The Rudolf Steiner Archive

13. The Value of Life
Pessimism and Optimism

[ 1 ] A counterpart to the question of the purpose or destiny of life (cf. p. 184 ff.) is the question of its value. We encounter two opposing views in this regard, and between them all conceivable attempts at mediation. One view says: The world is the best imaginable that there can be, and life and action in it a good of inestimable value. Everything presents itself as a harmonious and purposeful interaction and is worthy of admiration. Even the apparently bad and evil is recognizable as good from a higher point of view; for it represents a pleasant contrast to the good; we can appreciate it all the better if it stands out from the good. Nor is evil a truly real thing; we only experience a lesser degree of good as evil. Evil is the absence of good; nothing that has meaning in itself.

[ 2 ] The other view is that which asserts that life is full of torment and misery, that unpleasure outweighs pleasure everywhere, that pain outweighs joy. Existence is a burden, and non-existence would be preferable to existence under all circumstances.

[ 3 ] The main proponents of the first view, optimism, are Shaftesbury and Leibniz, and of the second, pessimism, Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann.

[ 4 ] Leibniz believes that the world is the best it can be. A better one is impossible. For God is good and wise. A good God wants to create the best of worlds; a wise one knows it; he can distinguish it from all other possible worse ones. Only an evil or unwise God could create a worse than the best possible world.

[ 5 ] Whoever starts from this point of view will easily be able to indicate to human action the direction it must take in order to contribute to the best of the world. Man will only have to investigate the counsel of God and act accordingly. If he knows what God's intentions are for the world and the human race, then he will also do the right thing. And he will feel happy to add his own good to that of others. From an optimistic point of view, then, life is worth living. It must inspire us to participate in it.

[ 6 ] Schopenhauer sees things differently. He conceives of the ground of the world not as an all-wise and all-good being, but as a blind urge or will. Eternal striving, incessant pining for satisfaction that can never be achieved, is the basic trait of all will. For once a desired goal has been achieved, a new need arises and so on. Satisfaction can only ever be of vanishingly short duration. The entire remaining content of our lives is unsatisfied urge, that is dissatisfaction, suffering. If the blind urge finally subsides, we lack all content; an infinite boredom fills our existence. Therefore, the relatively best thing is to suffocate desires and needs, to kill the will. Schopenhauer's pessimism leads to inaction, its moral goal is universal laziness.

[ 7 ] In a substantially different way, Hartmann seeks to justify pessimism and exploit it for ethics. Hartmann, following a favorite aspiration of our time, seeks to base his worldview on experience. From the observation of life, he wants to gain insight into whether pleasure or displeasure prevails in the world. He reviews what appears to people as good and happiness before reason in order to show that all supposed satisfaction proves to be illusion on closer inspection. It is an illusion if we believe that we have sources of happiness and satisfaction in health, youth, freedom, a sufficient existence, love (enjoyment of pleasure), compassion, friendship and family life, a sense of honor, glory, dominion, religious edification, scientific and artistic pursuits, hope for the afterlife, participation in cultural progress. Before a sober consideration, every pleasure brings much more evil and misery into the world than pleasure. The discomfort of the cat's meow is always greater than the comfort of intoxication. Unpleasure far outweighs pleasure in the world. No human being, even the relatively happiest, would, if asked, want to go through this miserable life a second time. But since Hartmann does not deny the presence of the ideal (wisdom) in the world, but rather grants it an equal right alongside the blind urge (will), he can only impose the creation of the world on his primal being if he allows the pain of the world to flow into a wise world purpose. But the pain of the world beings is no other than the pain of God himself, for the life of the world as a whole is identical with the life of God. An all-wise being, however, can only see its goal in the liberation from suffering, and since all existence is suffering, in the liberation from existence. The purpose of world creation is to transform existence into the far better non-existence. The world process is a continuous struggle against the pain of God, which ultimately ends with the destruction of all existence. The moral life of man will therefore be: participation in the annihilation of existence. God created the world so that he could free himself from his infinite pain through it. This is "to be regarded, as it were, like an itchy rash on the Absolute", through which its unconscious healing power frees itself from an inner illness, "or also as a painful plaster which the all-one being applies to itself in order to first divert an inner pain outwards and eliminate it for the future". People are members of the world. God suffers in them. He created them in order to fragment his infinite pain. The pain that each one of us suffers is only a drop in the infinite sea of God's pain (Hartmann, Phä-nomenologie des sittlichen Bewußtseins, p. 866 ff.).

[ 8 ] Man must penetrate himself with the realization that the pursuit of individual satisfaction (egoism) is folly, and must allow himself to be guided solely by the task of devoting himself to the redemption of God through selfless devotion to the world process. In contrast to Schopenhauer's, Hartmann's pessimism leads us to a devoted activity for a sublime task.

[ 9 ] But what about the justification based on experience?

[ 10 ] The pursuit of satisfaction is the reaching out of life activity beyond the purpose of life. A being is hungry, that is, it strives for satiation when its organic functions require the supply of new life content in the form of food for their further course. The striving for honor consists in the fact that man only regards his personal actions as valuable when his activities are recognized from outside. The striving for knowledge arises when man lacks something in the world that he can see, hear, etc. as long as he has not grasped it. The fulfillment of the striving creates pleasure in the striving individual, the non-satisfaction creates displeasure. It is important to observe that pleasure or displeasure depends only on the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of my striving. The striving itself can in no way be regarded as displeasure. If, therefore, it turns out that at the moment of the fulfillment of an aspiration a new one immediately arises, I must not say that pleasure has given birth to displeasure for me, because under all circumstances pleasure generates the desire for its repetition or for a new pleasure. Only when this desire encounters the impossibility of its fulfillment can I speak of displeasure. Even when an experienced pleasure produces in me the desire for a greater or more refined experience of pleasure, I can only speak of a displeasure produced by the first pleasure at the moment when I am denied the means of experiencing the greater or more refined pleasure. Only when unpleasure occurs as a natural consequence of pleasure, as in the case of a woman's sexual pleasure through the suffering of childbirth and the toil of caring for children, can I find the creator of pain in pleasure. If striving as such caused displeasure, then every elimination of striving would have to be accompanied by pleasure. But the opposite is the case. The lack of striving in the content of our lives creates boredom, and this is associated with displeasure. But since striving, by its very nature, can take a long time before it is fulfilled and is then satisfied for the time being with the hope of fulfilment, it must be recognized that unpleasure has nothing at all to do with striving as such, but is merely connected with the non-fulfilment of it. Schopenhauer is therefore wrong under all circumstances when he considers desire or striving (the will) in itself to be the source of pain.

[ 11 ] In truth, even the opposite is true. Striving (desire) in itself gives pleasure. Who does not know the pleasure of hoping for a distant but highly desired goal? This pleasure is the companion of the work, the fruits of which are only to be granted to us in the future. This pleasure is completely independent of the achievement of the goal. Once the goal has been reached, the pleasure of fulfillment is added to the pleasure of striving as something new. But to those who would say that the displeasure of an unfulfilled goal is compounded by the displeasure of the deceived hope, making the displeasure of non-fulfilment greater than the possible pleasure of fulfilment, we must reply that the opposite can also be the case; looking back on the pleasure of the time of unfulfilled desire will just as often have a soothing effect on the displeasure of non-fulfilment. The person who exclaims at the sight of dashed hopes: I have done my part! is an object of proof for this assertion. The blissful feeling of having wanted the best to the best of one's ability is overlooked by those who attach to every unfulfilled desire the assertion that not only has the joy of fulfillment failed, but also the enjoyment of the desire itself has been destroyed.

[ 12 ] The fulfillment of a desire causes pleasure and the non-fulfillment of such a desire causes displeasure. We must not conclude from this: Pleasure is the satisfaction of a desire, displeasure the non-satisfaction of a desire. Both pleasure and displeasure can arise in a being even without being the consequences of a desire. Illness is displeasure that is not preceded by desire. Anyone who would claim that illness is an unsatisfied desire for health would be making the mistake of considering the self-evident and unconscious desire not to become ill to be a positive desire. If someone makes an inheritance from a rich relative, of whose existence he had not the slightest idea, this fact fills him with pleasure without any previous desire.

[ 13 ] Whoever wants to investigate whether there is a surplus on the side of desire or displeasure must take into account: the pleasure of desire, that of the fulfillment of desire, and that which is given to us without desire. On the other side of the ledger we will find the following: Displeasure due to boredom, that due to unfulfilled desire, and finally that which comes to us without our desire. The latter category also includes the displeasure caused by work that is imposed on us and not of our own choosing.

[ 14 ] Now the question arises: what is the right means to obtain the balance from this should and have? Eduard von Hartmann is of the opinion that it is deliberative reason. He says (Philosophy of the Unconscious, 7th edition, volume II, p. 290): "Pain and pleasure are only insofar as they are felt." From this it follows that there is no other standard for pleasure than the subjective one of feeling. I must feel whether the sum of my feelings of displeasure combined with my feelings of pleasure results in an excess of pleasure or pain. Notwithstanding this, Hartmann claims: "If ... the life-value of each being can only be taken into account according to its own subjective measure ..., it is by no means said that each being draws the correct algebraic sum from all the affections of its life, or in other words that its overall judgment of its own life is a correct one with regard to its subjective experiences." In this way, the reasonable judgment of feeling is again made the appreciator. ^{1Whoever wants to calculate whether the total sum of pleasure or displeasure predominates is not taking into account that he is making a calculation about something that is not experienced anywhere. Feeling does not calculate, and the real experience, not the result of a dreamed-up calculation, comes into consideration for the real evaluation of life.}

[ 15 ] Those who follow the ideas of thinkers such as Eduard von Hartmann more or less closely may believe that, in order to arrive at a correct evaluation of life, they must eliminate the factors that distort our judgement of pleasure and displeasure. He can try to achieve this in two ways. Firstly by proving that our desire (drive, will) interferes with our sober judgment of the value of feelings. For example, while we would have to tell ourselves that sexual pleasure is a source of evil, the fact that the sexual instinct is powerful in us tempts us to delude ourselves into believing a pleasure that is not there to that extent. We want to enjoy; therefore we do not confess to ourselves that we suffer from pleasure. Secondly, by subjecting feelings to criticism and seeking to prove that the objects to which feelings are attached prove to be illusions before the knowledge of reason, and that they are destroyed the moment our ever-growing intelligence sees through the illusions.

[ 16 ] He can think of the matter as follows. If an ambitious person wants to be clear about whether pleasure or displeasure has had the predominant share in his life up to the moment in which he makes his observation, then he must free himself from two sources of error in his judgment. Since he is ambitious, this basic trait of his character will show him the joys of recognition of his achievements through a magnifying glass, but the slights of setbacks through a magnifying glass. At the time when he experienced the rejections, he felt the insults precisely because he is ambitious; in memory they appear in a milder light, while the joys of recognition, to which he is so accessible, are all the more deeply impressed upon him. Now it is a real boon to the ambitious man that it is so. The deception diminishes his feeling of displeasure at the moment of self-observation. Nevertheless, his judgment is wrong. The sufferings over which he is veiled, he has really had to undergo in all their intensity, and thus he actually enters them wrongly in the account book of his life. In order to arrive at a correct judgment, the ambitious man would have to rid himself of his ambition for the moment of his contemplation. He would have to look at his past life without glasses before his mind's eye. Otherwise he resembles the merchant who, when closing his books, places his business zeal on the revenue side.

[ 17 ] But he can go even further. He can say: The ambitious person will also realize that the recognitions he is chasing after are worthless things. He will come to the realization himself, or be brought to it by others, that a reasonable man can have no interest in recognition from men, since "in all such matters which are not vital questions of development, or even already finally solved by science", one can always swear "that the majorities are wrong and the minorities right". "He who makes ambition his guiding star places his happiness in the hands of such a judgment." (Philosophy of the Unconscious, Volume II, p. 332.) If the ambitious person says all this to himself, then he must describe as an illusion what his ambition has presented to him as reality, and consequently also the feelings that are linked to the corresponding illusions of his ambition. For this reason, it could then be said that the feelings of pleasure resulting from illusions must also be deleted from the account of life values; what then remains represents the illusion-free pleasure sum of life, and this is so small compared to the displeasure sum that life is no pleasure, and non-being is preferable to being.

[ 18 ] But while it is immediately obvious that the deception brought about by the interference of the ambitious instinct produces a false result in the balance of pleasure, what has been said about the realization of the illusory character of the objects of pleasure must be disputed. To exclude all feelings of pleasure connected with real or supposed illusions from the pleasure balance of life would virtually falsify the latter. For the ambitious person has really enjoyed the recognition of the crowd, regardless of whether he himself or someone else later recognizes this recognition as an illusion. This does not diminish the joyful feeling in the slightest. The elimination of all such "illusory" feelings from the life balance does not correct our judgment of the feelings, but rather erases really existing feelings from life.

[ 19 ] And why should these feelings be eliminated? For those who have them, they are simply a source of pleasure; for those who have overcome them, the experience of overcoming them (not the self-satisfied feeling: What a person I am! - but through the objective sources of pleasure that lie in the overcoming) a spiritualized but no less significant pleasure arises. If feelings are removed from the balance of pleasure because they are attached to objects that turn out to be illusions, then the value of life is not made dependent on the quantity of pleasure, but on the quality of the pleasure and this on the value of the things that cause the pleasure. But if I want to determine the value of life only from the quantity of pleasure or displeasure that it brings me, then I must not presuppose something else, by which I again determine the value or non-value of pleasure. If I say: I want to compare the quantity of pleasure with the quantity of displeasure and see which is greater, then I must also take all pleasure and displeasure into account in their real quantities, quite apart from whether they are based on an illusion or not. Whoever ascribes a lesser value for life to a pleasure based on illusion than to one that can be justified by reason is making the value of life dependent on factors other than pleasure.

[ 20 ] He who values pleasure less because it is linked to a vain object is like a merchant who enters the considerable profit of a toy factory in his account with a quarter of the amount because it produces objects for children's dalliance.

[ 21 ] If it is merely a question of weighing the quantity of pleasure against the quantity of displeasure, then the illusory character of the objects of certain pleasurable sensations is to be left entirely out of the game.

[ 22 ] The way recommended by Hartmann for a rational consideration of the amount of pleasure and displeasure produced by life has thus far led us so far that we know how to calculate what we should put on one side of our account book and what on the other. But how should the calculation be made? Is reason also suitable for determining the balance sheet?

[ 23 ] The merchant has made a mistake in his calculation if the calculated profit does not correspond to the goods demonstrably enjoyed or yet to be enjoyed through the transaction. The philosopher, too, will necessarily have made a mistake in his judgment if he is unable to prove the excess of pleasure or displeasure in the sensation.

[ 24 ] For the time being, I will not check the calculation of the pessimists who base themselves on a rational view of the world; but whoever is to decide whether or not to continue the business of life will first demand proof of where the calculated excess of displeasure lies.

[ 25 ] Here we have touched on the point where reason is not able to determine the excess of pleasure or displeasure on its own, but where it must show this excess in life as perception. It is not in the concept alone, but in the interlocking of concept and perception (and feeling is perception) mediated by thinking that the real is attainable for man (cf. pp. 88ff.). The merchant will only give up his business when the loss of goods calculated by his accountant is confirmed by the facts. If this is not the case, he will have the accountant do the calculation again. This is exactly how a person in life will do it. If the philosopher wants to prove to him that the displeasure is far greater than the pleasure, but he does not feel it, he will say: you were wrong in your brooding, think the matter through again. But if at a certain point in time there are really such losses in a business that there is no longer sufficient credit to satisfy the creditors, then bankruptcy will occur even if the merchant avoids having clarity about his affairs by keeping the books. In the same way, if at a certain point in time a person's lack of pleasure becomes so great that no hope (credit) for future pleasure could overcome the pain, this would lead to the bankruptcy of the business of life.

[ 26 ] However, the number of suicides is relatively small compared to the number of those who bravely continue to live. Very few people give up the business of living for the sake of existing unpleasantness. What follows from this? Either that it is not correct to say that the amount of displeasure is greater than the amount of pleasure, or that we do not make our continued life dependent on the amount of pleasure or displeasure we experience.

[ 27 ] In a very peculiar way, Eduard von Hartmann's pessimism comes to declare life worthless, because pain predominates in it, and yet to assert the necessity of going through it. This necessity lies in the fact that the purpose of the world mentioned above (p. 207ff.) can only be achieved through restless, dedicated work by human beings. But as long as men still pursue their egoistic desires, they are incapable of such selfless work. Only when they have convinced themselves through experience and reason that the pleasures of life sought by egoism cannot be attained do they devote themselves to their real task. In this way, the pessimistic conviction should be the source of selflessness. An education based on pessimism should eradicate egoism by showing it its hopelessness.

[ 28 ] According to this view, the pursuit of pleasure is originally rooted in human nature. It is only out of insight into the impossibility of fulfillment that this striving gives way to higher human tasks.

[ 29 ] It cannot be said of the moral worldview, which hopes that the recognition of pessimism will lead to devotion to non-egoistic goals in life, that it overcomes egoism in the true sense of the word. Moral ideals should only be strong enough to seize the will when man has realized that the selfish pursuit of pleasure can lead to no satisfaction. The man whose selfishness desires the grapes of pleasure finds them sour because he cannot attain them: he departs from them and devotes himself to a selfless way of life. Moral ideals, according to the pessimists, are not strong enough to overcome egoism; but they establish their rule on the ground previously cleared for them by the realization of the hopelessness of selfishness.

[ 30 ] If men by their natural disposition aspired to pleasure, but could not possibly attain it, then annihilation of existence and redemption through non-existence would be the only reasonable goal. And if one is of the opinion that the actual bearer of the world's pain is God, then people would have to make it their task to bring about God's redemption. The suicide of the individual does not promote the achievement of this goal, but impairs it. God can only reasonably have created human beings to bring about his redemption through their actions. Otherwise creation would be pointless. And such a view of the world thinks of extra-human purposes. Everyone must perform his specific work in the general work of redemption. If he withdraws from it by committing suicide, the work assigned to him must be done by another. This one must endure the agony of existence instead of him. And since God is in every being as the actual bearer of pain, the suicide has not in the least diminished the amount of God's pain, but rather imposed on God the new difficulty of creating a substitute for him.

[ 31 ] This all presupposes that pleasure is a measure of value for life. Life expresses itself through a sum of drives (needs). If the value of life depended on whether it brings more pleasure or less pleasure, then the drive that brings its bearer a surplus of the latter is to be described as worthless. Let us look at drive and pleasure to see whether the former can be measured by the latter. In order not to arouse the suspicion that life only begins with the sphere of "intellectual aristocracy", we will start with a "purely animal" need, hunger.

[ 32 ] Hunger arises when our organs can no longer function according to their nature without a new supply of substances. What the hungry person initially strives for is satiety. As soon as the supply of food has reached the point where hunger ceases, everything the food instinct strives for has been achieved. For the time being, the pleasure connected with satiety consists in the removal of the pain caused by hunger. In addition to the mere food instinct, there is another need. By eating, man not only wants to restore his disturbed organ functions or overcome the pain of hunger: he also seeks to accomplish this accompanied by pleasant taste sensations. He can even, when he is hungry and is half an hour away from an enjoyable meal, avoid spoiling his desire for something better by eating inferior food that might satisfy him earlier. He needs hunger in order to fully enjoy his meal. Thus hunger becomes at the same time the inducer of pleasure. If all the hunger present in the world could be satisfied, then the full amount of pleasure would result, which is due to the existence of the need for food. To this must be added the special pleasure that gourmets achieve by cultivating their taste buds beyond the ordinary.

[ 33 ] This amount of enjoyment would have the greatest conceivable value if no need aimed at the type of enjoyment in question remained unsatisfied, and if a certain amount of unpleasure did not have to be accepted along with the enjoyment.

[ 34 ] Modern natural science is of the opinion that nature produces more life than it can sustain, that is, it also produces more hunger than it is able to satisfy. The surplus of life that is produced must perish in pain in the struggle for existence. Admittedly, the needs of life are greater at every moment of world events than the available means of satisfaction, and the enjoyment of life is thereby impaired. But the really existing individual enjoyment of life is not made the least bit smaller. Where satisfaction of desire occurs, the corresponding amount of enjoyment is present, even if there is a rich number of unsatisfied drives in the desiring being itself or in others. But what is thereby diminished is the value of the enjoyment of life. If only a part of the needs of a living being are satisfied, it has a corresponding enjoyment. The smaller it is in relation to the total demand of life in the area of the desires in question, the lower its value. This value can be represented by a fraction, the numerator of which is the really existing pleasure and the denominator of which is the sum of needs. The fraction has the value 1 if the numerator and denominator are equal, i.e. if all needs are satisfied. It is greater than 1 if there is more pleasure in a living being than its desires demand; and it is less than 1 if the amount of pleasure falls short of the sum of the desires. However, the fraction can never become zero as long as the numerator has even the smallest value. If a person were to make a calculation before his death, and the amount of pleasure coming from a certain instinct (for example, hunger) were to be distributed over the whole life with all the demands of this instinct, the pleasure experienced would perhaps have only a small value; but it can never become worthless. If the amount of pleasure remains the same, the value of the pleasure of life decreases as the needs of a living being increase. The same applies to the sum of all life in nature. The greater the number of living beings in relation to the number of those who can find full satisfaction of their urges, the lower the average pleasure value of life. The bills of exchange for the enjoyment of life, which are issued to us in our instincts, become cheaper if we cannot hope to redeem them for the full amount. If I have enough to eat for three days and then have to go hungry for another three days, the enjoyment of the three days of eating is not diminished. But I must then think of it as being spread over six days, whereby its value for my food instinct is reduced to half. It is the same with the size of the desire in relation to the degree of my need. If I am hungry for two sandwiches, and can only get one, the pleasure derived from the one has only half the value it would have if I were full after eating it. This is the way in which the value of a pleasure is determined in life. It is measured by the needs of life. Our desires are the measure; pleasure is what is measured. The pleasure of satiety is only given value by the fact that hunger is present; and it is given value of a certain magnitude by the relation in which it stands to the magnitude of the hunger present.

[ 35 ] Unfulfilled demands of our life also cast their shadows on satisfied desires and impair the value of pleasurable hours. However, we can also speak of the present value of a feeling of pleasure. This value is all the lower the smaller the pleasure is in relation to the duration and strength of our desire.

[ 36 ] A quantity of pleasure that corresponds exactly in duration and degree to our desire has full value for us. A smaller amount of pleasure compared to our desire reduces the pleasure value; a larger amount creates an undesired surplus, which is only perceived as pleasure as long as we are able to increase our desire while enjoying it. If we are unable to keep pace with the increase in our desire, the pleasure turns into displeasure. The object that would otherwise satisfy us assails us without our wanting it, and we suffer as a result. This is proof that pleasure has value for us only so long as we can measure it by our desire. An excess of pleasant feeling turns into pain. We can observe this especially in people whose desire for any kind of pleasure is very low. For people whose food instinct is blunted, eating easily turns into disgust. This also shows that desire is the measure of pleasure.

[ 37 ] Now pessimism can say that the unsatisfied food instinct not only brings unpleasantness about the deprived pleasure, but also positive pain, agony and misery into the world. It can refer here to the nameless misery of people afflicted by food worries; to the sum of unhappiness that arises indirectly from the lack of food for such people. And if he also wants to apply his assertion to non-human nature, he can point to the torment of animals that starve to death in certain seasons for lack of food. Of these evils, the pessimist claims that they amply outweigh the amount of pleasure brought into the world by the food instinct.

[ 38 ] It is undoubtedly possible to compare pleasure and displeasure and to determine the surplus of the one or the other, as is done with gain and loss. But if pessimism believes that there is a surplus on the side of unpleasure, and thinks it can conclude from this that life is worthless, it is already mistaken insofar as it makes a calculation that is not carried out in real life.

[ 39 ] In each individual case, our desire is directed towards a specific object. As we have seen, the greater the amount of pleasure in relation to the size of our desire, the greater the value of the satisfaction. ^{2We will refrain here from the case where an excessive increase in pleasure turns it into displeasure.} However, the amount of displeasure that we want to accept in order to achieve pleasure also depends on the size of our desire. We do not compare the amount of displeasure with that of pleasure, but with the size of our desire. A man who takes great pleasure in eating will find it easier to get over a period of hunger in better times than another who lacks the pleasure of satisfying the food instinct. The woman who wants to have a child does not compare the pleasure she derives from its possession with the lack of pleasure resulting from pregnancy, childbed, childcare and so on, but with her desire for the possession of the child.

[ 40 ] We never strive for an abstract pleasure of a certain magnitude, but for concrete satisfaction in a very specific way. If we strive for a pleasure that must be satisfied by a particular object or sensation, we cannot be satisfied by another object or sensation that gives us a pleasure of the same magnitude. Those who strive for satiety cannot replace the desire for it with one of equal magnitude, but produced by a walk. Only if our desire were to strive in general for a certain quantum of pleasure would it have to cease immediately if this pleasure could not be attained without a quantum of displeasure surpassing it in magnitude. But since satisfaction is striven for in a certain way, pleasure occurs with fulfillment even if a displeasure that outweighs it must be accepted. Because the instincts of living beings move in a certain direction and go towards a concrete goal, the possibility of taking into account the amount of displeasure on the way to this goal as an equally valid factor ceases. If the desire is only strong enough to still be present in some degree after overcoming the displeasure - no matter how great it may be in absolute terms - then the pleasure of satisfaction can still be tasted in its full extent. Desire therefore does not relate displeasure directly to the pleasure achieved, but indirectly, by relating its own magnitude (in proportion) to that of displeasure. It is not a question of whether the pleasure or displeasure to be achieved is greater, but of whether the desire for the desired goal or the resistance to the displeasure is greater. If this resistance is greater than the desire, then the latter surrenders to the inevitable, subsides and does not strive any further. By demanding satisfaction of a certain kind, the pleasure connected with it acquires a significance which makes it possible, after satisfaction has been obtained, to include the necessary quantum of displeasure in the calculation only in so far as it has reduced the measure of our desire. If I am a passionate lover of distant views, I never calculate: how much pleasure does the view from the mountain top give me, directly compared to the displeasure of the laborious ascent and descent. But I do consider whether my desire for the distant view will still be lively enough after overcoming the difficulties. Only indirectly through the size of the desire can pleasure and displeasure together produce a result. So the question is not whether desire or dislike is present in excess, but whether the desire for pleasure is strong enough to overcome the dislike.

[ 41 ] One proof of the correctness of this assertion is the fact that the value of pleasure is higher when it has to be purchased by great displeasure than when it falls into our laps like a gift from heaven. When suffering and torment have brought down our desire, and then the goal is still reached, then the pleasure is in proportion to the remaining quantity of desire all the greater. But this proportion, as I have shown, represents the value of pleasure (cf. pp. 221ff.). A further proof is given by the fact that living beings (including man) develop their instincts as long as they are able to endure the pain and agony that opposes them. And the struggle for existence is only the consequence of this fact. The existing life strives for development, and only that part of it gives up the struggle whose desires are suffocated by the force of the piling up difficulties. Every living being searches for food until the lack of food destroys its life. And man, too, only lays hands on himself when he believes (rightly or wrongly) that he cannot achieve the goals in life that are worth striving for. But as long as he still believes in the possibility of achieving what he considers desirable, he fights against all torment and pain. Philosophy would first have to teach man the opinion that wanting only makes sense if the pleasure is greater than the displeasure; according to his nature, he wants to achieve the objects of his desire if he can bear the displeasure that becomes necessary in the process, no matter how great it may be. Such a philosophy would be erroneous, however, because it makes human volition dependent on a circumstance (excess of pleasure over displeasure) that is originally alien to man. The original measure of volition is desire, and this prevails as long as it can. One can compare the calculation that life, not an intellectual philosophy, makes when pleasure and displeasure come into question in the satisfaction of a desire with the following. If I am compelled, when buying a certain quantity of apples, to take twice as many bad ones as good ones - because the seller wants to get his place free - I shall not for a moment consider taking the bad apples with me, if I may estimate the value of the smaller quantity of good ones so highly that I am willing to incur the expense of getting rid of the bad goods in addition to the purchase price. This example illustrates the relationship between the quantities of pleasure and displeasure provided by an impulse. I do not determine the value of the good apple by subtracting its sum from that of the bad, but according to whether the former still retain a value despite the presence of the latter.

[ 42 ] Just as I disregard the bad apples when I enjoy the good ones, so I give myself over to the satisfaction of a desire after I have shaken off the necessary torments.

[ 43 ] Even if pessimism were right in its assertion that there is more displeasure than pleasure in the world, this would have no influence on the will, because living beings nevertheless strive for the remaining pleasure. The empirical proof that pain outweighs pleasure would, if successful, be suitable to show the hopelessness of that philosophical direction which sees the value of life in the surplus of pleasure (eudaemonism), but not to show that the will in general is unreasonable; for this is not based on a surplus of pleasure, but on the amount of pleasure remaining after the subtraction of displeasure. This still appears to be a goal worth striving for.

[ 44 ] Man has tried to refute pessimism by claiming that it is impossible to calculate the surplus of pleasure or displeasure in the world. The possibility of any calculation is based on the fact that the things to be taken into account can be compared with each other according to their size. Now every displeasure and every pleasure has a certain magnitude (strength and duration). We can also compare sensations of pleasure of different kinds, at least by estimation. We know whether a good cigar or a good joke gives us more pleasure. There is therefore no objection to the comparability of different kinds of pleasure and displeasure in terms of their magnitude. And the researcher who sets himself the task of determining the excess of pleasure or lack of pleasure in the world starts from quite justified premises. One can claim that the pessimistic results are erroneous, but one must not doubt the possibility of a scientific estimation of the quantities of pleasure and displeasure and thus the determination of the pleasure balance. It is incorrect, however, to claim that anything follows from the results of this calculation for human volition. The cases in which we really make the value of our activity dependent on whether pleasure or displeasure shows a surplus are those in which we are indifferent to the objects towards which our activity is directed. If it is a question of giving myself pleasure after my work by a game or some light amusement, and I am quite indifferent as to what I do for this purpose, I ask myself: what brings me the greatest surplus of pleasure? And I absolutely refrain from an activity if the scales tilt towards the unpleasant side. When we want to buy a child a toy, we think about what will give him the most pleasure. In all other cases, we do not determine ourselves exclusively according to the pleasure balance.

[ 45 ] If, therefore, the pessimistic ethicists are of the opinion that by proving that displeasure is present in greater quantity than pleasure, they are preparing the ground for selfless devotion to cultural work, they fail to consider that human volition, by its very nature, cannot be influenced by this realization. The aspirations of men are guided by the degree of satisfaction possible after overcoming all difficulties. The hope of this satisfaction is the reason for human activity. The work of each individual and all cultural work springs from this hope. Pessimistic ethics believes that the pursuit of happiness must be presented to man as impossible, so that he may devote himself to his actual moral tasks. But these moral tasks are nothing other than the concrete natural and spiritual instincts; and the satisfaction of these is striven for despite the displeasure that falls away in the process. The pursuit of happiness, which pessimism wants to eradicate, therefore does not exist at all. The tasks that man has to accomplish, however, he accomplishes because he will accomplish them by virtue of his nature, if he has truly recognized their nature. Pessimistic ethics claims that man can only devote himself to what he recognizes as his task in life when he has given up striving for pleasure. No ethics, however, can ever conceive of other tasks in life than the realization of the satisfactions demanded by human desires and the fulfilment of his moral ideals. No ethics can deprive him of the pleasure he derives from this fulfillment of what he desires. When the pessimist says: do not strive for pleasure, for you can never attain it; strive for that which you recognize as your task, it must be replied: this is human nature, and it is the invention of a philosophy that has gone astray if it is claimed that man strives merely for happiness. He strives for the satisfaction of what his nature desires and has the concrete objects of this striving in mind, not an abstract "happiness"; and fulfillment is a pleasure for him. What pessimistic ethics demands: not striving for pleasure, but for the achievement of what you recognize as your life's task, thus meets what man wants according to his nature. Man does not first need to be transformed by philosophy, he does not first need to cast off his nature in order to be moral, morality lies in the striving for a goal that is recognized as justified; to follow it lies in the human nature as long as the associated displeasure does not paralyze the desire for it. And this is the essence of all real will. Ethics is not based on the eradication of all striving for pleasure, so that pale abstract ideas can establish their rule where they are not opposed by a strong desire for the enjoyment of life, but on the strong will, borne by ideal intuition, which achieves its goal, even if the path to it is a thorny one.

[ 46 ] Moral ideals spring from the moral imagination of man. Their realization depends on the fact that they are desired by man strongly enough to overcome pain and torment. They are his intuitions, the springs of his spirit; he wants them because their realization is his highest pleasure. He does not need to first be forbidden by ethics to strive for pleasure in order to then be told what he should strive for. He will strive for moral ideals if his moral imagination is active enough to provide him with intuitions that give his will the strength to assert itself against the resistances inherent in his organization, including the necessary displeasure.

[ 47 ] He who strives for ideals of lofty grandeur does so because they are the content of his being, and the realization will be a pleasure to him, against which the pleasure which poverty derives from the satisfaction of everyday instincts is a trifle. Idealists indulge spiritually in the realization of their ideals in reality.

[ 48 ] Whoever wants to eradicate the pleasure of satisfying human desire must first make man a slave who does not act because he wants to, but only because he should. For the achievement of what is wanted gives pleasure. What is called the good is not what man ought, but what he will when he brings the full true human nature to fruition. Whoever does not recognize this must first drive out of man what he wants and then let him be dictated from outside what he has to give content to his will.

[ 49 ] Man gives value to the fulfillment of a desire because it arises from his being. What is achieved has value because it is willed. If one denies the goal of human will as such its value, then one must take the valuable goals of something that man does not want.

[ 50 ] The ethics based on pessimism arises from the disregard of the moral imagination. Those who do not consider the individual human spirit capable of giving itself the content of its striving can only seek the sum of the will in the longing for pleasure. The unimaginative human being does not create moral ideas. They must be given to him. But physical nature sees to it that he strives to satisfy his lower desires. To the development of the whole man, however, also belong the desires originating in the spirit. Only if one is of the opinion that man does not have these at all can one claim that he should receive them from outside. Then one is also entitled to say that he is obliged to do something that he does not want. Any ethics which demands of man that he should repress his will in order to fulfill tasks which he does not want, does not reckon with the whole man, but with one who lacks the spiritual faculty of desire. For the harmoniously developed human being, the so-called ideas of good are not outside, but within the circle of his being. Moral action does not lie in the eradication of a one-sided self-will, but in the full development of human nature. Whoever considers moral ideals to be attainable only if man kills his self-will does not know that these ideals are as much desired by man as the satisfaction of the so-called animal instincts.

[ 51 ] It cannot be denied that the views characterized here can easily be misunderstood. Immature people without moral imagination like to regard the instincts of their half-nature as the full content of humanity, and reject all moral ideas not generated by them, so that they can "live themselves out" undisturbed. It is self-evident that what is right for the full human being does not apply to the half-developed human nature. Whoever is still to be brought up to the point where his moral nature breaks through the eggshells of the lower passions: what is true of the mature man must not be claimed of him. Here, however, we should not record what is to be impressed upon the undeveloped man, but what lies in the nature of the mature man. For the possibility of freedom should be demonstrated; however, this does not appear in actions based on sensual or emotional compulsion, but in those that are borne by spiritual intuitions.

[ 52 ] This mature man gives his value to himself. He does not strive for pleasure, which is given to him as a gift of grace by nature or by the Creator; nor does he fulfill the abstract duty, which he recognizes as such after he has cast off the pursuit of pleasure. He acts as he wills, that is, according to his ethical intuitions; and he feels the attainment of what he wills as his true enjoyment of life. He determines the value of life by the relationship between what he has achieved and what he has striven for. Ethics, which puts mere ought in the place of will, mere duty in the place of inclination, logically determines the value of man by the relation of what duty demands to what he fulfills. It measures man by a standard that lies outside his nature. - The view developed here points man back to himself. It recognizes as the true value of life only that which the individual regards as such in accordance with his will. It knows just as little of a value of life that is not recognized by the individual as of a purpose of life that does not arise from the individual. It sees its own master and its own esteemer in the all-pervading essential individual.

Addition to the new edition 1918

[ 53 ] One can recognize what is presented in this section if one clings to the apparent objection that man's volition as such is precisely what is unreasonable; one must prove this unreasonableness to him, then he will realize that the goal of ethical striving must lie in the final liberation from volition. I have, however, been met with such an apparent€"objection from an eminent source, in that I have been told that it is precisely the philosopher's task to make up for what the thoughtlessness of animals and most people fails to do, to draw up a real life balance. But he who makes this objection does not see the main point: if freedom is to be realized, then in human nature the will must be borne by intuitive thinking; at the same time, however, it follows that a will can also be determined by something other than intuition, and only in the free realization of intuition flowing from the human being does the moral and its value arise. Ethical individualism is capable of representing morality in its full dignity, for it does not hold the view that what is truly moral is that which in an external way brings about the concordance of a will with a norm, but what arises from man when he unfolds the moral will as a member of his full being, so that to do the immoral appears to him as a mutilation, a crippling of his being.