How To Compare Nietzsche's Will To Power

The driving concept behind Nietzsche’s ideas of how happiness can be achieved, who the ideal person is, and the definition of happiness is his view of reality as the Will to Power. The Will to Power is the idea that there is constant conflict in both culture and nature, and this conflict leads to individuals becoming dominant and therefore happy because of how much they have overcome. The Will to Power leads Nietzsche’s reality to be stratified and horizontal. This allows for the idea of carpe diem because the Will to Power repeats and there is nothing to look forward to because there is no God in his view and his view is highly individualistic. The key to happiness, in the Nietzschian view, is overcoming. The main obstacle to this reality

is Christianity. Since Christianity emphasizes values such as “loving thy neighbor,” “selfless love and human equality,” Nietzsche saw this as a threat to the Will to Power, which is a threat to the ascent of the Overman (Commentary).

The Overman is the individual who is the most perfect person with great strength, great intelligence, and great virtue, who has the ability to keep society from falling into “despair and nihilism” (Commentary). Moreover, “the Overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Overman shall be the meaning of the earth” (Zarathustra, 191). Proclaiming that the Overman is so grounded to the earth feeds into Nietzsche’s criticism of Christianity because Christianity claims “otherworldly hopes” that he finds unfeasible and threatening to his view of reality (Zarathustra, 191). The Will to Power is the system in which individuals compete to overcome in the hopes to rise to the top. The artists are the ideal individuals because they are willing to work to overcome their personal hardships to become the best person they can be; they will never be content with a mediocre or average product, they will constantly be achieving higher goals. Though “‘never yet has there be an Overman,’” the artists are those who are preparing for the rise of the Overman

(Commentary). Ultimately, happiness, to Nietzsche, is the feeling of overcoming hardships. Those who do not simply follow the herd are the artists, who are the stepping stone for the Overman. This individual-centered view of the good life starkly contrasts Aquinas’ beliefs that revolve around the beatific vision, or the understanding of God.
Aquinas holds the notion that to achieve happiness the pilgrim must embark upon the journey to their final end and their final goal. Aquinas views beings in the world to fall under a specific hierarchy, the chain of being. From highest to lowest, the chain is as follows: God, angels, humans, animals, plants, and matter. The functioning of a creature’s soul correlates to their ranking. The powers of the soul have four levels: the contemplative, the intellective or rational, the sensitive, and the nutritive. Of the four functions, humans’ souls in this life are intellective, sensitive, and nutritive, but not contemplative because only angels are able to have perfect knowledge of God. Animals do not have the ability to judge, understand, or deliberate, which means that their souls are only sensitive and nutritive. The beatific vision is the telos of the journey that creatures undergo in order to achieve happiness. Aquinas defines the beatific vision as, the “final and perfect happiness [that] can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence” (Q.3.A.8). Aquinas further explains that by “vision” he means true understanding of the Divine Essence, or God. Only in the next life can humans experience the beatific vision because in this current, imperfect life they are incapable of understanding such perfection. To enter into the next, perfect life, humans must fulfill their finis, which is death. Once humans truly understand God, their souls encompass the function of contemplating because the next life provides humans with the power and capacity to attain understanding of the perfect Divine Essence. Unlike Nietzsche, who focuses on the individual’s acquisition of happiness, and Aquinas, who emphasizes the journey that humans must experience, Plato highlights the dependence on others in order to accomplish happiness of the whole.
Plato introduces the idea of the divided line in order to explain his view of reality. On one side of the line lies the intelligible realm and the other the visible realm. Next, the intelligible realm is divided into two parts, forms and mathematics. The visible realm is broken into artificial concepts and images. To understand and experience the four subcategories, one must use intellection, thought, trust, and imagination. Images are the easiest for people to understand, they can see them through use of imagination. For example, a video showing an object would be someone conceptualizing an image via imagination. To comprehend artificial concepts, one must be able to trust their existence. To move from the visible realm to the intelligible realm, one must use thought to grasp mathematics. The highest and most difficult category to fathom is forms, they are only understood through intellection. Forms are definitions of concepts such as justice, and beauty. The whole point of The Republic is to define justice and to do this Plato says that one must utilize one’s intellection to fully unravel the complex layers of justice. Reaching happiness is the act of gaining a closer look of the Good.
The simile of the sun is used to illustrate the Good, which is truth and knowledge. Plato explains, “so while the sun isn’t sight, but is the thing responsible for it” (508B). It is not the sun that we gaze upon, but we would be unable to see anything without the sun. So, while the Good is the ultimate concept we look for, we are only able to do this through the functions of the soul that perceive images, artificial things, mathematics, and forms. Plato indicates that everyone has the ability to obtain at least a glimpse of the good, even if it is simply through images. However, the philosopher ruler, the ideal type, will be able to acquire the look of the Good through forms by using their intellection. Once this philosopher ruler undergoes rigorous mental and physical training, they must return to the cave to rule over those who obtained the look of the Good through a lesser means. The allegory of the cave is Plato’s famous metaphor of human nature and the human condition. The residents stuck in the cave are unable to move and only able to see shadows produced by those outside of the cave. The cave symbolizes a world without Goodness, the prisoners are the ignorant who are incapable of getting a full look of the Good, and the shadows are the misconceptions held by the prisoners. Once Plato sets up this image for the audience, he writes in an escaped prisoner. This escaped prisoner represents a philosopher seeking knowledge of forms, and ultimately the look of the Good. The escaped prisoner is on their journey to becoming a philosopher ruler. Once a prisoner leaves the cave they are unwilling to return, “don’t be surprised that those who’ve come to this point aren’t willing to do what belongs to human beings, but their souls are eager to spend all their time up above” (517D). Those who have escaped from the cave do not want to go back under because their souls have seen the Good and they want to remain “in the Isles of the Blessed” (519C). Despite this, Plato insists that these philosopher rulers must return to the cave from time to time to reside over the prisoners in order to achieve justice. Plato finds justice to be a city in which its inhabitants have found the Good in some way or another, whether it be through images or forms. The justness of the city depends on the philosopher rulers returning to the cave, “and so the city will be governed by you and by us wide awake, and not in a dream the way most are governed now by people who fight with each other over shadows” (520D). The state of being “wide awake” is having seen the look of the Good through one’s intellection.
As we have discovered, Nietzsche, Aquinas, and Plato all have strikingly different understandings of the good life. Nietzsche focuses on the individual, Aquinas stresses the journey, and Plato highlights sacrifice for the group. With that being said, I find Nietzsche’s view the most convincing. It may be because I find myself to be a pessimist and rather cynical, but I am able to see how the Will to Power plays out in life on a daily basis. Creatures of all kinds are competing for a variety of reasons. The students at Creighton are competing to get better grades than each other in order to appear more competitive on medical school applications. The mother birds are competing with the other birds to get food for their offspring because they want to continue their lineage. The shoe designers are competing to produce the most coveted product in order further the success of their brand. These different examples of artists are constantly competing to achieve dominance over their competition. Due to the stratification and horizontalness of Nietzsche’s reality, the notion of carpe diem, or seize the day, arises. I associate with this motto, not because I want to carelessly live life without consequences, but because I believe that there is more to life than what is presented at face value. Lastly, I find that the feeling of overcoming a challenge or hardship brings me satisfaction, which, in turn, brings me happiness. For example, in high school cross country I would pick a runner from a competing team and decide that they would be the person I would beat no matter what. When I would finish before the selected person I would feel happy because I overcame a hardship.
While the views of happiness held by the three philosophers are well thought out, they still possess several limitations. The biggest flaw in Nietzsche’s idea is that there is no God or overarching end goal. When people do not have a clear goal set out before them, it is hard for them to motivate themselves to work toward happiness. Even though competition is a motivating factor, this motivation will last only for a finite amount of time and when it runs out, the people will have lost their purpose in life due to the lack of a God or overall goal. Aquinas provides two end goals, the telos and the finis, and a God, but his idea still holds the weakness of not supplying people with enough happiness in this life. The next life is the life in which one will achieve perfect happiness, but if they are unable to get a glimpse of this perfect happiness in this life, they will lose sight of their current state of being and happiness. The limitation to Plato’s view is the faith he puts in the philosopher rulers of actually returning to the cave. He does not provide a way to ensure that the escapees will go back and enlighten the prisoners. Nietzsche, Aquinas, and Plato all hold differing ideas of the good life, that have both strengths and weaknesses.
Nietzsche, Aquinas, and Plato all attempt to elucidate the good life and how to achieve it through explanations of reality, knowledge, happiness, and ideal types. It is important to investigate and analyze these different interpretations because the steps to attain the good life is one of life’s biggest mysteries. Perhaps, there is not one way to reach happiness and we are taking the wrong approach by trying to fit happiness in a formula. Regardless, Nietzsche, Aquinas, and Plato have all laid the groundwork to finding the answer or answers to the good life.