Query:

I've been reading some books about Nietzsche and Nietzschean virtues.  Since you're a nihilist-turned-Thomist, how do you now evaluate Nietzsche's list of virtues and his overall concept of virtue?  I'm interested in how Thomism can dialogue with Nietzsche on virtue.  Also, what were some of the major shifts that you had to make in your own thinking about virtue as you moved from Nietzsche to Christianity and then Catholicism?

Reply:

I'm glad to answer, but I’m afraid that Nietzsche doesn’t have a list of virtues, and people who tell you that he does are blowing smoke.  What he actually says is that each people has its own “table of values,” its own list of admired qualities:  For example, the ancient Persians admired telling the truth and shooting arrows straight.  To be sure, Nietzsche himself admires some characteristics, such as strength.  But he doesn’t think that there is any objective validity to any of these lists of qualities.  If by a virtue one means a quality of character it is objectively good to have, then he doesn’t believe that there are any virtues.

In fact, he denies objective truth not only in the moral realm, but in every realm.  To him, every doctrine of how things are is a conquest brought about by sheer power, because there is no “how things are.”  He claims that thought is only a relation among our drives, that rationality is only a kind of thought we cannot get free of, that conscious intentions are only a kind of symptomology, and that we at in at our best when we are in some sense unconscious.

Needless to say, if this were true, then it couldn’t be true.  Not even the statement “There is no objective truth” would have objective truth.

Dialogue is conversation in mutual pursuit of truth.  For someone who doesn’t believe in objective truth, every time we open our mouths we are uttering nonsense, and dialogue is nonsense squared.  Thus dialogue with Nietzsche is literally impossible, and there is no point in attempting it.

You ask what shifts I had to make in my own thinking about virtue as I emerged from the dark night of nihilism.  I would say that the biggest shift was believing again that there can be thinking.  The second biggest – though this took longer -- was learning to think again.

His reply:

Thank you!  That was my hunch.  What then do you suppose is the source and motive for the way writers like those I mentioned read Nietzsche?  Are they pointing to things that aren't really there?  Are they trying to make Nietzsche more palatable by rendering him seem more moderate?  Was Nietzsche just inconsistent?  Or all of the above?

My further response:

Since Nietzsche is so incoherent, it’s easy to read all sorts of things into him.  Some people might do that by accident, whether because they don’t read carefully or because they just can’t believe Nietzsche could be as crazy as he is.  But careless reading can also be highly motivated.  Nihilism thrills a lot of people, who may want Nietzsche to seem less crazy so that they can embrace some version of his lunacy. 

I’ve written from time to time that if we read Nietzsche at all, we should do so for the same reason we culture diphtheria or dissect hookworms:  To study cures.  The problem is that some Nietzscheans are engaged in gain-of-function research.