A Tale of Two Schopenhauers

Commentators generally see Schopenhauer as offering a hierarchy of ethical visions, with resignation at the top since it embodies the highest ethical insight into the fixed, grim nature of the world. The life of the compassionate person is a good but ultimately second-rate ideal, for the compassionate person still acts as though the sufferings of the world can be substantially lessened. This chapter calls this the “One Schopenhauer” view. By contrast, this chapter puts forth the “Two Schopenhauers” view. On this view, the ethics of compassion and resignationism cannot be fit neatly into a hierarchy because they are mutually antagonistic: Insofar as one resigns from the will-to-life, one does not live up to the compassionate injunction to “help everyone as much as you can”; and insofar as one lives compassionately, one does not resign from life. Thus, there seem to be two distinct and incompatible Schopenhauerian ethical stances on the world: the Schopenhauer who recommends resignationism, or the “the Knight of Despair,” and the Schopenhauer who recommends compassion, whom this chapter refers to as the “Knight with Hope.” This chapter argues that the interpretive fulcrum here—on the question of which of these incompatible Schopenhauerian ethical visions we should embrace—is the issue of hope: Are there good Schopenhauerian grounds for hope that the world can be substantially improved and suffering reduced?