The Will to Nothingness: An Essay on Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality, by Bernard Reginster

Abstract

At the heart of Bernard Reginster’s thought-provoking book on Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality is a new conception of the doctrine of the will to power, and an application of it to the key psychological phenomena described in that text. Reginster’s elegantly compact monograph is closely argued. One of the most admirable features of the book is the sensitivity and sophistication of the account it develops. Reginster views the text in a systematic way through the lens of one core approach and one main psychological principle. The core approach is to think about morality functionally, that is to say, in terms of whether morality successfully fulfils its function in human life. The core psychological principle is the will to power. The byways and channellings of the will to power result in morality failing to serve its function successfully. It turns out to be detrimental rather than beneficial to human flourishing. Reginster sees Nietzsche’s indictment of morality as fundamentally anchored in by this functionalist approach. He applies it to understanding the phenomenon of ressentiment and the so-called ‘slave revolt’ considered in the First Essay, the various issues around guilt, bad conscience, and related phenomena considered in the Second Essay and the ascetic ideal considered in the Third Essay. Whatever philosophical and interpretive quibbles one may have with some of Reginster’s positions, his book is a rich and illuminating treatment of Nietzsche’s Genealogy.