fundamentally concerns social – not psychic – integration: the person becomes whole by placing himself within the circle of genuine culture in which he works together with others in the perfection of nature and freedom. In this way, the person finds redemption from the meaninglessness of existence by ensuring that his energies survive into the future within a suprapersonal community in which life and creativity are perpetually renewed and guaranteed.