Schopenhauerian Moral Awareness as a Source of Nietzschean Nonmorality

Abstract

n Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Friedrich Nietzsche observed that Arthur Schopenhauer, a supposed “pessimist,” actually played the flute, presumably happily and with great personal delight. In his reflections on this activity, and on other comparable ones within Schopenhauer’s daily schedule, Nietzsche wondered whether Schopenhauer himself was indeed a pessimist, and also whether Schopenhauer’s philosophy reveals itself to be less pessimistic than is usually thought, owing to its allegiance to, and advocacy of, Christian moral values. Nietzsche writes: The difficulty of providing a rational foundation for the [moral] principle cited 1 may indeed be great—as is well known, Schopenhauer did not succeed either—and whoever has once felt deeply how insipidly false and sentimental this principle is in a world whose essence is will to power, may allow himself to be reminded that Schopenhauer, though a pessimist, really—played the flute. Every day, after dinner: one should read his biography on that. And incidentally: a pessimist, one who denies God and the world but comes to a stop before morality—who affirms morality and plays the flute—the laede neminem [offend no one] morality—what? is that really—a pessimist? 2 In his consideration of Schopenhauer’s philosophy at this later stage in his career (1886), Nietzsche clearly distinguished his own view from Schopenhauer’s insofar as he associated Schopenhauer’s view with Christian morality, and his own view with a standpoint “beyond good and evil,” as is indicated by the title of his book from which the above excerpt is cited. Describing Schopenhauer simply as an adherent of Christian morality—which he was, without a doubt—nonetheless remains, as Nietzsche might himself admit, one-sided and incomplete, for it neglects how Schopenhauer took great pains to distinguish his own moral theory from that of Immanuel Kant, and, more significantly, it overlooks ways in which Schopenhauer’s conception of moral awareness is morally ambiguous in certain important respects. In this article, I will explore some of the moral ambiguities in Schopenhauer’s conception of moral awareness, with the aim of showing that