Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche - Assignment Example

Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche Question: How do you understand what Nietzsche means by "will to power"? The concept of “will to power” occupies a significant place in the philosophy of Nietzsche but in the book “Beyond Good and Evil” Nietzsche never describes the idea clearly. However, one can easily assume, while going through the book that the concept at a time refers to a set of significant and essential ideas and concepts of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Nietzschean scholars also variedly interpret the phrase “will to power” that Nietzsche uses to express the idea in the book “Beyond Good and Evil”. In the book “Beyond Good and evil” Nietzsche himself describes life as “will to power”, he says, “Life is will to power” (Nietzsche 23). In spite of this generalization, the idea what he means with the phrase is to be interpreted from a wider angle that necessarily includes the interactions among the “will’ of an individual, the individual himself, and the society in which he lives. Nietzsche’s concept of the “will to power” is established on the psychological premise that an individual interacts with the surrounding in his society in the way to inflict his will upon others. Therefore, the sole undertone of the actions of an individual is his desire to bring another individual under his will in one way or other. As an individual is ultimately egoistic by nature, no human action is selfless and altruistic. Nevertheless, the fact how Nietzsche upholds his concept of ‘will to power’ necessarily does not infer that ‘will to power’ is not only to be considered from the perceptive of the individual but also it refers to the existing reality of the world in which the individuals live. In addition, it is not confined within the psychology of the individual. The “will to power’ manifest itself in many ways that, whether explicitly or implicitly, denotes its presence in the universe, as Nietzsche explains individual’s instinctive life as “the development and ramification of one fundamental form of will--namely, the Will to Power….granted that all organic functions could be traced back to this Will to Power” (Nietzsche 16). When Nietzsche views ‘self-preservation’, growth and upward mobility as the “indirect and most frequent results” of “will to power”, it is evident that his “will” is the life affirming force within the existence of an individual that inspires him to affirm his power and dominance in order to satisfy his ego. Again in this regard, Nietzsche says, “do you want a name for this world? A solution for all its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most mid-nightly men?--This world is the will to power--and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power--and nothing besides!” (Nietzsche 48). The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone de Beauvoir Question: How do you understand what de Beauvoir and Sartre mean by "to make oneself a lack of being in order that there might be being"? For Simon de Beauvoir, “to make oneself a lack of being in order that there might be being” (Beauvoir 3) as she quotes Sartre in her book “the Ethics of Ambiguity” appears to be her attempt to draw the reconciliation between the ambiguousness of the intentionality of the consciousness of human being to disclose the meaning of the world and at the same time to impose meaning to the world, in which he live, in order to allow himself the scope to investigate into his own assigned meaning. Apparently though the phrase “to make oneself a lack of being in order that there might be being” (Beauvoir 3) seems to be paradoxical on the surface level, it is fairly consistent and in concordance with Beauvoir’s concept of ‘ambiguity’ of human consciousness. The book, “the Ethics of Ambiguity” at the very beginning deals with the intentionality of disclosing meaning and imposing or giving meaning of the consciousness of an individual. Beauvoir is ardent to view such intentionality of human being as insistent and ambiguous. Such intentionality of consciousness is insistent in the sense that human being exists through this dynamic process of disclosing meaning or giving meaning and as a result, they are spontaneous. Nevertheless, such intentionality impaled the individual on the horn of a dilemma. More precisely speaking, these intentions of consciousness are paradoxical because intentionality of consciousness consumes other. Question: What is the "ambiguity" to which de Beauvoir refers in her ethical project? “Absurdity challenges every ethics” as, she says, a thorough rationalization of the universe, “leave no room for ethics; it is because man’s condition is ambiguous that he seeks, through failure and outrageousness, to save his existence” (Beauvoir 14). The ambiguity lies in the fact that if the individual attempts to impose meaning to his or her existence in this universe, he must have and not have the meaning within his existence. As Beauvoir herself asserts, “to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won” (Beauvoir 8). So the best reconciliation point of the ambiguity, for Beauvoir, is articulated in the phrase, “to make oneself a lack of being in order that there might be being” (Beauvoir 3). Nevertheless, the difference what Beauvoir and Sartre mean is the vacuum in the existence of the individual is evolved from the absurdity of human existence whereas for Beauvoir, the vacuum is caused due to the ambiguity of the intentionality of Consciousness. Ethics: An essay on the understanding of Evil by Alain Badiou Question: How does Badiou understand the difference between an ethics that prioritizes the concept of evil, and an ethics that prioritizes the concept of the Good? In his book, “Ethics: An essay on the understanding of Evil” Alain Badiou’s ideas of ‘evil’ and the ‘Other’ have played a crucial and significant role in his differentiating between an ethics that prioritizes the concept of evil, and an ethics that prioritizes the concept of the Good. While attempting to differentiate between ethics prioritizing ‘good’ or ‘evil’ he deals with the question whether the perspective from which the ethics evolves possesses the abstraction of evil in other human conditions and connotation. If evil is connoted as the abstraction of what human being suffers, evil can do nothing but beget evil. So ethics that considers evil in term of the abstraction of miserable human conditions, pain, suffering, and intolerance, as Neo-liberal ethics considers as “radical evil” in the case of the extermination of the Jews, is the one that prioritizes the concept of evil. However, essentially Badiou asserts that Evil is what human being perceive because of his inborn Good. For him, human being is capable of discerning Evil because of his capability for Good. Therefore, an ethics that prioritizes “Good” must hold “Evil” as something that depends on the concept of ‘good’ because of its existence. Question: Why is contemporary ethical discourse a "figure of nihnilism" according to Badiou? For Badiou, contemporary ethical discourses are nihilistic in two ways: First it holds the idea of the “Other” generated by Emanuel Levinas. Second, it denies the concept of “Good” to propound the idea of “Evil”. According to Badiou, in such cases several problems are generated by this nihilistic contemporary Ethics. One of these problems is that ‘Evil’ presides over the liberal and moral thought as the regulative principle and ultimately the “Good” is stigmatized by fascism. As to the concept of the “Other” in contemporary discourse- marked by Badiou as “Culturalism”- he says that Ethics with the obsession with individual’s potential which is articulated in Levinas’ concept of the “Other” is nihilistic because the "underlying conviction [of this ethics] is that the only thing that can really happen to someone is death" (Badiou 35). Works Cited Badiou, Alain. Ethics: An essay on the understanding of Evil. Translated by Peter Hallward, London: Verso, 2001. Beauvoir, D. Simone. The Ethics of Ambiguity, New York: Routledge, 1998 Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Will to Power. New York: Vintage, 1968. pp. 550 Read More