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Moral Relativism and Perspectival Values
P G P S
Although the term ‘relativism’ entered the philosophical vocabulary as
a terminus technicus only in the nineteenth century,1 the philosophi-
cal position known as relativism can be traced back to Ancient Greek
philosophy. As is known, the fundamental proposition of Protagoras of
Abdera was that ‘man is the measure of all things: of the things which
are, that they are, and of the things which are not, that they are not.’
(Plato, Theaetetus: 152a) Socrates’ refusal of Protagoras’ proposition
in the Theaetetus has led and still leads many philosophers to think that
relativism is self-refuting:
[Protagoras’ doctrine] has this most exquisite feature: Protagoras admits, I pre-
sume, that the contrary opinion about his own opinion (namely, that it is false)
must be true, seeing he agrees that all men judge what is … And in conceding the
truth of the opinion of those who think him wrong, he is really admitting the fal-
sity of his own opinion? … But for their part the others do not admit that they are
wrong? … But Protagoras again admits this judgement to be true, according to his
written doctrine? … It will be disputed, then, by everyone, beginning with Pro-
tagoras – or rather, it will be admitted by him, when he grants to the person who
contradicts him that he judges truly – when he does that, even Protagoras himself
will be granting that neither a dog nor the ‘man in the street’ is the measure of
1 Maria Baghramian (2004: 11) points out that the first use of the term ‘relativism’
can be traced to John Grote’s Exploratio Philosophica (1865). Mi-Kyoung Lee
(2005: 34), for his part, mentions an earlier use of the word in writings of Sir Wil-
liam Hamilton and puts forward the hypothesis that the term entered the English
language from the German use of ‘Relativismus.’ As a matter of fact, as Bernd
Irlenborn (2016: 7–8) indicates, the word ‘Relativismus’ can be already found in
the fifth volume of Wilhelm Traugott Krug’s Allgemeines Handwörterbuch der
philosophischen Wissenschaften, dating from 1838. Lee (2005: 34) also points out
that ‘Relativismus’ was the term used by nineteenth-century neo-Kantian German
philosophers and scholars to refer to the position that nothing can be known in
itself, and that all we can know are appearances.’
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156 Pietro Gori and Paolo Stellino
anything at all which he has not learned. Isn’t that so? … Then since it is disputed
by everyone, the Truth of Protagoras is not true for anyone at all, not even for
himself? (Plato, Theaetetus: 171a-c)
Socrates draws attention to the fact that, if man is the measure of all
things and, therefore, truth is relative to man, then Protagoras must con-
cede the truth of the opinion contrary to his own doctrine, namely the
opinion according to which it is false that man is the measure of all
things. By doing so, however, Protagoras would be contradictorily com-
mitted to both the truth and falsehood of his own doctrine. In order to
avoid falling into this contradiction, Protagoras must assume that there
is at least one absolute truth, that is, the truth of the proposition ‘man
is the measure of all things.’ But then, once again, this could be seen as
a contradictory move, for Protagoras would be maintaining at the same
time that all truth is relative and that there is – at least – one absolute
truth, namely, that all truth is relative.2
As Neil Levy (2002: 19) has pointed out, unlike epistemic relativ-
ism, moral relativism is not vulnerable to the contradiction argument.
Indeed, no contradiction is involved in claiming that ‘moral claims are
true only relative to some standard or framework’ since this is not it-
self a moral claim. Even so, moral relativism faces other diculties.
Above all, opponents of moral relativism claim that if moral relativism
is true, then we have no means to condemn morally actions that we find
profoundly reprehensible or immoral if these actions are performed by
members of a dierent culture than ours. This claim usually takes the
form of a slippery slope argument: if we recognize that a (we do not
have any absolute moral standards in the name of which we can de-
nounce reprehensible or immoral actions), then the result b (the way is
open for any kind of crime) inevitably follows. Moral relativism would
thus fatally undermine morality: if moral relativism is true, so the crit-
icism goes, then anything goes, that is, everything is permitted. But is
it really so? Does this way of framing the problem really capture the
subtleties and complexities of moral relativism?
It is interesting to notice how the terms in which the debate be-
tween moral relativists and moral absolutists is phrased recall the way
2 For a more detailed analysis, see Baghramian (2004: 18–31).
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Moral Relativism and Perspectival Values 157
in which philosophers have interpreted and still interpret the relation
between Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. Needless to say, the argument ‘if
moral relativism is true, then everything is permitted’ has a clear Dos-
toevskian flavour. In Dostoevsky’s last novel The Brothers Karama-
zov, Ivan, one of the brothers Karamazov, puts forward the following
idea: if there is no God and if there is no immortality of the soul, then
everything is permitted. The parricide, around which the novel revolves,
can be considered as a consequence of this idea, whereas the novel itself
can be regarded as a grandiose response to it.
Ivan’s idea bears a striking similarity to the maxim ‘nothing is
true, everything is permitted’ that appears in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke
Zarathustra, in On the Genealogy of Morality, as well as in some post-
humous fragments from 1884 and 1885. This similarity has not gone
unobserved and, beginning from the end of the nineteenth century,
Russian and European intellectuals have taken it as the key to read
the relation between Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. The maxim ‘nothing
is true, everything is permitted’ has been removed from context and
read as summing up the core of Nietzsche’s philosophy. This has led to
the controversial identification of Nietzsche’s moral perspectivism with
Ivan’s moral indierentism. As a result, Dostoevsky’s novel The Broth-
ers Karamazov has been seen as anticipation and critique ante litteram
of Nietzsche’s perspectival philosophy.
Beyond the question of the philological and philosophical adequa-
cy of this kind of interpretation,3 what should not be overlooked here is
the logic underlying this kind of reading. Far from questioning whether
the maxim ‘nothing is true, everything is permitted’ could be taken as
summing up the message of Nietzsche’s philosophy, intellectuals have
taken for granted that the logical and inevitable conclusion following
from Nietzsche’s moral perspectivism (essentially read as a moral rela-
tivism) was that ‘everything is permitted.’ As one can see, what we have
is, once again, the argument according to which, if moral relativism –
or, in Nietzsche’s case, moral perspectivism – is true, then everything
is permitted.
In what follows, we will tackle this argument. More specifical-
ly, we will take Nietzsche’s case as paradigmatically showing that a
3 On this, see the second part of Stellino (2015a).
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158 Pietro Gori and Paolo Stellino
relativization or perspectivizing of morality does not imply ipso facto
that anything goes or that everything is permitted. In order to do this,
we will consider two assumptions which are often made uncritically: (1)
Nietzsche’s moral perspectivism is essentially a moral relativism, and
(2) the practical consequence deriving from Nietzsche’s moral perspec-
tivism is that everything is permitted.4
1. Moral Perspectivism
One of the aspects of Nietzsche’s thought that in recent years has cat-
alysed the attention of many scholars is ‘perspectivism.’ Although oc-
currences of this term are limited in number (at least, if we take into
consideration only the oeuvre5) and time (they appear almost exclu-
sively in the late period), this notion has been taken as indicating one
of the fundamental theories of his philosophy. The reason for the im-
portance that many scholars have given to this notion lies in the fact
that perspectivism is considered as a key term used by Nietzsche to
define, in a more synthetic and incisive way, his theory of knowledge.
Within this context, scholars often focus on a famous passage from GM
III 12 (‘There is only a perspectival seeing, only a perspectival ‘know-
ing’’), but scarcely consider GS 354, where Nietzsche relates what he
considers ‘to be true perspectivism’ with the morally-oriented view of
4 Nietzsche’s works are cited by abbreviation, chapter (when applicable) and sec-
tion number. The abbreviations used are the following: BT (The Birth of Tragedy),
HH (Human, All Too Human), GS (The Gay Science), Z (Thus Spoke Zarathus-
tra), BGE (Beyond Good and Evil), GM (On the Genealogy of Morality), TI (Twi-
light of the Idols), EH (Ecce Homo). The translations used are from the Cam-
bridge Edition of Nietzsche’s works. Posthumous fragments (PF) are identified
with reference to the Colli & Montinari standard edition. The fragments which
do not appear in the Cambridge Edition of the Writings from the Late Notebooks
are translated according to the Kaufmann and Hollingdale edition of The Will to
Power (see References).
5 See, particularly, BT, An Attempt at Self-Criticism 5; HH I, Preface 6; BGE, Pref-
ace and sections 11 and 34; GM III 12; FW 354 and 374.
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Moral Relativism and Perspectival Values 159
the herd community. Similarly, the posthumous note 7[60], 1886–87 is
often mentioned, but most of the time it is misleadingly and arbitrarily
quoted with no reference to its context.6 Since in this note Nietzsche’s
aim is to criticize the attitude of positivism, scholars interpret the claim
that ‘there are no facts, only interpretations’ – a statement often con-
sidered as summing up Nietzsche’s perspectivism – as being exclusive-
ly linked to epistemology. By so doing, the same scholars ignore that
Nietzsche had already published the maxim in section 108 of Beyond
Good and Evil (which chronologically predates the posthumous note
7[60]) and that, in that book, the maxim was specifically referred to
moral phenomena: ‘There are absolutely no moral phenomena, only a
moral interpretation of the phenomena …’7
This does not imply the rejection of the many interpretations that give
preference to the epistemological character of Nietzsche’s reflections on
perspectivism.8 Still, it is important to point out that, although Nietzsche’s
perspectivism is grounded on a specific epistemological view, the former
cannot be reduced to the latter. Nietzsche himself suggests this idea, for
instance, when he argues that our fundamental ‘will to truth’ forces us to
recognize that ‘it is no more than a moral prejudice that the truth is worth
more than appearance’ (BGE 34; our italics). On the contrary, Nietzsche
writes, we have to acknowledge that ‘life could not exist except on the basis
of perspectival valuations and appearances.’
The maxim in BGE 108, which can be taken as the ‘motto’ of
Nietzsche’s moral perspectivism, reappears two years later and in a
slightly dierent way in the following passage from Twilight of the
Idols:
6 For a thorough examination of this note, see Gori (2016: chapter 2).
7 See also PF 1885–86, 2[165]: ‘My main proposition: there are no moral phenom-
ena, there is only a moral interpretation of those phenomena. This interpretation
is of extra-moral origin.’ We can find perspectivism and morality strictly related in
other posthumous fragments of Nietzsche’s (e.g. PF 1884, 26[178] and 1885–86,
2[206]). In PF 1887, 10[154], Nietzsche writes: ‘My intention to show the abso-
lute homogeneity in all that happens and the application of the moral distinction
as only perspectivally conditioned.’ According to Robert C. Solomon (2003: 46),
‘Nietzsche’s ‘perspectivism’ is most in evidence and most at issue in his moral
philosophy.’
8 On this, see, among others, Clark (1990) and Leiter (1994).
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160 Pietro Gori and Paolo Stellino
You have heard me call for philosophers to place themselves beyond good and evil,
– to rise above the illusion of moral judgement. This call is the result of an insight
that I was the first to formulate: there are absolutely no moral facts. What moral and
religious judgements have in common is the belief in things that are not real. Mo-
rality is just an interpretation of certain phenomena or (more accurately) a misinter-
pretation. Moral judgements, like religious ones, presuppose a level of ignorance in
which even the concept of reality is missing and there is no distinction between the
real and the imaginary; a level where ‘truth’ is the name for the very things that we
now call ‘illusions’. That is why moral judgements should never be taken literally:
on their own, they are just absurdities. (TI, ‘Improving’ Humanity 1)9
According to Nietzsche, to deny the very existence of moral facts (or
phenomena) means to deny the possibility of claiming that the same
facts (or phenomena) are intrinsically moral. In Nietzsche’s view, re-
ality is morally neutral. To believe that there are moral realities is
the consequence of an illusion: what we do have is the existence of
facts or phenomena, to which a moral interpretation is added by us
depending on the specific moral perspective from which we judge.
According to Nietzsche, the moral character of an action has thus not
been found or discovered, but rather introduced in the action by the
human being.
Here we face the question of the so-called Sinn hineinlegen, i.e. the
‘introduction of meaning’ into the world. As Nietzsche puts it in a well-
known passage from section 301 of The Gay Science:
It is we, the thinking-sensing ones, who really and continually make something
that is not yet there: the whole perpetually growing world of valuations, colours,
weights, perspectives, scales, armations, and negations. … Whatever has value
in the present world has it not in itself, according to its nature – nature is always
value-less – but has rather been given, granted value, and we were the givers
and granters! Only we have created the world that concerns human beings! But
precisely this knowledge we lack, and when we catch it for a moment we have
forgotten in the next.
As this passage clearly shows, Nietzsche maintains a projectivist stance
on valuations.10 The world appears to be valuable and meaningful
9 This passage is often quoted in order to support a reading of Nietzsche’s metaeth-
ics in the light of J.L. Mackie’s ‘error theory’ (see, for instance, Hussain 2007).
10 On this, see Stellino (2015b: 182–184).
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Moral Relativism and Perspectival Values 161
because human beings previously gave value and meaning to a value-
less and meaningless world. In other words, they projected moral, aes-
thetic, religious and other kinds of valuations and estimations onto it.
By so doing, they created a perspectival and anthropomorphic world
and then forgot about their creation, wrongly believing the world to be
intrinsically beautiful and meaningful.11
The awareness of the intrinsic meaninglessness of the world
strongly characterizes Nietzsche’s late philosophical thought. Whereas
philosophers so far searched for a meaning of or in the world, Nietzsche
becomes conscious that meaning or value has to be created. This crea-
tion opens up new, unexplored possibilities for the human being: this is
the ultimate meaning of the metaphors of the ‘new dawn’ and the ‘open
sea’ that Nietzsche uses in order to describe the free spirit’s reaction to
the news that ‘the old God is dead’ (GS 343). ‘The world has once again
become infinite to us,’ Nietzsche writes in another section of the fifth
book of The Gay Science, ‘insofar as we cannot reject the possibility
that it includes infinite interpretations’ (GS 374).
A superficial reading of Nietzsche’s philosophy could take these
passages and metaphors as a confirmation that the reasoning men-
tioned above – according to which, if moral perspectivism is true, then
everything is permitted – is validated by Nietzsche himself. As a matter
of fact, if, according to Nietzsche’s moral perspectivism, (i) every moral
interpretation is relative to a judging perspective, and (ii) God is dead,
that is, an absolute viewpoint (God’s eye view) is lacking, then (iii)
every moral interpretation seems to be as true, valid or justified as the
others. In other words, everything would be permitted. Following this
reasoning, Nietzsche is often interpreted as a supporter of an extreme
moral relativism as well as of a radical form of normative ethical ego-
ism according to which, given God’s death and the perspectival charac-
ter of reality, moral agents ought to do what is their own self-interest,
even if this means to act in detriment to others’ interest. In what follows,
attention will be briefly focused on both views.
11 See also PF 1884, 25[505].
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162 Pietro Gori and Paolo Stellino
2. Individualism vs. Relationalism
In arguing against the view that takes Nietzsche to be a supporter of a
radical form of normative ethical egoism, the following premise is need-
ed: it is undeniable that in Nietzsche’s writings and posthumous notes
one finds abundant textual evidence in favour of moral individualism. In
a passage from Thus spoke Zarathustra, for instance, Nietzsche writes as
follows: ‘He will have discovered himself who speaks: ‘This is my good
and evil.’ With this he has silenced the mole and dwarf who says: ‘Good
for all, evil for all’.’ (Z IV, On the Spirit of Gravity) This individualistic
attitude – a peculiar feature of Nietzsche’s philosophy – acquires its full
meaning when contrasted with Kantian universalism. This contrast, in
particular, is symbolised by the second metamorphosis of the spirit, who
first becomes a camel (‘Thou shalt’) and then a lion (‘I will’).12
It is because of his strong opposition to Kantian universalism that
Nietzsche puts particular emphasis, in Zarathustra as well as in other
writings, on the point of view of the individual in morality. This empha-
sis has been, however, interpreted in the sense of a radical and extreme
form of individualism, which would directly follow from Nietzsche’s
perspectivism. Nevertheless, although Nietzsche often makes reference
to the human tendency to subjugate and tyrannize – a tendency which is
the expression of the fundamental feature of the world, the well-known
and widely debated ‘will to power’ – the perspectival talk of a mul-
tiplicity of dierent and opposed perspectives leads to quite dierent
outcomes. This becomes evident when attention is focused on the key
question of the subject of perspectivism.13
Contrary to what one may be led to believe, most of the time
Nietzsche does not identify the human being (the individual) as the
proper subject of perspectivism; rather, he refers both to supra-in-
dividual subjects (e.g. the species or society) and to infra-individu-
al subjects (e.g. the centres of force). Moreover, no matter which is
the subject of perspectivism (the individual, the supra-individual or
12 Z, I, On the Three Metamorphoses. See also GS 355, A 11, and TI, Morality as
Anti-nature 6.
13 On this, see Cox (1997).
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Moral Relativism and Perspectival Values 163
the infra-individual one), the reality lying behind it is always plural
and dynamic. This reality is characterised by the mutual relation-
ship between its component parts, according to the view of nature
that Nietzsche defends as from 1881.14 Nietzsche’s perspectivism is,
therefore, grounded on a relational model with no privileged subject.
Within this model, the validity of one specific perspective cannot be
thought without any reference to the relation (be it conflicting or not)
that this perspective entertains with other perspectives.
A brief scrutiny of the most interesting passages where Nietzsche
talks about a ‘perspectival seeing’ can lend support to what has been
argued. The wider subject of perspectivism that Nietzsche considers is
the species, whose perspective on, or interpretation of, reality is shared
by all the single individuals that have the same perceptive and cognitive
apparatus. Nietzsche has in mind what we could define as a collective
subject on a biological basis. During its evolutionary history, every spe-
cies has developed a particular psycho-physiological structure which
is functional to adaptation to the environment. Although each member
of the species has a specific viewpoint of the world, she is still part of
a wider interpreting perspective of reality which is the result of similar
perceptive mechanisms.15
Nietzsche follows a similar line of thought when it comes to anoth-
er wide subject of perspectivism, namely the social collectivity. In the
well-known section 354 from the fifth book of The Gay Science – the
only section of the published texts in which Nietzsche uses the term
‘perspectivism’ and explains what he considers to be ‘true phenome-
nalism and perspectivism’ – attention is focused on communication as a
prerequisite for the creation of a society. In particular, Nietzsche points
out that human consciousness ‘actually belongs not to man’s existence
as an individual but rather to the community- and herd-aspects of his
nature.’ The herd is here the subject of a generalized and vulgarized
14 On Nietzsche’s view of the world as an unresting dynamics of force-quanta in
mutual relationship, and on the connection between this ontology and the idea of
‘will to power,’ see Abel (1998) and Gori (2007: chapter 3).
15 On this, see, e.g. GS 110; PF 1885, 43[1] and 5[36]; PF 1886, 7[2]. George Stack
particularly focuses on the species as the main reference of Nietzsche’s perspec-
tivism. See, for instance, Stack (1991). See also Cox (1997: 274–275).
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164 Pietro Gori and Paolo Stellino
perspective, a dimension where any individual feeling and willing loses
its value in favour of the usefulness to the herd.16
Species and society are two plural subjects of perspectivism in
which individuality plays no fundamental role. On the contrary, when
it comes to the human being – considered as the referent of a singular
perspective determined not only by its space-time perception, but also
by its specific interests and needs – individuality obviously has a more
important position.17 On this level, we have a multiplicity of singular
perspectives pertaining to individual subjects whose fundamental ten-
dency, according to Nietzsche, is to arm their own worldview (their
own ‘taste’) over those of the other subjects. This picture can particu-
larly lead to the dangerous idea that Nietzsche is a supporter of a rad-
ical form of normative ethical egoism for, given this conflictive pic-
ture, moral agents could seem to be justified in doing what is their own
self-interest, even if this means to act in detriment to others’ interest.
Without denying that, in Nietzsche’s view, individual perspec-
tives conflict with each other and often tend to overmaster dierent or
opposite perspectives, it should be pointed out that this interpretation
suers one serious flaw: it overlooks the constitutive character that re-
lationalism plays in Nietzsche’s perspectivism. As already mentioned,
Nietzsche considers the individual as always making part of a species
or a social collectivity. Within both of them, the individual is not like a
monad, but is rather situated in a network of dynamic and interpersonal
relations. Moreover, even when emphasis is put on the individual, it
should not be forgotten that Nietzsche conceives the individual itself in
terms of a plural multiplicity, a collectivity. This is evident, for instance,
in Beyond Good and Evil, where Nietzsche’s criticism towards the tra-
ditional view of the substantialist concept of ‘subject’ makes reference
to ‘social structures’ like the soul, ‘a society constructed out of drives
and aects’ (BGE 12), or the body, made of many souls from which
the action that we call ‘individual’ arises (BGE 19).18 Thus, behind the
16 See on this Ibbeken (2008: 75) and Gori (2016: chapter 3).
17 Among others, Clark and Leiter argue that Nietzsche’s perspectivism is limited to
human consciousness only. Their view is discussed in Cox (1997: 276 ). On this,
see also (Grimm 1977: 68).
18 See also PF 1880, 6[70]. According to Nietzsche, individuals are plural subjec-
tivities made of drives and instincts acting at an ‘unconscious’ level (see, e.g. PF
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Moral Relativism and Perspectival Values 165
individual, as well as behind the species and the social collectivity, there
lies a network of relations between singularities, singularities that we
ignore in favour of a more unitary and inclusive perspective.
What emerges from this picture is a plural conception of the hu-
man being: on the one side, we find a supraindividual (biological and/
or social) perspective that includes the individual one; on the other side,
there is the plane of the single entities that constitute the human being
and that find in him a (merely illusory) unity.19 Behind these entities,
there is the last subject that it is possible to find in Nietzsche’s writings,
namely the single centre of force.20 Here, Nietzsche leads perspectiv-
ism to the extreme, considering that the plane of interpretation coin-
cides with that of being, that is, with the plane of pure and necessary re-
lationship among the dierent perspectives, which can be defined only
from within their mutual relation:
As if a world would still remain over after one deducted the perspective! By do-
ing that one would deduct relativity! Every center of force adopts a perspective
toward the entire remainder, i.e., its own particular valuation, mode of action, and
mode of resistance. … The ‘world’ is only a word for the totality of these actions.
Reality consists precisely in this particular action and reaction of every individual
part toward the whole. (PF 1888, 14[184])
As the analysis developed shows, when Nietzsche talks of ‘perspectiv-
ism’ or ‘perspectival seeing,’ he always has in mind a relational dynamics.
The dierent interpretations of the world (be they of theoretical or moral
nature) are all expression of this dynamics, on the basis of which the in-
ternal articulation of the most complex structures existing in the world is
grounded. Everything is based on a non-teleological and necessary, but
constitutively unstable, action-reaction process. Value judgments can be
defined only by reference to this relationship, where, at the micro-level,
a centre of force gains ‘power’ only insofar as it exchanges energy with
1885, 40[42]). Within this picture, the I (or the subject) is a non-substance entity,
a theoretical notion whose ontological ground is only that of the pure activity that
we attribute to it. In other words, the I is ‘a perspectival illusion – the illusory uni-
ty in which, as in a horizon, everything converges’ (PF 1885–86, 2[91]; on this,
see also BGE 16, 17 and 19, and, for an examination of this issue, Gori 2015).
19 On this, see Cox (1997: 290).
20 See, among others, PF 1888, 14[184] and [186].
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166 Pietro Gori and Paolo Stellino
other centres. The kind of mastery grounded on this relationship is there-
fore not fixed and immutable. On the contrary, once the power of a centre
of force is exhausted, the equilibrium of the total mass of energy changes
and another centre becomes ‘master’ for a limited period of time.
The reference to this dynamic relationship avoids the risk of inter-
preting Nietzsche’s moral perspectivism as leading to a form of autar-
chic individualism. The idea that dierent, conflicting interpretations
can coexist follows indeed from the view according to which relation-
ship itself is the constitutive element of a perspectival reality. In other
words, we cannot define the centres of force outside their mutual rela-
tions or without making reference to the way they react to the obstacles
they find when they discharge their energy. As a result, every perspec-
tive can arm itself only through the relation with the other ones and,
furthermore, in alternation with them. Thus, it would be wrong to think
that, within Nietzsche’s worldview, a specific evaluative perspective
could be valid in itself, that is, in isolation from a context that gives to it
its specific meaning, or to claim that one can arm his own view over
the others once and for all. This does not amount to any rejection of the
individualistic and armative tendency pertaining to each perspective.
Still, it is important to emphasize that this tendency must face the same
attempt of armation from other subjects. In this way, conflicting per-
spectives give birth to a relational dynamics.21
3. Relativism
Nietzsche’s moral perspectivism has been interpreted not only as an ex-
treme form of ethical egoism, but also as a radical relativism according
to which, as mentioned, since (i) every moral interpretation is relative to
a judging perspective, and (ii) an absolute viewpoint is lacking, then (iii)
21 L. Hatab (1995: 160) argues that Nietzsche’s pluralistic perspectivism is dierent
from any other view that defends the coexistence of multiple ‘truths’ because it
puts emphasis on the agonal dimension, that is, on the conflict existing between
dierent perspectives. Nietzsche’s perspectival view has been used by Günter Abel
in order to develop an ‘interpretation ethics’ (see e.g. Abel 1995: chapter 24).
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Moral Relativism and Perspectival Values 167
every moral interpretation seems to be as true, valid or justified (i.e. per-
mitted) as the others. In order to understand why this kind of reading fails
to capture the real meaning of the radical change that Nietzsche operates
in the realm of morality, it is necessary to focus attention on the main
goal of Nietzsche’s late philosophy. The death of God announced by the
madman of The Gay Science (§ 125), together with the collapse of the
Christian-moral interpretation of the world, leave an axiological and nor-
mative void. Far from accepting this void as an inevitable existential con-
dition, Nietzsche aims to face it ‘fearless’ and ‘cheerful’ (GS 343), and
to fill it through the well-known revaluation of values. It is symptomatic,
for instance, that although, on the one hand, Zarathustra (Nietzsche’s alter
ego) presents himself as ‘the annihilator of morals’ (Z I, On the Adder’s
Bite), on the other hand he puts strong emphasis on the need of creating
new values. In other words, Nietzsche is well aware that a new evaluative
interpretation must take the place of the former one, and much of his
eort in the late period is focused on elaborating this new interpretation.
The attitude that, in the fifth book of The Gay Science, Nietzsche
claims to be that of the new philosophers and ‘good Europeans’ shows
us that, according to him, one of the consequences of the death of God
is the opening of what Karl Jaspers has defined as a ‘positive, creative
freedom’ (Jaspers 1997: 157) for the human being. In the posthumous
fragment 39[15], 1885, Nietzsche clearly writes that, with the death of
God, the Christian-European morality has become no longer necessary
(the Christian God and morality held themselves together, he claims).
Once traditional morality has been denied validity, Nietzsche exhorts
the human being to become a self-legislator, that is, to give himself
new values and ideals and to set new goals (GS 335). In other words,
man must become autonomous. This autonomy, however, is not to be
conceived in terms of an unlimited or licentious freedom.22 The con-
sequence of the death of God is rather an assumption of both individ-
ual and collective responsibility.23 This is a key point which Heidegger
(2002 [1943]: 189) did not fail to notice, as the following passage clear-
ly shows:
22 See on this e.g. Constâncio (2012).
23 On this, see Pfeuer (2008).
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168 Pietro Gori and Paolo Stellino
It is easy but irresponsible to be outraged by the idea and the figure of the over-
man, which was designed to be misunderstood; it is easy but irresponsible to
pretend that one’s outrage is a refutation. It is dicult but for future thinking
unavoidable to attain the high responsibility [hohe Verantwortung; our italics] out
of which Nietzsche reflected on the essence of that humanity destined … to un-
dertake mastery over the earth. The essence of the overman is not a warrant for a
fit of capricious frenzy. It is the law, grounded in being itself, of a long chain of
the highest self-overcomings.
With these words, Heidegger gets at the heart of the problem: the axio-
logical and normative void left by the death of God and by the collapse
of the Christian-moral interpretation of the world is not conceived by
Nietzsche as a ‘warrant for a fit of capricious frenzy,’ to use Heidegger’s
words. On the contrary, as already mentioned, Nietzsche calls humanity
to an assumption of individual and collective responsibility, that is, to
an attainment of the awareness that, since humanity’s great values and
ideals have proved to be hollow, new values and ideals are now required,
i.e. must be created.24
This is the chief reason for which Dostoevsky’s and Nietzsche’s an-
swer to the question of the consequence of the death of God for moral-
ity could not be more opposite. As The Brothers Karamazov exemplary
shows, Dostoevsky believes that God’s existence and the immortality of
the soul are two essential pillars of the moral edifice. Without them, what
we have is a dangerous slope that leads from atheism to self-deification,
and from self-deification to the breaking of all moral rules. This logic
becomes evident in the following passage from the dialogue between the
devil and Ivan Karamazov (fourth part of the novel):
Once mankind has renounced God, one and all … then the entire old world view
will fall of itself, without anthropophagy, and, above all, the entire former moral-
ity, and everything will be new. … Man will be exalted with the spirit of divine,
titanic pride, and the man-god will appear. … The question now … is whether or
not it is possible for such a period ever to come. If it does come, then everything
will be resolved and mankind will finally be settled. But since, in view of man’s
inveterate stupidity, it may not be settled for another thousand years, anyone who
already knows the truth is permitted to settle things for himself, absolutely as
he wishes, on the new principles. In this sense, ‘everything is permitted’ to him.
Moreover, since God and immortality do not exist in any case, even if this period
24 See PF 1887, 11[411].
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Moral Relativism and Perspectival Values 169
should never come, the new man is allowed to become a man-god, though it be he
alone in the whole world, and of course, in this new rank, to jump lightheartedly
over any former moral obstacle of the former slave-man, if he need be. There is
no law for God! (Dostoevsky 1992: 648f.)
Unlike Dostoevsky, for Nietzsche the dichotomy ‘either God or amoral-
ity’ is a false dichotomy. Aware that, to put it with Kant (1998 [1786]:
12), ‘without any law, nothing – not even nonsense – can play its
game for long,’ Nietzsche is far from being a supporter of the thesis
‘everything is permitted,’ at least when this thesis is understood as an
absolute lack of laws and values. If so understood, this thesis leads in-
deed to the nihilistic attitude that Nietzsche diagnoses in the European
culture of his own age (with its degenerative eect on humanity) and
to whose opposition a large part of his late writings and Nachlass is
dedicated. On the contrary, as one can read, e.g. in On the Genealogy
of Morality (III, 27), Nietzsche shows a clear awareness of the fact that
European nihilism can and has to be countered with a revaluation of
values. This is the groundbreaking task that Nietzsche decides to face,
as he himself confesses in his autobiography: ‘I have a hand for switch-
ing perspectives: the first reason why a ‘revaluation of values’ is even
possible, perhaps for me alone’ (EH, Why I Am So Wise, 1).
One of the fundamental conditions of the new ‘doctrine and coun-
ter-evaluation of life’ to which Nietzsche makes reference in the new
preface to The Birth of Tragedy (BT, An Attempt at Self-Criticism, 5) is,
without doubt, the acknowledgment of the perspectival character of ex-
istence. This acknowledgment poses a classical problem to Nietzsche,
namely that of the conflict between dierent moralities or dierent tables
of values. Since there is no one absolute morality, but rather a plurality of
(often conflicting) moral perspectives, how can one perspective claim to
be better than another? Here, again, relativism seems to cast its shadow
and one may be led to believe that there is no plausible alternative to the
position according to which every moral interpretation seems to be as
true, valid or justified (i.e. permitted) as the others. However, this would
be wrong. Indeed, Nietzsche defends the idea that it is possible – in fact,
according to him, necessary – to establish a rank order among values,
valuations, men, individuals, types, aects, drives, forces, goods, types of
life, societies and cultures. The Nachlass bears abundant testimony that
this is one of the most pressing tasks of Nietzsche’s late philosophy. In
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170 Pietro Gori and Paolo Stellino
particular, the problem of values and the establishment of the rank order
of values are considered by Nietzsche as the future task of the philosopher,
as the following passage from the Genealogy of Morality clearly shows:
The question: what is this or that table of values and ‘morals’ worth? needs to be
asked from dierent angles; in particular, the question ‘value for what?’ cannot
be examined too finely. … The good of the majority and the good of the minority
are conflicting moral standpoints: we leave it to the naïvety of English biologists
to view the first as higher in value as such … All sciences must, from now on, pre-
pare the way for the future work of the philosopher: this work being understood
to mean that the philosopher has to solve the problem of values and that he has to
decide on the rank order of values. –
There is little doubt that Nietzsche’s attempt to establish a rank order
of perspectival values is problematic. Brian Leiter (2000: 277), for
example, in his paper on Nietzsche’s metaethics, poses the following
question: ‘is there any sense in which Nietzsche’s evaluative perspec-
tive can claim some epistemic privilege – being veridical, being better
justified – over its target?’25 In other words, as John Richardson (2004:
68) points out, Nietzsche’s attempt to establish a rank order of values
generates an interpretive puzzle: how can Nietzsche reconcile his ‘em-
phatic ‘perspectivizing’ of all values, including his own, with his equal-
ly vehement ‘ranking’ of values – a ranking that so clearly purports to
some privileged status?’26 To provide an answer to these questions goes
25 Leiter seems not to take into consideration the possibility that the privilege
claimed by Nietzsche’s evaluative perspective is not epistemic, but rather prac-
tical. See, for instance, Gerhardt 1989. On the primary function of every per-
spective as sinnorientierend, that is, as providing a meaning though which the
human being can be practically orientated in the world, see Kaulbach (1980) and
Gerhardt (1989).
26 Another way to put the problem is the following: how do we reconcile the me-
taethics of the values Nietzsche criticizes and the metaethics of the values he
defends? As Robertson (2009: 67) puts it, ‘If Nietzsche denies the objectivity of
value upon which morality’s claim to authority rests, he thereby deprives his own
positive values of a legitimate claim to objectivity and authority; in that case, the
values constitutive of his own positive evaluative outlook are no more objectively
justified than or superior to those he rejects; there may then be no objective justi-
fication for the claim that we should alter our evaluative commitments or pursue
the revaluation through to completion.’ On this, see Stellino (2015b).
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Moral Relativism and Perspectival Values 171
beyond the scope of this paper. However, within the present context, we
may observe that Nietzsche’s insistence on the need of a rank order pre-
cisely constitutes the chief objection against those readings that equate
Nietzsche’s moral perspectivism with a moral relativism according to
which all evaluative perspectives would have the same status or the
same validity. For if Nietzsche would consider all evaluative perspec-
tives to have the same status or the same validity, why would he feel the
urgent need to establish a rank order of values?
Werner Stegmaier (1994: 202) stresses quite clearly Nietzsche’s
original attitude towards relativism:
According to Nietzsche, to think in a relativistic way means to search for a hold
no longer on any highest point – with which, if proved to be untenable, everything
would break down – but rather on a network of relations which maintain their
hold on one another. For Nietzsche, nihilism was the groundless-becoming of
every higher philosophy of absolute, while the relativism of his perspectivism
was the disillusion that had to follow and a relief. Philosophy could now give up
the search for ultimate criteria for the foundation of truth and good and, instead,
explore the changing plausibilities according to which we generally validate truth
as truth, good as good and grounded [Begründen] as grounded.
In this passage, Stegmaier particularly focuses on the connection be-
tween relativism and what we have defined as ‘relationalism,’ and
stresses the importance of considering values and truths as generated
by ‘a network of relations which maintain their hold on one another’
instead of with reference to a single, absolute principle. If we take this
viewpoint, then it is easy to understand how a relativization or a per-
spectivizing of morality – which is Nietzsche’s case – does not imply
ipso facto that anything goes or that everything is permitted. As we
have seen above, Nietzsche is highly aware that the risk of defending a
perspectival view in the moral domain is that all evaluative perspectives
can be considered to have the same status or the same validity, but he
also defends a relationalistic view according to which each truth, each
value can be judged only with reference to the network of which they
are part. In short, Nietzsche thinks that there should be (or there has to
be) a rank order of values and, furthermore, that the criterion or stand-
ard, which has to be defined in order to establish this rank order, must
take into account the relationalism of values. Thus, the rank order of
values cannot be grounded on some kind of individualistic principle or
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172 Pietro Gori and Paolo Stellino
normative ethical egoism.27 As Nietzsche suggests in the passage from
the Genealogy mentioned above, to define this criterion constitutes the
future work of the philosopher.
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