Schopenhauer K

**Notes
TL;DR:
- Humans want things
- “Suffering” is when humans want what they don’t have
- Therefore, wanting creates suffering
- “Happiness” is when we get what we want
- We’ll always want something, even after we get it
- Therefore, we can never be happy
- Life is bad, mkay

Longer explanation:
Schopenhauer follows in a philosophical tradition of asceticism that’s advanced by
other schools of thought like the Epicureans (in the West/Classical Greece) and
Buddhists (in the East). Schopenhauer begins with the notion that all life is an
expression of “Will” which, for the sake of the kritik, may essentially be
understood as “desire”. All human action (action being defined in the traditional
sense as purposeful behavior) is “willed” by human beings, and action,
Schopenhauer and praxeology teaches us, is purposeful insofar as it is the use of
man’s means to gain a desired end. That is to say, action and desire are essentially
two sides of the same coin (men act towards ends because men desire these ends).
And, regardless of the particular circumstances of the situation, the end at which
all men aim is “contentment” (“happiness”). Men only take action because they are
discontent with the status quo, and they wish to attain a different state of affairs.

The state man finds himself in when he desires that which he does not have is one
of “lack”, and we commonly call this “suffering” (though a better term, and one
used by many who study human action, is disgruntlement or discontent). In this
sense, “desire” generates “suffering” – we only suffer because we are discontent
with the now and want to achieve our objective. Here is the real problem
Schopenhauer finds in aesthetics: there is no final state of contentment that we
can achieve. Man will always want (lack) something, so he will always be locked in
a state of perpetual discontent. Even when he achieves his desire, he will want
something else – this is evident by the fact that all men act (in a world in which
men could achieve contentment, nobody would act, because nobody would be
fleeing a dissatisfactory state of affairs for a satisfactory one). In this regard, life is
suffering because all of life consists of a drive to fulfill all possible desires, and an
incapacity to fulfill these desires. Life is pain, joy is impossible, and desire is at the
root of all of this.

An example might help illustrate this. All men experience hunger. Most of us think
that this is a dissatisfactory state of affairs, because we desire to fulfill this hunger
through the consumption of food. In this sense, we “suffer”, because we are locked
in a state of discontent with our situation. When you finally eat a cookie, you are
no longer hungry. Has this made you happy? In a certain sense, yes. But
ultimately, this is just the alleviation of a state of discontent – you are not “happy”
in a positive way. You’re just trying to bandage the pain of life. As soon as you eat a
cookie, you will desire something else (something to drink, leaving to do whatever,
etc.) and suffer for that lack. And, in a little while, you’ll be a hungry again anyway.
In this sense, there are an infinite amount of things that you could theoretically
want (human desires/the Will are all-encompassing), any “happiness” you
experience is just the temporary alleviation of that pain that is immediately
followed by some other suffering, and life sucks for it. In Schopenhauer’s view, life
is just an itch that you’ll always want to scratch.

Schopenhauer’s alternative takes the form of asceticism – the only way to escape
pain is to end our state of perpetual discontentment, and the only way to do that is
to stop wanting stuff. This doesn’t really “solve” case, insofar as we’ll still
experience the impacts the aff is talking about, but it does “solve” suffering
because we no longer experience these impacts as a form of “negative utility”. At
the same time, however, we don’t really experience any positive utility either,
because life can only possibly consist of suffering through will (or not suffering
due to the lack of will), so the best possible world the alt can create is one of
“meh”.

One thing that one should note is that Schopenhauer can function as two separate
offensive positions: the first is the K, the second is the impact turn. The impact
turn is straightforward: life sucks, death eliminates the suffering of existence.
Therefore, death good.

The K is only slightly more complicated. The affirmative’s desire to achieve a state
of satisfaction (to escape the pain/death their impacts present) is what generates
suffering in the first place. Alt is to renounce desire, meaning we can’t suffer.
Then, of course, “life sucks, death eliminates the suffering of existence. Therefore,
death good” is a pretty good backup to run with the K.

I don’t consider framework the most important issue in this K, because it does
function as an impact turn to the aff’s advantages, so it really doesn’t matter too
much. That said, some sort of framework that establishes the best
ethic/orientation toward suffering is probably strategic. Excluding the aff’s
impacts, again, is not a primary concern of the K.

Links are not to the aff’s reps, they are to the aff’s justifications (severing
justifications doesn’t really make sense here, because literally any justification for
action links to Schopenhauer, so presumption flows neg here). More accurately,
the K links to “affirmatives” themselves – the resolution’s call to action is a
statement that the world is dissatisfying and we ought to change it.

Impacts may be vaguely understood as either “suffering” (life is suffering, death is

release) or “root cause” (their desire to end suffering is what generates it in the
first place).

Util is not responsive if you win the K (you win that life is a form of negative utility
that we can only make up for through the renunciation of life/the will, means you
maximize utility. More accurately, you minimize suffering, because positive utility
is only measured through the elimination of pain)

Conceding a disad and voting aff for suicide doesn’t no link out of the K. There is a
carded answer to this, but Schopenhauer’s views on suicide are pretty explicit:
suicide is willing/desire trying to overcome itself, so deliberate suicide is the
ultimate form of suffering. Asceticism renounces desire altogether and resigns
itself to the impacts of the 1ac. This is also why conceding a disad doesn’t link-turn
the Schopenhauer k. Because the link to the K is desire for worldchanging (the
aff’s call to move toward satisfaction), and not just “death good”, trying to link
turn the K by “triggering” extinction doesn’t make any sense.

- Andrew Beddow
**Top Shelf
1ncs
 Generic 1nc
Life is suffering – joy is only the temporary cessation of this eternal
pain, and the affirmative’s desire for world-changing is its root cause.
Kerns 03 – professor of philosophy at North Seattle Community College (Tom, PhD, “Lecture: Schopenhauer on Suffering”,
1/3/03; < http://members.pioneer.net/~tkerns/waol-phi-website/lecsite/lec-schop-suff.html>)//Beddow
When Schopenhauer says that all life is suffering he means that all life, that is, everything
that lives and
strives, is filled with suffering. Life wants, and because its wants are mostly unfulfilled,
it exists largely in a state of unfulfilled striving and deprivation. Schopenhauer says it thus:
All willing springs from lack, from deficiency, and thus from suffering. Fulfillment brings this to
an end; yet for one wish that is fulfilled there remain at least ten that are denied. Further,
desiring lasts a long time, demands and requests go on to infinity, fulfillment is short and meted
out sparingly. But even the final satisfaction itself is only apparent; the wish fulfilled at once
makes way for a new one; the former is a known delusion, the latter a delusion not as yet known.
No attained object of willing can give a satisfaction that lasts and no longer declines; but it is always like the alms thrown to a beggar,
which reprieves him today so that his misery may be prolonged till tomorrow. Therefore, so long as our consciousness
is filled by our will [which is as long as we are will-filled living beings], so long as we are given
up to the throng of desires with its constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of
willing, we never obtain lasting happiness or peace. Essentially, it is all the same whether we pursue or
flee, fear harm or aspire to enjoyment; care for the constantly demanding will, no matter in what form, continually fills and moves
consciousness; but without peace and calm, true well-being is absolutely impossible. (Die Welt, vol I, p 196) We have seen this theme
in The Book of Ecclesiastes and we could have seen it as well in Leo Tolstoy's A Confession, as well as in Blaise Pascal's Pensées, so it
should not really be new to us. Pascal tells us in his Pensées, for example, that we all do actually realize life to be
so full of suffering, emptiness, and unsatisfaction that the only way we can tolerate
it is by filling our lives with a whole variety of diversions and entertainments. Misery.-
-The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our
miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves and which
makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this [diversions] we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness
would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us
unconsciously to death. (Pensées # 171) Diversion.--As men are not able to fight against death, misery,
ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.
(Pensées # 168) And Pascal reminds us also about Ecclesiastes and Job. Misery.--Solomon and Job have best known and best
spoken of the misery of man; the former the most fortunate, and the latter most unfortunate of men; the former knowing the vanity
of pleasures from experience, the latter the reality of evils. (Pensées # 174) What Schopenhauer adds to this awareness of universal
suffering is, as we saw above, that the root of all life's suffering lies in wanting, desiring and fearing, i.e.,
in willing You will see much of Schopenhauer's thinking on this theme in pp 311-26 of Die Welt, so you might want to pay
particular attention to those pages. For example, on p 315 he tells us The ceaseless efforts to banish suffering achieve nothing more
than a change in its form. This is essentially want, lack, care for the maintenance of life. If, which is very difficult, we
have succeeded in removing pain in this form, it at once appears on the scene in a thousand
others, varying according to age and circumstances, such as sexual impulse, passionate love,
jealousy, envy, hatred, anxiety, ambition, avarice, sickness, and so on. Finally, if it cannot find
entry in any other shape, it comes in the sad, grey garment of weariness, satiety, and boredom,
against which many different attempts are made. Even if we ultimately succeed in driving these
away, it will hardly be done without letting pain in again in one of the previous forms, and thus
starting the dance once more at the beginning; for every human life is tossed backwards and
forwards between pain and boredom. And even what we call "happiness," he says, is
really only a temporary cessation of some particular suffering. Schopenhauer tells us that All
satisfaction, or what is commonly called happiness, is really and essentially always
negative only, and never positive. It is not a gratification which comes to us
originally and of itself, but it must always be the satisfaction of a wish. For desire,
that is to say, want [or will], is the precedent condition of every pleasure; but with the
satisfaction, the desire and therefore the pleasure cease; and so the satisfaction or gratification
can never be more than deliverance from a pain, from a want. (p 319) Furthermore, all this
suffering is without any purpose or meaning (pp 161-65). It is all pointless and in vain.

The alternative is the renunciation of desire – only by surrendering

want can we break the cycle of suffering.
Hannan 09 – Professor of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico, PhD (Barbara, “The Riddle of the World: A
Reconsideration of Schopenhauer’s Philosophy”, pp. 24-25; 2009)//Beddow
Much has beem said, by various commentators, regarding Schopenhauer’s pessimism If Schopenhauer is generally famous for
anything these days, it is for having a grim view of lift—for being a depressive. misanthropic old curmudgeon who believed “the
game is not worth the candle.” It is true that Schopenhauer was self— consciously pessimistic. He thought optimism
was silly, revealing a want of attention to the conflicts obviously revealed in experience. According
to Schopenhauer, the nature of the Will reveals itself in the empirical world, and what we see when we investigate the
empirical world is at endless striving, ever at odds with itself, never permanently satisfied. The
essential nature of Life is suffering. Here is a typical passage in which Schopenhauer reveals this point of view:
Awakened to life out of the night of unconsciousness, the will finds itself as an individual in an
endless and boundless world, among innumerable individuals, all striving, suffering, and erring;
and, as if through a troubled dream, it hurries back to the old unconsciousness. Yet till then its
desires are unlimited, its claims inexhaustible, and every satisfied desire gives
birth to a new one. No possible satisfaction in the world could suffice to still its
craving. set a final goal to its demands, and till the bottomless pit of its heart. In this connexion, let us
now consider what as a rule comes to man in satisfactions of any kind; it is often nothing more than the bare
maintenance of this very existence, exhorted daily with unremitting effort arid constant care in
conflict and misery and want, with death in prospect. Everything in life proclaims that earthly
happiness is destined to be frustrated, or recognized as an illusion. The grounds for this lie deep in the very
nature of things. ... Life presents itself as a continual deception, in small matters as well as in great. If it has promised, it does not
keep its word, unless to show how little desirable the desired object was; hence we are deluded now by hope, now by what was hoped
for. If it has given, it did so in order to take. The enchantment of distance shows us paradises that vanish like
optical illusions, when we have allowed ourselves to be fooled by them, Accordingly, happiness lies always in the
future, or else in the past, and the present may be compared to a small dark cloud driven by the
wind over a sunny plain; in front of and behind the cloud everything is bright, only it itself
always casts a shadow. Because the blind, striving Will can never be satisfied, the only
salvation possible for an individual lies in quieting his will, in ceasing to desire
anything at all. This, however, is not something an individual can do voluntarily: in those to whom it happens, it just
happens, because the Will has, in such individuals, reached its highest degree of objectification, and has so to speak) burned itself
out. It is notable that Schopenhauer himself never approached such a Nirvana—like state.3”
2NC Blocks
Alts
 Asceticism
The alternative is a rejection of the aff’s drive to satisfy desire –
renouncing will negates suffering.
Reginster 06 – professor of philosophy at Brown University (Bernard, “Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming
Nihilism”, pp. 174-175; 2006, print)//Beddow
Schopenhauer complicates matters further by qualifying his rejection of the idea of an absolute, or highest, good: However, if we
wish to give an honorary, or so to speak an emeritus, position to an old expression that from custom we do not like entirely
to discard, we may, metaphorically and figuratively, call the complete self-effacement and denial
of the will, true will-lessness, which alone stills and silences for ever the pressure of willing,
which alone gives that contentment which cannot again he disturbed, 1 ... 1 the absolute good, the
summum bonum, and we may regard it as the only radical cure for the disease against which all other good
things, such as all fulfilled wishes and all attained happiness, are only palliatives, anodynes. (ibid.)
It is hard to see what difference using the concept of absolute or highest good merely “metaphorically” might make. This
qualification in the use of the concept of good, I think, is meant to address the following difficulty. Schopenhauer’s initial
characterization of the good stands in an obvious conflict with his endorsement of resignation. If the good is what fulfills particular
goals of the will, then resignation, which is the renunciation of all willing, and so of all particular goals of willing, cannot be “good.”
The passage presently under consideration suggests a way of resolving this difficulty. In broad outline, Schopenhauer argues that
what the will “really” strives for is not any particular goal but deliverance from pain, an aim for
which the attainment of particular goals is ultimately ill suited. It is because the will itself
ultimately aims at deliverance from pain that “willlessness,” which effectively eliminates pain,
“stills and silences forever the pressure of willing.” In this vie resignation would be the absolute good, not in the
sense that it is not relative to the aim of the will, but in the sense that, since it answers to what the pursuit of any particular desire is
really after, namely, the elimination of pain, it is good for everyone. To understand the motivation behind this proposal, we must
recall a central feature of Schopenhauer’s conception of human desire, or “willing,” as need-based. In this conception, remember,
the object of a need-based desire derives its appeal from the fact that its possession fulfills a
need: it is itself devoid of intrinsic value. The appeal of drinking, for example, derives from the
fact that it delivers me from the discomfort of being thirsty, not from the intrinsic value of
drinking. Accordingly, the object of my thirst cannot “really” be the possession and consumption of
water, but the elimination of the pangs of thirst. This observation led us to distinguish between two ways of
understanding how the satisfaction of a desire is gratifying: either, it is gratifying because of the object whose possession it secured,
or it is gratifying insofar as it eliminates the pain that is associated with the desire. If the value of an object lies in its being needed,
then it has no intrinsic worth. And if the object of desire has no intrinsic worth, then securing its possession can be gratifying only
because it eliminates the pain associated with the need, and not by virtue of its own worth. Accordingly, on Schopenhauer’s
conception, the satisfaction of a desire can be gratifying only insofar as it eliminates a pain. And
since this is true of any desire, the elimination of pain is, indeed, an “absolute good.” Furthermore,
the need-based character of all human desires allows Schopenhauer to distinguish between two ways in which they could be, so to
speak, fulfilled. Either one might satisfy the desire (secure possession of its object), or one might deny’ the desire (achieve
detachment from it). The latter option is not allowed only if the object of a desire has intrinsic worth: in that case, the desire cannot
be fulfilled unless the agent has secured possession of its object. Schopenhauer argues that the satisfaction of the
will cannot, given its conflicting structure, achieve a definitive deliverance from pain: the
possession of the object of a determinate desire does not, for example, eliminate the “pressure of
willing [Willensdrang],” which assumes the form of boredom. Since the point of willing and
striving is the elimination of pain, and the satisfaction of desires fails to do that,
the only remaining option is the denial of the will. Such denial amounts to a
detachment from the desires. An agent is detached from his desires when it is a matter of
indifference to him whether or not they are satisfied. In the passage I am considering, Schopenhauer explicitly
compares the satisfaction of the will with its negation, intimating that both are strategies enacted in the pursuit of the same final
end—the complete deliverance from pain—and declares the latter to the more effective at achieving it than the former. The
negation of the will is a “cure,” whereas satisfactions of desires can be at best mere
“palliatives, anodynes.” On this interpretation, his endorsement of the negation of the will, would he, in the last
analysis, a matter of simple practical reasoning. The will is essentially need-based, which implies that what the pursuit of all desires
really aims at is the elimination of the pain associated with them; what is good is what serves the aim of the will; the structure
of the will is such that the satisfaction of desires cannot eliminate pain; resignation is most
effective at eliminating pain; therefore resignation is the highest good.
Joy is impossible – the Will dooms us to a perpetual cycle of suffering
that we can only escape by renouncing desire.
Becker 8 – philosopher and writer (David, “The Question of Coherence in Schopenhauer’s System: An Examination of the
Will’s Self-Overcoming”, 2008; pp. 19-21, print.)//Beddow
Thus, for Schopenhauer, the Will is the driving force, the dynamic energy, that moves everything in the
universe. But it is also more than this. For the Will is not, according to Schopenhauer, merely a force within the world, ¡t is not
simply an energy that animates a created o pre-existing material cosmos. It is, in fact, the underlying essence of that
cosmos itself. It is not content to remain a formless, amorphous font of energy, but rather seeks
and achieves endlessly changing, yet constantly renewed “objectifications,” — transformations into a
multiplicity of specific archetypes (Schopenhauer’s ‘Platonic Ideas”), which are then further instantiated in the individual objects of
the phenomenal world. The Will, itself a primordial unity, somehow undergoes an overflowing of its essence, becoming the world of
plurality and change, within which its own tendencies drive the interactions among the various differentiated objects. Thus,
according to Schopenhauer: The merely empirical consideration of nature already recognizes a constant transition from the simplest
and most necessary manifestation of some universal force of nature up to the life and consciousness of man... .in all these
phenomena, the inner essence, that which manifests itself, that which appears is one and the same thing standing out more and
more distinctly. Accordingly, that which exhibits itself a million forms of endless variety and diversity.., is this one essence.5 Yet at
the same time, Schopenhauer never abandoned his fundamentally idealist perspective, at least with respect to the world, as opposed
to the Will, from which the world arises and which is truly the mind independent thing4n itself” For the diverse objects of the
phenomenal world only achieve reality through the activity of the perceiving subject. They are not real, material things in the
ordinary sense of the word, but rather are dependent upon an existent perceiving consciousness to make them manifest; they would
vanish as completely as a dream in the absence of such percipients. For Schopenhauer the Will is noumenal, the thing-
in-itself.” a mind-independent reality, but the world which issues from that Will is purely
phenomenal, and hence ideal, dependent for its very existence upon a perceiving subject.” Yet,
although Will, according to Schopenhauer, is the true reality, the basis of the phenomenal world,
it is. by its very nature, unstable and in a state of perpetual strife with itself. For
Will is fundamentally an expression of the necessity and inevitability of change.”
Thus there is a perpetual tension between the present and the willed future state
that is not yet achieved. Will is, in a most peculiar way, at war with itself, a divided and
conflicted entity whose fundamental state is that of pain, alienation, and suffering. As Schopenhauer
states “Thus everywhere in nature we see contest, struggle and the fluctuation of victory, and later on we shall recognize in this more
distinctly that variance with itself essential to the will. Every grade of the will’s objectification fights for the matter, the space and the
time of another. ...Yet this strife itself is only the revelation of that variance with itself that is essential to the will.’” He later adds, In
fact, absence of all aim, of all limits, belongs to the essential nature of the will in itself, which is
an endless striving.. .Every attained end is at the same time the beginning of a new course, and so on ad infinitim. This
conception of the universe led Schopenhauer to embrace a philosophy of man that was appropriate to such a metaphysics.
Schopenhauer propounded what one could accurately be described as a philosophy of negative salvation”
(Erlossung),’° the idea that man, an instantiation of the universal Will, can and must
seek his blessedness in self- annihilation, that is, by annihilating the Will that is his
own essence. It is only by ceasing to will, that is, by ceasing, in some mysterious
way, to participate in the universal essence of the world, that man can achieve a
release from suffering and genuine deliverance . Schopenhauer writes that: “all willing springs from
lack (Bedurfness, in the German text) from deficiency, and thus from suffering... No attained object of willing can give a satisfaction
that lasts.... Therefore, so long as our consciousness is tilled by our will, so long as we are given up to
the throng of desires with its constant hopes and fears, so long as we are thy subject of willing,
we never obtain lasting happiness or peace.1’”

The alternative is a depersonalization from existence – transcending

the Will through contemplation breaks from the cycle of suffering.
Becker 8 – philosopher and writer (David, “The Question of Coherence in Schopenhauer’s System: An Examination of the
Will’s Self-Overcoming”, 2008; pp. 22-23, print.)//Beddow
If, says Schopenhauer, one is able to rise above one’s immersion in Will, to a state of detached,
selfless contemplation, then one may achieve a release from suffering, a state where: “Happiness
and unhappiness have vanished; we are no longer the individual; that is forgotten; we are only
pure subject of knowledge. We are only the one eye of the world which looks out from all knowing creatures, but
which in man alone can be wholly free from serving the will. 43 Thus man, with the aid of his intellect, can
transcend the Will, silence its endless clamor for satisfaction, and thereby achieve a release from
the suffering and despair which are its inevitable corollaries.
 Art
The alternative is to conceive of the affirmative’s impacts as art,
providing us an escape from the suffering of daily existence.
Ford 07 – Journal of University of York Philosophy Society (Daniel J., “Art and the Aesthetic Experience in Arthur
Schopenhauer”, Autum/Winter 2007; < http://dialecticonline.wordpress.com/autumnwinter-issue-no-1/art-and-the-aesthetic-
experience-in-arthur-schopenhauer/>)//Beddow
Schopenhauer argues that in our everyday lives we experience suffering as a result of our mind
representing the world around us as an egocentric perception, consisting of external objects of
perception and their relation to oneself. Our conciousness is, for Schopenhauer, in service of the
will. Objects are perceived by individual wills not in terms of intrinsic objective qualities, but rather in terms of utility to the
individual will. Suffering is ultimately caused by the frustration and conflict that arises from
competition between individual wills. Schopenhauer is sometimes considered, mistakenly, to be a pessamist. However
he clearly holds that through art and the aesthetic experience we can escape the suffering
of our ordinary mental state. In ordinary consciousness we are in the service of the will. That is, “our consciousness
is filled by our will” (Schopenhauer 1969: Vol. I, 196) It is the will that enables our survival; without the will filling up our
consciousness we could not survive because we would have a disinterested perception of the world. That is, our perception would not
be directed to attend to those things in the world that are relevant to our welfare. In our ordinary consciousness we see things
in relation to ourselves; we have an egoistic view of the world. We do not see individual objects
in the world in terms of their own intrinsic nature and qualities. Instead we see things in terms
of utility, and specifically their utility to ourselves. Schopenhauer holds that in our ordinary consciousness we actively contribute
to our perceptions of the world; part of our everyday experience consists in ideas that we project onto the world. He calls these
projections we make onto the world to form our everyday experience “relative essences”.
(Schopenhauer 1969: Vol. II, 372) The relative essences can take the form of threats to our welfare, which may be either potential or
actual. They can also be objects of desire, things that spark a yearning desire within us to be fulfilled. For so long as each craving is
desired but not satisfied we suffer. The relative essences can also be means of preserving our welfare in the face of threats, or else
means of satisfying our desires in order to bring to an end the suffering caused by feeling an unfulfilled desire. It is essential for us to
see the world not objectively but subjectively, adding our own projections into experience in order to survive. It seems therefore fair
to claim that our ordinary consciousness is acting in our best interest; it is allowing us to recognise threats and react to them. It also
allows us to have desires that are needed in order to survive. For instance, it is essential for us to desire to eat regularly in order to
nourish ourselves; if we failed to do this we would die. It is also essential to the survival of the species that we desire to procreate; if
enough of us failed to do so then our species would become extinct. So relative essences can be seen from two
points of view; firstly, that they cause our desires and fears thereby causing us endless suffering,
and secondly, that they cause our desires and fears thereby allowing our survival. Schopenhauer
fixates on the former viewpoint, claiming the relative essences keep us trapped in a false perception of the
world. On this point of view “[t]he world is my representation” (Schopenhauer 1969: Vol. I, 3) Schopenhauer seems to suppose
that it is desirable to transform ones state of consciousness, turning it away from the will in order to free oneself from suffering. He
seems inclined to think of ordinary consciousness as something undesirable from which we ought to seek salvation. The genius is a
rare individual with the capacity to transform his consciousness in this way for prolonged periods of time,
but we all have the capacity to transform our consciousness for brief periods with
the aid of aesthetic contemplation; contemplation of artworks created by a genius.
Art facilitates the transition “from the common knowledge of particular things
[that is, the mental state of ordinary experience] to knowledge of the Idea [that is, the
mental state of aesthetic experience]” (WWR I: 178) This by no means happens with every artwork, it is great works of art that
Schopenhauer concerns himself with. Great art should allow the non-genius, which is the vast majority
of
us, to temporarily transform from the ordinary mental state to that of the aesthetic mental state,
which Schopenhauer calls the “aesthetic method of consideration” (WWR I: 195). The genius is
differentiated here because Schopenhauer holds that the genius is one who is able to enter into the aesthetic state for sustained
periods of time and who does not require the aid of an existing artwork in order to transform his mental state. The genius
is
able to create new works of art by virtue of being able to enter into that state in
which he is free of subjectivity. This is an ability that goes entirely against what Schopenhauer holds is the fate of
all mankind, to be in the service of the will. It surely follows that the genius is more at risk than the rest of
us from threats and dangers because unlike the non-genius who sees the world in terms of
utility, that is, subjectively, the genius sees the world objectively for extended periods of time. It
seems that evolution should not allow the genius to survive given his persistence in seeing the
world objectively for prolonged periods of time. This concern is not directly addressed by Schopenhauer, though
he notes that genius is very rare.
Framework
 Socratic Ethics
Framework interpretation – the affirmative must provide an a priori
justification of their ethic before weighing the impacts of the 1AC.
Anything less is the root cause of war.
Molyneux 07 – philosopher, MA in history from the University of Toronto(Stefan “Universally Preferable Behavior: A
Rational Proof of Secular Ethics” October 2007; http://www.freedomainradio.com/free/books/FDR_2_PDF_UPB.pdf)//Beddow
This “beast” is the belief that it is impossible to define an objective, rational, secular and scientific
ethical system. This “beast” is the illusion that morality must forever be lost in the irrational swamps
of gods and governments, enforced for merely pragmatic reasons, but forever lacking logical
justification and clear definition. This “beast” is the fantasy that virtue, our greatest joy, our deepest happiness, must be
cast aside by secular grown-ups, and left in the dust to be pawed at, paraded and exploited by politicians and priests – and parents.
This “beast” is the superstition that, without the tirades of parents, the bullying of gods or the guns of governments, we cannot be
both rational and good. This beast has brought down many great heroes, from Socrates to Plato to
Augustine to Hume to Kant to Rand. The cost to mankind has been enormous. Since we have
remained unable to define a rational system of universal morality, we have been forced to inflict
religious horror stories on our children, or give guns, prisons and armies to a small monopoly of
soulless controllers who call themselves “the state.” Since what we call “ethics” remains subjective and merely
cultural, we inevitably end up relying on bullying, fear and violence to enforce social rules . Since ethics lack the rational
basis of the scientific method, “morality” remains mired in a tribal war of bloody mythologies,
each gang fighting tooth and nail for control over people’s allegiance to “virtue.” We cannot live
without morality, but we cannot define morality objectively – thus we remain eternally
condemned to empty lives of pompous hypocrisy, cynical dominance or pious slavery.
Intellectually, there are no higher stakes in the world. Our failure to define objective and
rational moral rules has cost hundreds of millions of human lives, in the wars of
religions and states. In many ways, the stakes are getting even higher. The increased
information flow of the Internet has raised the suspicions of a new generation that what is called “virtue” is nothing more – or less –
than the self-serving fairy tales of their hypocritical elders. The pious lies told by those in authority – and the complicity of those who
worship them – are clearer now than ever before. “Truth” has been exposed as manipulation; “virtue” as control; “loyalty” as slavery,
and what is called “morality” has been revealed as a ridiculous puppet show designed to trick
weak and fearful people into enslaving themselves. This realisation has given birth to a new generation of
nihilists, just as it did in 19th century Germany. These extreme relativists reserve their most vitriolic attacks for anyone who claims
any form of certainty. This postmodern generation has outgrown the cultural bigotries of their collective histories, but now view all
truth as mere prejudicial assertion. Like wide-eyed children who have been scarred into cynical “wisdom,” they view all
communication as advertising, all claims as propaganda, and all moral exhortations as hypocritical thievery. Since we have
no agreement on a cohesive, objective and rational framework for evaluating
moral propositions, “morality” remains mired in mysticism, and its inevitable
corollary of violence. Just as , prior to the Enlightenment, religious sects warred endlessly
for control over the blades of the aristocracy, so now do competing moral mythologies war for
control over the state, and all its machinery of coercion. Thus morality remains, relative to
modern science, just as medieval “astronomy” did to modern astronomy – a realm of imaginary
mythology, enforced through storytelling, threats, compulsion and exploitation – which actively
bars any real progress towards the truth. This “beast” of relativistic ethics looms above us,
preying on us, justifying taxation, imprisonment, censorship and wars. It enslaves the young in state
schools and Sunday pews; it ensnares the poor in the soft gulags of welfare; it enslaves even the unborn in the bottomless wells of
national debts. As I wrote in my previous book, “On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion,” the most fundamental lie at the centre of
unproven ethical theories is that such theories are always presented to children as objective and
incontrovertible facts, when in truth they are mere cultural bigotries. The reason that scientists do not
need a government or a Vatican is that scientists have an objective methodology for resolving disputes: the scientific method. The
reason that language does not need a central authority to guide its evolution is that it relies on the “free market” of accumulated
individual preferences for style and utility. The reason that modern morality – and morality throughout
history – has always had to rely first on the bullying of children, and then on the threatening o f
adults, is that it is a manipulative lie masquerading as a virtuous truth.
Answers
 AT: VTL
Existence is suffering that nonexistence negates – death is preferable.
Troxell 11 – Boston College, writing for peer-reviewed Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Mary, “Schopenhauer, Arthur”,
5/11/11; < http://www.iep.utm.edu/schopenh/#H3>//Beddow
Schopenhauer’s pessimism is the most well known feature of his philosophy, and he is often referred to as the philosopher of
pessimism. Schopenhauer’s pessimistic vision follows from his account of the inner nature of the world as aimless
blind striving. Because the will has no goal or purpose, the will’s satisfaction is impossible.
The will objectifies itself in a hierarchy of gradations from inorganic to organic life, and every
grade of objectification of the will, from gravity to animal motion, is marked by insatiable
striving. In addition, every force of nature and every organic form of nature participates in a struggle to seize matter from other
forces or organisms. Thus existence is marked by conflict, struggle and dissatisfaction. The attainment
of a goal or desire, Schopenhauer continues, results in satisfaction, whereas the frustration of
such attainment results in suffering. Since existence is marked by want or deficiency,
and since satisfaction of this want is unsustainable, existence is characterized by
suffering. This conclusion holds for all of nature, including inanimate natures, insofar as they are at essence will. However,
suffering is more conspicuous in the life of human beings because of their intellectual capacities. Rather than serving as a relief from
suffering, the intellect of human beings brings home their suffering with greater clarity and consciousness. Even with the use of
reason, human beings can in no way alter the degree of misery we experience; indeed, reason only magnifies the degree to which we
suffer. Thus all the ordinary pursuits of mankind are not only fruitless but also illusory
insofar as they are oriented toward satisfying an insatiable, blind will. Since the
essence of existence is insatiable striving, and insatiable striving is suffering,
Schopenhauer concludes that nonexistence is preferable to existence. However, suicide is
not the answer. One cannot resolve the problem of existence through suicide, for since all
existence is suffering, death does not end one’s suffering but only terminates the form that one’s
suffering takes. The proper response to recognizing that all existence is suffering is to turn away
from or renounce one’s own desiring. In this respect, Schopenhauer’s thought finds confirmation in the Eastern texts
he read and admired: the goal of human life is to turn away from desire. Salvation can only be found in resignation.
 AT: Death
Fear of death is patently absurd – death is a nothing that literally
cannot be negative experience.
Hariharan 12 – (Tejas, “Schopenhauer and the Freedom of Death”, 4/5/12; <
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDIQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgit.tj-
h.info%2Fschool%2Fsrc%2F3f0005a28e3e47571fbd5bef6ca793a539ed2e88%2F1121%2Fdocs%2Fphil120j%2FEssay2.pdf&ei=Ndzh
UcvBO-q3ygGFyICIAg&usg=AFQjCNHgLogRX-
9IHKtErcADAM_q853wCg&sig2=niDudqZJxiVPbED11IHiKg&bvm=bv.48705608,d.aWc&cad=rja>)//Beddow
“Death says: you are the product of an act that ought not to have taken place; therefore, to wipe
it out, you must die.”7 We were never supposed to be as individuals, according to Schopenhauer,
and that is the act that brought us forth as we are now, death is merely a way of correcting this
mistake, so says Schopenhauer in the second volume of Will and Representation( c.f. above quote). The first question to tackle, is
our fear of death as something evil. Schopenhauer does that by pointing to a simple fact: “If what makes
death seem so terrible to us were the thought of non-existence, we should
necessarily think with equal horror of the time when as yet we did not exist[...] An
entire infinity ran its course when we did not yet exist, but this in no way disturbs us.”.8 That much
cannot be refuted, prior to our births we did not exist, and in fact this is primarily what seems to concern us about death, it seems
odd then that we do not look upon the time before our births with equal horror. However, we do
not have to face that time, we are only left with a false memory of it, unlike the eternity that
awaits us after death. However, as Schopenhauer points out, regardless of how long has passed, after
one dies there is nothing to do the experiencing, as it were, and it’s meaningless to
fret about eternity in that case.9 Thus, death is nothing to be feared, nor can it be
evil, for it just is. If the evil in death is that we no longer exist, then this is absurd, for every
evil must be something, it must exist, a non-existence cannot be an evil, as such.10
This brings us to why death could still be a deterrent to many: “But there is something positive in it as
well: the destruction of the body. This is a deterrent, because the body is the phenomenal form of the
will to live.”.11 The struggle between the physical pain of death and the pleasure of its release is one that goes through all our
minds, and when the pain and deterrence of the destruction of the physical self is shadowed by the comfort of the release, then one
commits suicide.12 Death, in Schopenhauer’s view in not only to not be feared but to be indeed regarded as the positive rather than
the negative to life: “From this point of view our life is to be regarded as a loan received from death, with sleep as the daily interest
on this loan.”.13 There is more to this, of course, as I shall go on to explain, death is seen as more of a correction to
the mistake which gave ‘birth’ to our phenomenal existence. Given that, we can now go on to explore what
Schopenhauer’s metaphysics says about his conception of death. In fact, much of his views on death seem to be derived from the
same place as his metaphysics of the ‘will’. Death is not to be feared, if our true natures is indeed the ‘will’;
then our bodies are mere trappings, life - as it were, is a mistake in that sense, evident in all the
suffering that ensues thus. Death, is then, an act of freedom, the ultimate end to our
bodily existence that finally ensures us a place as our true selves, unbound by
existence and individuality. The mistake that we make of thinking we are ‘us’ and not ‘them’, is corrected by death. “Death
therefore loosens those bonds, the will again becomes free[...] Dying is the moment of that liberation from the one-sidedness of an
individuality which does not constitute the innermost kernel of our true being, but is rather to be thought of as a kind of aberration
thereof.” Death is what brings us to the nothing, that our existence is in reference to, we are this nothing, ultimately, and death
merely shows us the true nature of this.

Death is terminally non-unique – each moment is the loss of a

previous self, and so we experience death an infinitely many times.
Franchi 12 – (Leo, “Is Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics Compatible with Optimism?”, 5/18/12; <
http://files.lfranchi.com/papers/schopenhauer%20paper%20final.pdf>)//Beddow
The conclusions that Schopenhauer draws from his philosophy are undoubtedly some of the most pessimistic that he can express.
From the beginning, where he explains the thing-in-itself and the will, through his aesthetics and morality, his ultimate decision
 human existence is suffering. To
regarding the fate of human suffering is a dire one. Put simply, for Schopenhauer,
exist, he would say, is to suffer. Furthermore, his discussion of freedom allows for little of what can be considered “free
will”, for he questions the very notion that human beings are free at all. In order to answer the question of whether it is possible for
Schopenhauer’s metaphysics to be compatible with optimism, we first elaborate on his pessimism. Suffering is a constant
refrain throughout Schopenhauer’s account of the human being. How- ever, his argument for
the unending suffering that each person is subject to is quite simple. To begin with, Schopenhauer once
again starts at the will, the thing-in-itself. The will “always strives, because striving is its sole nature, to
which no attained goal can put an end.” (Schopenhauer 308) There can be no end to this
striving, no conclusion. As soon as the will has achieved its current target, it
immediately begins striving towards the next one. Striving itself, Schopenhauer claims, “is called
will.”(309) Next he states that anything placed between the striving and its target causes suffering, and the
achievement of the target itself to be satisfaction. Striving is forced to be striving from a lack of something, for
otherwise there would be nothing to strive for. It is this lack which causes the suffering , just as“
We see striving everywhere impeded in many ways, everywhere struggling and fighting, and
hence always as suffering.” (309) Conversely, anything that is achieved is only temporary, for as soon as it is achieved the
will moves on to another goal. So any happiness or satisfaction that a person could gain from this would be immediately erased as he
began suffering once more. Life, then, is nothing more than forced suffering, and
Schopenhauer puts it clearly when he says “essentially all life is suffering.” (310) Schopenhauer moves on
to discuss his idea of death, and anything but optimism is to be found there. When it comes to time, he explains that
as the human being exists for himself in space and time, he finds himself
constantly moving away from the present and towards the future. The present is
constantly lost to the past. This, he is convinced, is the same as death, and so a person’s
existence, “a continuous rushing of the present into the dead past, [is] a constant
dying .” (311) He further elaborates how in physical terms, human life is merely the
postponing of physical death, the physical aspect of existence mirroring the formal one.
 AT: Existential Purpose
Illusory forms of fulfillment still further the Will, perpetuating
suffering.
Gallegos 11 – professor of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg (Manolito, “The Negative Ontology of Happiness: A
Schopenhauerian Argument”, 2011; < http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/ojs/index.php/logoi/article/view/9118/2968>)//Beddow
Not all lack of suffering is necessarily preceded by suffering. For example, certain forms of inner peace or lack of desire
might be invoked to take the place of happiness. This objection might be granted, but it is basically merely
a restatement of Schopenhauer’s argument himself — states of inner peace without desire are, of
course, states in which suffering has ceased. However, one might claim that these states of inner peace
are not, in fact, necessarily preceded by suffering, and thus are something that is not reliant on
suffering. But this is incorrect for a few reasons. For one, no organism is born in such a state
— some instinct, desire or drive will propel it onward, and it will feel the empirical
correlates thereof. These inner periods of peace only ever occur if there is no
desire present, which seems to be impossible for entities: at the very least they are
either driven to somehow keep themselves alive, or they are bored. Even if this were not the
case, the very nature of thought and inner phenomenological life is oriented around
striving, pain and boredom. This is because thinking is always about something, an active
affair born from one desire or another: for a being that lacks nothing, need not think about
anything and has no intellectual problems to solve; neither does he have the need to feel
anything. It is hard to imagine that we can still call such a "perfect" entity an "entity" at all — it is rather, nothing. And while this
goes beyond the scope of Schopenhauer’s argument, it is a far cry from refuting it — the type of happiness that Schopenhauer
addresses is circumvented here in favour of a kind of happiness which equates to some form of "nothing" or "nothingness" — which
cannot be used to establish a positive ontology for happiness.
 AT: Solves Everything

Even if we satisfy all desires, the utopian world of the aff only falls
into boredom, generating the worst forms of suffering.
Fernandez 6/2 – University of Adelaide Philosopher, former post-doctoral fellow at Macquarie University and the Centre
for Consciousness of the Research School of the Social Sciences ANU, PhD from Brown (Jordi, “Schopenhauer’s Pessimism”, 6/2/13;
< http://jordifernandez.weebly.com/uploads/1/4/8/6/14861184/schopenhauer.pdf>)//Beddow
Let us begin by trying to provide an account of boredom. I would like to highlight two characteristic features of boredom. First of all,
in boredom, we do not want to do anything. Second of all, this is not something that we like. Simple as
they are, these two points provide us with the key to an explanation of boredom that squares with Schopenhauer’s NB model of
desire and it does not require an appeal to AD. Let me explain. Suppose that you are bored. Suppose, too, that I
ask you what you would like to do. Your answer is bound to be ‘nothing’. This is ambiguous,
though. Let us distinguish the following two things that you may mean: (a) I desire that there is no action φ such that I φ . (b)
There is no action φ such that I desire to φ . Intuitively enough, your answering ‘nothing’ to my question
does not express the kind of desire mentioned in (a). What happens when you are bored is not
that you want to be in a situation where you are doing nothing. Rather, what happens is that
there is nothing you particularly want to do. What your answer reports is the sort of desire mentioned in (b). If, in
order to treat desires as propositional attitudes, we construe the objects of desires as propositions, we can reformulate what a
(sophisticated) bored subject would report as: (c) There is no proposition p such that I desire that p. 32 Now, notice that
boredom is unpleasant. In other words, when one is bored, one would like not to be bored. Thus,
when you are bored, not only is (c) the case, but it is also the case that you desire (c) not to be the case. In other words, if you were
asked about it while being bored (and you had the appropriate conceptual repertoire, you were paying attention to your interlocutor
and other standard conditions obtained), you would probably report something along the following lines: (d) I desire that there is a
proposition p such that I desire that p. In the spirit of Schopenhauer’s terminology, let us call the meta-desire expressed by an
utterance of (d), a ‘will to will’. 33 My proposal is basically to drop the AD claim and to show that the following thesis can do the
grounding work that AD does for Schopenhauer: (WW) We have a will to will, that is, a desire to have desires. Unlike AD, WW is
clearly compatible with the NB model of desire. What we need to see is that it can support both SB and LS. How does the view that
we have a will to will support the SB claim? In order to get WW to support SB, I suggest to construe boredom as the sort
of suffering that accompanies the unsatisfied will to will. The basic idea in WW is that not only do we want to
achieve certain goals that, so to speak, involve objects ‘out there’, in the world. We also want challenges, we enjoy the struggle
involved in desiring and, thus, we want to want things. What this suggests is that we are disposed to experience a ‘lack’ of desiring or,
to put it differently, we have a psychological ‘need’ to desire. We can then see the will to will as the desire that, as Schopenhauer’s (D
→ N) suggests, must originate from such a need. What completes this picture is the unpleasantness that, according to
Schopenhauer’s (N → P), should accompany the experience of any lack. The hypothesis that I wish to put forward is that
boredom is precisely the unpleasantness that accompanies our unfulfilled need to will. How does
this suggestion account for boredom? It do es in that it makes intelligible the fact that, in boredom, the secured object of desire loses
its appeal. In order to appreciate this point, we need to distinguish the appeal that an object may have in virtue of its intrinsic
properties from the appeal that the object may have in virtue of its relational properties. 34 You may find an object appealing in
virtue of its intrinsic properties, which will elicit a desire for it in you. Now, within the picture of boredom that I am putting forward,
the fact that it elicits your desire is a property of it that makes the object appealing to you as
well. The idea is that the object of a given desire does a kind of double duty within our cognitive
economy. The object is appealing in virtue of its intrinsic properties, but it is also appealing in so far as desiring it satisfies a
different desire of ours, namely, our will to will. Now, construing boredom as the unpleasantness that accompanies our unsatisfied
will to will explains the fact that, in boredom, the desired objects are unappealing upon being secured by highlighting the fact that it
is the second kind of appeal that disappears. Notice that this kind of appeal is totally independent from the intrinsic properties of the
object. What we find appealing about the object, in the relational sense, is the fact that it is appealing to us, no matter what we find
appealing about it. Thus, for any object of desire, it is true that once it is secured and we experience
no more pressure to possess it, there is something about the object that we used to find
appealing and it has now changed, namely, its eliciting a striving for it in us. This is why all
objects of desire lose their appeal once they are secured. This is why SB holds true.
 AT: Tantrums
Crying isn’t responsive – life can still only be measured by pain,
despite your indoctrination.
Schopenhauer 05 – pessimist (Arthur, “Studies in Pessimism”, Volume 4, from the Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer
published online in 2005; < http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/schopenhauer/schopenhauer-4.pdf>)//Beddow
I shall be told, I suppose, that my philosophy is comfortless—because I speak the truth;
and people prefer to be assured that everything the Lord has made is good. Go to the
priests, then, and leave philosophers in peace! At any rate, do not ask us to accommodate our doctrines to the
lessons you have been taught. That is what those rascals of sham philosophers will do for you. Ask them for any doctrine
you please, and you will get it. Your University professors are bound to preach optimism; and it is an easy and
agreeable task to upset their theories. I have reminded the reader that every state of welfare,
every feeling of satisfaction, is negative in its character; that is to say, it consists in
freedom from pain, which is the positive element of existence. It follows, therefore, that the
happiness of any given life is to be measured, not by its joys and pleasures, but by the extent to
which it has been free from suffering—from positive evil. If this is the true standpoint, the lower animals appear
to enjoy a happier destiny than man. Let us examine the matter a little more closely;
 AT: Suicide/Link Turn
Conceding the disad doesn’t help – the will to suicide just reaffirms
the Will to Life and falls a suffering contradiction. The only escape is
indifference.
Jacquette 05 – professor of theoretical philosophy at the University of Bern (Dale, “The Philosophy of Schopenhauer” pp.
135-139, 2005; print)//Beddow
Schopenhauer at first appears to position himself for an enthusiastic philosophical defence of
suicide. If to live is to suffer, and if life and death are unreal anyway, why permit oneself to
suffer needlessly? Why wait impatiently for death to come if we can hasten its arrival? 1f life has death as its aim and purpose,
if life is only an ephemeral headlong descent toward death swept along in the torrents of time, and if death is nothing to be feared,
then why should not every enlightened consciousness destroy itself immediately in order to escape the sufferings of individual will
and achieve life’s purpose more quickly and deliberately? Death is a blessing for those who have come to see existence as ineluctable
suffering in the phenomenal world, where the brevity of life, contrary to popular will-dominated opinion, is its best feature. Once we
get the picture, why not make life even briefer? Schopenhauer vehemently rejects any universal philosophical
endorsement of suicide. He regards self-murder as it is usually practised as an unworthy
affirmation of the will to life by those who wish to escape pain rather than seek
non-discursive awareness of the Will through suffering. There is no salvation from
individual willing to be found in individually willed annihilation . We should
rather endure suffering until death arrives on its own to free us. Socrates says much the
same in Plato’s Phaedo 61 e2— 62e7, interpreting self-destruction as an attachment to earthly desire by which the soul is made
impure. But why? Is Schopenhauer’s position necessitated by or even logically consistent with the concept of death he has
elaborated? Or is Schopenhauer, having offered a powerful motivation for self-destruction, merely trying awkwardly now within the
framework of his pessimistic and avowedly nihilistic philosophical system to accommodate the squeamishness of traditional
morality, or, indeed, his own personal revulsion, concerning the act of suicide? Schopenhauer falls far short of Kant’s repudiation of
suicide as a violation of the categorical imperative, when in a famous passage of the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant
considers: A man who is reduced to despair by a series of evils feels a weariness with life but is still in possession of his reason
sufficiently to ask whether it would not be contrary to his duty to himself to take his own life. Now he asks whether the maxim of his
action could become a universal law of nature. His maxim, however, ¡s: For love of myself, I make it my principle to shorten my life
when by a longer duration it threatens more evil than satisfaction. But it is question able whether this principle of self-love could
become a universal law of nature. One immediately sees a contradiction in a system of nature whose law would be to destroy life by
the feeling whose special office ¡s to impel the improvement of life. In this case it would not exist as nature; hence that maxim cannot
obtain as a law of nature, and thus it wholly contradicts the supreme principle of all duty.’3 Kant reasons that suicide for the sake of
self-love is self-contradictory. The categorical imperative in its main formulation requires that we ought always to act in such a way
that we can will the maxim of our action to be universal for every rational being. Here the can” that enforces moral judgement should
be understood as logical possibility. We test the morality of an action by asking whether it is logically possible for the maxim that
justifies an act to be accepted by every rational being. If our willing such universal acceptance is logically possible, if we can without
contradiction will such a thing, then the categorical imperative entails that we are obliged by duty to follow the maxim. If as
reasoning moral agents our willing universal acceptance of the maxim is not logically possible, if and only if willing the universal
acceptance of the maxim implies a contradiction, however loosely construed by Kant, so that we cannot will that the principle be
universalized, then the categorical imperative entails that we are forbidden to follow the maxim in any of its consequences. Self-love,
according to Kant, runs into a contradiction when it tries to will that all rational beings should commit suicide when “by a longer
duration [life] threatens more evil than satisfaction”, for it simultaneously seeks to improve and destroy. This is not the place to
dispute whether Kant’s categorical imperative forbids or ought to forbid suicide. Arguably, the maxim Kant considers, to choose
death merely when life offers more pain than pleasure, as opposed to, say, in order to avoid excruciating incurable chronic pain, is
too weak to represent the kind of judgement a person actually contemplating suicide is likely to entertain. With respect to Kant’s
formalist moral injunctions against suicide as an implication of the categorical imperative, Schopenhauer is unimpressed with the
claim that moral reason cannot consistently will the suicide’s maxim to be universal law. He argues: Moreover, in the examples given
by him as an introduction to that classification, Kant supports the duties of law first.. . by the so-called duty to oneself, that of not
ending one’s life voluntarily when the evils outweigh the pleasures. Therefore this maxim is said to be not even conceivable as a
universal law of nature. I say that, as the power of the State cannot intervene here, this very maxim shows itself unchecked as an
actually existing law of nature. For it is quite certainly a universal rule that man actually resorts to suicide as soon as the immensely
strong, inborn urge to the preservation of life is definitely overpowered by great suffering; daily experience shows us this ... At any
rate, arguments against suicide of the kind put forward by Kant... certainly have never yet restrained, even for one moment, anyone
who is weary of life. Thus a natural law incontestably existing as a fact and daily operating is declared to be simply unthinkable
without contradiction, in favor of the classification of duties from Kant’s moral principle! (BM: 93) Schopenhauer offers an
analogous argument against suicide, in which he describes the reasoning of the potential suicide as contradictory. In contrast with
Kant, Schopenhauer locates the contradiction in the suicide’s simultaneous denial and affirmation of the will to life. More
importantly, unlike Kant, Schopenhauer, especially in his essay “On Suicide” in Parerga and Paralipomena, finds nothing morally
objectionable in principle to suicide (PP 2: 306—11). The first reference to such a contradiction appears in the first volume of The
World as Will and Representation, where Schopenhauer detects an inconsistency in the Stoic concept of the
“blessed life”, counselling suicide for those in dire straits. Schopenhauer now protests: we find a
complete contradiction in our wishing to live without suffering, a contradiction that is therefore
implied by the frequently used phrase “blessed life.” This will certainly be clear to the person who has fully
grasped my discussion that follows. This contradiction is revealed in this ethic of pure reason itself by the fact that the Stoic is
compelled to insert a recommendation of suicide in his guide to the blissful life (for this is what his ethics always remains). (WWR
1:90) He identifies a different kind of contradiction than Kant in criticizing the usual rationale for suicide. In “On Suicide”,
Schopenhauer argues that: We then of necessity hear [from “monotheistic” religious teachers] that suicide is the greatest cowardice,
that it is possible only in madness, and such like absurdities; or else the wholly meaningless phrase that suicide is “wrong”, whereas
there is obviously nothing in the world over which every man has such an indisputable right as his own person and life. (PP 2: 3O6)’
Schopenhauer’s objection to suicide, as many commentators have noticed, is metaphysical rather than moral. If we reach the level of
Schopenhauer’s insight into the world as Will and representation, and if we see individual willing as inherently a
life of suffering, then we cannot be satisfied with suicide as a philosophical solution to the
predicament of life. The objection is that there is a kind of contradiction in the
phenomenal will’s willfully seeking to exterminate itself as a way of escaping the
wretchedness of willing.’5 Suicide ends life, true enough; but, as the result of a
willful decision in the service of the individual will to life, it cannot by its very
nature altogether transcend willing.16 The only logically coherent freedom to be sought
from the sufferings of the will to life is not to will death and set about willfully to destroy
the self, but to continue to live while quieting the will, in an ascetic submissive
attitude of sublime indifference toward both life and death (WWR 1: 399.-400). Similarly, in
the essay On the Basis of Morality, Schopenhauer argues: What is usually laid down as duties to ourselves is first a line of argument
against suicide, which is greatly steeped in prejudice and rests on the shallowest of reasons. Unlike the animal, man is a prey nor
merely to bodily sufferings, restricted to the present moment, but also to the incomparably greater mental afflictions that borrow
from the future and the past. By way of compensation, nature has granted to man alone the privilege of being able to end his life
when he wishes, before she herself terminates it, and accordingly of not living, like the animal, necessarily as long as he can, hut only
as long as he will. Now whether he in turn has to forgo that privilege on ethical grounds is a difficult question, which at any rate
cannot be decided by the usual shallow arguments. The arguments against suicide, which Kant does not disdain ... I cannot
conscientiously describe as other than paltry and not even worth an answer. We are forced to laugh when we think that such
reflections could have wrested the dagger from the hands of Cato, Cleopatra, Cocceius Nerva ... If there really are genuine moral
motives against suicide, then at all events they lie very deep and are not to be reached by the plummet of ordinary ethics. (BM: 59—
60) Suppose now that in contemplating suicide I simply will to end my life. As a disciple of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of Will as
thing-in-itself and of the individual will to life as phenomenal objectification of Will, I will to end my life not as part of a witless plan
to benefit myself, nor with the idea of destroying even the Will as thing-in-itself that I objectify in my individual will to life, but
merely as a way of fulfilling my purpose, the goal or end of my life, by terminating my individual consciousness and returning to Will
as thing-in- itself. This desire “in my innermost being”, by hypothesis, according to Schopenhauer, partially constitutes who and
what I am. This is something I cannot change or escape by ending my life, but something that I shall have become as long as my will
remains active. I am (in a certain sense eternally and indestructibly) what I will, even if I will to
cease willing. In that case, my moral character playing itself out in my actions in life is that of a
suicide. Schopenhauer nevertheless regards destruction of the self as a pointless and obstructive
act that prevents us from attaining knowledge. It accomplishes nothing of value and answers no
philosophical problems, and in the meantime it cuts short the amount of time we might have
better used to gain knowledge through contemplation. He concludes: Conversely, whoever is oppressed
by the burdens of life, whoever loves life and affirms it, but abhors its torments, and in
particular can no longer endure the hard lot that has fallen to just him, cannot hope for
deliverance from death, and cannot save himself through suicide. Only by a false illusion does the cool shade
of Orcus allure him as a haven of rest. The earth rolls on from day into night; the individual dies; but the sun itself burns without
intermission, an eternal noon. Life is certain to the will-to-live; the form of life is the endless present; it matters not how individuals,
the phenomena of the idea, arise and pass away in time, like fleeting dreams. Therefore suicide already appears to us to be a vain and
therefore foolish action... (WWR 1: 280—81)
 AT: Links Back
The annihilation of the Will through the ascetic embrace of
knowledge frees the alternative from any residual risk of a link.
Krishnananda 92 – Hindu Saint (Swami, “The Philosophy of Life, Part II: A Comparative Study of Some Western
Philosophers”, 1992; < http://swami-krishnananda.org/phil/phil_13.html>)//Beddow
Schopenhauer says that passions can be subdued by the domination of knowledge over the Will.
Most of our troubles would cease to be troubles if only they could be properly understood in
relation to their causes. Self-control provides to man the greatest protection against all external compulsion and attack.
True greatness is in self-mastery, not in victory over the worlds. The joy of the within is greater than the pleasure of the outside. To
live in the self is to live in peace. The evil Will can be overcome by conscious contemplation on
the truth of things. Schopenhauer even recommends the company of the wise and intimate relations with them as aids in
this contemplation. Knowledge is the great purifier of the self of man. When the world is viewed
not by sense but by knowledge, man is liberated from the evil and bondage of the
Will. Knowledge takes us to the universal essence. How can this profound insight be consistent with the notion that
consciousness, intelligence or knowledge is only a phenomenon, an appearance of the Will? How can knowledge give man freedom
from the Will if it is only a creature projected by the Will? Further, when the Will is Reality and also blind and evil, there can be no
such thing as freedom, for the ultimate aim of existence is to return to Reality, and so the eternal experience that we have to aspire
for ought to be one of unconsciousness, evil. How can Nirvana from the Will or the attainment of happiness and peace be possible,
which Schopenhauer so forcibly pleads for, if the Will is Reality and consciousness its effect? How could Schopenhauer give us a
chaste philosophy through his intellect if the intellect is an appearance of the evil Will? Will not then his philosophy itself become a
product of blind craving and evil? Schopenhauer gives evidence to a confused mind which longs for
universal and eternal freedom in perfect knowledge, but which at the same time condemns this
longing by denouncing Reality as a blind and evil Will. His resignation to asceticism which,
he says, can destroy the Will and enable one to attain freedom shows that the Will
is not Reality but a clinging to individual existence, and that Reality is freedom,
happiness and peace.