Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T17:27:11.940Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Necessity, Responsibility and Character: Schopenhauer on Freedom of the Will

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2012

Christopher Janaway
Christopher Janaway*
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
*
Email: C.Janaway@soton.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper gives an account of the argument of Schopenhauer's essay On the Freedom of the Human Will, drawing also on his other works. Schopenhauer argues that all human actions are causally necessitated, as are all other events in empirical nature, hence there is no freedom in the sense of liberum arbitrium indifferentiae. However, our sense of responsibility or agency (being the ‘doers of our deeds’) is nonetheless unshakeable. To account for this Schopenhauer invokes the Kantian distinction between empirical and intelligible characters. The paper highlights divergences between Schopenhauer and Kant over the intelligible character, which for Schopenhauer can be neither rational nor causal. It raises the questions whether the intelligible character may be redundant to Schopenhauer's position, and whether it can coherently belong to an individual agent, suggesting that for Schopenhauer a more consistent position would have been to deny freedom of will to the individual.

Keywords

SchopenhauerKantfreedomwillempirical characterintelligible charactercausenecessityindividualityagencyresponsibility
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , November 2012 , pp. 431 - 457
Copyright
Copyright © Kantian Review 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allison, Henry E. (1990) Kant's Theory of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, Henry E. (2006) ‘Kant on Freedom of the Will’. In Paul Guyer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 381–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bok, Hilary (1998) Freedom and Responsibility. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas (1975) Leviathan. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Holloway, Richard (2012) Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Doubt and Faith. Edinburgh: Canongate.Google Scholar
Hume, David (2006) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1996a) Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1996b) Religion and Rational Theology, trans. and ed. Allen W. Wood and George di Giovani. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1997) Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine M. (1996) Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, Thomas (1979) Mortal Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1996) Human, All Too Human, ed. Richard Schacht, trans. R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schopenhauer, Arthur (1969) The World as Will and Representation, vol. 2, trans. E. F. J. Payne. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Schopenhauer, Arthur (1974) Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2, trans. E. F. J. Payne. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Schopenhauer, Arthur (2009a) Prize Essay On the Basis of Morals. In The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics, trans. and ed. Christopher Janaway. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schopenhauer, Arthur (2009b) Prize Essay on the Freedom of the Will. In The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics, trans. and ed. Christopher Janaway. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schopenhauer, Arthur (2010) The World as Will and Representation, vol. 1, trans. and ed. Judith Norman, Alistair Welchman and Christopher Janaway. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schopenhauer, Arthur (2012) On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. In On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, On Vision and Colours, and on Will in Nature, trans. and ed. David Cartwright, Edward Erdmann and Christopher Janaway. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Strawson, P. F. (1974) ‘Freedom and Resentment’. In Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays (London: Methuen), 1–25.Google Scholar
Wood, Allen W. (1984) ‘Kant's Compatibilism’. In Allen Wood (ed.), Self and Nature in Kant's Philosophy (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press), 73–101.Google Scholar
Wood, Allen W. (2005) Kant. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar