ABSTRACT
Aesthetic and moral perception, in Schopenhauer's philosophy, are two modes by which subjects can have epistemic access (albeit still mediated access) to the way the world is in itself. Schopenhauer is quite clear on what this entails with respect to aesthetic experiences: in aesthetic perception of nature, life, or through a (non-musical) artwork, the metaphysical insight is cognition of Ideas. In the case of music, it is cognition of the Will. He is far less clear on the metaphysical insight involved in moral perception. Based on fundamental differences between aesthetic and moral perception, I shall argue for an interpretation of the metaphysical insight on offer in moral perception as the perception of the positive, inherent value that is shared between the “I” and the “Other”. This axiological interpretation of Schopenhauer's ethics of compassion is one I argue for at length in my Reconstructing Schopenhauer's Ethics: Hope, Compassion, and Animal Welfare (OUP, 2019), but in this chapter, I support it in a different way, and supplement the position by suggesting how the axiological and monist interpretations of moral-metaphysical insight are connected in Schopenhauer's ethical thought: the bridge is mysticism.
