Nietzschean Constructivism: Ethics and Metaethics for All and None*

is paper develops an interpretation of Nietzsche’s ethics and metaethics that reconciles his apparent antirealismwith his engagement in normative discourse. Interpreting Nietzsche as ametaethical constructivist— as holding, to a rst approximation, that evaluative facts are grounded purely in facts about the evaluative attitudes of the creatures to whom they apply— reconciles his vehement declarations that nothing is valuable in itself with his passionate expressions of a particular evaluative perspective and injunctions for the free spirits to create new values. Drawing on Nietzsche’s broader epistemological and psychological views, I develop a distinctive, and genuinely Nietzschean, version of constructivism. On this account, evaluative properties are grounded in affective valuations of the new philosophers. e proposed interpretation synthesizes a variety of disparate features of Nietzsche’s writings and improves on existing interpretations in the literature. e resulting version of constructivism is also worthy of attention in contemporary theorizing. e fruits of understanding the distinctive form of Nietzsche’s ethical theory is an illuminating example of howmetanormative inquiry can undergird normative eval-