Human
The fifth chapter turns to Nietzsche’s analysis of the distinctively “human” values that our species has superimposed upon bodily values. It treats the innovation that most made us human: what we call our “agency.” Our conceptions of ourselves as subjects and agents are largely mistaken, but the very thinking of ourselves in these ways makes a key difference. Nietzsche here develops a naturalistic alternative to Kant’s transcendental arguments: positing ourselves as agents is not a possibility-condition but a life-condition. We examine his account of the genealogy and functions of this self-conception. It makes us able to use a new kind of value-sign, which we steer by consciously. This human valuing also presumes that its values should be “true”—should be grounded in reasons and not just in what we happen to want. This demand gives humans truth as a kind of meta-value competing with the deeper bodily value of power.