Will#
Summary#
For Nietzsche, will is not the simple, unified faculty that philosophers like Schopenhauer presumed it to be. Rather, it is a complex phenomenon composed of sensations, thoughts, and above all the emotion of command, where one part of the self commands and another obeys. The will involves an internal social structure of “many souls,” and the feeling of “freedom of will” is essentially the delight of the commander who identifies with the success of execution. When the will becomes diseased or paralyzed, as Nietzsche diagnoses in modern European skepticism, individuals lose their capacity for independent decision and courageous action.