This post is a part of an ongoing biweekly series on philosophical pessimism and related positions. You can find other posts in the series here.
Pessimism, understandably so, is a concept open to many different interpretations. Depending on who we ask and what discipline one is working from, pessimism can mean one thing or another. Some precision, then, seems warranted. In a previous post in this series on pessimism, Simon Knutsson presented an interesting taxonomy of the different pessimisms and, although it seems to me that further adjustments can be made, his classifications are sufficient for now—in particular, because he correctly draws a line between pessimism as a psychological attitude and pessimism as a philosophical system.
For my purposes in this essay, I only need to add the following explication: I take pessimism to be a philosophical tradition that matured in 19th Germany, beginning with the philosophy of Schopenhauer and continuing with the works of Eduard von Hartmann, Olga Plümacher, Philipp Mainländer, and Julius Bahnsen. In his book Weltschmerz (2016), Frederick Beiser does an outstanding job of grouping these philosophers around a common set of questions and concerns: whether life is a worthwhile experience and whether or not existence is valuable in itself. In the end, these pessimist philosophers all agree that suffering is largely unavoidable and that nonexistence is preferable to existence. The issues they raise continue to be relevant today and, for this reason, to engage with them is to engage with a long and rich history of ideas. In keeping with this historical spirit, whenever I refer to pessimism in this essay, I refer exclusively to the Weltschmerz tradition (Weltschmerz is a German word that means something like “world weariness”) and the pessimistic views of Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, as opposed to any other schools of pessimistic thought, unless I state otherwise.
Having made this important clarification, there remain many misconceptions about philosophical pessimism that need clarification—if only because by clearing up the confusions we can contribute to a better conversation on the topic. It is my purpose here to address one of the most common mistakes attributed to the pessimism of Schopenhauer and Hartmann—that they favour human extinction and by extension advocate for the active elimination of all human life on Earth. This reading is not fully unwarranted as there seems to be some textual support in Schopenhauer and Hartmann for this interpretation because these pessimists do in fact favour nonexistence over existence. Still, it would be mistaken to read this as an endorsement of direct actions intended to bring about our demise. Only on a cursory reading does it appear to follow that we can (or should?) adopt concrete steps to bring about our complete demise. In his book The End of the World (1996), John Leslie erroneously claimed that the pessimism of Schopenhauer would encourage a person in power to pull a lever in order to bring about the end of humanity. But no pessimist—certainly not Schopenhauer or Hartmann—would ever pull a lever, which is to say they would never take the lives of others into their hands and unilaterally decide to end existence on Earth. This is the point of the discussion where precise and fine distinctions are in order, lest we continue to make erroneous claims about pessimism and misinterpret its contributions to human thought. Perhaps surprisingly for some, I argue that such pessimists are even in a position to coherently support any measures we take in order to avert the many existential threats that humanity faces. This includes nuclear war, asteroids, and global pandemics, among many others.
So, given what I have just said, can we really say that pessimists favour human extinction? The short answer is yes, we can say that. But this yes is a highly conditioned and restrained yes. These conditions and restraints are two. First, there is no requirement in pessimism to act in order to cause the extinction of humanity because extinction is conceived as voluntary. Second, even if it is to be voluntary, some very specific conditions need to be met before extinction can be carried out. In order to understand why and how all of this works, it is best to have a look at the foremost pessimist, Schopenhauer (1788-1860), and the philosopher that followed him, Hartmann (1842-1906).
No duties to bring about extinction
First, in the case of Schopenhauer, it is important to understand that the recognition of our existential predicaments is tied to his view on the nature of existence itself. In a nutshell, everything that exists is will, which is to say that everything that exists is at rock bottom one undifferentiated essence. For Schopenhauer, the fundamental oneness of existence implies that the attitude of compassion is always the preferred ethical stance. The pain and the torments of the other are always, in some fundamental sense, my own pain and torment (this includes not only human others but nonhuman others as well). Violence and harm have no place in his philosophy. Misanthropy (something also erroneously attributed to pessimists) is equally ruled out. Compassion is the guiding principle at all times which means that taking care to not cause harm to others (as bringing about the extinction of others against their wishes would be) is the way to proceed in our interactions.
Second, Schopenhauer eschews a duty-based ethics, which is to say he avoids normative language. As he puts it, there is no place in his philosophy for ethical imperatives of any sort. Rather there are better reasons for adopting this or that attitude. Even compassion is not an imperative; it is only the most reasonable attitude we can adopt, given his metaphysics. For this reason alone, advocating that we should take the future of all life on Earth into our hands and end it without the consent of others is not consistent with his pessimism.
If pessimists accept, first, Schopenhauer’s attitude of compassion and, second, his rejection of normative ethics then there can be nothing that we “should” do apart from extending compassion to fellow humans and animals. These two reasons provide enough support to the claim that extinction is not an ought for pessimists in the Weltschmerz tradition, which includes Schopenhauer and Hartmann.
Conditions for voluntary extinction
This initial clarification puts us in a position to address the conditions that need to obtain in order for pessimists to move ahead with voluntary human extinction. For Schopenhauer and Hartmann, if our disappearance is to come about then it is only to come about as the result of two factors.
First, a profound and complete philosophical understanding of our existential predicaments. This necessarily involves, among other things, understanding the true nature of existence (the will) and our relation to it. Philosophical study and a certain intellectual enlightenment are required for this. Hartmann even claims that as we become more educated, we grow more discontent with life.
Second, once we come to understand our place within existence, we will come to see that the best way to defeat our torments is to adopt the life of the ascetic and renounce all worldly desires. This, crucially, is a matter of personal decision. No impositions permitted. And, Schopenhauer thinks, if all humans come to adopt an ascetic lifestyle, then humanity may well become extinct. But, and this point needs to be stressed, this extinction would be voluntary and gradual.
Von Hartmann has a similar attitude towards our possible demise. As is the case with Schopenhauer, there is a tendency to disregard his pessimism as unpalatable as well as “disturbing and extremist” because some mistakenly claim that he advocates for cosmic euthanasia. Yet this is a misleading conclusion. Like Schopenhauer, Hartmann thinks that at some point in time it will be best if we ceased to exist, but, also like Schopenhauer, he is quite clear in stating that certain conditions need to be met in order for this to happen.
Hartmann argues that it is imperative that humanity attain a level of philosophical understanding that would allow us to see through the illusions that make us believe in the overall desirability of existence (he has three illusions in mind; that we are already happy, that happiness is possible in the afterlife, and that happiness will come about at some point in the future). In order to overcome these illusions, education and fruitful philosophical debate is crucial. Once we overcome them, the nature of reality will fully reveal itself to us. Once such profound understanding is achieved it will come down to the collective will of humanity to decide if, when, and how our end will come about. Again, there is no room here for either cosmic euthanasia or the willful extermination of others against their wills. Human extinction, if it is to be achieved, requires very particular circumstances.
It may be difficult for humans to obtain such circumstances (and perhaps unlikely), thus rendering human extinction scenarios as Schopenhauer and Hartmann envision them (voluntary enlightened extinction), improbable. For Schopenhauer and Hartmann human extinction is not inevitable and may even be a dubious event, precisely because (among other reasons) the conditions required for it to happen may never occur. The essential point is that the link between pessimism and human extinction is not a straightforward one and many particular points need to be considered. Doing so only helps us appreciate the diversity that exists within pessimist philosophy. In turn, this can contribute to eliminating certain mistakes that are made when discussing pessimism, such as the claim that human extinction follows seamlessly from pessimism. As I have argued here, the question is much more nuanced.
Ignacio L. Moya
Igancio L. Moya Is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Western University, Canada. His current research is on philosophical pessimism and its connection to human extinction.
