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.