Abstract

“Moral pessimism” is an expression by which one may understand Schopenhauer’s thesis about immutability of character so far as it declares impossible each and every kind of moral enhancement, remaining only attainable some behavior adaptation based on natural egoism. This is otherwise a kind of result of epistemological problems raised by Kantian critique of reason that Schopenhauer carried to its limits. On the other hand, “moral pessimism” is to be faced not as a “practical” problem, but as a metaphysical one and its empirical consequences can be better considered as one may call “anthropological pessimism” once by this expression we mean not only a judgment about human nature alone but individual sufferings facing a world that menaces individual interests.