  The ethical relevance of the sublime is most apparent in Schopenhauer’s treatment of tragedy.  In tragedy—the highest degree of dynamically sublime feeling—one is both confronted by terrible truths about the world and existence and elevated by the sense that one is not utterly powerless in the face of it. One comes to the felt recognition that one has the power to do something in the face of the tragic nature of the world.  Schopenhauer recommends resignation (extreme denial of the will to life) but his ethical theory admits of degrees of negation—by acting in a less egoistic fashion or further in a truly compassionate manner.