Nietzsche's Definition Of Will
As opposed to a common and traditional understanding of the will, which perceives it as a causal force that requires employment on the part of the agent to be active (e.g. I will myself to behave morally), Nietzsche’s definition of the will (in relation to the agent) is more comprehensive and intrinsic. Rather than it just being an expression of our desires (e.g. I will because I want to) and an extension of ourselves, Nietzsche defines the will as a part of our very substance (e.g. I am my will). The most fundamental of the wills would be the will to power, of which he equates with the will of life. Furthermore, life and the act of living itself is the will to power. In other words, it is natural for us to possess the will to power, because
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It is thus simultaneously a manifestation of, and in search of, “superiority[,] growth[,] expansion [and] power.” For Nietzsche, “life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of what is alien and weaker, suppression, hardness, imposition of one’s own forms, incorporation and at least, at its mildest, exploitation.” On the other hand, if exploitation is the will to power (and by extension the will of life) at its simplest, then the abnegation from “injury, violence, and exploitation and placing one’s will on a par with that of someone else” (instead of propagating one’s own will over others’) is “a will to the denial of life [and] a principle of disintegration and …show more content…
In fact, he questions the “slanderous intent” adopted with the use of such words. For Nietzsche, the will to power is not motivated by “any morality or immorality,” because the will to power is life itself and thus precedes morality altogether. Similarly, exploitation, as “a consequence of the will to power,” is a part of our natural inclinations as living beings, since we are proprietors of the will to power. Thus, when we exercise our will to power and perform acts of exploitation (as in superimposing others’ wills with our own), we are neither doing good nor ill, but simply living according to our
It is thus simultaneously a manifestation of, and in search of, “superiority[,] growth[,] expansion [and] power.” For Nietzsche, “life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of what is alien and weaker, suppression, hardness, imposition of one’s own forms, incorporation and at least, at its mildest, exploitation.” On the other hand, if exploitation is the will to power (and by extension the will of life) at its simplest, then the abnegation from “injury, violence, and exploitation and placing one’s will on a par with that of someone else” (instead of propagating one’s own will over others’) is “a will to the denial of life [and] a principle of disintegration and …show more content…
In fact, he questions the “slanderous intent” adopted with the use of such words. For Nietzsche, the will to power is not motivated by “any morality or immorality,” because the will to power is life itself and thus precedes morality altogether. Similarly, exploitation, as “a consequence of the will to power,” is a part of our natural inclinations as living beings, since we are proprietors of the will to power. Thus, when we exercise our will to power and perform acts of exploitation (as in superimposing others’ wills with our own), we are neither doing good nor ill, but simply living according to our