Anna Lena Carlsson

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Ethical Aspectsof Nietzsche and Foucaults Writing on Self-FormationPhD Anna-Lena Carlsson

NSE conference in rhus, Denmark, May 31-June 3, 2007.

IN THIS PAPER, I will address the notion of self-formation in Nietzsche and

Foucaults writing. In regard to the title, ethical aspects refers to the question

of self-creation and interaction with already existing ways of life in Nietzsche

and Foucaults line of thought.

TURNING FIRSTLY TONIETZSCHE ON SELF-FORMATION: Nietzsche uses the

concepts art and artistic, not only in references to artworks, but also in an

expanded sense, profoundly linked with our human existence in and

understanding of the world.1 In The Gay Science(1882), he writes that giving

style to ones character is a great and rare art.2 [W]e want to be the poets of

our lives.3 Throughout his production, Nietzsche pictures the pre-Socratic

Greek culture as acknowledging an artistic creativity as fundamental for human

lives.

As I have argued elsewhere,4 there is a life-affirming and a life-

negating way of forming ones life in Nietzsches thought and it is the life-

1 Nietzsche,KSA 1, 883.2 Nietzsche,KSA 3, 290, s.530.3 Nietzsche,The Gay Science, book IV, 299, p.240 [KSA 3, 538].4 Carlsson, Anna-Lena,is it hunger or superabundance that has here become creative? Nietzsche

on Creativity in Art and Life, diss. (Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2004). See also FriedrichNietzsche and Michel Foucault on Aesthetics and Life, NSE conference in Jyvskyl, May 2006.


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affirming kind that is of the highest value. To affirm life, in its highest state, is to

allow life to be basically creative and destructive in regard to conventional

truths and values. A life-negating way of existing, then, denies human beings asfundamentally creative. In the absence of an immanent justification of ones self,

this being depends on something external for its justification such as God.

Consequently, according to Nietzsche, inTwilight of the Idols (1888), a Christian

artist does not exist.5

With the exception of Nietzsches first book,The Birth of Tragedy(1872), the life-affirming self, suggested for the future, is described as non-

metaphysical and as forming itself according to its own degree of power; its

will to power. Accordingly, this future way of being affirms life as hierarchical.

This is seen in Nietzsches writing of the masters of morality6 and

bermensch.7

In regard to the two-fold of self-creation and moral values,

Nietzsche writes, inThe Genealogy of Morals(1887): The tremendous labor of

that which I have called morality of mores [G. die Sittlichkeit der Sitte

(Sitte/morality is understood as customs, practices, not exclusively moral)]

the labor performed by man upon himself during the greater part of the

existence of the human race [], finds in this its meaning, its great justification,

notwithstanding the severity, tyranny, stupidity, and idiocy involved in it: with

the aid of the morality of mores and the social straitjacket, man was actually

5 Nietzsche,The Twilight of the Idols(1990b), 83f. [KSA 6, 117].6

See Nietzsche,Beyond Good and Eviland The Genealogy of Morals.7 See Nietzsche,Thus spoke Zarathustra.


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It is of significance to note, that these practices are models already

existing in the culture.20 It is still not a matter of adjusting to a system of rules; it

is not a process of normalization.21 He also underlines the aspect of turningoneself into a beautiful form in the eyes of others, of oneself, and of the

future generations for which one might serve as an example.22

An important matter is what Foucault terms governmentality. He

stresses governmentality as [t]he government of the self by the self in its

articulation with relations to others (as one finds it in pedagogy, advice forconduct, spiritual direction, the prescription of models of life, etc.).23

Subjevtivation, in the light of governmentality, then contains an element of (the

selfs) freedom within the margins of existing models of life.24 Governmentality,

Foucault writes, implies the ethical relation of self to self, and [] concerns

strategies for the direction of conduct of free individuals.25

The practices of self-formation are self-directing and depending on others (and their practices of

self-creation).26

Turning to Christianity, however, Foucault finds a way of caring

for oneself in ones salvation, attained through the renunciation of self; in

20Idem, Interview: The Ethics of the Concern of the Self , in Foucault (1997b), 291.21Idem, Interview: The Ethics of the Concern of the Self , in Foucault (1997b), 291. In a

working session 1983, Foucault stresses, concerning the Stoic ethics, that the principal aim []of this kind of ethics, was an aesthetic one. First, this kind of ethics was only a problem of personal choice. Second, it was reserved for a few people []. The reason for making this choicewas the will to live a beautiful life, and to leave to others memories of a beautiful existence.Nietzsche, Interview: The Ethics of the Concern of the Self , in Foucault (1997b), 291.22Foucault, The Concern for Truth, in Foucault (1990c), 259.23Quoted from Davidson (1994), s.119. Reference to Foucault, Subjectivit et verit, 1980-81, inRsum des Cours, 1970-1982(Paris: Julliard, 1989), 134-35.24See also Minson (1985), 44.25Quoted from Dean, A social structure of many souls: Moral regulation, government, and

self-formation (1994). SeeThe Final Foucault (1988)26This interpretation is also done by Dean (1994), 155.


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an adjustment to a system of rules.27 In The History of Sexuality, he writes, that

the Greek relation to truth was leading to a way of life whose moral value did

not depend either on ones being in conformity with a code of behavior, or onan effort of purification [as later, in Christianity], but on certain formal

principles in the use of pleasures, in the way one distributed them, in the limits

one observed, in the hierarchy one respected.28

Foucault then also turns to his contemporary culture: [W]hy must

the care of the self occur only through the concern for truth? he asks.29

FromAntiquity to Christianity, he continues, we have passed from a morality that

was a search for a personal ethics to a morality as obedience to a system of

rules.30 [T]he idea of a morality as obedience to a code of rules is [however]

now disappearing [] [a]nd to this absence of morality, corresponds [] the

search for an aesthetics of existence.31

THERE ARE INDEED SIMILARITIESto be found, in Nietzsche and Foucaults

thinking on self-creation.32 We can distinguish between a life-affirming and life-

27Ibid, The Ethics of the Concern for the Self , in Foucault (1997b), 285. One of his examplesis Gregory of NyssasTreatise on Virginity, in its denial of the care of the self in a renunciation of any earthly attachment. Ibid.28Quoted from Michael Mahon (1992), 175. Mahons reference is to the French edition of Lusagedes plaisirs, p.103.29Foucault, The Ethics of the Concern of the Self , in Foucault (1997b), 295.30Foucault, An Aesthetics of Existence, in Foucault (1990c), 49.31 Foucault, An Aesthetics of Existence, in Foucault (1990c), 49. In a lecture 1982, he arguesconcerning one of the techniques of the self: From the eighteenth century to the present, thetechniques of verbalization have been reinserted in a different context by the so-called humansciences in order to use themewithout renunciation of the self but to constitute,positively, a newself. [My italics.] Foucault, Technologies of the Self, in Foucault, (1997b), 249.32 For an overview of important works on Nietzsches influence on Foucault, see Mahon (1992),

9-17 and Leslie Paul Thiele, The Agony of Politics: The Nietzschean Roots of FoucaultsThought,The American Political Science Review, vol. 84, no., 3 (Sep., 1990), 907-925.


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negating type of artistic existence in Nietzsches writing. This two-fold can also

be detected in Foucaults thinking, when he distinguishes the practices of self-

formation that are self-sufficient, yet depending on others, from the self-negating caring for oneself in adjustment to a system of rules.

There are, nonetheless, differences to be found. One of them

concerns the question of self-creation and interaction with other existing ways

of life.33 Nietzsche pictures a self-sufficient powerful wanderer, who walks his

own path, in solitude, as a radical otherness, in no dependence of ways of lives in a life-negating culture. Foucault introduces the thought of

governmentality, allowing him to consider the selfs work, upon itself, in terms

of both freedom and an acknowledging of already existing ways of life. This is

an important difference.

Then again, there is one figure of thought in Nietzsches earliestproduction, that can be compared with Foucaults thinking. InThe Birth of

Tragedy he distinguishes a purely Apollonian form-giving type of life, from the

Apollonian formed Dionysian state of existence, in ancient pre-Socratic

Greece.34 The Apollonian mode is depicted as a dreamlike life; a plastic energy

forming a harmonious whole.35 This life and culture follows the principle of

individuation, where self-knowledge in the Delphic dictum Know thyself

33 For a general discussion on the question of aesthetics and ethics, see, for example, Bredella,Lother (1996), Aesthetics and Ethics: Incommensurable, Identical or Conflicting?, inEthics and Aesthetics: The Moral Turn of Postmodernism, eds Gerhard Hoffmann and Alfred Hornung(Heidelberg: Universittsverlag C. Winter).34

Idem,The Birth of Tragedy(1967), 34 [KSA 1, 26].35Idem,KSA 1, 27ff. and 37f.


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is combined with the saying Nothing in excess.36 These demands,

Nietzsche holds, occur side by side with the aesthetic necessity for beautiful

form.37 This artistic moderation of life is indeed unfolded as an affirmation of life, but it is lacking the Dionysian overthrow of the established orders. It is

therefore of a lower degree and not emphasised in his later works.

TO CONCLUDE, Foucaults aesthetics of existence, suggested as of relevance

in his contemporary time, does indeed share similarities with Nietzsches life-

affirming type of self-formation. Foucault, however, introduces the thought of

governmentality, allowing him to consider the selfs work, upon itself, in terms

of a search for freedom as well as an acknowledging of already existing ways of

life.

Bibliography

Ansell-Pearson, Keith (1991) The Significance of Michel Foucaults Reading of Nietzsche: Power, the Subject, and Political Theory, inNietzsche-Studien, Vol. 20.

Bredella, Lother (1996), Aesthetics and Ethics: Incommensurable, Identical orConflicting?, inEthics and Aesthetics: The Moral Turn of Postmodernism, edsGerhard Hoffmann and Alfred Hornung (Heidelberg: Universittsverlag C.Winter)

Carlsson, Anna-Lena (2004),...is it hunger or superabundance that has here becomecreative? Nietzsche on Creativity in Art and Life, diss. Uppsala University (Uppsala).

(2006), Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault on Aesthetics andLife, paper presented at NSE conference in Jyvskyl, Finland, May 2006.

Davidson, Arnold I. (1994), Ethics as aesthetics: Foucault, the history of ethics,

36Ibid., 40.37 Idem,The Birth of Tragedy (1967), 46 [KSA 1, 40]. In a working session 1983, Foucault stresses,concerning the Stoic ethics, that the principal aim [] of this kind of ethics, was an aestheticone. [] The reason for making this choice was the will to live a beautiful life, and to leave to

others memories of a beautiful existence. From a working session with Foucault. See Foucault,On the Genealogy of Ethics, in Foucault (1997b), 254.


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and ancient thought, inThe Cambridge Companion to Foucault, ed. Gary Gutting(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

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