HEALTH AS HUMAN NATURE AND CRITIQUE OF CULTURE IN NIETZSCHE AND ZHUANG ZI

ABSTRACT: Nietzsche and Zhuang Zi endorse a notion of health that relies on a theory of human nature, in the sense that health is achieved when individuals live in accordance with their nature. In order to lead healthy human lives, individuals must disabuse themselves of pernicious cultural influences. Nietzsche believes that will to power and its constituent parts, including desire and suffering, are an expression of human nature. Nietzsche opposes ascetic morality on the grounds that it requires that humans deny basic human desires and strive to eliminate human suffering. Zhuang Zi understands health as the perfection or wholeness of de, which involves the acceptance of fate, a state in which individuals are at ease with the inevitable, and lack strong evaluative attitudes and preferences and aversions, a product of culture. I will argue that Zhuangist health includes elements of physical health, such as living out one’s allotted span of years and avoiding harm by being useless. Zhuang Zi’s endorsement of physical health seems incompatible with the fact that his Daoist exemplars are sometimes disfigured and mutilated. While physical health is an important aspect in Zhuangist health, psychological health is sufficient, as evidenced in two stories that employ the notion of wholeness of de