Origin of morality

Schopenhauer's “Prize Essay”, On the Basis of Morality, in fact won no prize. It was written in response to the Royal Danish Society of Scientific Studies competition, like the Norwegian prize essay contest on freedom of the will, on a topic concerning the psychology of moral reasoning. The essay question contains a lengthy preamble, the main thrust of which is to ask:

Critique of Kant's ethics

Schopenhauer begins his essay, following a brief general introduction, with a long section criticizing Kant's moral philosophy, covering roughly half the length of the book. He maintains that, despite being profoundly indebted to Kant's critical idealism, and in particular to the distinction between appearance and thing-in-itself, he is everywhere in disagreement with Kant's ethics and with what Kant calls the groundwork of the metaphysics of morals.