Nietzsche's Affirmative Morality: An Ethics of Virtue

Abstract

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 comprehensi ble. 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-ori ented but characteror person-oriented. This kinship of Nietzsche's affirma tive 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.