Being, Becoming, and Force: Grounding a Cosmological Ethics in Nietzsche’s Will to Power
Discipline: Philosophy

This paper develops a first-order normative ethical theory grounded in a metaphysical interpretation of Nietzsche’s will to power. I argue that between psychological and metaphysical readings, the latter provides the strongest foundation for ethics. Against critiques from Habermas and others, I defend that view as aiming to avoid familiar worries about nihilism, authoritarian co-option, and relativism. Drawing on Deleuze and Heidegger, I position the will to power as the principle guiding the organization of forces towards becoming. From this basis, I propose an ethical framework, using constitutivism as the basis for normativity, that evaluates actions by whether they express affirmative or negative will to power. The result is a metaphysical ethics that calls us to affirm and become.