The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Schopenhauer)

a most excellent work.

I read the Oxford University Press translated by David Cartwright and Edward Erdmann. W I read this book 2 years ago and I think about it often. I believe this might be the most important book that I’ve read in my life so far . it’s life changing.

The paperback edition listed here by Amazon is not the same edition as the Cambridge University Press hardcover translated by Janaway. Rather, the paperback is a completely different edition from Oxford University Press translated by David Cartwright and Edward Erdmann. The scholarly apparatus attached to the Cambridge UP edition is a little more detailed, as you might expect given the price. Both translations are an improvement, from a strictly philosophical perspective, over the Payne translations of these two Schopenhauer essays.

Imagine you are sitting in a restaurant all alone, the waitress brings you a menu with several choices of dishes and appetizers, you sit there for 5 minutes contemplating as to what you will eat without anyone from outside influencing your decision, after having made your decision the waitress comes around and takes your order. You are finished eating your food and pay your bill, you in your mind probably believe that you've made the choice to go to that restaurant and ordered what you ordered of your own free will and choosing, but did you really?The debate between free will and its lack of (determinism) has been, even till this day, for some still inconclusive. Although, in the ensuing arguments between the two opposing views, determinism has the edge by a long-shot. Determinism's primary argument is causality, determinists argue that if the world is cause and effect then everything necessarily follows henceforth, both complex and simple alike, the fact that we can't comprehend why somethings happen does not negate that it followed the cause-effect principle.Schopenhauer, argues in favor of the deterministic point of view, and even goes so far as to claim that no person can ever be a true philosopher unless they figure the illusion behind freedom. Schopenhauer gets in detail about the intellect, consciousness and proving how deterministic all of humanity's affairs are, however, despite this, he does give some credit to free will, one argument being responsibility, if we did not have free will Schopenhauer argues, then why is it that we feel responsibility, he tries to argue against this by claiming that this is a pre-disposition of nature and makes an attempt to bring the argument back to causality, but yields to it and explains that this isn't something he entirely understands.At the conclusion of the book, Schopenhauer, although highly deterministic does not entirely submit to determinism and ponders on the idea that there is perhaps a free-will within us that decides at one point in our livelihood as to what and who we will be and from thenceforth all our actions become deterministic just from that single choosing. Perhaps this is why he titled his work "The two fundamental problem of ethics" as this problem of free-will is very highly problematic and difficult to figure out. It is very easy subscribe to the idea of determinism as it makes highly reasonable points in a systematic manner. However, there will always be that shroud of doubt as was the case with Schopenhauer because we do not fully comprehend the entirety of life and human intellect itself is limited.A good philosophical read 5/5