Naturalizing and Inhabiting Nature

This paper is about the relationship in Nietzsche’s thought between nature and what might be called normative self-regulation: the ways in which we hold ourselves to commitments and standards, whether with respect to belief, experience, or action. I present two broad options for how to think about this relationship. One is naturalizing norms: showing how talk of moral and epistemic powers can be replaced with an explanation of how belief and behavior is produced in a natural causal order. The other option is to show how more complex, reflexive actualizations of power could emerge out of simpler forms of natural activity, and to show how human naturalness is in turn shaped by the achievement of such power. I argue that the former option is wrong and elaborate on the latter.