Synthesized answer
Schopenhauer grounds ethics in a true moral incentive by identifying Compassion as the sole non-egoistic source of action [1]. He argues that acts of justice and loving-kindness are occasionally performed without any expectation of reward or fear of punishment, indicating a truly moral conduct [3]. Cruelty, conversely, is seen as the maximum deficiency in Compassion and a mark of deep moral depravity, thus suggesting Compassion as the real moral incentive [1].
The ultimate incentive for an action can be traced to what affects the agent's own well-being, making most actions egoistic and without moral worth. However, Schopenhauer posits a single exception: when the ultimate incentive is exclusively centered on the well-being of another person who plays a passive role. In this instance, the active individual solely regards the other's welfare and has no other objective than to benefit them, whether by preventing harm or providing help [5]. This focus on another's well-being, divorced from self-interest, is what constitutes true morality [5].
Synthesized from the book passages below. Chat with the book on Feynman for follow-up.
From the book
loving-kindness, which are explained as the manifestation of Compassion in a lower, and a higher, degree, respectively. In the course of the demonstration the question as to how far a lie is legitimate comes incidentally under discussion; as also the theory of Duty; duties being defined as "actions, the simple omission of which constitutes a wrong." (Cf. Part II., Chapter III.) The position now reached, namely, that Compassion is the one and only fount of true morality, because it is the sole non-egoistic source of action, is (says Schopenhauer) a strange paradox; hence the…
ness are occasionally performed without the smallest hope of reward, or fear of punishment involved in their omission. The last paragraph of chis chapter is important because it puts in the clearest light what, according to Schopenhauer, is the end of Ethics. Its aim, he says, is =not= to treat of that which people =ought to do= (for "ought" has no place except in theological Morals, whether explicit, or implicit); but "to point out all the varied moral lines of human conduct; to explain them; and to trace them to their ultimate source." This definition, which assigns no educative…
ute Ought" grown into a fathomless inscrutable _Εἱμαρμένη_, etc. With Part III. we reach the positive part of the work. Schopenhauer begins (Chapter I.) by emphasising the necessity of finding a basis for Ethics that appeals, not to the intellect, but to the intuitive perception. Such (he says) can never be any artificial formula, which surely crumbles to powder beneath the rough touch of real life; rather must it be something springing out of the heart of things, and therefore lying at the root of man's nature. But is there, he asks (Chapter II.), after all, such a thing as natural…
oblem will then be solved. [1] Comrades, true and loyal to our oath, care for my wife and child in remembrance of this. [2] Acts of malice and cruelty are so many gratifications of the ego, and are therefore, in a certain sense, selfish. _V_. Introduction, pp. xvi. and xvii.--(_Translator._) CHAPTER V. STATEMENT AND PROOF OF THE ONLY TRUE MORAL INCENTIVE. The preceding considerations, which were unavoidably necessary in order to clear the ground, now enable me to indicate the true incentive which underlies all acts of real moral worth. The seriousness, and indisputable…
ignity; for the diminution of self-satisfaction, which might otherwise occur, would involve the wounding of our pride. Lastly, it is still Egoism that is operative, when a man, following Wolff's principles, seeks by his conduct to work out his own perfection. In short, one may make the ultimate incentive to an action what one pleases; it will always turn out, no matter by how circuitous a path, that in the last resort what affects the actual weal and woe of the agent himself is the real motive; consequently what he does is =egoistic=, and therefore =without moral worth=. There is only…