Will to power and sexuality in Nietzsche's account of the ascetic ideal

摘要

This paper challenges a near universal assumption regarding the third treatise of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality (GM): that its main concern is to explain the attraction or power of the ascetic ideal. I argue that GM III's main concern is normative rather than descriptive explanatory. An earlier paper argues that GM III's leading question What is the meaning of the ascetic ideal? is equivalent to the question: - What is the value of the ascetic ideal? In the present paper, I interpret an aspect of GM III ignored in the earlier paper: the will to power principle of GM III 7, which seems to claim that all human behavior is to be explained in terms of the will to power. I argue that the principle's true function is normative rather than explanatory: to indicate how philosophers (and perhaps other humans) are best or ideally or healthily constituted, in particular, regarding sexuality. I also offer a normative account of what Nietzsche means by 'interpretation' in GM III and an argument against the surprisingly well-accepted view that a Nietzschean philosopher would either have little interest in sexual activity or would resist whatever interest he or she had in it. I end with brief suggestions as to the positive contribution Nietzsche thinks sexuality makes to philosophy.