The Fanatic and the Last Man

Suppose we accept Nietzsche’s claim that critical reflection undermines our evaluative commitments. Then it seems that we are left with a pair of unappealing options: either we engage in critical reflection and find our evaluative commitments becoming etiolated; or we somehow immunize certain evaluative commitments from the effects of critical reflection. Nietzsche considers both of these paths, labeling the person who results from the first path “the last man” and the person who results from the second “the fanatic.” I consider Nietzsche’s analysis of these two character types, discuss why he thinks that in modernity these are the options with which we are faced, and ask whether Nietzsche thinks that there is a third way.