ABSTRACT
We have examined Schopenhauer’s criticism that Kantian ethics is overtly dependent upon theology and, in the preceding chapter, suggested that Schopenhauer, himself, might also be open to the charge that certain religious and theological ideas find their way into the substance of his own ethical theory. Thus one must question whether Schopenhauer’s ethics can bridge the ‘moral gap’; that is, how can his basis of morality be justified, in the light of his worldview and metaphysics of the will? Indeed, related difficulties also arise concerning his soteriology. Fundamental to Schopenhauer’s understanding of salvation are both his metaphysics of morals and his doctrine of the denial of the will. This presents a major problem with regard to his metaphysics of the will. If his metaphysics of morals speaks of some ‘higher’ blissful state beyond the will-driven phenomenal existence where egoism entraps the human subject, and the road to salvation entails the transcendence of this phenomenal realm, then one needs to look again at what Schopenhauer means by his understanding of ‘the thing-in-itself’ (Ding an sich). For if it is will, then whence this blissful state and salvation (freedom from willing)? We shall discuss interpretations of this apparent contradiction in Schopenhauer. The discussion culminates in an analysis of the way in which certain religious ideas enable Schopenhauer to maintain some coherence, and hence one can again understand his system better by looking at its parallels with religious belief systems.
