Thomas Stern: Nietzsche’s Ethics, Cambridge University Press, 2020

Abstract

Thomas Stern’s Nietzsche’s Ethics focuses on Nietzsche’s mature ethics. Instead of an apologetic or creative reading, Stern promises a reading which carefully follows Nietzsche’s texts in the light of his intellectual background and which presents the philosophical ideas or positions presented in them in a clear, unbiased and as detailed a manner as possible. In this context, Stern discusses the basic assumptions, general structure, and tensions of Nietzsche’s mature ethics; what Nietzsche is trying to achieve by producing a genealogy of Christian morality and to what extent he achieves it; the relations between some of the basic assumptions in Nietzsche’s ethics and some of the ideas or themes that can be found in his broader philosophy; and finally, the possibility of a Nietzschean ethics today.  Thus, Stern offers a very clear account of Nietzsche’s mature ethics that demonstrates his mastery of Nietzsche’s corpus and intellectual-historical background and also of the secondary Nietzsche literature. It must be said, however, that the Nietzsche Stern thus portrays is less likely to win our sympathy than the Nietzsche portrayed in apologetic or creative readings. But therein, in part, lies the value of Stern’s book: it presents a challenge that should not be ignored by those who believe that a more sympathetic portrait of Nietzsche is more accurate.