Schopenhauer's Rejection of the Moral Ought
In Patrick Hassan (ed.), Schopenhauer's Moral Philosophy. Routledge. pp. 12-30 (2022)
Abstract
More than a century before Anscombe counseled us to jettison concepts such as that of the moral ought, or moral law, Schopenhauer mounted a vigorous attack on such prescriptive moral concepts, particularly as found in Kant. In this chapter I consider the four objections that constitute this attack. According to the first, Kant begs the question by merely assuming that ethics has a prescriptive or legislative-imperative form, when a purely descriptive-explanatory conception such as Schopenhauer’s also presents itself as a possibility. According to the second, Kant’s purportedly philosophical ethics is in fact a theological ethics in disguise, because the moral ought and its prescriptive cousins presuppose a divine lawgiver. According to the third, Kant’s conceptions of the moral law as a law of freedom, and of moral imperatives as categorical or unconditioned, involve him in contradictions. Finally, Schopenhauer objects that there can be no such thing as a moral ought because a binding ought or law must be understood to operate through appeals to self-interest, which stands in opposition to morality. I contend that these last three objections are sound and that the fourth in particular succeeds in confuting the prescriptivist conception of morality.Author's Profile
My notes
Similar books and articles
Willingly Disinterested: Altruism in Schopenhauer’s Ethics.Michel-Antoine Xhignesse - 2013 - In Margit Ruffing, Claudio La Rocca, Alfredo Ferrarin & Stefano Bacin (eds.), Kant Und Die Philosophie in Weltbürgerlicher Absicht: Akten des Xi. Kant-Kongresses 2010. De Gruyter. pp. 639-650.
Kant e Schopenhauer sobre a natureza da filosofia moral.Aguinaldo Pavão - 2009 - Dissertatio 30:135-148.
Categorical imperatives, moral requirements, and moral motivation.Xiaomei Yang - 2006 - Metaphilosophy 37 (1):112–129.
Kant's Conception of Inner Value.Oliver Sensen - 2011 - European Journal of Philosophy 19 (2):262-280.
Schopenhauer's Interpretation of the Categorical Imperative.Peter Welsen - 2005 - Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 61 (3/4):757 - 772.
Can Positive Duties be Derived from Kant’s Categorical Imperative?Michael Yudanin - 2015 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18 (3):595-614.
Schopenhauer's Critique of Kant's Foundation for Morals.Mark Lehman Koontz - 1993 - Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania
The education of the categorical imperative.James Scott Johnston - 2006 - Studies in Philosophy and Education 25 (5-6):385-402.
Philosophical Grounding For the Moral Law: In Defense of Kant’s Factum der Vernunft.Daniel Paul Dal Monte - 2019 - Con-Textos Kantianos 9:178-195.
JAK PRZEKONAĆ KANTA DO KŁAMSTWA? APORIE IMPERATYWU KATEGORYCZNEGO.Michał Piekarz - 2015 - Hybris, Revista de FilosofíA (30):[113-131.
Schopenhauer and Non-Cognitivist Moral Realism.Colin Marshall - 2017 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 55 (2):293-316.
Analytics
Added to PP
2021-05-20
Downloads
276 (#44,068)
6 months
102 (#8,108)
2021-05-20
Downloads
276 (#44,068)
6 months
102 (#8,108)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
Schopenhauer and Modern Moral Philosophy.Stephen Puryear - forthcoming - In David Bather Woods & Timothy Stoll (eds.), The Schopenhauerian Mind. Abingdon: Routledge.
References found in this work
Morality as a system of hypothetical imperatives.Philippa Foot - 1972 - Philosophical Review 81 (3):305-316.
The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy.William Paley & Robert Faulder - 1785 - Printed for R. Faulder.