This study demonstrates that Nietzsche developed a consistent and complete concept of ethics. It comprises a theory of action, a determination of the concept of good and the application to individual behaviours in the sense of the contextuality of ethics. The author’s reconstruction is centred less on individual works than on their systematic interconnection. For Nietzsche, autonomy remains undefined without the reference to an action goal in the sense of the good. The comparison with Plato shows that he takes up a position from the ethics of antiquity. At the same time, Nietzsche is not simply trying to delineate himself from modern concepts of morality. He is concerned with a hermeneutic reflection on the sense that moral demands have for the self. In contrast to the present-day debate on concepts of the aesthetic art of living which cite Nietzsche as their alleged model, Nietzsche is shown in this study to be a genuinely ethical thinker.