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Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics Great Clarendon Street, Oxford Ox2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With oces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York Translation, Note on the Text and Translation, Select Bibliography, Chronology, Explanatory Notes © David E. Cartwright and Edward E. Erdmann 2010 Introduction © Christopher Janaway 2010 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Library of Congress Control Number: 2009942573 Typeset by Glyph International, Bangalore, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc ISBN 978–0–19–929722–1 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics have brought readers closer to the world’s great literature. Now with over 700 titles— from the 4,000-year-old myths of Mesopotamia to the twentieth century’s greatest novels—the series makes available lesser- known as well as celebrated writing. The pocket-sized hardbacks of the early years contained introductions by Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and other literary gures which enriched the experience of reading. Today the series is recognized for its ne scholarship and reliability in texts that span world literature, drama and poetry, religion, philosophy, and politics. Each edition includes perceptive commentary and essential background information to meet the changing needs of readers. Refer to the Table of Contents to navigate through the material in this Oxford World’s Classics ebook. Use the asterisks (*) throughout the text to access the hyperlinked Explanatory Notes. OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics Translated with Notes by DAVID E. CARTWRIGHT and EDWARD E. ERDMANN With an Introduction by CHRISTOPHER JANAWAY OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS THE TWO FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS OF ETHICS ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER was born on 22 February 1788 in the Hanseatic free city of Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland). His father was a successful merchant and one of Danzig’s leading citizens. The family moved to Hamburg to escape the city’s annexation by Prussia in 1793. Schopenhauer spent two years in France from 1797 to 1799, and after four years in private school and a sixteen-month tour of Europe was preparing to begin an apprenticeship with a Hamburg merchant when, in April 1805, his father suddenly died. After two years Schopenhauer abandoned his apprenticeship and enrolled at the University of Göttingen where he studied Plato and Kant. He began reading Eastern philosophy and became the rst Western philosopher to integrate Eastern thinking in his work. His masterpiece, The World as Will and Representation, appeared in December 1818. He joined the University of Berlin as lecturer in the philosophy faculty, where he clashed with Hegel, a fellow member of the faculty. He published On the Will in Nature in 1836, and The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics in 1840, with a vitriolic preface criticizing the Royal Danish Society who had denied a prize to his second essay. In 1844 Schopenhauer published a second edition of The World as Will and Representation, adding a second volume of fty essays. A two-volume collection of essays entitled Parerga and Paralipomena appeared in 1851. Schopenhauer died in Frankfurt in September 1860, after a short illness. DAVID E. CARTWRIGHT is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater. He has written widely on Schopenhauer and is the author of the Historical Dictionary of Schopenhauer’s Philosophy (2005) and Schopenhauer: A Biography (2010). EDWARD E. ERDMANN is Assistant Professor in Languages and Literatures, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater. CHRISTOPHER JANAWAY is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton. He is the author of Self and World in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy (1989), Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction (2002), and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer (1999). CONTENTS Introduction Note on the Text and Translation Select Bibliography A Chronology of Arthur Schopenhauer THE TWO FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS OF ETHICS Explanatory Notes Index ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS WE have been extraordinarily fortunate to have received funds from a National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research Grant, which support made possible the time to complete this and other translations of Schopenhauer’s work. Of course, any views, ndings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. To be sure, the guidance and eorts of Denise Ehlen, Director of Research and Sponsored Programs, and her sta at the University of Wisconsin– Whitewater made it possible for us to secure this grant. Yet Mary Pinkerton and the College of Letters and Sciences Professional Development Committee also helped with essential support. But in uncountable ways over the years our colleagues in the Departments of Philosophy and Religious Studies and Languages and Literatures have encouraged and supported all our eorts and tolerated our puns—no matter how low, or erudite, or just downright obscure. As always, our colleagues and friends have been helpful. We are eager to credit the capable help of reference librarians Barbara Bren and Martha Stephenson, who met our questions about Schopenhauer’s obscure allusions to scholarly and general culture with good humour and consistent success. Among those in the Department of Languages and Literatures, Joseph Hogan has always risen to the challenge of our untimely calls about Schopenhauer’s allusions; Jian Guo has instructively helped with Chinese thought and language; Peter Ho patiently helped with Schopenhauer’s Spanish, and Matthew Lange kept us from blundering over eine jede. Then, too, on occasion, a learned friend, Richard Larson, exchanged suggestions for accurate translation for ein Bier. Full credit for the opportunity for this translation goes to Christopher Janaway of the University of Southampton, who initiated and secured the contract for its publication. We also extend our thanks to Judith Luna, Je New, and Claire Thompson of Oxford University Press for their guidance and editorial care with this project. With our loving gratitude, we dedicate this translation to Carol Lohry Cartwright and to Aureljean Gustafson-Erdmann. INTRODUCTION IN 1840 Arthur Schopenhauer published two essays which, he claimed, ‘mutually contribute to the completion of a system of the fundamental truths of ethics’ (p. 5), and placed them together in a single volume (whose title-page was dated 1841). Both essays started life as submissions to prize competitions set by scholarly academies, one in Norway, which posed the question: ‘Can the freedom of the human will be demonstrated from self- consciousness?’; the other in Denmark, with the rather more cumbersome question: ‘Are the source and basis of morals to be sought in an idea of morality which is immediately contained in conscience, and in the analysis of the remaining fundamental moral notions originating from this, or in another cognitive principle?’ —or, in short: What is the foundation of morals? Schopenhauer consistently referred to both his contributions as prize essays, even though only the rst actually received a prize. The second essay, despite being the sole entry for the Danish competition, fell foul of a damning judgement, in part because of its rudeness towards Hegel and Fichte, the ‘supreme philosophers’ whose inuence still shaped much of the academic establishment. Schopenhauer never forgave the Danish academy for this rejection, and lled the preface to The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics with torrid condemnation, ridicule of Hegel, and a passionate defence of his own essay. The same attitudes are repeated, with a little more restraint but manifesting the same characteristic obstinacy, in the preface to the second edition of the book, which appeared with some additions and revisions in 1860, the last year of Schopenhauer’s life, and which is essentially the edition that forms the basis for the present translation. The degree of Schopenhauer’s gratitude towards the Norwegian academics who awarded him a prize and membership of their society,
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