Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) is an outstanding German irrationalist philosopher.

The works submitted to the competition at the Royal Norwegian Academy of Sciences are devoted to two main problems of ethics: free will and the foundations of morality.

According to Schopenhauer, man does not have a perfect and established nature. Consequently, he is equally free and unfree.

Only the will constitutes the essence of man, therefore freedom is the lot of the few...

And here is the paradox: morality itself is primarily to blame for this voluntary enslavement .