Abstract

Nietzsche denies the existence of two traditional sources of normativity: unconditional value in the world and the autonomous, rational agent. Despite this denial, Nietzsche's "higher men" are supposed to create new values and revalue old values while facing up to reality. I argue that we are faced with an unsolved interpretive puzzle: given what Nietzsche says about values, moral psychology, and what it is to be a "higher man", it is hard to see how these "higher men" could engage in a practice of valuing. ;I argue that focusing on Nietzsche's discussions of art as "honest illusion" gives us the answer to this interpretive puzzle. For Nietzsche's higher men, valuing X is regarding X as unconditionally valuable, while knowing that X is in fact not unconditionally valuable. Successfully regarding X as valuable requires at least the following: saving the phenomenology of valuing, experiencing X as an end which stands above and beyond desires and inclinations, having the right connections to action and motivation, and providing the agent with a sense that her life has a unifying purpose and goal. The use of illusion in art and imaginative play shows us the psychological possibility of regarding a as F while knowing that a is not F, and provides us with techniques, suitably refined, for succeeding in regarding things as valuable outside the domain of art or imaginative play. Nietzsche is thus proposing a fictionalist practice of valuing for his "higher men". ;This interpretive strategy then gives us an interesting entry point to issues within contemporary discussions of agency and value in analytical metaethics. A Nietzschean metaethical approach comes in two parts: an error-theoretic account of our existing evaluative practices and a proposed fictionalist replacement. I argue that traditional approaches to defending an error-theoretic account of our evaluative practices face various hurdles. I suggest an alternative route to defending an error-theory. I conclude by suggesting how contemporary fictionalist accounts concerning other domains, in particular art, can be used to developed the proposed Nietzschean fictionalist replacement of our current evaluative practices.