In order to accomplish the task of supporting and ‘fostering’ human self-understanding,
philosophy obviously has to deal with human psychology. The normative dimension of its
results, though, depends on whether philosophy regards human psychology in an essentialist
or in a historical way, that is, it depends on the anthropological assumptions constituting
the background of its inquiry. Through his project of a ‘natural history of morals’,
Nietzsche helps clarifying some issues of this framework connecting human ‘nature’, i.e.
human physiology and psychology, to morality, norms, and institutions. Exploring these
connections through the case of passions (and especially of the amour passion), this paper
discusses the anthropological account informing Nietzsche’s project of a ‘natural history
of morality’. By doing so, it also aims at clarifying the importance of becoming aware of
the (often implicit) anthropological assumptions lying in every philosophical project
which seeks a transformation of human self-understanding
