Did Nietzsche believe that humans can only act in their self-interest? As in, was he a psychological egoist?

stop posting any time you pedant. obviously by asking about his beliefs I meant the most plausible interpretations of his work. seriously, this kind of bullshit from people like you only happens when discussing this guy and marx. you guys are insufferable.

Go back to reading cliff notes on his works summer child.

oh, you're just a troll.

Nietzsche believed that you shouldn't ask reporter-type or university-type box questions that use categories like "self-interest" or "psychological egoist". Not even trolling.

I am not familiar with psychological egoism, so I'll elborate on what he thinks motives people. He see's a person as having multiple "wills" and these wills are entirely selfish. It's not so much that they believe an act will benefit 'them' but that it satisfies one of their drives. The drives do not all have equal sway over a person's actions.

For example if someone had a very potent drive, or will, for destruction and they aimed it at themself it could potentially overpower all the other drives and cause them to seek their own demise.

If it helps, remember that he does not see human beings as being driven rationally.

>not even trolling
no, you're just being another insufferable user tasked with obfuscating any and all discussion around this man. whether or not he believed that those questions shouldn't be asked has nothing to do with whether or not such a term would apply to him in some form.

>never read Nietzche before

This clears things up a bit for me. Is there any part of his writings where he listed all of the wills he thinks people have?

see: now you're just trolling

>Is there any part of his writings where he listed all of the wills he thinks people have?

That's a bit like asking for a comprehension list of emotions and instincts. It's silly.

When he talks about the 'will to power' he is talking about the entire package of of wills acting as a totality. That's the best I can tell you.

I've always wondered whether Nietzsche believed being a violent murdering sociopath is okay.

Striving for the Overman to the point of self-sacrifice is not egoism.

I'm not either of them, but it's never been (on Veeky Forums or off it) been considered bad form to tell anyone to read all of Nietzsche at least once before expounding on his work. There's very little that can be taken as a stand alone work in his corpus, and most it relies on a very solid background in philosophy. You're basically complaining that he didn't explain in the book that you happened to read what he wrote several books to explain properly.

And to answer your question: no, and that's evident not only in his Genealogy of Morals but right the way through his work to the end. If it were that humans only act in their self-interest, there would be no development of the Genealogy. The title, in fact, could have told you.

>That's a bit like asking for a comprehension list of emotions and instincts. It's silly.
I asked because I was thinking along the lines of what bentham did in Utilitarianism when he listed all of the things he thought made people happy/unhappy.
>When he talks about the 'will to power' he is talking about the entire package of of wills acting as a totality. That's the best I can tell you.
Okay thanks. So reading his book The Will to Power should be what I'm looking for then.

Only the will to dominate aka will to power. He considered it pre-human, and visible in all life-forms, even where no will can exist (plants for instance). It's the same as Schop's will to life, only he considered it to be a bit different in higher life-forms, less blind so to speak.

> If it were that humans only act in their self-interest, there would be no development of the Genealogy. The title, in fact, could have told you.
Psychological egoists don't agree with that. They think it developed and that people can only act in their self-interest. So the title of the work alone does not tell the reader whether or not he is a psychological egoist or not.

Psychological egoists also believe everyone who argues against them is secretly arguing for psychological egoism though, so you might as well ask whether he follows the same pattern as Mein Kampf and Charlotte's Web from a psychological egoist's viewpoint because the answer will always be yes.

>I asked because I was thinking along the lines of what bentham did in Utilitarianism when he listed all of the things he thought made people happy/unhappy

Nietzsche doesn't think in that sort of way. He doesn't have everything arranged in neat little compartments. He's not going to make much sense if you approach him that way nor will you get much if you want to take his ideas and attach titles to them like "psychological egoist" the way an accountant indexes items. This isn't saying you can't draw parallels but they would just be that parallels.

>all of the actions people do are fundamentally done because the person believes they would benefit them in some way
If by "believe" you mean consciously pursuing some rewarding benefit, then no, he didn't think that. On the contrary, the more sickly someone is, the more despotic and self-absorbed they tend to be.