Kant vs. Nietzsche: Formal Duty and the Will to Power

The Clash of Ethical Perspectives

Not all philosophers or currents have a united response to ethics. This is perhaps due to the very vitality of philosophy, which enriches our personal perspectives. As we know, Kant's ethics is a formal ethics. We can focus our discussion on the opposition to material ethics, which not only tells us what is good but also proposes specific guidelines for what we must do to reach it. The ethics of religion (Christianity), hedonists, and utilitarians are examples of this type of ethics.

Kant vs. Nietzsche: Duty vs. Vitality

We could compare the ethics of Kant and Nietzsche. For Nietzsche, the morality that has dominated Western culture has become a stranglehold on life, attempting to repress, castrate, and sever that which is natural: diversity, creativity, spontaneity, and impulsivity. For Nietzsche, the "great geniuses" of morality have concurred in the attempt to change life and suppress the vital impulse. They propose useless doctrines that could only come from weak and degenerate people, unable to meet their vital impulses, making a virtue of their shortcomings and turning their morality into a slave morality.

The Genealogy of Morals: Aristocrats and Serfs

In the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche distinguishes between two classes: aristocrats and serfs. Faced with the morality of serfs, there is no choice but to fight it with a morality of lords, which is the assertion of self. In this morality, the individual decides to set their own standards according to values such as intelligence, pride, risk, passion, creativity, adventure, and strength. The "you must" (often associated with Christianity) must be replaced by "I want."

The Transmutation of Values and the Three Metamorphoses

One should recall Nietzsche's theory of the transmutation of values. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche shows us the various transformations through which the human spirit passes:

• The Camel: Represents "you must"; it obeys and carries the values of the Western tradition.
• The Lion: Represents "I want"; it stops being submissive, faces and denies old values, but risks falling into nihilism.
• The Child: Symbolizes innocence, forgetfulness, and affirmation; the child can dance on the tightrope of life, leading to the Superman.

The Superman (Übermensch) is the alternative proposed by Nietzsche, but he is an individual who has not appeared yet. We do not know when he will appear, and he may have nothing to do with current births.

Universal Morality and Personal Autonomy

Kant, with his obsessive defense of duty and his intention to establish a universal morality that does not take into account impulses and instincts, becomes an easy target for Nietzsche's criticism. For Nietzsche, it is the particular individual who decides their own rules of conduct. However, there is a relationship of resemblance between Nietzsche and Kant: both argue for personal autonomy in moral decision-making, fleeing from moral guardians and hypothetical imperatives.