Suicide, asceticism, liberation – what Schopenhauer needed from Luther

Abstract

In my study, I argue that one of the most crucial tensions in Schopenhauer's ethics is whether he can distinguish the extreme possibility of asceticism from suicide. This problem is caused by a key feature of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Whereas the doctrines that proclaim a transcendent saviour are aware of a transcendent place to which the liberation takes place, and whereas theories of liberation in an immanent way, i.e. purely by self-power, also consider the place of liberation to be immanent, i.e. they do not consider the world to be surpassable, Schopenhauer's philosophy proclaims liberation in an immanent way, but to a transcendent place. I argue that the anthropological condition of immanent liberation in the transcendent Nothingness for Schopenhauer is the possibility of suicide, but this condition then becomes the greatest challenge. It is to remedy this challenge that the figure of Luther becomes important: first Schopenhauer claims that his own conception of the human is common to Luther's - which this analysis refutes, since while Luther indeed proclaims the bondage of the human, Schopenhauer proclaims the strong freedom of the human -, then he seeks to justify through Luther's teachings that his own asceticism cannot be confused with suicide.