Nietzsche and Foucault on Self-Creation: Two Different Projects

This paper aims to highlight some major differences between the ethics of “self-becoming”, as it was sketched by Friedrich Nietzsche, and the so-called “aesthetics of existence”, which was developed in Michel Foucault’s late work. Although the propinquity between the two authors is a commonplace in Foucauldian exegesis, my claim is that the two projects of self-creation are dissimilar in four relevant aspects. To support my thesis I will use Foucault’s four-part ethical framework through which I will analyze each of the two projects. Foucault, Nietzsche, self-creation, will to power, aesthetics of existence, ethical substance, mode of subjectification, ethical work, ethical telos, power relations.