Nietzsche's Philosophy and Social Contract Theories

Nietzsche's Critique of Decadent Culture

Nietzsche. The result of certain values, for Nietzsche, is a decadent culture that destroys human life and authenticity. Thus, the Judeo-Christian moral man forgets the concrete and real because:

• 1 It places the key to transcendent life in another world, causing contempt for this one.
• 2 It states that someone from outside the world, God, directs everything.
• 3 It uses punishment and guilt to destroy noble values of life, such as innocence.
• 4 It extols the values of the flock: pain, renunciation, resignation, obedience, humility, sacrifice, etc.

Faced with this, Nietzsche proposes a new human being characterized by:

• 1 A new morality that accepts and exalts life, grandeur, joy, nobility, pride, passion, and the denial of limits.
• 2 New human values achieved through the will to power: the tendency to be more, to develop, grow, create, the instinct for improvement, absolute energy, and so on.
• 3 The objective of overcoming the current state of man to reach the Superman, one able to create new values, to love life and the world above all, to be strong and master of himself to grow and create.

The Theories of Contract and State Legitimacy

The theories of contract form a group of schools of thought using a hypothetical contract as a model to explain the origin and legitimacy of the political power of the state. This social contract is established from an assumption: the state of nature prior to all social order, where free and autonomous individuals come to an agreement to organize a society. Thus, the legitimacy of power arises from the recognition of the community members.

The contract is presented as hypothetical, as the state of nature or the contract setting must not be identified with a particular historical moment. Therefore, the function of these theories is not to state the origin of the state and power, but to justify a particular type of political organization.

Foundations of Contract Doctrines

These doctrines occur with the figures of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. They all form part of the anthropocentric ideal inaugurating modernity and are critical of the legitimacy structures of power prevalent in the Middle Ages. Thus, we find in their political doctrines the following starting points:

Individual Autonomy and Rights

1. Affirmation of the autonomy of the individual.
2. Criticism of the theocratic conception of power that had prevailed in Europe during the Middle Ages.
3. Establishment of a series of rights dependent on the rational human being's activity.