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Abstract
Nietzsche, in his writings, considers will-to-power as a psychological principle. As such, 
will-to-power is the ultimate drive underlying all human actions. Put differently, in all 
that human beings do, they search for power or to express power in the form of 
domination or self-overcoming. This research assesses this doctrine of Nietzsche and 
maintains that it is rather will-to-win and not will-to-power that is the primordial drive in 
human beings. Will-to-win is the will or the strong desire for success; the strong will to go 
beyond oneself. In all that humans do, there is always this strong desire to be a winner or a 
success. Nietzsche's will-to-power is flatus vocis or rather 'power-less' if power is not 
pursued for victory or success. If will-to-win is the primum mobile in human beings, this 
presupposes the fact that existence is a struggle. In other words, to exist is to strive or to be 
involved in struggles. Nonetheless, humans strive, not for striving sake; they strive to be 
winners.

Keywords: Will-to-power, Domination, Self-overcoming, Drive, Will-to-win.

Introduction
The concept of will-to-power is at the center of Nietzsche's philosophy. For Nietzsche, it 
is at work in every human behaviour and valuation. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he argues 
that it is the fundamental motive in man and that it is also found in other organic things; in 
his later works, he ascribes it to the inorganic nature (Paul Edward, 1967: 510). Generally, 
for Nietzsche, the will-to-power, which of course underlies all things, is the only thing 
that all human beings seek for its own sake (Paul Edward, 1967: 511).
But is the will-to-power really the ultimate reality? Is it really the ultimate goal 
underlying every human desire or motive? Can the human person pursue power just for its 
own sake? Is there no thing more primordial than power in human pursuits? In this 
research I wish to establish that will-to-power is not the ultimate goal of humans but rather 
the will-to-win. In all that humans do, they search for victory. Even power, in itself, is 
empty and lacks a locomotive force to move human beings for actions if not pursued for 
victory.
Hence, in this research I shall show how the will-to-win and not Nietzsche's will- to- 
power is the ultimate goal of humans. In that regard, the work is divided into five main 
parts. After this introduction, which is the first part, the second part analyzes Nietzsche's 
idea of will-to- power; the third situates the Nietzschean understanding of will-to-power 
and shows that it is ultimately a psychological principle; the fourth part establishes how it 
is the will-to-win and not the will-to-power that is the ultimate force in humans, while the 
fifth concludes the research work.

A PHILOSOPHICAL RECONSIDERATION OF NIETZSCHEAN 
WILL-TO-POWER AS WILL-TO-WIN

Marcellinus Chigozie Obi
Spiritan School of Philosophy, Isienu-Nsukka

(An Affiliate of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka).

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Nietzschean Will-To-Power
In his books and those of his commentators, the will-to-power is expressed in the 
following terms: " the dominating will", "an insatiable desire to manifest power", "willing 
to be stronger", " the will to outdo, excel and overpower one another", etc. From the 
foregoing, it can be said that the will-to-power, for Nietzsche, means the will to conquer 
or to overpower. This implies that for him, the will-to-power exists in the forms of 
domination and overcoming, that is, self-overcoming (Charles Ajogi, 2003:67).

Will-to-Power as Domination
Etymologically, the English word "domination" comes from the Latin dominus, meaning 
"a master or mastery". To dominate means, therefore, to be a master over another, to have 
power over another or to have control over others, the same way a master can have control 
over his slaves. Hence, the Nietzschean will-to-power as domination is the lust to 
dominate; the desire that others recognize us and submit to us; the drive for supremacy 
over others.
Because such a drive is characteristically brute and absolute, it could involve violence and 
injury. Thus, in his work Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche, while talking about the will-
to-power as domination, says: 

Man of a still natural, barbarians in every fearful sense of 
the word, men of prey still in possession of an unbroken 
strength of will and lust for power, threw themselves upon 
weaker, more civilized, more peaceful, perhaps trading or 
cattle-raising races, or upon old mellow cultures […] The 
noble caste was in the beginning always the barbarian 
caste: their superiority lay, not in their physical strength, 
but primarily in their psychical – they were more complete 
human beings (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1973: 173).

By describing will-to-power using the instance of the ' barbarians' who violently attack 
and dominate weaker societies, Nietzsche affirms this uncaring, cruel and violent nature 
of the will-to-power as domination. Elsewhere in On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche 
argues that life, which of course for him is will-to-power, "operates essentially, that is in 
its basic functions, through injury, assault, exploitation, destruction and simply cannot be 
thought of at all without this character" (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1969: 76). Put differently, 
for Nietzsche, will-to-power as domination is the desire to brutally or violently manifest 
one's supremacy over another.
Though Nietzsche, as demonstrated above, accepts harmful and violent acts of 
domination towards others as means to express power, he does not encourage human 
beings to search for or to express power in such a manner. In Kauffmann's words, “he [ 
Nietzsche] does not consider the neurotic's will to power admirable […]  The will to 
power is a positive motive which would make us strive for something” (Walter 
Kauffmann, 1974: 190). Surely, what interests Nietzsche most in his theory of will-to-
power is the self-overcoming aspect of it.

 Will-to-Power as Self-Overcoming
Self-overcoming as a form of will-to-power is the will to self-overcome; the will to 
create; the will to involve oneself in the continuous process of self-development. In a 

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word, it is the will to say “yes” to life in the face of nihilism resulting from the “Death of 
God”.
In The Gay Science, Nietzsche in his poetic style writes: 

Have you not heard of the madam who lit a lantern in the 
bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried 
incessantly, ' I seek God! I seek God!' As many of those who 
do not believe in God were standing around just then, he 
provoked much laughter [...] 'Wither is God ' he cried. 'I 
shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. All of us are 
his murderers. But how have we done this? [...] What did 
we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither 
is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from 
all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, 
sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or 
down left? Are we not straying as through as infinite 
nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? […] 
Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the 
gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell 
anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too 
decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have 
killed him [....] (Walter Kaufmann, 1954: 95)

With this death of God, comes the crumbling of all the values and philosophical doctrines 
associated with the God-concept. And the direct consequence of this is what Nietzsche 
calls nihilism. What is nihilism? Nihilism derives from the Latin word nihil, meaning 
"nothing". In philosophy, nihilism can be viewed as the perception of life as meaningless, 
purposeless and as having no value. In this regard, Nietzsche in The Will to Power argues: 
“what does nihilism mean? That the highest values devaluate themselves. The aim is 
lacking; “why” finds no answer” (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1967: 1). Thus, for Nietzsche, 
nihilism sets in when our highest values, that is, all that we earlier thought to give meaning 
and purpose to the world, are considered as worthless. Put simply, nihilism means losing 
sense of direction, “straying as through an infinite nothing” (Walter Kaufmann, 1954: 
95).
Accordingly, in the face of nihilism, one must choose between the two options: either 
he/she gives in to Schopenhauerian pessimism which Nietzsche refers to as passive 
nihilism, that is, “decline and recession of the power of the spirit”; or, he/she chooses 
saying "yes" to life, which Nietzsche refers to as active nihilism (Friedrich Nietzsche, 
1967: 17). In the active nihilism, the death of God is viewed differently; not as a 
catastrophic event, but as an opportunity for "our ship" to "venture out to face any danger" 
(Walter Kaufmann, 1954: 448). So, instead of resigning to pessimism because of the 
death of God and the consequent crumbling of the values associated with the God-
concept, the active nihilist confronts the horror and terror of existence through the means 
of will-to-power as self-overcoming by creating meaning, purpose, value and by 
determining his/her life. Hence, the will-to-power as self-overcoming is a necessity for 
he/she who wishes to take charge of his/her existence amidst nihilism resulting from the 
death of God.
 Having analyzed the two senses in which the expression "will-to-power" is used by 

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Nietzsche, let us situate it within the context of its interpretations as a metaphysical reality 
and a psychological principle, in view of making more vivid his perception of will-to-
power.

Situating the Nietzschean Will-to-Power 
 a. Will-to-Power as A Metaphysical Reality
 In his writings, both the published and unpublished notes, Nietzsche sometimes presents 
will-to-power as a foundational or an ultimate reality. For instance, in The Will to Power, 
he says that “Life is will to power” and that “the only reality is the will to grow stronger of 
every center of force – not self-preservation, but the will to appropriate, dominate, 
increase, grow stronger” (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1967: 367; see also 35-39, 355-356). 
Elsewhere, he opines:

 And do you know what 'the world' is to me? Shall I show 
you it in my mirror? This world: a monster of force, 
without beginning, without end, a fixed, iron quantity of 
force which grown neither larger nor smaller, which 
doesn't exhaust but only transforms itself, as a whole 
unchanging in size, an economy without expenditure and 
losses, but equally without increase...  – 'This world is the 
will to power – and nothing besides'! And you yourselves 
too are this will to power – and nothing besides! (Friedrich 
Nietzsche, 1967: 549-550)

In the above citation, Nietzsche appears to describe the nature or foundation of reality as 
"will-to-power". In this perspective, therefore, nature or reality is only a monster of force 
or quantum of power. The will-to-power is by implication found in everything that exists 
in the universe. Arguing on this, Heidegger asserts: "[t]he expression 'will to power' 
designates the basic character of beings; any being which is, insofar as it is, is will to 
power" (Martin Heidegger, 1961: 18). Thus, in Heidegger's view, will-to-power as 
perceived by Nietzsche, is foundational to all that is: being and becoming, change and 
permanence, etc. Hence, for Nietzsche, it is not only that will-to-power underlies the 
organic world, "it guides the inorganic world as well...." (Friedrich Nietzsche, 2009: 34). 
 He argues further: 

 Action at a distance cannot be eliminated: something 
draws something else closer, something feels drawn. This 
is the fundamental fact: compared to this, the mechanistic 
motion of pressing and pushing is merely a hypothesis 
based on sight and touch, even if it does indeed serve us as 
a regulative hypothesis for the world of sight (Friedrich 
Nietzsche, 2009: 34).

In the above, Nietzsche would want us to replace the mechanistic interpretation of the 
world with the interpretation of the universe simply as will-to-power. For that which 
underlies all events in the universe is nothing other than the “dynamic quanta […] the will 
to power not a being, not a becoming, but a pathos – the most elemental fact from which a 
becoming and effecting first emerge” (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1967: 339). Similarly, in 
Beyond God and Evil, Nietzsche reduces everything in the world (organic and inorganic) 
to “a single fundamental form [...] of the will to power"(Friedrich Nietzsche, 1973: 3).  

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Here, will-to-power, as we have seen in his other works, is perceived as the underlying 
principle of all things, and everything in the universe can be explained in terms of its 
relation to will-to-power. He avers: "[...] we assume that nothing is "given" as real other 
than our world of desires and passion and that we cannot access from above or below any 
"reality" other than the direct reality of our drives [….] Seen from inside, the world 
defined and described according to its “intelligible character” would be simply “will to 
power” and nothing else” (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1973: 36). There are some other 
expressions in Nietzsche's writings that strongly support the claim that will-to-power is a 
metaphysical reality: “power quanta”, “power centers”, “force”, etc. (Friedrich 
Nietzsche, 1967: 339, 368, 222, 290, 294, 305, 366)
Certainly, as we have seen, understanding of will-to-power as a metaphysical reality finds 
much support in Nietzsche's works. However, many Nietzschean philosophers reject this 
for various reasons. The basic argument postulated by them is that the interpretation of 
will-to-power as a metaphysical reality is totally logically inconsistent with Nietzsche's 
philosophy, since he saw himself as an anti-metaphysician (Walter Kauffmann, 1954: 
344), and attempted to attack metaphysicians in his writings. Another important argument 
employed against this position is that most texts in support of this interpretation of will-
to-power as a metaphysical reality are found in Nietzsche's unpublished work. In his 
published works, many of the passages on will to power do not discuss it as metaphysical. 
This makes it even more doubtful on whether Nietzsche in the unpublished writings really 
understood will-to-power as a metaphysical reality (Jeffrey Beery, 2020: 28-31). Given 
these concerns, we have strong reasons to reject the interpretation of will-to-power as a 
metaphysical reality.  Nietzsche mainly discussed will-to-power in psychological terms. 

b. Will-to-Power as a Psychological Principle 
In general, there is a motivation behind every human action/behavior towards a fellow 
human being or his environment.  This motivation is what Nietzsche in his writings calls 
drives. Accordingly, among the drives, there exists will-to-power which is the ultimate 
drive. Put in different terms, the will-to-power is the primordial drive of human actions. In 
his words, it is “the most universal and basic instinct in all doing and willing” (Friedrich 
Nietzsche, 1967: 356). Drawing from this, it can be categorically asserted that in 
Nietzsche's perspective, all that human beings do are done for the sake of power. On this, 
Paul Edwards affirms that, for Nietzsche, “the only thing that all men want is power, and 
whatever is wanted is wanted for the sake of power. If something is wanted more than 
something else; it must represent more power” (Paul Edwards,1967: 511). In regard to 
this, Walter Kauffmann maintains that for Nietzsche, “the will to power is the positive 
motive which would make us strive for something” (Walter Kauffmann, 1974: 190). 
If, for Nietzsche, all that human beings do are done for power, it implies that, for him as 
well, all human acts or events can be explained in terms of will-to-power as their ultimate 
drive. For example, will to truth or drive for knowledge can be explained in terms of will 
to power as its ultimate drive? Accordingly, in one of his works, Nietzsche maintains that 
the will to truth is a “will to the thinkability of all [things],” and that this will is found in 
every human being (Walter Kauffmann, 1954: 225). That said, the drive for truth, 
however, never exists for its own sake; it rather exists for power. In other words, human 
beings search for “Truth” in view of understanding and becoming masters over nature. 
Put differently, truth is pursued ultimately for power. This position is much clearer in what 

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Nietzsche says of theologians and metaphysicians in Beyond Good and Evil: “Their 
knowing is creating, their creating is law-giving, their will to truth is – will to power” 
(Friedrich Nietzsche, 1973: 123).  Thus, will-to-truth is a manifestation of will-to-power. 
Drawing from the above arguments, therefore, it can be strongly affirmed that for 
Nietzsche, will-to-power is a fundamental human drive or a psychological driver that 
underlies other drives in human beings, including the drive for truth.  As an ultimate 
drive, will-to-power is, therefore, the primum mobile or first drive of all human desires. 
But, is will-to-power really the primordial drive? Can the desire for power be the drive 
underlying all human desires? Can power be sought for its own sake? Do we not desire 
power for the sake of some other primordial need? In a word, do we not desire power for 
winning sake?  

Will-to-Power or Will-to-Win?
Berton Barley (2023) wrote a poem entitled The Will to Win: 

The Will to Win
If you want a thing bad enough
To go out and fight for it,
Give up your time and your peace and
Your sleep for it
If only desire of it
Makes you quite mad enough
Never to tire of it,
Makes you hold all other things tawdry
And cheap for it […]
If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it,
You'll get it!

Our interest here is not necessarily in the content of this poem whose aim is to motivate 
the one who strongly desires a goal; the interest is rather in the title of the poem itself 
which is 'Will to Win'. The title of the poem shows that there could exist 'will-to-win' in 
humans.

What Is Will-to-Win?
To be able to establish clearly the meaning of will-to-win, we need to underline first what 

th
'to win' means. According to Chambers 20  Century Dictionary, to win is “to achieve”, 
“to be a victor”, “to gain influence”, to excel, to be successful, to reach one's potential (E. 
M. Kirkpatrick, 1983: 1495).
Hence, will-to-win is the drive or desire to succeed; the urge to reach one's potential; the 
desire to unlock the door of one's personal excellence; the drive to go beyond one's 
present level of ability.
But, does this desire exist really in humans? If it does, has it any ontological priority over 
the Nietzschean will to power?

 Will-To-Win: The Ultimate Drive of Human Actions
Vincent Lombardi, former American footballer, coach and executive in National Football 
League (NFL), in some of his speeches affirms:

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Winning is not everything - but making the effort to win is. 
Success demands singleness of purpose. If it doesn't 
matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score? 
Winning is not a sometime thing… it is an all the time 
thing. You don't win once in a while…you don't do the right 
thing once in a while…you do them right all the time. 
Winning is a habit…Winning isn't everything, it's the only 
thing. The objective is to win [….] (Beau Dure, 2015)

Analyzing this literally would imply that all that really matters for humans is winning. Put 
differently, it is the will-to-win, the will to be a victor, the will to be successful, the will to 
reach one's potential that underlies all human actions.
 It, that is, will-to-win, is like a driving force which propels all human activities. Thus, in 
all that the human person does, he/she searches to excel or to be a winner.  This means that 
will-to-win is, therefore, the primordial drive in humans and has an ontological priority 
over every other human drive, including will-to-power. So, it is not the will-to-power that 
is the ultimate drive of human actions but rather the will-to-win. Nietzsche's worldly 
power is in fact 'power-less' if it is not driven by the will-to-win. Looking at it from a 
different perspective, human beings do desire power not just for the sake of possessing it; 
they search for power because it 'empowers' them to become winners and successful 
beings. Analyzing it in relation to Nietzschean will-to-power, humans lust for power 
simply because it enables them to become victorious and successful, either in the form of 
domination over others or in the self-overcoming. 
Elsewhere, Lombardi (2023) opines that “the quality of each man's life is the full measure 
of that man's commitment of excellence and victory – whether it be football, whether it be 
business, whether it be politics or government or what have you”. 
From the foregoing, it can be said that the existence of the human person is measured by 
the will-to-win, and that all human activities are manifestations of the will-to-win. Thus, 
morality, sports, businesses, politics or government, inasmuch as they are human 
activities, are all manifestations of will-to-win.
Analysis of 'morality', for instance, in relation to will-to-win portrays this much clearer. 
Morality, which of course is 'will-to-do-good' is no other thing but a manifestation of will-
to-win. Evidently, it is founded on the principles of reward and punishment. By 
implication, those who behave well get rewarded for their good actions while those who 
do evil get punished for their evil actions. Surely, human beings naturally desire to 
win/gain reward, and purposefully do good for that reason. Drawing from this analysis, it 
follows therefore, that will-to-win is at the foundation of every form of human morality. A 
similar analysis could be applied to other human activities, portraying that they are only 
manifestations of will-to-win.
The basic implication of this, is that existence involves struggles or striving. Regarding 
this, Pope Paul VI (2023) affirms:

All life demands struggle. Those who have everything 
given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the 
real values of life. The very striving and hard work that we 
so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the 
person we are today.

The above shows that struggle or striving is part of human life. Surely, human beings do 

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strive, not for striving sake; they strive to be winners in whatever kind of struggles they 
are involved in. Even earlier than Pius VI, Heraclitus did say something very similar: “we 
must recognize that war is common, strife is justice, and all things happen according to 
strife [.…] War is father of all and king of all; some he made slaves, some free [….] Justice 
is […] the whole pattern of domination of one opposite followed by that of the other” 
(Daniel Graham, 2019).
This means that for Heraclitus, existence could be equated to struggles. These ageless 
struggles in human beings as well as in the cosmos, keep the world and makes it what it is. 
Soren Kierkegaard and Albert Camus share a similar view in their existentialist writings, 
as analyzed in the UKEssays (2018): “[…] we struggle to make sense of the world but it 
keeps getting difficult as we try. […] We live in a constant state of conflict with the 
world.” Hence, for them, human life is that of a struggle, a struggle for an existential 
meaning. And in this struggle, the human person desires winning.
In sum, human life involves constant struggles. And to exist truly, is to be a winner in the 
struggles, that is, to be a winner over all that militates against meaningful existence in 
whatever manner. 

Conclusion
My enquiry on Nietzsche's 'will to power' led me to the analysis of the above concept and 
its philosophical implications. I demonstrated that will to power has two senses, namely, 
domination and self-overcoming. Situating the concept as expressed in both Nietzsche's 
published and unpublished works, I showed that, above all, will-to-power is a 
psychological principle, that is, the first drive underlying all drives or desires in humans. 
As the primary drive, in all their actions, human beings search for power or attempt to 
express power.
This research contends this position of Nietzsche, arguing that human beings have a drive 
more primordial than will-to-power. This drive is called 'will-to-win'. Will-to-win is that 
ultimate drive or desire in humans which pushes them in search of victory or success in all 
their actions/activities. Thus, in all that human beings will or desire, including their desire 
for power, they ultimately desire victory or success. 
If human beings search for victory or success in all their desires/endeavors, this 
presupposes the obvious, that is, that the life of humans in the universe (being-in-the-
universe) is a struggle or a striving, and that humans who exist authentically strive in such 
a way as to be victors in this struggle called life.

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