21374
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We should no more expect ethical theory to produce good people than aesthetics to produce artists [Schopenhauer]
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Full Idea:
We should be just as foolish to expect that our moral systems and ethics would create virtuous, noble and hold men, as that our aesthetics would produce poets, painterd and musicians.
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From:
Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 271), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 7 'Against'
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A reaction:
Presumably the aim of ethical theory is to understand the truths about ethics. That can't do any harm, can it? In every other area of life we think that understanding leads to improvement. Unless, of course, there are no truths of ethics....
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5649
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Will casts aside each of its temporary fulfilments, so human life has no ultimate aim [Schopenhauer, by Scruton]
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Full Idea:
Since for Schopenhauer will has no intrinsic end, but breaks through all its temporary fulfilments and casts them aside as irrelevant once attained, it becomes impossible to assert that there is any ultimate aim to human activity.
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From:
report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13
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A reaction:
This sums up part of the modern anti-teleological view of life, with its notion of purposes which can only arise out of consciousnesses. Such a view leaves untouched the key question, which is "What should I will?"
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4177
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Most people would probably choose non-existence at the end of their life, rather than relive the whole thing [Schopenhauer]
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Full Idea:
Perhaps no one at the end of his life, if he gives the matter sober consideration and is, at the same time, frank, ever wishes to live it over again; he more readily chooses non-existence.
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From:
Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.59)
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A reaction:
Hence Nietzsche's doctrine of 'eternal return' (Gay Science §341, idea 2936). From Schopenhauer it is just bleak pessimism, but from Nietzsche it is a wonderful challenge to live, perhaps the best ever.
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4172
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Happiness is the swift movement from desire to satisfaction, and then again on to desire [Schopenhauer]
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Full Idea:
We are fortunate if we keep up the game whereby desire passes into satisfaction, and satisfaction into new desire - if the pace of this is swift, it is called happiness, and if it is slow, sorrow.
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From:
Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 029)
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A reaction:
This seems to be the dream of the addict, as Socrates points out with his example of the leaky jar in 'Gorgias'. Should we want more desires?
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21371
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We can never attain happiness while our will is pursuing desires [Schopenhauer]
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Full Idea:
So long as our consciousness is filled by our will, so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with its constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we never attain lasting happiness or peace.
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From:
Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 196), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 6 'Aesthetic'
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A reaction:
I hate this idea. It obviously leads to his Buddhism, and the eastern idea that life is generally a bad idea and to be avoided. I think Nietzsche rebelled strongly against this attitude of Schopenhauer's.
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