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Single Idea 4173

[filed under theme 20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / a. Practical reason ]

Full Idea

If, as all philosophers imagine, the intellect is our actual nature and the will is arrived at through knowledge, then only the motive from which we imagined we were acting would decide our moral worth. Imagined and true motive would be indistinguishable.

Gist of Idea

If we were essentially intellect rather than will, our moral worth would depend on imagined motives

Source

Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II Supp)

Book Ref

Schopenhauer,Arthur: 'The World as Will and Idea', ed/tr. Berman,Jill and David [Everyman 1995], p.93

A Reaction

A nice argument. If motive is morally decisive, it is certainly crucial to decide between real and imagined motive (especially since Freud). But uncontrollable motive seems morally irrelevant.

The 88 ideas from Arthur Schopenhauer

4187 'There is nothing without a reason why it should be rather than not be' (a generalisation of 'Why?') [Schopenhauer]
4190 All understanding is an immediate apprehension of the causal relation [Schopenhauer]
4189 Time may be defined as the possibility of mutually exclusive conditions of the same thing [Schopenhauer]
4191 What we know in ourselves is not a knower but a will [Schopenhauer]
4192 All necessity arises from causation, which is conditioned; there is no absolute or unconditioned necessity [Schopenhauer]
21368 The knot of the world is the use of 'I' to refer to both willing and knowing [Schopenhauer]
21379 Man's three basic ethical incentives are egoism, malice and compassion [Schopenhauer]
21375 Reason can be vicious, and great crimes have to be rational [Schopenhauer]
21376 Philosophy treats animals as exploitable things, ignoring the significance of their lives [Schopenhauer]
21921 Concepts are abstracted from perceptions [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
21362 Necessity is physical, logical, mathematical or moral [Schopenhauer, by Janaway]
21920 No need for a priori categories, since sufficient reason shows the interrelations [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
21361 For Schopenhauer, material things would not exist without the mind [Schopenhauer, by Janaway]
21918 Sufficient Reason can't be proved, because all proof presupposes it [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
21919 Object for a subject and representation are the same thing [Schopenhauer]
21917 The four explanations: objects by causes, concepts by ground, maths by spacetime, ethics by motive [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
21363 Motivation is causality seen from within [Schopenhauer]
21378 We clearly feel responsible for our deeds, because we are quite certain that we did them [Schopenhauer]
21924 As the subject of willing I am wretched, but absorption in knowledge is bliss [Schopenhauer]
21915 To deduce morality from reason is blasphemy, because it is holy, and far above reason [Schopenhauer]
21916 Philosophers can't be religious, and don't need to be; philosophy is perilous but free [Schopenhauer]
21474 Metaphysics studies the inexplicable ends of explanation [Schopenhauer]
21473 All knowledge and explanation rests on the inexplicable [Schopenhauer]
21476 A priori propositions are those we could never be seriously motivated to challenge [Schopenhauer]
21475 All of our concepts are borrowed from perceptual knowledge [Schopenhauer]
21372 Aesthetics concerns how we can take pleasure in an object, with no reference to the will [Schopenhauer]
21477 We don't control our own thinking [Schopenhauer]
21478 Half our thinking is unconscious, and we reach conclusions while unaware of premises [Schopenhauer]
21479 Knowledge is not power! Ignorant people possess supreme authority [Schopenhauer]
21480 Boredom is only felt by those clever enough to need activity [Schopenhauer]
21470 For me the objective thing-in-itself is the will [Schopenhauer]
21485 The state only exists to defend citizens, from exterior threats, and from one another [Schopenhauer]
21486 Poverty and slavery are virtually two words for the same thing [Schopenhauer]
21487 The freedom of the press to sell poison outweighs its usefulness [Schopenhauer]
21481 Buddhists wisely start with the cardinal vices [Schopenhauer]
21482 The five Chinese virtues: pity, justice, politeness, wisdom, honesty [Schopenhauer]
21483 Man is essentially a dreadful wild animal [Schopenhauer]
21484 A man's character can be learned from a single characteristic action [Schopenhauer]
21469 Human life is a mistake, shown by boredom, which is direct awareness of the fact [Schopenhauer]
21466 Pleasure is weaker, and pain stronger, than we expect [Schopenhauer]
21467 Would humanity still exist if sex wasn't both desired and pleasurable? [Schopenhauer]
21468 The Creator created the possibilities for worlds, so should have made a better one than this possible [Schopenhauer]
21471 If suicide was quick and easy, most people would have done it by now [Schopenhauer]
21488 The beautiful is a perception of Plato's Forms, which eliminates the will [Schopenhauer]
21472 Only religion introduces serious issues to uneducated people [Schopenhauer]
21370 Schopenhauer is a chief proponent of aesthetic experience as 'disinterested' [Schopenhauer, by Janaway]
7187 Schopenhauer was caught in Christian ideals, because he didn't deify his 'will' [Nietzsche on Schopenhauer]
5649 Will casts aside each of its temporary fulfilments, so human life has no ultimate aim [Schopenhauer, by Scruton]
8116 The will-less contemplation of art brings a liberation from selfhood [Schopenhauer, by Gardner]
21926 Schopenhauer, unlike other idealists, says reality is irrational [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
21923 Schopenhauer can't use force/energy instead of 'will', because he is not a materialist [Lewis,PB on Schopenhauer]
4162 The world only exists in relation to something else, as an idea of the one who conceives it [Schopenhauer]
4163 All perception is intellectual [Schopenhauer]
4164 Direct feeling of the senses are merely data; perception of the world comes with understanding causes [Schopenhauer]
12171 Absurdity is incongruity between correct and false points of view [Schopenhauer]
21922 We know reality because we know our own bodies and actions [Schopenhauer]
21365 Only the will is thing-in-itself, seen both in blind nature and in human action [Schopenhauer]
21367 I know both aspects of my body, as representation, and as will [Schopenhauer]
21371 We can never attain happiness while our will is pursuing desires [Schopenhauer]
21928 The Sublime fights for will-less knowing, when faced with a beautiful threat to humanity [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
21374 We should no more expect ethical theory to produce good people than aesthetics to produce artists [Schopenhauer]
21913 Kant rightly separates appearance and thing-in-itself [Schopenhauer]
21366 Metaphysics must understand the world thoroughly, as a principal source of knowledge [Schopenhauer]
4167 The knowing subject and the crude matter of the world are both in themselves unknowable [Schopenhauer]
4165 Descartes found the true beginning of philosophy with the Cogito, in the consciousness of the individual [Schopenhauer]
4166 A consciousness without an object is no consciousness [Schopenhauer]
4168 Matter and intellect are inseparable correlatives which only exist relatively, and for each other [Schopenhauer]
21927 Schopenhauer emphasises Ideas in art, unlike most romantics [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
4169 Every true act of will is also at once and without exception a movement of the body [Schopenhauer]
4170 Man's actions are not free, because they follow strictly from impact of motive on character [Schopenhauer]
4171 Philosophy considers only the universal, in nature as everywhere else [Schopenhauer]
4172 Happiness is the swift movement from desire to satisfaction, and then again on to desire [Schopenhauer]
21369 We have hidden and unadmitted desires and fears, suppressed because of vanity [Schopenhauer]
21380 The only aim of our existence is to grasp that non-existence would be better [Schopenhauer]
4173 If we were essentially intellect rather than will, our moral worth would depend on imagined motives [Schopenhauer]
4174 Man is more beautiful than anything else, and the loftiest purpose of art is to reveal his nature [Schopenhauer]
4175 It is as perverse to resent our individuality being replaced by others, as to resent the body renewing itself [Schopenhauer]
4176 We all regard ourselves a priori as free, but see from experience that character and motive compel us [Schopenhauer]
4177 Most people would probably choose non-existence at the end of their life, rather than relive the whole thing [Schopenhauer]
4178 Christianity is a pessimistic religion, in which the world is equated with evil [Schopenhauer]
4179 The essence of nature is the will to life itself [Schopenhauer]
4180 Religion is the mythical clothing of the truth which is inaccessible to the crude human intellect [Schopenhauer]
4181 Every good is essentially relative, for it has its essential nature only in its relation to a desiring will [Schopenhauer]
4182 A principal pleasure of the beautiful is that it momentarily silences the will [Schopenhauer]
4185 Altruistic people make less distinction than usual between themselves and others [Schopenhauer]
4183 Only self-love can motivate morality, but that also makes it worthless [Schopenhauer]
4184 Virtue must spring from an intuitive recognition that other people are essentially like us [Schopenhauer]
4186 Everyone is conscious of all philosophical truths, but philosophers bring them to conceptual awareness [Schopenhauer]