The final book of Schopenhauer’s major work could be called a treatise of practical philosophy. Yet, Schopenhauer notes that in a sense philosophy is never practical in the sense that it always just describes the world, but never prescribes any rules to it. Indeed, going against Kant, Schopenhauer notes that there can be no categorical imperatives based on mere pure reason, but all maxims of practice must assume some end, which a human being is aiming for.
Schopenhauer begins by noting that what he has thus far called simply will could as well be called will for life. His idea appears to be that life is what corresponds to will in the phenomenal level of the world, and of course, especially in the case of organic entities. Since will is outside the chains of time, Schopenhauer says, life will continue eternally - or as long as there is will. Of course, individual living beings might die, but this is just a natural part of the ever-going cycle of life, consisting of fluctuation of birth and death.
Now, a person who has understood that individuals are mere phenomenal embodiments of one and same primordial will might just embrace this will and happily live her own individual life to its inevitable end, in the full knowledge that this same will will live on in some other form. Yet, it is not inevitable that such is the result of this moment of enlightenment. Will is not in any manner determined, so some person might do completely opposite - will in this embodiment might actually cancel itself and the person would not anymore have urges to do anything. The only explanation for this choice would be the character of the person - and this character itself would be just an inexplicable fact, a free choice of the primordial will.
Although Schopenhauer thus accepts the freedom of will, this has nothing to do with freedom of individuals. Indeed, he is quite convinced that individual human beings, just like all phenomenal entities, must follow the principle of sufficient reason. In case of human actions, this principle says that all actions are based on motives and the inexplicable character - this type of person must do so and so in these and these circumstances. At the same time, while the actions of a human being are predetermined, they still have a feeling of freedom, due to being embodiments of a completely undetermined will.
Although Schopenhauer starts by saying that the choice of embracing or resigning will is completely free, his own character appears to fall on the resigning side of the equation. Indeed, he emphasises that will has no real end and merely drives forward without any hope of finding any final goal. In case of physical world, this just means that gravitational pull etc. will go on for the end of eternity, but with animal and human life results are more drastic. Because the animal urges are driven by pain and suffering, pain and suffering will continue forever.
One might say that Schopenhauer exaggerates the suffering intrinsic to living - most animals can endure feelings of hunger, thirst, tiredness etc., if they do not rise to overwhelming levels. Especially in case of humans Schopenhauer raises then another line of offence. The supposed happiness is just a momentary feeling of a pain passing by and cannot last for very long. Thus, Schopenhauer suggests, if all our needs are satisfied and no urge drives us forward, we are bound to feel bored, which is no better than being in constant pain. We might say that Schopenhauer is here complaining about a first-world problem: a pessimist will grumble, even if everything would be fine.
Schopenhauer does have something more in his side. Will, in Schopenhauerian philosophy, is what really drives human beings forward, while our cognitive side is merely a tool of will. Human cognition is tied to the individual outlook of the space-time world, while will is not. Will tries to renew itself and doesn’t really care about what happens to this individual. According to Schopenhauer, this is especially clear when we think of sexual urges, which do not follow any conscious control. Cognition then merely provides the rationalisation for the urges of will and tries to find means for realising these urges.
Now, due to the restriction to individual outlook, human beings care only for their own urges or only of this particular embodiment of will. Thus, all humans, Schopenhauer says, are natural egoists, caring only for their own agenda. Hence, they are quite willing to nullify the will of others, which leads naturally to Hobbesian war of everyone against one another. Interestingly, Schopenhauer admits that a Hobbesian warfare is a state of unrightness, and indeed, that a violation of anyone’s will, whether through violence or deceit, is a wrong. Indeed, Schopenhauer thinks the concept of wrong is the basis of ethics, in that rightness is just a derivative concept - without possibility of violation of rights, there would be no rights to speak about.
After describing the wrongness inherent in the natural egoism of humans, Schopenhauer takes a long detour to discuss the origin of states. In effect, he is just following the Hobbesian account, where state power comes about, because of attempt to restrict the field of wrong committed, thus actualising natural rules of justice. While state offers a sort of solution for all the wrongs caused by egoism, Schopenhauer also suggests that the primordial will has also an inherent sort of justice. In effect, this is just a butcher’s justice - everyone will die at the end, thus, an egoist who is completely deluded by her own self will fear her impending doom.
Schopenhauer notes that sometimes humans can win their egoistic outlook and tragically suffer or even die for the lives of others - it is in character of these humans to break their individual viewpoint. Yet, he is quick to point out that some characters do much worse than regular egoists. They are not just trying to fulfill their personal will, no matter at what cost, but they also actively want to kill and torture other individuals. Schopenhauer ties the existence of such characters to his own pessimistic outlook of life - these undeniably evil persons try to silence the suffering in their own life by making other embodiments of will suffer instead.
One might get the impression that Schopenhauer is trying to make his reader commit a suicide, just to escape all the suffering in the world. Yet, he notes, killing oneself wouldn’t solve anything. The result would be just the destruction of this one individual, who is just an embodiment of primordial will in the phenomenal world. But just like sun will rise again, after seemingly swallowed by night, so another embodiment of the same will will just take place of the deceased person. Indeed, Schopenhauer suggests that suicide is just one kind of appearance of will - person killing herself still wants to live, just without the confines of her bodily situation.
We now have four possible human characters. There are the evil monsters, driven by their own pain to cause suffering in others. There are unjust people, who are willing to hurt others, because of their own egoistic desires, although they have no specific desire to hurt others. There are just people, who are willing to ignore their egoistic desires, if they would hurt others. And there are good and virtuous people, who want to do good for others, out of love and compassion for them, that is, an instinctive feeling that these others are just embodiments of the same primordial will.
In addition to these four characters, Schopenhauer finally delineates a fifth one, which like the virtuous character might get its start from universal compassion. But unlike virtuous person, who is spurred to action by the suffering of others, this final character is just disgusted by all the suffering around her and feels the futility of the whole primordial will behind this horridness. And what happens now is a sort of miracle. Will, as embodied by this particular individual, sees and understands its own contradictoriness and nullifies itself - this person does not want anything anymore. This does not mean that her body wouldn’t have any urges - quite the contrary, sexual and other drives continue even after this enlightenment. Instead, this person falls into ascetic behaviour and consciously tries to cancel all these drives.
What then is the final fate of the ascetic in Schopenhauerian philosophy? Surprisingly, life of ascesis does something suicide couldn’t - it doesn’t destroy just the phenomenal individual, but also will itself. One might well wonder wouldn’t the world as a whole would have then disappeared altogether, once Christ or Buddha or some other saint had gone through this road. Indeed, Schopenhauerian emphasis on ascesis is in a sense way to incorporate religion - especially Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism - in his philosophy. Yet, Schopenhauer concentrates merely on the idea that the material world is full of suffering, and he seemingly ignores all ideas of a heaven beyond. But most confusingly, he still leaves open the possibility that after the resignation of will something might remain - something that must be better than this life.
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