Schopenhauer's Ethics of Compassion

Within Schopenhauer's ethical system we find a sophisticated analysis of moral and immoral characters, a rich phenomenological account of virtuous and vicious behaviour, critical appraisals of competing accounts of moral motivation, and sustained treatments of practical ethical issues such as suicide, slavery, and animal welfare. At its core is the unrivalled moral significance of compassion [Mitleid]. It is not surprising, therefore, that Schopenhauer’s moral philosophy has, to varying degrees, sometimes been associated with the ethical tradition of sentimentalism: the view that the sentiments—i.e. desires and emotions—are the fundamental features of morality, and play a central role in justifying moral judgements and explaining moral motivation. This chapter aims to introduce the major themes of Schopenhauer’s ethics of compassion against the backdrop of the sentimentalist tradition.