Authors
Kirby, Joseph MorrillAffiliation
Institute for Christian StudiesIssue Date
2011Keywords
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1788-1860Philosophy, German
Life
Human beings
Ecological crisis
Justice (Philosophy)
Pleasure
Existence
Thurow, Lester C.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900
Suffering
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
In this paper, I present a parallel between Schopenhauer, who argues that a purely rational being would see life as meaningless suffering and therefore refuse to inflict existence on a new generation of humans, and economist Lester Thurow, who argues that it is irrational to care about what happens to the world after one's own death, even if this means the extinction of the human species. I show first how these attitudes stem from an orientation that judges life in terms of pleasure and pain. Then, with reference to an article by Amien Kacou, I seek to refute this orientation, showing how a conscious being that actually saw pleasure as its highest good would likely become miserable - or, conversely, that the only way for such a being to actually experience pleasure would be for it to see justice as more important than its own individual satisfaction. I conclude with some reflections on what this means in terms of Nietzsche's statement "God is dead," and what ramifications it has on the current ecological crisis.Citation
Kirby, Joseph Morrill. "The Quest for Pleasure and the Death of Life," Cosmos and History: the Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 7 (2011): 94-113, accessed October 18, 2013, http://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/250/387Publisher
Cosmos Publishing CooperativeJournal
Cosmos and History: the Journal of Natural and Social PhilosophyAdditional Links
http://www.academia.edu/2379444/The_Quest_for_Pleasure_and_the_Death_of_Lifehttp://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/250/387
Type
ArticleLanguage
enISSN
1832-9101Rights
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