Chapter III, 4
Original German
Hingegen darf ich nicht den Unterschied unerörtert lassen, welchen, bei der Motivation, das Auszeichnende des menschlichen Bewußtseins vor jedem tierischen herbeiführt. Dieses, welches eigentlich das Wort Vernunft bezeichnet, besteht darin, daß der Mensch nicht, wie das Tier, bloß der anschauenden Auffassung der Außenwelt fähig ist, sondern aus dieser Allgemeinbegriffe (notiones universales) zu abstrahieren vermag, welche er, um sie in seinem sinnlichen Bewußtsein fixieren und festhalten zu können, mit Worten bezeichnet und nun damit zahllose Kombinationen vornimmt, die zwar immer, wie auch die Begriffe, aus denen sie bestehen, auf die anschaulich erkannte Welt sich beziehen, jedoch eigentlich das ausmachen, was man denken nennt und wodurch die großen Vorzüge des Menschengeschlechts vor allen übrigen möglich werden, nämlich Sprache, Besonnenheit, Rückblick auf das Vergangene, Sorge für das Künftige, Absicht, Vorsatz, planmäßiges, gemeinsames Handeln vieler, Staat, Wissenschaften, Künste u. s. f. Alles dieses beruht auf der einzigen Fähigkeit, nichtanschauliche, abstrakte, allgemeine Vorstellungen zu haben, die man Begriffe (d. i. Inbegriff der Dinge) nennt, weil jeder derselben vieles Einzelne unter sich begreift. Dieser Fähigkeit entbehren die Tiere, selbst die allerklügsten: sie haben daher keine andere als anschauliche Vorstellungen, und erkennen demnach nur das gerade Gegenwärtige, leben allein in der Gegenwart. Die Motive, durch die ihr Wille bewegt wird, müssen daher allemal anschaulich und gegenwärtig sein. Hievon aber ist die Folge, daß ihnen äußerst wenig Wahl gestattet ist, nämlich bloß zwischen dem ihrem beschränkten Gesichtskreise und Auffassungsvermögen anschaulich Vorliegenden und also in Zeit und Raum Gegenwärtigen, wovon nun das als Motiv stärkere ihren Willen sofort bestimmt; wodurch die Kausalität des Motivs hier sehr augenfällig wird. Eine scheinbare Ausnahme macht die Dressur, welche die durch das Medium der Gewohnheit wirkende Furcht ist; eine gewissermaßen wirkliche der Instinkt, sofern vermöge desselben das Tier im ganzen seiner Handlungsweise nicht eigentlich durch Motive, sondern durch innern Zug und Trieb in Bewegung gesetzt wird, welcher jedoch seine nähere Bestimmung, im Detail der einzelnen Handlungen und für jeden Augenblick, doch wieder durch Motive erhält, also in die Regel zurückkehrt. Die nähere Erörterung des Instinkts würde mich hier zu weit von meinem Thema abführen: ihr ist das 27. Kapitel der Ergänzungen zum 2. Buche der Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 5. Band dieser Ausgabe gewidmet. — Der Mensch hingegen hat, vermöge seiner Fähigkeit nicht-anschaulicher Vorstellungen, vermittelst deren er denkt und reflektiert, einen unendlich weitern Gesichtskreis, welcher das Abwesende, das Vergangene, das Zukünftige begreift: dadurch hat er eine sehr viel größere Sphäre der Einwirkung von Motiven und folglich auch der Wahl, als das auf die enge Gegenwart beschränkte Tier. Nicht das seiner sinnlichen Anschauung Vorliegende, in Raum und Zeit Gegenwärtige, ist es, in der Regel, was sein Thun bestimmt: vielmehr sind es bloße Gedanken, die er in seinem Kopfe überall mit sich herumträgt und die ihn vom Eindruck der Gegenwart unabhängig machen. Wenn sie aber dies zu thun verfehlen, nennt man sein Handeln unvernünftig: dasselbe wird hingegen als vernünftig gelobt, wenn es ausschließlich nach wohl überlegten Gedanken und daher völlig unabhängig vom Eindruck der anschaulichen Gegenwart vollzogen wird. Eben dieses, daß der Mensch durch eine eigene Klasse von Vorstellungen (abstrakte Begriffe, Gedanken), welche das Tier nicht hat, aktuiert wird, ist selbst äußerlich sichtbar, indem es allem seinen Thun, sogar dem unbedeutendesten, ja, allen seinen Bewegungen und Schritten, den Charakter des Vorsätzlichen und Absichtlichen aufdrückt; wodurch sein Treiben von dem der Tiere so augenfällig verschieden ist, daß man geradezu sieht, wie gleichsam feine, unsichtbare Fäden (die aus bloßen Gedanken bestehenden Motive) seine Bewegungen lenken, während die der Tiere von den groben, sichtbaren Stricken des anschaulich Gegenwärtigen gezogen werden. Weiter aber geht der Unterschied nicht. Motiv wird der Gedanke, wie die Anschauung Motiv wird, sobald sie auf den vorliegenden Willen zu wirken vermag. Alle Motive aber sind Ursachen, und alle Kausalität führt Notwendigkeit mit sich. Der Mensch kann nun, mittelst seines Denkvermögens, die Motive, deren Einfluß auf seinen Willen er spürt, in beliebiger Ordnung, abwechselnd und wiederholt sich vergegenwärtigen, um sie seinem Willen vorzuhalten, welches überlegen heißt: er ist deliberationsfähig und hat, vermöge dieser Fähigkeit, eine weit größere Wahl, als dem Tiere möglich ist. Hiedurch ist er allerdings relativ frei, nämlich frei vom unmittelbaren Zwange der anschaulich gegenwärtigen, auf seinen Willen als Motive wirkenden Objekte, welchem das Tier schlechthin unterworfen ist: er hingegen bestimmt sich unabhängig von den gegenwärtigen Objekten, nach Gedanken, welche seine Motive sind. Diese relative Freiheit ist es wohl auch im Grunde, was gebildete, aber nicht tief denkende Leute unter der Willensfreiheit, die der Mensch offenbar vor dem Tiere voraus habe, verstehen. Dieselbe ist jedoch eine bloß relative, nämlich in Beziehung auf das anschaulich Gegenwärtige, und eine bloß komparative, nämlich im Vergleich mit dem Tiere. Durch sie ist ganz allein die Art der Motivation geändert, hingegen die Notwendigkeit der Wirkung der Motive im mindesten nicht aufgehoben, oder auch nur verringert. Das abstrakte, in einem bloßen Gedanken bestehende Motiv ist eine äußere, den Willen bestimmende Ursache, so gut wie das anschauliche, in einem realen, gegenwärtigen Objekt bestehende: folglich ist es eine Ursache wie jede andere, ist sogar auch, wie die andern, stets ein Reales, Materielles, sofern es allemal zuletzt doch auf einem irgend wann und irgend wo erhaltenen Eindruck von außen beruht. Es hat bloß die Länge des Leitungsdrahtes voraus; wodurch ich bezeichnen will, daß es nicht, wie die bloß anschaulichen Motive, an eine gewisse Nähe im Raum und in der Zeit gebunden ist; sondern durch die größte Entfernung, durch die längste Zeit und durch eine Vermittelung von Begriffen und Gedanken in langer Verkettung hindurch wirken kann: welches eine Folge der Beschaffenheit und eminenten Empfänglichkeit des Organs ist, das zunächst seine Einwirkung erfährt und aufnimmt, nämlich des menschlichen Gehirns, oder der Vernunft. Dies hebt jedoch seine Ursächlichkeit und die mit ihr gesetzte Notwendigkeit im mindesten nicht auf. Daher kann nur eine sehr oberflächliche Ansicht jene relative und komparative Freiheit für eine absolute, ein liberum arbitrium indifferentiae, halten. Die durch sie entstehende Deliberationsfähigkeit gibt in der That nichts anderes, als den sehr oft peinlichen Konflikt der Motive, dem die Unentschlossenheit vorsitzt, und dessen Kampfplatz nun das ganze Gemüt und Bewußtsein des Menschen ist. Er läßt nämlich die Motive wiederholt ihre Kraft gegeneinander an seinem Willen versuchen, wodurch dieser in dieselbe Lage gerät, in der ein Körper ist, auf welchen verschiedene Kräfte in entgegengesetzten Richtungen wirken, — bis zuletzt das entschieden stärkste Motiv die andern aus dem Felde schlägt und den Willen bestimmt; welcher Ausgang Entschluß heißt und als Resultat des Kampfes mit völliger Notwendigkeit eintritt.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the German, including the author’s notes and appendix. Source edition: Arthur Schopenhauers sämtliche Werke, vol. VII, Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, n.d. [1890s]), Internet Archive item arthurschopenha07schouoft
I cannot, however, leave unexamined the difference in motivation produced by what distinguishes human consciousness from that of every animal. This distinction, which is what the word reason properly designates, consists in the fact that human beings, unlike animals, are capable not merely of perceptually apprehending the external world, but also of abstracting universal concepts (universal notions) from it. To fix and retain these in their sensory consciousness, they designate them by words and then combine them in countless ways. Although these combinations, like the concepts of which they consist, always refer to the world known through perception, they constitute what is properly called thinking. Through thinking, the great advantages of the human race over all the others become possible: language, reflective awareness, looking back on the past, concern for the future, intention, resolve, the planned, concerted action of many, the state, sciences, arts, and so on. All this rests on the single capacity to have nonperceptual, abstract, universal representations, called concepts (that is, comprehensions of things) because each comprehends many particulars. Animals lack this capacity, even the cleverest of them: they therefore have no representations other than perceptual ones, and accordingly know only what is immediately present and live solely in the present. The motives that move their will must therefore always be perceptual and present. Consequently, they are allowed extremely little choice: only among what lies perceptually before them within their limited range of awareness and apprehension, and is thus present in time and space. Whichever of these is stronger as a motive immediately determines their will, making the motive’s causality very conspicuous here. Training, which is fear working through the medium of habit, makes an apparent exception; instinct makes a somewhat genuine one, insofar as, through it, an animal’s overall conduct is set in motion not properly by motives but by an inner inclination and drive. Yet this receives its more precise determination, in the details of particular actions and at each moment, from motives once again, and so returns to the rule. A closer discussion of instinct would take me too far from my subject here: chapter 27 of the supplements to Book 2 of The World as Will and Representation, volume 5 of this edition, is devoted to it.—Human beings, by contrast, through their capacity for nonperceptual representations, by means of which they think and reflect, have an infinitely wider range of awareness, embracing what is absent, past, and future. They therefore have a far greater sphere for the influence of motives, and consequently for choice, than animals, which are confined to the narrow present. As a rule, what determines human action is not what lies before sensory perception, present in space and time; rather, it is mere thoughts, carried everywhere in the head, that make a person independent of the impression of the present. When they fail to do this, however, we call the action irrational; conversely, we praise it as rational when it is performed exclusively according to well-considered thoughts and thus entirely independently of the impression of the perceptually present. The very fact that human beings are moved to action by a distinctive class of representations (abstract concepts, thoughts) that animals do not possess is visible even from outside. It stamps everything they do, even the most insignificant act, indeed all their movements and steps, with the character of deliberateness and intention. Their activity is thus so manifestly different from that of animals that we can positively see how, as it were, fine, invisible threads (motives consisting of mere thoughts) guide their movements, while those of animals are pulled by the coarse, visible ropes of what is perceptually present. But the difference goes no further. A thought becomes a motive, just as a perception becomes a motive, as soon as it can act on the will in question. All motives, however, are causes, and all causality carries necessity with it. By means of the capacity for thought, a person can bring to mind the motives whose influence on the will is felt, in any chosen order, alternately and repeatedly, in order to hold them before the will. This is called deliberation: human beings are capable of deliberating, and through this capacity have a far greater choice than is possible for animals. This does indeed make them relatively free: free, namely, from the immediate compulsion of perceptually present objects acting on the will as motives, to which animals are unconditionally subject. Human beings, by contrast, determine their actions independently of present objects, according to thoughts, which are their motives. This relative freedom is probably also what educated but not deeply thinking people essentially mean by the freedom of the will that human beings plainly possess in contrast to animals. Yet it is merely relative, namely in relation to what is perceptually present, and merely comparative, namely in comparison with animals. Through it, only the manner of motivation is changed; the necessity of the motives’ action, by contrast, is not abolished or even diminished in the slightest. The abstract motive, consisting of a mere thought, is an external cause determining the will just as much as the perceptual motive, consisting of a real, present object. It is therefore a cause like any other; indeed, like the others, it is always something real and material, insofar as it ultimately always rests on an impression received from outside at some time and place. It has only the advantage of a longer conducting wire. By this I mean that, unlike merely perceptual motives, it is not bound to a certain proximity in space and time, but can act across the greatest distance, through the longest time, and through the mediation of a long chain of concepts and thoughts. This follows from the constitution and exceptional receptivity of the organ that first experiences and receives its influence: the human brain, or reason. Yet this does not in the least abolish its causality or the necessity established with it. Only a very superficial view, therefore, can mistake this relative and comparative freedom for an absolute freedom, a freedom of indifferent choice. The capacity for deliberation arising from it in fact offers nothing but the very often painful conflict of motives, over which indecision presides, and whose battlefield is now the whole human mind and consciousness. For a person repeatedly lets the motives test their strength against one another upon the will, which thereby finds itself in the same situation as a body on which different forces act in opposite directions—until at last the decidedly strongest motive drives the others from the field and determines the will. This outcome is called a decision, and occurs as the result of the struggle with complete necessity.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Plain English translation, made independently and directly from the German, not from the Musean edition or a published English translation, including the author’s notes and appendix. Source edition: Arthur Schopenhauers sämtliche Werke, vol. VII, Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, n.d. [1890s]), Internet Archive item arthurschopenha07schouoft
But I must discuss the difference that the special character of human consciousness, as opposed to all animal consciousness, makes to motivation. This special character is what the word reason actually means. It consists in this: unlike an animal, a human being is not limited to perceiving the external world through the senses. We can also draw general concepts (universal notions) from it. To fix and hold these in our sensory consciousness, we give them names. We then combine them in countless ways. These combinations, like the concepts they consist of, always refer to the world known through perception. But they make up what we call thinking. Thinking makes possible the great advantages the human species has over all others: language, reflection, looking back at the past, concern for the future, intentions, resolutions, planned joint action by many people, the state, sciences, arts, and so on. All this rests on a single ability: having abstract, general representations that are not presented to the senses. We call them concepts—that is, collections of things—because each includes many individual things. Animals, even the cleverest, lack this ability. They therefore have only perceptual representations. They know only what is present at the moment and live only in the present. So the motives that move their will must always be perceptual and present. As a result, they have very little choice. They can choose only among things directly presented to their limited field of perception and power of comprehension, things present in time and space. Of these, whichever is the stronger motive immediately determines their will. This makes the motive's causal role very obvious. Training is an apparent exception: it is fear acting through habit. Instinct is to some extent a real exception. Through instinct, an animal's overall behavior is set in motion not really by motives but by an inner pull and drive. Yet motives again determine the details of individual actions at each moment. So it returns to the rule. A closer discussion of instinct would take me too far from my subject here. Chapter 27 of the Supplements to Book 2 of The World as Will and Representation, volume 5 of this edition, is devoted to it.—Human beings, by contrast, can have representations that are not presented to the senses. Through these we think and reflect. This gives us an infinitely wider field of view, covering what is absent, past, and future. So the range in which motives can affect us, and therefore our range of choice, is far greater than an animal's, confined as it is to the narrow present. As a rule, what determines our actions is not what lies before our sensory perception, present in space and time. Instead, it is mere thoughts, which we carry around in our heads everywhere. These make us independent of the impression of the present. When they fail to do so, we call our actions unreasonable. On the other hand, actions are praised as reasonable when they follow well-considered thoughts alone and are therefore entirely independent of the impression made by what is presently perceived. Humans are driven by a special class of representations—abstract concepts and thoughts—that animals do not have. This is even visible from outside. It gives all human actions, even the most insignificant, indeed every movement and step, the character of being planned and intended. Human activity thus differs so obviously from that of animals that we can almost see fine, invisible threads guiding human movements. These threads are motives made up of mere thoughts. Animal movements, by contrast, are pulled by the thick, visible ropes of what is presently perceived. But the difference goes no further. A thought becomes a motive just as a perception does: as soon as it can act on the will in question. All motives, however, are causes, and all causality brings necessity with it. Through our ability to think, we can bring to mind the motives whose influence on our will we feel. We can do so in any order, taking turns and repeating them, to hold them before our will. This is called deliberating. We can deliberate, and this ability gives us a much wider choice than an animal can have. In this respect we are indeed relatively free. We are free from the immediate compulsion of objects presently perceived that act on the will as motives. Animals are wholly subject to this compulsion. Humans, by contrast, determine themselves independently of present objects, according to thoughts that are their motives. At bottom, this relative freedom is probably what educated but not deeply thoughtful people mean by freedom of the will, which humans clearly have over animals. Yet it is only relative: relative to what is presently perceived. And it is only comparative: in comparison with animals. It changes only the way motivation works. It does not in the least remove, or even lessen, the necessity with which motives act. An abstract motive consisting of a mere thought is an external cause determining the will, just as a perceptual motive consisting of a real, present object is. It is therefore a cause like any other. Like other causes, it is even always something real and material, since it ultimately always rests on an impression received from outside at some time and place. Its only advantage is the length of its conducting wire. By this I mean that, unlike purely perceptual motives, it is not bound to a certain closeness in space and time. It can act across the greatest distance and the longest time, and through a long chain of concepts and thoughts that transmit it. This results from the nature and exceptional receptiveness of the organ that first experiences and receives its influence: the human brain, or reason. But this does not in the least remove its causal power or the necessity that comes with it. Only a very superficial view, then, can take this relative and comparative freedom for absolute freedom, a freedom of choice indifferent between alternatives. The ability to deliberate that comes from it actually gives us nothing but the often painful conflict of motives. Indecision presides over it, and its battlefield is the person's whole mind and consciousness. We repeatedly let the motives test their strength against one another on our will. This puts the will in the same position as a body on which different forces act in opposite directions. At last, the decisively strongest motive drives the others from the field and determines the will. This outcome is called a decision, and it follows from the struggle with complete necessity.
About this section
Chapter III, 4 is part of On the Freedom of the Will by Arthur Schopenhauer. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 10 of 28 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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