Basis Of Morality

Schopenhauer's 1840 essay takes on nothing less than the foundation of ethics itself. Responding to a Danish Royal Society prize question about where morality truly comes from, he first dismantles the prevailing Kantian view with ruthless precision, showing how rationalist ethics fails to explain why we actually feel moral obligation. Then, through a series of brutal thought experiments, he arrives at his startling conclusion: compassion, felt as immediatefellow-feeling with another's suffering, is the only genuine moral motive. This insight, radical for Western philosophy, then sends him searching for corroboration in the most unlikely place: the ancient texts of India, the Vedas and Upanishads, where he finds the same truth articulated millennia earlier. The essay was rejected for the prize, but its power remains undiminished. It is essential reading for anyone who has ever wondered why we should care about each other.