A Role for Reason in Schopenhauer’s Ethics

This chapter takes up the vexed role of reason in Schopenhauer’s thought with respect to his ethics. While explicitly demoting the faculty of reason in ethics from the lofty status it had enjoyed in Kant, this chapter shall argue that Schopenhauer nonetheless can and does retain several important roles for reason in politics and ethics. Highlighting these positive functions of reason will address some of the deficiencies of his discussion of compassion as the foundation of morality, and will help bring out the attractions of his view for contemporary normative ethical theorizing.

Conclusion

The reconstruction of Schopenhauer’s ethical thought on offer in this book is novel in three main ways. First, it views Schopenhauer as a more faithful Kantian than most commentators have been apt to recognize. Second, it sees Schopenhauer’s philosophy as an evolving rather than static body of thought. Third, it claims that there are really two Schopenhauers—The Knight of Despair and the Knight with Hope—and this distinction helps to capture the real incompatibilities between the resignationist and the compassionate moral realist sides of Schopenhauer’s ethical thought. This reconstructed version of Schopenhauer’s ethical theory—compassionate moral realism—provides an interesting option for the contemporary ethical-theoretical landscape. A Schopenhauerian value ontology of degrees of inherent value puts this theory into the animal rights camp, but in a more moderate way—closer to Mary Anne Warren’s “weak animal rights” position, rather than Tom Regan’s strong theory of animal rights.

Compassionate Moral Realism

This chapter reconstructs Schopenhauer’s ethical theory. As with his metaphysical system as a whole, his ethical theory is in part a rejection but also a development of Kant’s ethical theory. The major departure from Kant—and a serious departure indeed—is the jettisoning of the Categorical Imperative and the imperatival form of morality as a whole, for reasons echoed famously by G. E. M. Anscombe, Philippa Foot, and others in the 20th century. In the place of the CI, Schopenhauer puts the feeling of compassion as the foundation of morality, and as the sole criterion for actions of moral worth. What is really novel in Schopenhauer’s ethics, is his synthesis of elements of moral sense theory and a realist foundation he retains from Kantian ethics, a synthesis this chapter calls “compassionate moral realism.”

Freedom and Morality

Most contemporary ethical theorists do not look to Schopenhauer as a resource for contemporary normative ethics. Chapters 1 and 2 dispel one of the main reasons for this—namely, that Schopenhauer’s pessimism leads only to the recommendation of resignation. But there is another reason why Schopenhauer has been neglected as an ethical theorist that this chapter addresses. It is widely held that Schopenhauer espouses hard determinism, the view that human beings (in addition to non-human animals) are determined to act as they do on the basis of physical and psychological laws. Yet, without the presumption of freedom it makes little sense to offer a normative ethical theory. Accordingly, before reconstructing Schopenhauer’s normative ethical theory, one needs to get clearer on his views on freedom. This chapter begins with Schopenhauer’s grappling with the problem of how freedom is possible in his dissertation (1813) and traces the development of his theory of freedom through The World as Will and Representation (1818) and his essay “On the Freedom of the Will” (1839). Next, it offers an interpretation of Schopenhauer’s mature compatibilist view that shows how it aims to depart from, but remains highly indebted to Kant’s theory of freedom. This under-acknowledged debt is the “ghost of Kantian freedom” in Schopenhauer’s thought. Ultimately, for Schopenhauer, though we are each born with an innate character and are shaped largely by our empirical circumstances, a rational being is nonetheless responsible for her character, which she can shape and even, albeit rarely, transform.

Schopenhauer’s Pessimism in Light of His Evolving System

This chapter argues that the pessimistic doctrine that Schopenhauer does espouse is that (a) there is a preponderance of undeserved suffering in the world; (b) this is an extremely bad-making feature of existence that is not outweighed by any good-making features; and (c) this situation cannot get substantially better in time. The metaphysical and empirical reasons he adduces to support this pessimistic doctrine are then investigated. Ultimately, the chapter argues that the grounds for his pessimism are weak and become weaker as his philosophy develops in light of proto-Darwinian thought from 1818 to 1859. Two facets of this development are especially salient: First, Schopenhauer comes to rely less on the Platonic Ideas to explain the fixity of species and instead embraces proto-Darwinian evolutionary theory. This change has important ramifications for Schopenhauer’s system that he never works out. One of these is that from within Schopenhauer’s mature system, there emerge some grounds for hope that the human (and even non-human animal) condition can get significantly better. Second, Schopenhauer emphasizes more in his later work (WWR II) the hermeneutic nature of his metaphysics. Given the sort of metaphysical methodology he embraces, the identification of thing-in-itself with will cannot be used in a foundationalist manner, by the lights of his own theorizing, to support pessimism by demonstrating that the world cannot get substantially better. His hermeneutic metaphysics must always be responsive to the empirical evidence, and there may be actual evidence of progress.

A Tale of Two Schopenhauers

Commentators generally see Schopenhauer as offering a hierarchy of ethical visions, with resignation at the top since it embodies the highest ethical insight into the fixed, grim nature of the world. The life of the compassionate person is a good but ultimately second-rate ideal, for the compassionate person still acts as though the sufferings of the world can be substantially lessened. This chapter calls this the “One Schopenhauer” view. By contrast, this chapter puts forth the “Two Schopenhauers” view. On this view, the ethics of compassion and resignationism cannot be fit neatly into a hierarchy because they are mutually antagonistic: Insofar as one resigns from the will-to-life, one does not live up to the compassionate injunction to “help everyone as much as you can”; and insofar as one lives compassionately, one does not resign from life. Thus, there seem to be two distinct and incompatible Schopenhauerian ethical stances on the world: the Schopenhauer who recommends resignationism, or the “the Knight of Despair,” and the Schopenhauer who recommends compassion, whom this chapter refers to as the “Knight with Hope.” This chapter argues that the interpretive fulcrum here—on the question of which of these incompatible Schopenhauerian ethical visions we should embrace—is the issue of hope: Are there good Schopenhauerian grounds for hope that the world can be substantially improved and suffering reduced?

Introduction

This book aims to challenge the predominant picture of Schopenhauer’s ethical thought, and argues that while the resignationist Schopenhauer—the one referred to herein as the “Knight of Despair”—represents one side of this thinker, there is another side, the “Knight with Hope,” and this aspect of his ethical thought is in direct tension with the resignationist one. What this book calls the “One Schopenhauer” view sees a neat hierarchy here, with the greatest insight and comportment as embodied in resignation from life altogether. Yet, this traditional view masks several fundamental tensions between his two ethical ideals. The Introduction suggests, rather, a “Two Schopenhauers” view, for these two ethical ideals are actually mutually incompatible.