What follows are a few excerpts from my review of Solomon's book in the respected philosophical journal Mind (forthcoming):
"Robert Solomon's Living with Nietzsche is a superb book on Nietzsche's ethics. Several reasons support this assessment: First, Solomon brings to center stage Nietzsche's many constructive contributions to ethical theory and practice. Beyond his famous genealogical critique of morality, Nietzsche's primary ethical goal is to transform readers, inspiring them to improve themselves, and Solomon shows how Nietzsche accomplishes this. Second, he evaluates many of Nietzsche's major claims. Too often Nietzsche scholars neglect this task, and they can learn from Solomon's example. Third, although Nietzsche's ethics differs from Kantian and consequentialist moralities, Solomon argues that it contributes to the recently revived Aristotelian tradition of virtue ethics. This comparison illuminates both Nietzsche and virtue ethics. Fourth, he provides a balanced and nuanced account of Nietzsche's views that incorporates texts written in all of Nietzsche's periods and styles. Solomon succeeds in finding the right tone to explicate Nietzsche.
The book possesses additional strengths as well. For example, Solomon correctly understands that the key to Nietzsche's preferred virtues is overflowing energy, enthusiasm, and inspiration. Also, Solomon's expertise in the theory of emotions helps him clarify Nietzsche's complex views on this topic. ... Overall, Solomon's book impressively synthesizes a lifetime of writing on Nietzsche's ethics.
Here are a few examples of Solomon's important critical questions. (1) Nietzsche asserts that the fundamental constituent of the psyche is drives, and Solomon argues that this explains both too much and too little. Distinguishing drives from goals can be difficult, and Nietzsche never seriously clarifies how various drives are related to one another or even what the basic ones are. Is the will to power a single drive or a principle by which different drives are related? Nietzsche depicts drives as conflicting, but says little about how such conflicts are resolved. (2) Nietzsche sought to overcome Schopenhauer's metaphysics of the will, but then seems to reintroduce something similar when he postulates the will to power. Even if Nietzsche were to claim that it is an empirical hypothesis rather than a metaphysical postulate, Solomon still has questions: Is it a motive or a goal? Is it the feeling of power or reality of power that is sought? Is its primary referent power over oneself, or is power over others also essential? This vagueness makes Nietzsche's theory difficult to evaluate empirically. (3) Solomon questions whether all aspects of morality derive from resentment and even challenges Nietzsche's claim that resentment is always a corrupt motive. He thinks it can be and has been creative in overcoming oppression."
I am currently writing a book on Nietzsche's ethics myself, and I learned a lot from Solomon's book. I think it is accessible to the general reader and also makes a genuine contribution to Nietzsche scholarship. The writing is lively; the issues are important; and the discussion is valuable.
William R. Schroeder
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Thewizardofuz is mostly just plain right in his review here. I agree that Solomon's discussions of virtue over the years are interesting. He has even sold them to banks and other corporations through his incarnation as a mass producer of business ethics seminars, books and tapes. But I can't rate the book very high simply due to the interestingness of this pass on what is an old topic for Solomon.
There are no significant analyses of any Nietzsche passages in this work. The only indented quotation in the whole book is a poem by somebody else. Another reviewer here senses a breezy style in Solomon. That is almost it I guess; Solomon's style does give the impression of breeziness. But look closely: the style here is a series of non-sequiturs. Almost none of his sentences belong in the order in which they appear.Nobody changes the topic like Solomon.
Solomon opened his only monograph on Nietzsche with the short-sighted thesis that Nietzsche not only uses fallacies intentionally, but manages to redeem them into non-fallacies too.
His Nietzsche does not seem to do much or to say much. Instead, Solomon is busy standing in for Nietzsche as though before a crowd of students, assuring them that Nietzsche accepts them as they are and does not deny them even one iota of their current moral prejudices. In Zarathustra's terms, Solomon thinks that Nietzsche pulls the cart of the masses, when in fact it is Solomon who pulls the cart of the masses, and then imagines that Nietzsche is just like him, and would, out of pity for youth, pretend that youth is special.
More worrisome yet is Solomon's notion that he can commit ad hominem fallacies because Nietzsche did. Which is worse: to think that you have a right to err (fallacy) for the sake of morals, or that you have a right to lie on their behalf? This is important because Solomon wants to commit ad hominem fallacies, and he wants to commit them against Nietzsche.
At least we know that Nietzsche rejected the philosophies that want to found for themselves a right to lie. That includes Plato and all of German Idealism for Nietzsche (EH:CW and EH IV).
