The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics

Conscientization and the Cultivation of Conscience

“…Thus, the word "will" is a focal point in Schopenhauer's ethics: "for this word indicates that which is the being-in-itself of everything in the world, and is the sole kernel of every phenomenon" (Schopenhauer, 1958, p.118). The nature of will is in itself egotistical, uncontrolled, blind, malign, and either conscious or unconscious; this kind of willing its own well being or ill-being based on a self-interested morality (Schopenhauer 2009). …”

“…According to Schopenhauer (2010), the root-cause of human suffering results from the fact that one's desire cannot be satisfied; that is, what one wills is limitless but the ability to achieve one's will is limited. Given that human nature has this anti-moral or central egoistic incentive, every human being strives for ends of her or his own: everybody "wills unconditionally to preserve his existence; wills it unconditionally free of pains…wills the greatest possible amount of wellbeing, and wills every pleasure of which is capable" (Schopenhauer, 2010, p.202).…”

“…Hume ignores human praxical agency and his notion of sympathy is insufficient to generate spiritual strength to uplift human moral acts. In the same way, Schopenhauer (2009) insists that people do not just imagine how others suffer as some other German philosophers interpreted but they suffer with her or him together when they see a sufferer is suffering; they can feel their pain to their distress. However, I would argue, if a person has lost conscience, she or he may gloat over other people's misfortune, being in a state of schadenfreude (a German word, means a feeling of pleasure at misfortunes or the bad things that happen to other people).…”

“…The importance of conscience to morality is reconsidered in a secular or unreligious discourse by primarily examining Marx's (1972) view of taking materialism as the foundation of morality and Schopenhauer's (2010) view of taking compassion as the basis of morality. Drawing on May's (1983) phenomenological study on conscience, it is argued that conscience can still serve as the basis of morality.…”

Ethics Education as Philosophical History for Engineers

“…16 Both philosophers agreed that the mental processes of the mind (including imagination) and the physical components of the body are aspects of the same substance of which everything consists. Freedom to both men is Page 26.684.12…”