Assess Nietzsche's idea of the Will to Power

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Assess Nietzsche’s idea of the “Will to Power”

Throughout his works, Friedrich Nietzsche develops a fundamental foundation which forms part of all his other concepts – this is his “Will to Power.” Being very much the centre of his philosophy, it is an extremely complex concept that has connections to all areas of his ideas, be it ethics, metaphysics or aesthetics. However, it does have several flaws. First of all, it goes against Nietzsche’s perspectivism and outright rejection of metaphysics. Suggesting that an objective metaphysical concept such as the Will to Power exists is tantamount to admitting failure at the first hurdle. Nietzsche never addresses this issue. In addition, the Will to Power as the sole part of life itself seems entirely counter-intuitive. Is it not clear that other things affect our judgment than the desire to overcome all others? He never really explains how the Will to Power is meant to be the ultimate moral goal, either. His philosophy here falls victim to the fact-value gap. Just because life is the Will to Power, it does not necessarily follow that we ought to follow it as our only ambition. The Will to Power is complicated further by Nietzsche’s automatic division of people into “masters” and “slaves.” Clearly, the Will to Power can not apply to the slaves, as that would be a contradiction in terms. This makes it extremely difficult to justify that the Will to Power in fact is life itself for everyone.

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The Will to Power is notoriously hard to define on itself, as it is inherently defined by both its causal principles and the effect of the doctrine itself. Nietzsche describes, in Beyond Good and Evil, a hierarchy of “drives” which are the core of human existence. Each of these drives is attempting to gain dominance over the other. This relationally constituted structure is the Will to Power. Likewise, every living being is imposing their Will to Power onto others. From this, it would follow that all actions are, in themselves, products of the Will to Power, be it procreation, alimentation or ...

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