Abstract

THIS paper consists essentially of three parts. The first part argues the case for construing Nietzsche's remarks about Übermenschlichkeit as endorsing some specific set of character traits, of "virtues" if you like. To be an Übermensch, on this reading, is to possess or exhibit certain traits of character, traits which in the typical case are associated with notions of self-overcoming, sublimation, creativity, and self-perfection. An Übermensch, construed in this way, expresses Nietzsche's vision of the human ideal, of what human beings should or might be like. In this sense Nietzsche merely continues the ancient project of articulating the human ideal, the conception of human perfectibility. Although Nietzsche's answer may appear to be shockingly different, the project of articulating a human ideal is scarcely radical. The project qua project is no different than that of Plato or Aristotle, the Stoics, Spinoza or Kant. For Plato, the philosopher-king represents the ideal of human self-perfection; for Aristotle megalopsychic man conjoined with the life of contemplation; for the Stoics apatheia and right reason; for Spinoza the intellectual amor dei was a necessary and perhaps a sufficient condition for human liberation; for Kant, the genuinely moral person qualifies as the human ideal, the person whose actions are always and only governed by the categorical imperative, although Kant would probably have called such a will a "holy" will rather than a human one.