The abyss, or the insufficiency of ethical nihilism for Nietzsche’s Übermensch

• Main Author: Kahambing Jan Gresil
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sciendo 2020-12-01
• Series: Ethics & Bioethics (in Central Europe)
• Subjects: abyss; ethics; übermensch; nietzsche; nihilism; romanticism; darwinism
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.2478/ebce-2020-0011

In this paper, I critique the prevalent notion that only in the abyss can one emerge to be the Übermensch, or to use Hollingdale’s term, the Superman. To support this, I will first expound on the notion of the abyss as ethical nihilism from the perspective of the death of God to Nietzsche’s critique of morality. I argue that ethical nihilism as an abyss is insufficient in constituting Nietzsche’s Superman. I will then set how the Superman emerges through counter-stages. The paradox is that such tragic an abyss that serves as conditio sine qua non for the Superman falls flat when looked at in the perspective of life. There underlies a fundamental difficulty in simply accepting the proposals of acknowledging the abyss or ‘becoming what one is.’ Later, Nietzsche’s anti-romanticism and anti-Darwinism are explored to support such difficulty.