Schopenhauer, Religion and Morality: The Humble Path to Ethics

This work challenges the textbook assessment of Schopenhauer as militant atheist and absolute pessimist. In examining Schopenhauer's grappling with religion, theology and Kant's moral philosophy, Mannion suggests we can actually discern a 'religious' humility in method in Schopenhauer's work, seen most clearly in his ethics of compassion and his doctrine of salvation. Given Schopenhauer’s opinion of religion as the ’metaphysics of the people’, his utilisation of and affinity with many relig...