On the Freedom of the Will
The essay distinguishes doing what one wants from being able to want differently. Actions follow necessarily from motives meeting character, while responsibility requires investigation on another level.
Understanding the text
Awarded a prize by the Norwegian learned society in Trondheim in 1839, it later appeared in The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics.
Key points
- 01
Freedoms
Absence of physical obstruction differs from absence of determination in willing.
- 02
Character
Circumstances supply motives whose effect depends on the individual; the same situation does not generate identical choices in everyone.
- 03
Responsibility
Freedom is relocated to intelligible being rather than divided among empirically undetermined decisions.
Explore the ideas in depth
A prize essay on free will
In this essay awarded a prize by a Norwegian learned society in 1839, Schopenhauer asks whether consciousness is enough to prove freedom of the will. He distinguishes being able to do what one wants from being able to will otherwise under the same conditions. The text appeared in 1841 in The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics.
Character, motives and responsibility
On his account empirical actions result from the encounter of character and motives: an action is not arbitrary simply because its causes are complex. Schopenhauer also reworks a Kantian distinction between empirical and intelligible character. His metaphysical discussion does not by itself settle legal or social questions of responsibility.
How to read it
Test the argument against a particular decision and distinguish causal explanation, excuse and attribution of responsibility.
Editions & sources
Summaries and key points are original editorial interpretations. They accompany reading the work and do not replace an edition of the text. Editorial method ↗