Relative freedom and ascesis: the function of reason in Schopenhauer’s ethics

Abstract

In his metaphysics of the beautiful of the third book of The world as will and representation, Schopenhauer defends the uselessness of the concept to the art. With the exception of poetry, for which the word is the raw material. In the fourth book, however, as in his prize-winning essay On freedom of will, the reason plays an important role in the constitution of morality. On the one hand, he affirms (about the mythical description of the redemptive phenomenon of grace, which “comes from without” through a “change in the mode of knowledge”) the redemption does not come to us through a alleged free-will, that is not by a “deliberated will (works), but in knowledge (faith)”. The philosopher seeks to maintain his vigorous opposition to the ethical rationalism of Kantian deontology. On the other hand, reason (by its capacity for reflection and remembrance) is taken at certain moments as an auxiliary instrument in the process of conscious affirmation of the will (the acquired character), as well as in the phenomenon of the negation of the will. It is necessary to verify how important ethical concepts such as freedom, moral imputability, bad conscience (remorse), etc. are maintained in this ambiguity of the statute of rationality.