Handbook of Ethical Theory - George Stuart Fullerton (chrome ebook reader txt) 📗

134. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PESSIMIST.—With philosophy in general this volume has little to do; but as pessimism is not the doctrine of normal men generally, but is apt to be identified in our minds with the teachings of certain of its leading exponents, it may be well to give, in briefest outline, the type of reasonings upon which the pessimist may take his stand.

Schopenhauer held that the one World-Will, which manifests itself in all nature, inorganic and organic, and is identical with the will of which each man is conscious in himself, is a “will to live.” When the World-Will becomes conscious, as it does in man, the will to live is consciously asserted. But the will to live is essentially blind and unreasoning, or it would not do anything so stupid as to will life of any sort. He writes:

“Only a blind will, no seeing will, could place itself in the position in which we behold ourselves. A seeing will would rather have soon made the calculation that the business did not cover the cost; for such a mighty effort and struggle, with the straining of all the powers, under constant care, anxiety and want, and with the inevitable destruction of every individual life, finds no compensation in the ephemeral existence itself, which is so obtained, and which passes into nothing in our hands.” [Footnote: The World as Will and Idea, translated by HALDANE and KEMP, London, 1896. On the Vanity and Suffering of Life. Volume III, p. 390.]

The basis of all will, says Schopenhauer, is need, deficiency, and, hence, pain. He dwells at length upon the misery of life, and the desirability of a release from life. The refuge of suicide at once suggests itself, but is rejected by Schopenhauer on the ground that the destruction of the individual cannot prevent the One Will from manifesting itself in other individuals. Curiously enough he appears to approve of suicide by starvation, as indicating a renunciation of the will to live. But his general recommendation is asceticism, renunciation of the striving for pleasure, the voluntary acceptance of pain. Through this the Will is to be taught to apprehend its own nature, and, thus, to deny itself. How a general asceticism on our part will rob the one universal Will, revealed in the mineral, vegetable and animal worlds, of its nature, and still its strivings, the great pessimist does not indicate.

At this point, von Hartmann, who may fairly be called Schopenhauer’s pupil, takes up the tale. He suggests that it is conceivable that a universal negation of the will may be obtained, if the preponderating part of the actual World-Will should come to be contained in the conscious minds that resolve to will no more. This he thinks may neutralize the whole, and put an end to existence, which is unavoidably an evil, and implies a preponderance of pain. [Footnote: Philosophy of the Unconscious, “Metaphysic of the Unconscious,” chapter xiv.]

135. COMMENT ON THE ETHICS OF PESSIMISM.—On the metaphysics of the pessimists I shall make no comment save that there appears to be here sufficient vagueness to satisfy the most poetical of minds. But the following points in the ethics of pessimism should be noted:

(1) Pleasure and pain are made the measure of the desirability or undesirability of existence.

(2) It is assumed that pleasure and pain are measurable; and that they may be quantitatively balanced against one another in such a way that this or that mixture of them may be declared by an enlightened man to be, on the whole, desirable or the reverse.

(3) It is claimed that the balance must necessarily incline to the side of pain, and hence, that life is not worth living.

(4) It follows from all this that it is our duty to aim, not necessarily directly, but in some manner, at least, at the destruction of life everywhere.

(5) I beg the reader to observe that the above doctrine rests upon assumptions which seem to be made without due consideration. Thus:

(a) It is by no means to be assumed without question that pleasure and pain alone are the measure of the desirable. They are not the only things actually desired; and, if we assert that they alone are desirable, we fall back upon a dubious intuition.

(6) The quantitative relations of pleasures and pains are legitimate subjects of dispute, as we have seen in earlier chapters in this volume. When is one pleasure twice as great as another? How can we know that three pleasures counterbalance a pain? Is it by the mere fact that we will as we do, in a given instance? Then how prove that we will as we do, because of the equivalence of the pleasure to the pain?

(c) Who shall decide for us whether life is—not desired, it is admittedly that, as a rule,—but, also, desirable?

May the man who denies it rest his assertion upon such general considerations as that satisfaction presupposes desire, and that desire implies a lack, and, hence, pain? The famous author of “Utopia” pointed out long ago that the pains of hunger begin before the pleasure of eating, and only die when it does. Shall we, then, regard a hearty appetite as a curse, to be mitigated but not wholly neutralized by a series of good dinners?

To be sure, the pessimists do not depend wholly upon such general arguments, but point out in great detail that there is much suffering in the world, and that the fulfillment of desire, when it is attained, often results in disillusionment. But the fact remains that life, such as it is, is desired by men and other creatures generally; desired not as an exception, and under a misapprehension, but, as a rule, even by the enlightened and the far-seeing.

Is not the desirable what is desired by the rational will? We have seen that the rational social will does not aim at the suppression of desires generally, but only at the suppression of such desires as interfere with broader satisfactions. Viewed from this standpoint, the pessimist’s “denial of the will to live” appears as an expression of the accidental or irrational will. It is not an expression of the nature of man, but of the nature of the pessimist.

(6) It is, perhaps, worth while to point out that there is nothing to prevent a given pessimist from being an intuitionist, an egoist, a utilitarian (of a sort), or an adherent of one of the other schools above discussed. He may assume intuitively that life is undesirable; in view of its undesirability he may act, either taking himself alone into consideration, or including his neighbor; he may invoke the doctrine of evolution; he may even, if he chooses, call it self-realization to annihilate himself, for he may argue that a will that comes to clear consciousness must see that it must be its own undoing. It is hardly necessary to point out, however, that the pessimist, as such, should not be in any wise confounded with the moralists discussed in the five chapters preceding.