other words, that which really is, or takes place.… Ethics has to do with actual human conduct, and not with the a priori building of card houses, a performance which yields results that no man would ever turn to in the stern stress and battle of life."[1]
II.
After having disproved to his own satisfaction the validity of Kant's basis of morality, Schopenhauer presents his own theory. What is needed, he says, is a basis of morality that will apply to living humanity, and not to mere 'rational beings.' The task of ethics, he insists, is directly to analyze human conduct in its various aspects, in order to find out, if possible, the διότι of the sort of conduct recognized by mankind as virtuous and praise-worthy.
What are the antimoral incentives of human conduct? Where must we look for the springs of 'bad' actions? Schopenhauer's psychological analysis points to two such springs: Egoism (Egoismus) and Malice (Bosheit). The 'maxim' of egoistic conduct is: Neminem juva, immo omnes, si forte conducit, laede. It is incontestably the commonest spring of human action. Malice follows the standard: Neminem juva, immo omnes, quantum potes, laede. "From egoism we should probably derive greed, gluttony, lust, selfishness, avarice, covetousness, injustice, hardness of heart, pride, arrogance, etc.; while to spitefulness (Gehässigkeit) might be ascribed disaffection, envy, ill-will, malice, pleasure in seeing others suffer, prying curiosity, slander, insolence, petulance, hatred, anger, treachery, fraud, thirst for revenge, cruelty, etc."[2] This catalogue of vices, as Kuno Fischer aptly remarks, recalls Dante's Inferno and the Pandemonium of Milton.[3]
Another mighty motive-power is needed to counteract these inbred tendencies of the natural man, and to inaugurate a line of conduct diametrically opposite. Such a motive, aiming at the betterment of the lot of others, regardless of selfish considerations, must be actuated from within, and from within only. All
