Arthur Schopenhauer
Will · Desire · Motive
Arthur Schopenhauer was born in Danzig in 1788 into a prosperous merchant family. He studied philosophy at Göttingen and Berlin and was deeply influenced by Kant, while developing a far darker account of human nature than the philosophical systems dominant in Germany during his lifetime.
His major work, The World as Will and Representation, appeared in 1818. Recognition came slowly, but by the later nineteenth century his ideas had become increasingly influential across European philosophy, literature and psychology.
The Idea
We may understand our reasons without understanding what drives them.
Schopenhauer believed that beneath conscious thought lies something more fundamental: the will, a restless striving expressed through desire, appetite, fear and self-preservation.
Reason does not necessarily command this deeper force. Often it serves it.
We explain our actions rationally, but the explanation we give may not reveal why we wanted to act in the first place.
Schopenhauer and Owain Morgan
Schopenhauer gives Owain a disturbing possibility to consider:
A man may explain his conduct truthfully and still misunderstand himself.
This goes to the heart of Owain’s interest in motive.
When somebody explains why he acted as he did, Owain listens carefully. But he does not assume that sincerity guarantees accuracy. A person may genuinely believe his own account while remaining unaware of the desires, fears or resentments that shaped the action.
That distinction matters. A lie is deliberately constructed. Self-deception is more difficult because the person doing the explaining may also be the person deceived.
Owain therefore pays particular attention to moments when explanation and conduct fail to align. A reaction may be stronger than the circumstances seem to warrant. Anger may persist after its stated cause has disappeared. A principle may be defended with an intensity that suggests something more personal lies beneath it.
None of this allows Owain simply to announce the hidden motive. It gives him reason to keep looking.
Schopenhauer also complicates Owain’s understanding of intention. If human beings are not entirely transparent to themselves, then asking What did he intend? may not be sufficient.
Owain must also ask:
What did he want — and did he know that he wanted it?
That question leads directly into the territory Owain explores throughout his work: the uncertain interval between intention, motive and action.
The Unresolved Question
Schopenhauer creates an obvious difficulty for moral responsibility.
If conduct is influenced by forces that conscious reason does not entirely control, how far can a person be held responsible for what he does?
Owain cannot accept the easy answer that hidden motive removes responsibility. Influence is not the same as compulsion.
Nor can he assume that responsibility requires complete self-knowledge. Few people possess that.
The harder task is to understand the forces acting upon a person without allowing explanation to become excuse.
For Owain, understanding why an act occurred and judging the act remain different questions.
Further Reading
The World as Will and Representation (1818; expanded 1844) — Schopenhauer’s central account of the will, desire and the nature of human experience.
On the Basis of Morality (1840) — his argument that compassion, rather than abstract reason, provides the foundation of morality.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851) — essays and reflections through which Schopenhauer reached a much wider readership later in his life.
The Essence
‘Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.’
For Owain, Schopenhauer introduces an unsettling distinction: we may choose our actions while understanding far less clearly the desires that make us want to choose them.
And that makes the explanation a person gives for his conduct only the beginning of the enquiry.
Follow the thread:
These ideas do not stand alone. They form part of a wider conversation that shapes Owain Morgan’s understanding of the world.