The hierarchy of desires
On the axis: Relation to desire · the ordering of desires
Are there higher and lower desires, with some part of us meant to govern the rest, or is this ranking merely a morality imposed on a life that asks for none?
Justification
The appetites form the lowest part of the soul and must be mastered and curtailed under reason's guidance, for a soul given over to its desires becomes a "leaky jar" that nothing can fill. Plato preaches not the extinction of desire but its redirection: sublimated erōs becomes the drive that carries the soul toward the Beautiful and the Good.
Gorgias, 493a-494a · Republic, IX, 571a-580a
Justification
Against the idea that the living first seek to preserve themselves, Nietzsche holds that every force wills to grow: this is the . The drives are therefore not to be extirpated, the castration preached by the ascetic ideal, but to be shaped: to give style to one's passions, to sublimate them in the service of a more intense life, rather than extinguish them or surrender to them.
Twilight of the Idols, "Morality as Anti-Nature" · The Gay Science, §290
Anchors: Plato · Frankfurt · Nietzsche
leads to: Freedom of the will (Doing as one pleases, or governing oneself?)