ABSTRACT
Nietzsche's novelty is to be found, in part, in his energetic descriptions of what he calls "nihilism." Nietzsche's nihilism is an accusation within the context of traditional ethics. It points to a tragic or at any rate damnable hollowness in "the moral point of view," which might anticipate by asking why moral philosophers ever became compelled to talk in such a peculiar fashion. Moral theories and some specific rules may vary, according to this monolithic position, but Morality is that one single set of basic moral rules which all theories of morality must accept as a given. In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre gives a choice, enter-eller. There is, he explicitly warns, no third alternative. MacIntyre sees Nietzsche's philosophy as purely destructive, despite the fact that he praises the arch-destroyer for his insight into the collapse of morals that had been increasingly evident since the Enlightenment.
