The first anglophone book-length study on Kant and Nietzsche appeared in 2005, opening a rich vein of inquiry into the theoretical intersections between the two philosophers. Entitled Nietzsche’s Critiques: The Kantian Foundations of His Thought – the word ‘critiques’ a punning reference to Kant’s foundational three Critiques – R. Kevin Hill’s landmark text mounts a compelling defence of its sub-titular claim. ‘For Nietzsche, as for Hegel’, asserts Hill, ‘Kant is the philosopher with whom one must come to terms. One must either become a Kantian, or, starting from a Kantian foundation, think one’s way out of Kantianism.’ He further claims that Nietzsche’s knowledge of Kant was not confined to the critical works of Schopenhauer, Lange and Kuno Fischer, whom Hill collectively designates as ‘early Neo-Kantians’, but was informed and augmented by his own reading of Kant. Library records, together with statements made by Nietzsche in his letters and notebooks, strongly suggest a first-hand acquaintance with Kant’s second and third Critiques; far less evidence exists of his ever having read the first Critique. What is certain, contends Hill, is Nietzsche’s intellectual debt to Kant: not only to Kant’s epistemology and critique of metaphysics, but also to Kant’s rejection of consequentialism and his substitution of intention for consequence in determining the moral status of a given act. That Kant’s critique of metaphysics effectively laid the groundwork for Nietzsche’s own robust critique of a purported metaphysical beyond is surely beyond doubt. Similarly, few would contest Hill’s claim that Kant’s epistemology was the source of Nietzsche’s settled conviction concerning the limited, ‘perspectival’ scope of human cognition. Whether, on the other hand, Kant’s substitution of intention for consequence in the field of ethics was the inspiration behind Nietzsche’s genealogical method, a method whereby the value of a purportedly ethical act is traced back to the undisclosed values that underlie (and often belie) the moral system prescribing that act, is a moot point.

The critical focus of this chapter also relates to Kantian ethics. Indeed, it lies at the epicentre of Kantian ethics, namely the rational will.