Aspectos do pensamento de Nietzsche sobre a vida humana

Abstract

This research explores Nietzsche conception of human innocence. Bringing together the actions of man and the actions of nature, the philosopher expresses a relevant thought about the absence of choice in impulse manifestations. Given the interpretations that attribute moral and religious responsibility to man for his actions, the German philosopher's criticism stands out. He thinks that man does not have free will, but that the vital impulses that constitute his organism are exercised out of the need for growth and expansion. This vital organism, driven by impulses in an uninterrupted struggle for expansion, is not commanded by a rational soul. The philosopher explains that there is no agent behind human actions, but rather the manifestations of impulses acting incessantly. Considering human life from this interpretation, man could not be rewarded or punished for his actions. Antagonistic to the moral and religious precepts that attribute to man the weight of free will, the philosopher envisions the possibility of seeing the emergence of a type of innocent man: a man detached from metaphysical conceptions and ultra-earthly hopes. Freed from the belief in the continuation of life in a better world, this man would not feel like a sinner for attitudes considered offensive in the eyes of divinity. Conceptions such as eternal life or eternal suffering would no longer make sense. It would be a legitimate liberation of man from all the burden attributed to the repressive institutes of guilt and sin – notions considered, by the philosopher, to be derived from the belief in God as creator and judge of all things. This innocent man is pointed out by the German philosopher as the man of the future, as the one who will rescue the innocence of becoming. In order to examine Nietzsche perspective regarding man's innocence and investigate whether this notion constitutes an affirmative stance towards life, we will analyze some excerpts from Human, All Too Human I and II (1878-80), Aurora (1881), The Gay Science (1882) and the Genealogy of Morals (1887).