- Type:
- Book Chapter
- Author:
- Colin Marshall
- Published:
- 2021
In §19 of On the Basis of Morals, Schopenhauer offers a “decisive experiment” (invoking a character named “Titus”) for his view that compassion is the only genuinely moral incentive, and so the core of moral virtue. He takes this experiment to thereby reveal the falsity of the views of Kant, Fichte, Wollaston, Hutcheson, Smith, Wolff, and Spinoza. Unlike some of Schopenhauer's other arguments for his ethical views, this brief argument does not rest on his controversial moral psychology or his monist metaphysics, and so promises to be of interest to contemporary ethicists. My aim in this paper is to clarify and defend the Titus argument, which I claim is centrally concerned with the proper objects of moral attention. In so doing, I offer a response to Sandra Shapshay's recent claim that Schopenhauer's explicit conclusion in the argument conflicts with his own view of moral principles.
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- What is "Schopenhauer's Titus Argument" about?
- In §19 of On the Basis of Morals, Schopenhauer offers a “decisive experiment” (invoking a character named “Titus”) for his view that compassion is the only genuinely moral incentive, and so the core of moral virtue.
- Who wrote "Schopenhauer's Titus Argument"?
- Colin Marshall