Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

interaction of subjects and comes to transcend them. A quote from Schopenhauer recognises what might now be called ‘interbeing’ as the source of moral value: ‘My own true and inner being actually exists in every living creature. As truly and immediately known as my own consciousness in myself… This is the ground of compassion upon which all true, that is to say, unselfish, virtue rests, and whose expression is in every good deed.’ (My emphasis.) For Schopenhauer, it is by turning away from the Will that we achieve compassion. Thus, from Schopenhauer, we have an innate goodness, of sorts, and we will look at further variations on this theme below.

It’s also worth noting that Parmenides and Plotinus — both of whom identified the universe as ‘the One’ — also seemed to describe the One as the Good (although, at least in Plotinus’ case, it is actually Spirit, the first emination of the One, that is the Good. The One itself can have no qualities.) So there is a very clear and direct link between the absolute essence of the universe (at least according to these two philosophers) and ultimate goodness. For Plotinus it is by turning towards the One that we achieve compassion (sort of in contrast to Schopenhauer).

We’ve seen in the last couple of chapters that value could be regarded as innate to us as embodied agents. It’s worth considering this other kind of ‘innateness’ — the idea that goodness may reside within people, rather than being somehow built into the universe at large. But the idea that things and people can somehow have morality built into them is a

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