Nietzsche’s Negative View of Freedom

Recently, contemporary Nietzschean scholars have advanced Nietzsche’s so-called ‘positive view of freedom.’ 1 Some have pointed to the ‘sovereign individual,’ of section II, in the second essay of On the Genealogy
of Morals, as an exemplar of this view.2 Another view,3 which has recently been revivified, has been used to claim that Nietzsche can be interpreted as a constitutivist, where power is constitutive of agency.4 The common
element in these interpretations is their assumption of how Nietzsche is using the concepts of ‘agency’ and related terms, such as ‘responsibility,’ ‘free will,’ ‘agenthood’ and so on; for while these interpretations can accept that Nietzsche subverts these concepts’ ‘standard’ use, they are dependent on these concepts being understandable from within this ‘standard’ conceptual framework.
I will argue that this assumption is false. My argument is intended to have ramifications on most, if not all, interpretations of Nietzsche on agency, where ‘agency,’ and related terms, are understandable from within this
‘standard’ conceptual framework. I will argue that this ‘standard’ conceptual framework makes it a necessary condition of ‘agency’ that there be a distinction between intentional and unintentional action. Nietzsche’s concept of ‘agency,’ and related terms, I will argue, flouts this distinction.