The Humanistic Psychologist, Vol 53(2), Jun 2025, 183-196; doi:10.1037/hum0000354
I appraise Friedrich Nietzsche’s novel philosophical concept of amor fati, love of one’s fate, tracing the development of this idea from the philosophical works of the ancient Stoics to those of David Hume and Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Nietzsche’s specific critique of Kant’s metaphysical theory of morality is shown to be an important basis for his later pursuit of developing a “joyful science” (fröhliche Wissenschaft; Nietzsche, 1882/1974), one that is predicated on his existential imperative to affirm life. Within this framework, Nietzsche’s presentation of the eternal recurrence is offered as an existential “stress test” to awaken individuals to reevaluate their lives. Importantly, the concept of amor fati, defined as an attitude of rising above good and bad fortunes to positively affirm one’s life, is presented as Nietzsche’s cardinal grounding principle to the existential imperative. The potential importance of amor fati as a positive psychological construct is then discussed in relation to two popular indices of subjective well-being, namely, life satisfaction and subjective happiness. In addition, as an active way of living, amor fati is also discussed as a potentially important explanatory construct, one that is likely to be associated with better psychological adjustment. Finally, although conceptualized as an existential attitude, it is noted that amor fati does not exclude affirming a life involving others in the world. In conclusion, the study of amor fati as a psychological construct may prove to be useful in the science of positive human existence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)