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Does each unique instance of Nietzsche's superman have the same virtues and values?

Please don't just pontificate: I'm interested in what Nietzsche or his interpreters say. I am OK-ish with his rejection of morality, but I cannot yet get what the positive result is meant to be, beyond some in the abstract hippy-ish sense of joy or power, which is ultimately unimpressive to me (as it's not that I cannot will the eternal return or love my fate, rather that I would rather not hold the rest of the world in contempt; though please, that's a separate issue).

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    Dedicating your life to the quest for power isn't very hippy-ish. It's rather the ideology of the worst people in history; the bullies and psychopaths who hurt others so they can feel powerful.
    – causative ♦
    Commented Aug 17 at 23:42
  • ha maybe the wrong word, sorry @causative
    – user71399
    Commented Aug 17 at 23:43
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    "Slackness, skepticism, “immorality,” the right to throw off a faith, belong to greatness (Caesar, also Homer, Aristophanes, Leonardo, Goethe). One always suppresses the main thing, their “freedom of will”" Nietzsche, Will to Power, 380. As Caesar and Leonardo can hardly have values all the same, the answer is no, but Nietzsche apparently expects there to be a common core that they all share.
    – Conifold
    Commented Aug 18 at 5:18

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The positive result, according to N, would be each superman reaching their full potential, unencumbered by any universal morality or judgments of how one ought to live one's life. Given that each superman is following their own self-created values, which would also extend to the activities/goals they focus on, each one would end up behaving, creating and doing in different ways. But, presumably, all of them would be filled with life energy, focus and passion and thus able to perform at high levels.

  1. Morality places limits on actions and attitudes. They are not limited by this.
  2. Lacking amor fati, a person is more likely to hesitate, back away from living fully and life's possibilities. The superman has amor fati.
  3. The idea of the eternal return is a motivator - make your life such that it is not horrible if that life repeated forever - but also a counter to nihilism. Yes, what you do is important since it will always be a facet of reality. The superman has this motivation and is not inhibited by nihilism.

So, everything is either motivating greatness or removing blocks to being great. So, being great and doing great things (whatever that means in each individual case) is the positive result. (supposedly) But each Ubermensch would have their own values and greatness.

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  • i tend to think that it is the greatness of the overman's work that sets him or her apart. obviously, the last man's contentment is great to some.
    – user71399
    Commented Aug 18 at 5:37
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    At an abstract level there would be, in N's estimation, similarities between the Ubermenschen and certainly, yes, in contrast with the Last Man's idea of what is great.
    – Conifer Travis
    Commented Aug 18 at 5:48
  • but there isn't some principled criteria right, anymore than there is morality, such as "resistance" or "communal esteem"? perhaps overlapping ones
    – user71399
    Commented Aug 18 at 5:51

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