Presents Nietzsche's Zarathustra as a moral tyrant whose ethics are more exacting than the Christian morals they are intended to supplant

Identifies and critiques the four key strands of Nietzsche's ethics of self-overcoming
Unmasks the 'moralism' behind Nietzsche's self-professed 'immoralism'
Furthers research on the intellectual parallels between Nietzsche and Kant and between Nietzsche and Hegel
The first critical work to discern affinities between Nietzsche and Feuerbach on the subject of love, sacrifice and a higher humanity

By way of a sustained interrogation of Zarathustra's doctrine of self-overcoming, Francesca Cauchi lays bare the asceticism underlying the prescriptive injunctions set forth in the first two parts of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. These injunctions fall under three heads: self-legislation, self-denial and self-sacrifice, which are shown to bear striking affinities with concepts first formulated by Kant, Hegel and Feuerbach, respectively. In Cauchi's new reading, the Kantian rational will, the Hegelian 'labour of the negative' and Feuerbach's indivisible trinity of love, sacrifice and suffering are seen to resurface in Zarathustra as the agents of a ferocious and self-eviscerating doctrine of self-overcoming that exhibits all the attributes of a moral tyranny.