道徳の基礎について — ショーペンハウアー
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : The Basis of Morality Author : Arthur Schopenhauer Translator : Arthur Brodrick Bullock Release date : February 16, 2014 [eBook #44929] Most recently updated: October 24, 2024 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44929 Credits : Produced by Marc D'Hooghe (Images generously made available by the Internet Archive - Cornell University) *** START OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIMITED PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1903 PRIZE ESSAY ON THE BASIS OF MORALITY NOT APPROVED BY THE DANISH ROYAL SOCIETY OF SCIENCES COPENHAGEN , 30 January , 1840. "To preach Morality is easy, to found it difficult.—" ( SCHOPENHAUER : Ueber den Willen in der Natur ; p. 128) MATRI CARISSIMAE . CONTENTS. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION THE QUESTION PART I. INTRODUCTION . I. THE PROBLEM II. GENERAL RETROSPECT PART II. CRITIQUE OF KANT'S BASIS OF ETHICS. I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS II. ON THE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS III. ON THE ASSUMPTION OF DUTIES TOWARDS OURSELVES IN PARTICULAR IV. ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS . NOTE. V. ON THE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS VI. ON THE DERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS VII. KANT'S DOCTRINE OF CONSCIENCE VIII. KANT'S DOCTRINE OP THE INTELLIGIBLE AND EMPIRICAL CHARACTER . NOTE IX. FICHTE'S ETHICS AS A MAGNIFYING GLASS FOR THE ERRORS OF THE KANTIAN PART III. THE FOUNDING OF ETHICS. I. CONDITIONS OF THE PROBLEM II. SCEPTICAL VIEW III. ANTIMORAL INCENTIVES IV. CRITERION OF ACTIONS OF MORAL WORTH V. STATEMENT AND PROOF OF THE ONLY TRUE MORAL INCENTIVE VI. THE VIRTUE OF JUSTICE VII. THE VIRTUE OF LOVING-KINDNESS VIII. THE PROOF NOW GIVEN CONFIRMED BY EXPERIENCE IX. ON THE ETHICAL DIFFERENCE OF CHARACTER . PART IV. ON THE METAPHYSICAL EXPLANATION OF THE PRIMAL ETHICAL PHAENOMENON. I. HOW THIS APPENDIX MUST BE UNDERSTOOD II. THE METAPHYSICAL GROUNDWORK JUDICIUM REGIAE DANICAE SCIENTIARUM SOCIETATIS TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. This translation was undertaken in the belief that there are many English-speaking people who feel more than a merely superficial interest in ethical research, but who may not read German with sufficient ease to make them care to take up the original. The present Essay is one of the most important contributions to Ethics since the time of Kant, and, as such, is indispensable to a thorough knowledge of the subject. Moreover, from whatever point of view it be regarded,—whether the reader find, when he closes the book, that his conviction harmonises with the conclusion reached, or not; it would be difficult to find any treatise on Moral Science more calculated to stimulate thought, and lift it out of infantile imitation of some prescribed pattern. The believer in the Kantian, or any other, basis of Ethics, could hardly measure the strength or the weakness of his own position more surely than by comparing it with the Schopenhauerian; while he who is yet in search of a foundation will find much in the following pages to claim his attention. Those acquainted with the luminous imagery, the subtle irony, the brusque and penetrating vigour of the German, will doubtless admit that it is no easy task to reduce Schopenhauer to adequate English prose; and if this has been attempted by the present writer, no one can be more conscious than he of the manifold shortcomings discoverable. But such as it is, the work is heartily offered to all who still follow the true student's rule, "Gladig wolde he lerne und gladig teche," with the single hope that it may help, however slightly, to widen their knowledge, and ripen their judgment. My friend, R. E. Candy, Esq., I.C.S., has kindly given me information concerning several Indian names. ROME: June , 1902. TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION. Ὃν δὲ θεοὶ τιμῶσιν, ὁ καὶ μωμεύμενος αἰνεῑ. —Theognis: 169. In 1837 the Danish Royal Society of Sciences propounded, as subject for a prize competition, the question with which this treatise opens; and Schopenhauer, who was glad to seize the opportunity of becoming better known, prepared, and sent to Copenhagen, the earliest form of "The Basis of Morality." In January, 1840, the work was pronounced unsuccessful, though there was no other candidate. In September of the same year it was published by the author, with only a few unimportant additions, but preceded by a long introduction, which, cast in the form of an exceedingly caustic philippic, is, in its way, a masterpiece. In 1860, (only a month before Schopenhauer's death,) the second edition was printed with many enlargements and insertions, the short preface, dated August being one of the last things he wrote. [1] The reason why the prize was withheld is not far to seek, and need not detain us. At that time the philosophical atmosphere was saturated with Hegel, and, to a certain extent, with Fichte; hence it is easy to imagine with what ruffled, not to say, scandalised feelings the Academy must have risen from its perusal of the work. Moreover, putting Hegel and Fichte out of the question, the position advanced was in 1840 so new, indeed so paradoxical (as Schopenhauer himself admits); there is at times such an aggressiveness in the style; the whole essay is so much more calculated to startle than to conciliate; that we cannot feel much surprise at the official decision. In the Judgment published by the Society three reasons are given for its unfavourable attitude. The second is declared to be not only dissatisfaction with the mode of discussion ( ipsa disserendi forma ), but also inability to see that Schopenhauer proves his case. As the third is alleged the "unseemly" language employed in connection with certain " summi philosophi " (Hegel and Fichte). Th