The 2 Fundamental Problems of Ethics

Two Scandinavian Academies have asked prize questions on:

• the freedom of the will
• the foundation of ethics

I have answered this in 1841 in my “The 2 Fundamental Problems of Ethics.”

I assume an acquaintance on the part of my readers with the work which has just been mentioned, just as unconditionally as in the supplements to the second book I have assumed it with regard to the work “On the Will in Nature.”

In general I make the demand that whoever wishes to make himself acquainted with my philosophy shall read every line of me. For I am no voluminous writer, no fabricator of compendiums, no earner of pecuniary rewards, not one whose writings aim at the approbation of a minister; in a word, not one whose pen is under the influence of personal ends. I strive after nothing but the truth, and write as the ancients wrote, with the sole intention of preserving my thoughts, so that they may be for the benefit of those who understand how to meditate upon them and prize them. Therefore I have written little, but that [248] little with reflection and at long intervals, and accordingly I have also confined within the smallest possible limits those repetitions which in philosophical works are sometimes unavoidable on account of the connection, and from which no single philosopher is free; so that by far the most of what I have to say is only to be found in one place. On this account, then, whoever wishes to learn from me and understand me must leave nothing unread that I have written. Yet one can judge me and criticise me without this, as experience has shown; and to this also I further wish much pleasure.

Meanwhile the space gained by the said elimination of two important subjects will be very welcome to us. For since those explanations, which every man has more at heart than anything else, and which therefore in every system, as ultimate results, form the apex of its pyramid, are also crowded together in my last book, a larger space will gladly be granted to every firmer proof or more accurate account of these. Besides this we have been able to discuss here, as belonging to the doctrine of the “assertion of the will to live,” a question which in our fourth book itself remained untouched, as it was also entirely neglected by all philosophers before me: it is the inner significance and real nature of the sexual love, which sometimes rises to a vehement passion—a subject which it would not have been paradoxical to take up in the ethical part of philosophy if its importance had been known.