Nietzsche and MacIntyre? Nietzsche’s Value for Neo-Aristotelianism Reconsidered

Alasdair MacIntyre argues that we face a choice: Nietzsche or Aristotle. Either we side with Nietzsche and his insight that the will to power is all that remains of morality in liberal modernity, or we try to recover the Aristotelian tradition of the virtues. This article forges a new relation between Nietzsche and MacIntyre by exploring alternative readings of Nietzsche that make him an important interlocutor. I argue that we can plausibly read Nietzsche as a eudaimonist and perfectionist, making him into something of an ally with insightsthat are of deep significance to MacIntyre and the broader neo-Aristotelian revival. Nietzsche’s value for neo-Aristotelians lies especially in his reflections on the loss of God and what that tells us about the contingency, complexity, and conflicts of human life. They flow from his sense that the world is a complex mess; that the old certainties upon which used to rely, such as God or Reason, have gone; and that every individual human life and every society involves genuine and tragic loss.