Mor Segev - The Value of The World and of Oneself - Philosophical Optimism and Pessimism From Aristotle To Modernity-Oxford University Press (2022)

The Value of the World and of Oneself
The Value of the

World and of Oneself
Philosophical Optimism and Pessimism
from Aristotle to Modernity
M O R SE G EV
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Segev, Mor, author.
Title: The value of the world and of oneself : philosophical optimism
and pessimism from Aristotle to Modernity/ Mor Segev.
Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022000740 (print) | LCCN 2022000741 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197634073 (hb) | ISBN 9780197634097 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Optimism. | Pessimism. | Philosophy.
Classification: LCC B829 .S425 2022 (print) | LCC B829 (ebook) |
DDC 149/.5—dc23/eng/20220203
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000740
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000741
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197634073.001.0001
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America
To the memory of Martha Leonhardt,
née Löwenberg (1902–1943).
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
1. Schopenhauer’s Critique of the Optimism of the

Hebrew Bible and Spinoza 18
2. Self-Abnegation and Its Reversion to

Optimism: Schopenhauer 43
3. Nihilism and Self-Deification: Camus’s Critical

Analysis of Nietzsche in The Rebel 78
4. Aristotle’s Critique of Ancient Pessimism 113
5. Optimism and Self-Devaluation #1: Aristotle 158
6. Optimism and Self-Devaluation #2: Maimonides on

Aristotle and the Hebrew Bible 194
7. An Aristotelian Response to Schopenhauer’s

Challenge to Optimism 223
References 245
Index 253
Acknowledgments
This book is a product of years of thinking about and comparing

the philosophical views of Aristotle, Maimonides, Spinoza,
Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Camus. Between 2016 and 2021,
parts of this project were presented in Jerusalem, Oxford, Krakow,
Tampa, Newcastle, Milwaukee, and Budapest, and I am thankful to
my audiences on these occasions for many helpful comments and
suggestions. My ideas took shape over the years with the help of
feedback from and conversations with many individuals, including
Audrey Anton, Hanoch Ben-Yami, Anastasia Berg, István Bodnár,
Robert Bolton, Katarzyna Borkowska, Abraham Bos, Ursula
Coope, John Cooper, John Cottingham, Kati Farkas, Maciej Kałuża,
Andrea Kern, Philipp Koralus, Iddo Landau, Oksana Maksymchuk,
Yitzhak Melamed, Angela Mendelovici, Alexander Nehamas, Sarah
Nooter, Ács Pál, Michael Peramatzis, Max Rosochinsky, Anna
Schriefl, Christiane Tewinkel, Andrea Timár, David Weberman,
Robert Wicks, Jessica Williams, and Eric Winsberg.
I am grateful to the Hardt Foundation for the Study of Classical
Antiquity for granting me the Research Scholarship for Young
Researchers in 2018, to the Institute for Advanced Study at the
Central European University for granting me a fellowship in 2020,
which enabled me to complete most of this book and to present and
discuss it with colleagues from a variety of fields, to St. Catherine’s
College, Oxford, for hosting me as a Visiting Fellow in 2021, and to
the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University for allowing me to
present the project at the Workshop in Ancient Philosophy during
my stay. Thanks are also due to Lucy Randall, Hannah Doyle, Sean
Decker, and Leslie Johnson at Oxford University Press, to my anon-
ymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions, and to
x Acknowledgments
Nandhini Thanga Alugu and Dorothy Bauhoff for their assistance

with the production of the book.
Chapter 1 is based on my chapter “Schopenhauer on Spinoza’s
Pantheism, Optimism, and Egoism,” in Y. Y. Melamed (ed.), A
Companion to Spinoza (Hoboken, NJ, 2021), 557–67. Chapter 4 is
based in part on my “Death, Immortality and the Value of Human
Existence in Aristotle’s Eudemus Fr. 6, Ross,” Classical Philology
(forthcoming). Parts of Chapters 5 and 6 are based on my “Aristotle
on the Proper Attitude Toward Divinity,” American Catholic
Philosophical Quarterly (2020). I would like to thank the publishers
for allowing me to make use of these materials.
Abbreviations
The following are the abbreviations used for the titles of the works
by the main authors discussed in this book.
Works by Aristotle:
Cael. De caelo
DA De anima
De phil. De philosophia
Div. De divinatione per somnum
EE Eudemian Ethics
GA Generation of Animals
GC Generation and Corruption
HA History of Animals
IA Progression of Animals
Metaph. Metaphysics
Meteor. Meteorology
MM Magna Moralia
NE Nicomachean Ethics
PA Parts of Animals
Poet. Poetics
Pol. Politics
Protr. Protrepticus
Rh. Rhetoric
Top. Topics
Works by Maimonides:
EC Eight Chapters
GP The Guide of the Perplexed
MT Mishneh Torah
HD Hilchot Deot (in MT )
xii Abbreviations
Works by Spinoza:
E Ethics
TTP Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
Works by Schopenhauer:
MR Manuscript Remains
PP Parerga and Paralipomena
FHP Fragments for the History of Philosophy (in PP)
WWR The World as Will and Representation
Works by Nietzsche:
BGE Beyond Good and Evil
BT The Birth of Tragedy
BVN Briefe von Nietzsche (Nietzsche’s letters)
EH Ecce Homo
GM The Genealogy of Morals
GS The Gay Science
HH Human, all too Human
NCW Nietzsche contra Wagner
NF Nachgelassene Fragmente (Posthumous fragments)
Z Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Works by Camus:
F The Fall
MS The Myth of Sisyphus
R The Rebel
Introduction
In evaluating the world and one’s life within it, two positions, dia-
metrically opposed to one another, have often been taken by prom-
inent figures in the history of philosophy. The view traditionally
referred to as philosophical optimism may be encapsulated by the
two following propositions:
O1: The world is optimally arranged and is accordingly valuable.

O2: As part of the world, human life is valuable enough to make
one’s own existence preferable over one’s nonexistence.
Philosophical pessimists, by contrast, maintain the following:
P1: The world is in a woeful condition and is ultimately valueless.1

P2: Our nonexistence in the world is, or would have been, pref-
erable over our existence.
The commitment to either of these two corresponding pairs of

propositions—regarding the value of the world and the value of
human life—appears again and again in traditional formulations
and characterizations of philosophical optimism and pessimism.
Arthur Schopenhauer, reacting to optimism, characterizes it
1 Throughout, by “x is valueless” I mean, not that x cannot be evaluated, but rather

that, upon evaluation, it turns out that x is not at all valuable (notice that, in addition,
P1’s evaluation of the condition of the world as woeful in fact attributes disvalue to the
world). The view that one might not appropriately form value judgments concerning the
world, or anything in it, will be considered in Chapter 3.
The Value of the World and of Oneself. Mor Segev, Oxford University Press.
© Oxford University Press 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197634073.003.0001
2 Introduction
as a view countenancing that “the world is what is best” (WWR

II.L: 644), and that “our existence [is] to be gratefully acknowl-
edged as the gift of the highest goodness guided by wisdom” and is
thus “in itself praiseworthy, commendable, and delightful” (WWR
II.XLV: 570).2 Implied in this description is the idea that the world
is valuable, and is ordered rationally and optimally (O1), and that
it is these features that ground the preferability of one’s own ex-
istence as a part of that good whole (O2). Schopenhauer goes on
to characterize (without, however, naming) pessimism as the view
according to which “this [human] existence is a kind of false step
or wrong path” and “is the work of an originally blind will, the
luckiest development of which is that it comes to itself in order
to abolish itself ” (WWR II.XLV: 570). Disregarding the details
of the metaphysical theory underlying this statement (to which
we shall return later), the general point of contrast between this
view and the optimism that Schopenhauer objects to is that pes-
simism rejects the existence of an ultimately valuable, rationally
ordered world, and with it the prospects of viewing human exist-
ence as valuable, worthwhile, or otherwise choice-worthy. Indeed,
Schopenhauer claims, approvingly, that in the Gospels “world
and evil are used almost as synonymous expressions” (WWR
I, §59: 326). He also explicitly speaks of the “wretched condition of
the world” (die jammervolle Beschaffenheit der Welt), associating it
with pessimism (WWR II.XLVIII: 621), and repeatedly attributes
“vanity” (Nichtigkeit) and “valuelessness” (Werthlosigkeit) to all
things (P1),3 which he thinks expresses itself in the suffering of
all that lives (I, §68: 397), and which in turn for him implies that
2 All translations and page numbers of Schopenhauer’s texts are taken from E. F.
J. Payne, unless otherwise noted.
3 WWR II.XXXVII: 434; II.XLVI: 574; Brieftasche 9, pp. 17–18 (Payne, 160–1);
Reisebuch 33, pp. 30–1 (Payne, 13–14). See Chapter 2 for a more detailed discussion
of these texts. Payne translates Werthlosigkeit as “worthlessness”; reasonably, since
Schopenhauer uses the word as an evaluative term (as I use “valuelessness” throughout).
Nichtigkeit, for him, is an evaluative term as well (making Payne’s translation of it as
“vanity” appropriate), as it denotes primarily the futility of all striving and aiming, which
inevitably lead to suffering (WWR I, §68: 385, 394–7; II.XXXVII: 435; II.XLVI: 634–5).
Introduction 3
“complete nonexistence would be decidedly preferable to” human

life (I, §59: 324) (P2).
This understanding of philosophical optimism and pessimism
is still quite standard. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, for ex-
ample, describes as “the starkest expression of pessimism” the claim
made by the chorus in Sophocles’s Oedipus at Colonus that it is best
not to be born and second best to die as soon as possible (cf. OC
1224–7) (P2), and associates optimism with, e.g., Aristotelian phi-
losophy and its “sense of the harmony of nature and the attaina-
bility of ends,” implying, similarly to optimism as we have just seen
Schopenhauer presents it, that the rational ordering of the world
makes both the world itself and one’s existence within it valuable
and their existence worthwhile (O1–O2).4 However, several other
ideas are often associated, and sometimes conflated, with these two
views. Discussions of optimism and pessimism often refer, respec-
tively, to the ideas that progress is possible or impossible, that this
world is the best or worst one possible,5 and that there is more good
in the world than evil or vice versa.6 For the sake of terminological
clarity, let us distinguish these different ideas from optimism and
pessimism as we have defined them and as they will be discussed in
the rest of this book.7
It is natural enough to associate a view locating value in the
world with the idea that progress is possible or even forthcoming.
But an optimist may well hold the view that progress is unneces-
sary, or even impossible, because the world is already perfectly
4 S. Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 2008), ad “opti-
mism and pessimism.”
5 N. Bunnin and J. Yu, The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy (Maiden, 2004),
ad “optimism” and “pessimism.”
6 L. E. Loemker, “Pessimism and Optimism,” in D. M. Borchert (ed.), Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, 2nd ed., vol. 7 (Detroit, 2006), 244–54, at 244–5.
7 P. Prescott, “What Pessimism Is,” Journal of Philosophical Research 37 (2012),
337–56, helpfully distinguishes pessimism from cynicism, fatalism, the affirmation of
decline, nihilism, and despair. Prescott’s own definition of pessimism is as “the belief that
the bad prevails over the good.” He also claims, contrary to my understanding of pessi-
mism in this book, that pessimism essentially involves “personal investment” and hence
also “emotional commitment.”
4 Introduction
good in its current condition. By the same token, a pessimist may

concede the possibility of various kinds of progress—say, in the dis-
tribution of resources and the enactment of human rights—while
maintaining that even at their peak, it would be better if human
beings and the world at large had not existed.8 Similarly, although
one would generally expect an optimist to adhere to the Leibnizian
idea that ours is the best of all possible worlds, committing oneself
to that idea is not enough to count as an optimist. Pessimists may
consistently adhere to that same conception of the world, while
arguing that even the best possible world is not good enough to
justify its existence.9 As James Branch Cabell puts it in The Silver
Stallion: “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all pos-
sible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.”10 Furthermore,
both a consistently optimistic view and a consistently pessimistic
one may hold that this world is both the best and worst one pos-
sible, if they maintain in addition that this world is the only one
possible.11 Finally, thinking that the world on balance contains
more good than bad is insufficient for motivating an optimistic
position, since the world in that case may still contain enough evil
pertaining to the human species, e.g., so as to make it preferable for
humans not to exist. Sophocles’s dictum—that it is best not to be
born and second best to die quickly—is clearly not meant to apply
to the gods, who are of course repeatedly appealed to throughout
the play, and the worth of whose life is left unchallenged, and this
fact nevertheless does not detract from the pessimistic tone of that
8 On this point see also Prescott (2012, 341–3), discussing J. F. Dienstag, Pessimism
(Princeton, NJ, 2006).
9 L. E. Loemker (2006, 244–5) and F. C. Beiser, Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German
Philosophy 1860–1900 (Oxford, 2016), 153, associate a similar move with Eduard
von Hartmann. See also S. Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History
of Philosophy (Princeton, NJ, 2015), 22; M. Migotti, “Schopenhauer’s Pessimism in
Context,” in R. Wicks (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Schopenhauer (Oxford, 2020), 284–
98 at 285–6.
10 J. B. Cabell, The Silver Stallion (New York, 1926), 129. Quoted in D. Benatar, The
Human Predicament (Oxford, 2017), 5; Cf. Migotti (2020), 285–6.
11 Cf. Migotti (2020), 286.
Introduction 5
dictum. And, conversely, one may think that evil predominates in

the world and still reject the pessimistic conclusion that a human
life is not worth having.
Though the terms “optimism” and “pessimism” are fairly re-
cent,12 their basic tenets date back to the earliest stages of recorded
philosophical discussion, and understandably so, given the basic
questions that they address and their relevance to evaluating one’s
environment and one’s own existence. It is sometimes argued that
tracing optimistic and pessimistic views to pre-modern philos-
ophy is anachronistic. Joshua Foa Dienstag, for instance, claims
that “pessimism is a modern phenomenon” since, “[l]‌ike opti-
mism, pessimism relies on an underlying linear concept of time, a
concept that only became a force in Western thinking in the early
modern period,” with ancient thought being dominated by a “cy-
clical” conception of time.13 We need not assess Dienstag’s view
of the gradual change in conceptions of time. It suffices for our
purposes to note that optimism and pessimism, as we have de-
fined them, apply on either conception. As we have noted, both
optimism and pessimism may be consistently adhered to whether
or not one even takes a stance on the possibility or likelihood
of historical progress. Given the definitions we have offered, we
seem warranted to look for optimistic and pessimistic views in
any period and culture in which one could ask—as one clearly al-
ready did ask in, say, ancient Israel and classical Greece—whether
the world is perfectly ordered and good, and whether human life
is worth living.
In this book we shall compare the views of several philosophers
who did ask themselves just these questions and have answered
them by constructing views that can appropriately be described
as either optimistic or pessimistic, in entirely different intellec-
tual environments and historical periods ranging from classical
12 Loemker (2006, 244) traces the term “optimism” to 1737 and “pessimism” to 1795.
13 Dienstag (2006), 8–9; cf. ibid., 166.

6 Introduction
Greece to twentieth-century France. It would not be feasible, and

there shall be no attempt, to provide a comprehensive survey of
relevant views during that time frame. Instead, we shall focus
on representative cases— Aristotle, Maimonides, Spinoza,
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Camus—which lend themselves
particularly well to mutual comparison, especially since some of
them engage with the others’ views explicitly. Maimonides con-
sciously and openly adopts and develops major parts of Aristotle’s
views concerning the value of the world and of human exist-
ence. Schopenhauer engages with Spinoza and criticizes his view,
which he associates with the optimism that he finds in the Hebrew
Bible. Nietzsche criticizes Schopenhauer’s pessimism, and Camus
in turn criticizes Nietzsche and his attempt at transcending both
optimism and pessimism. Of course, by creating a dialogue be-
tween themselves and their predecessors on these issues, the
philosophers in question could have themselves been guilty of
anachronism to some degree. Even if so, it arguably would still be
worthwhile to examine their understanding and use of previous
views, e.g., in order to analyze the chain of influence leading to
modern theories on relevant issues.14 But I hope to show that, as
I have already argued so far, comparing the views of all of these
philosophers on the issues focused on in this book is both in-
structive and appropriate.
Even on the assumption that ancient, medieval, and modern
optimistic and pessimistic views may be safely compared,
questions may nevertheless arise concerning the potential im-
port of such a comparison. To begin with, it is sometimes
suggested that optimism is a puerile position, upheld unreal-
istically and irrationally by those who have not been properly
exposed to the evils of the world, and rejected and supplanted
14 On the usefulness of anachronism for such purposes, see D. Graham, “Anachronism

in the History of Philosophy,” in P. H. Hare (ed.), Doing Philosophy Historically (Buffalo,
NY, 1988), 137–48, esp. 142–4.
Introduction 7
by those who have. Discussing ancient Hebrew optimism, one

scholar writes:15
Unclouded skies and perfect happiness are conditions of inno-

cent childhood. But as the child grows older, clouds appear in the
skies and happiness becomes less and less perfect. Thus while the
ancient Hebrews during many centuries seemed wholly satisfied
with the affairs of life, never doubting for one moment that JHVH
had ordered everything for the best, the time came when they
began to ask the why and wherefore of many happenings.
Similarly, as we shall see in Chapter 1, Schopenhauer criticizes op-

timism (in its monotheistic and pantheistic varieties), among other
things, for its naïveté, and for failing to account for the suffering
and misfortune prevalent in the world, having instead to blindly
assert that all phenomena are manifestations of the world’s perfec-
tion, and hence that all human and even animal behavior, e.g., is
“equally divine and excellent” (WWR II.XLVII: 590). Perhaps, then,
optimistic views, as such, are too naïve to merit serious considera-
tion? However, optimism, as we have defined it, need not be naïve
in this way. For one may posit that the world is optimally arranged
and is perfectly valuable without conceding that each and every one
of its parts is equally valuable.
Indeed, as we shall see in Chapters 5 and 6, both Aristotle and
Maimonides offer a complex optimistic theory, on which the world,
though perfectly arranged and valuable (O1), contains an axiological
hierarchy pertaining to its various parts. Since humans are placed
relatively low on that hierarchy, the world’s perfection and absolute
value are not compromised by the imperfections pertaining to and
the pain undergone by them. But, given the world’s perfection, the
existence of such creatures, flawed though they are, is preferable to
15 A. Guttmacher, Optimism and Pessimism in the Old and New Testaments (Baltimore,
MD, 1903), 125.
8 Introduction
their nonexistence (O2). This version of optimism presents a viable

alternative to pessimistic approaches. This is especially true because,
as we shall see in Chapters 2 and 3, both the most influential modern
pessimistic position (by Schopenhauer) and an influential attempt
to do away with both optimism and pessimism (by Nietzsche) have
been criticized for ultimately reverting to optimism, and hence for
being fundamentally inconsistent. This fact raises the question as to
whether “pure” pessimism, or a complete rejection of optimism, is
possible in principle. And, if it is not, then it seems that conscious
and explicit optimism could prove a viable alternative.
As a second consideration, one might argue that the debate be-
tween optimism and pessimism is really a debate over the exist-
ence of a perfect deity. As we shall see in Chapter 3, this is precisely
what Nietzsche does argue (cf. HH I.28). But, if that is the case, then
one might be inclined to bracket the debate between optimism and
pessimism as a theological controversy, and hence as potentially ir-
relevant for those who wish to evaluate the world and human life
without recourse to the question of God’s existence. Indeed, all of
the views discussed in this book do engage with the existence and
nature of divinity and with religion, either supportively or critically.
Schopenhauer responds to optimism primarily in its monotheistic
and pantheistic varieties, and he links his own pessimistic view to
Christianity and Buddhism. Nietzsche, while himself associating
both optimism and pessimism with a theological framework and
criticizing both on that account, is himself later criticized by Camus,
ironically, for “deifying” the world and envisaging a divine human
being in the form of an Übermensch. In turn, Aristotle’s view of the
magnanimous person, and Maimonides’s corresponding notion of
the “righteous person” (hassid), are both informed by the attitude
such a person would have toward divinity. And the world’s perfec-
tion, for both thinkers, is a function of its divinity or its relation to
the divine. It is therefore not surprising that the traditional debate be-
tween optimism and pessimism also reserves a special place (e.g., in
Maimonides’s and Schopenhauer’s works, as we shall see in Chapter 2
and Chapters 6–7) for an engagement with the classical “problem of
Introduction 9
evil,” challenging the existence of a benevolent and omnipotent deity

in the light of the suffering and imperfections contained in the world.
However, though the issues dealt with by philosophical optimism
and pessimism intersect with discussions in theology and the phi-
losophy of religion, they do not clearly depend on those domains of
inquiry. An optimally ordered world, in principle, may be so without
either having been created by a deity or being identified with one.
And the existence of a given species within such a world could argu-
ably also be worthwhile regardless of any relation to a deity. Thus, a
pessimistic response to optimism need not attack the conception of
divinity underlying it, and indeed would be potentially incomplete
if it addressed only that conception. Similarly, the classical problem
of evil admits of variations, and ones which need not appeal to the
existence of God. Schopenhauer, as we shall see in Chapter 1, thinks
that this problem confronts Spinozistic pantheism—which does not
countenance the existence of a benevolent and omnipotent God—
because the world as God must on pantheism make the existence
of suffering impossible. By the same token, a non-theistic and non-
pantheistic optimistic view could also be confronted with a version
of the problem of evil, appropriately modified: How could a per-
fectly ordered and positively valuable world include imperfections
and untoward agony? In this case, it seems that neither the question
nor the answer needs to appeal to God or religion.
One may also wonder whether it is neither optimism nor pes-
simism, but rather some intermediate position, that is more likely
to ultimately convince. Without committing oneself to the optimal
arrangement of the cosmos, nor to its valuelessness, one may locate
some order and goodness in the world, and may attach such value
specifically to certain human endeavors or experiences, which, if
attained, may make human existence either worth having (O2) or
not (P2), without thereby leading one either to full-fledged opti-
mism (O1 +O2) or to outright pessimism (P1 +P2).16 We may refer
to views locating enough value to support O2 as quasi-optimistic,
16 I am thankful to Anna Schriefl for a helpful discussion concerning this point.

10 Introduction
and call those rejecting enough such value to support P2 quasi-

pessimistic. All of these views, as well as an intermediate position
that remains neutral concerning the worth of human life, may be
represented on a spectrum as follows:
Human nonexistence Human existence

is preferable is preferable
(pessimistic “camp”) (optimistic “camp”)
Value in the world

0
Pessimism Quasi-Pessimism Quasi-Optimism Optimism
One challenge facing positions falling in between optimism and

pessimism is to provide specific criteria for determining just how
much value found in the world justifies supporting either the op-
timistic assessment of human existence as worthwhile, or the pes-
simistic counterpart of that assessment. Another challenge would
be to show that value of the right kind and amount, once deter-
mined, can be reliably expected to persist so as to support those
assessments consistently. Part of the attraction of a fully optimistic
or pessimistic theory, by contrast, is that it provides an evaluation
of the world that is clear-cut and unfluctuating. Furthermore, op-
timism provides a unique reason for maintaining that human ex-
istence is worthwhile, which seems unavailable to other theories.
For, if the world is perfectly ordered and good, then human life,
however individually potentially distressing, may be worthwhile
simply insofar as it contributes to that perfection as one of its parts
(as we shall see in Chapter 4, Aristotle reasons along these lines in
motivating his view of death as an evil). Granted, it may be the case
that both optimism and pessimism can be conclusively shown to
be false, with some intermediate theory being shown to be more
plausible. Even in such a case, however, examining optimism and
pessimism exhaustively would still prove beneficial. These theories
Introduction 11
could function as limiting cases, and their shortcomings may point

out which type of intermediate theory is more likely to be true—
one falling in the “optimistic camp” (i.e., upholding that there is
enough value in the world to make human life preferable over non-
existence) or in the “pessimistic camp.”
In Chapter 1, I examine Arthur Schopenhauer’s critique of the
optimism he reads in the Hebrew Bible and in Spinoza’s philosophy.
According to Schopenhauer, the Hebrew Bible presents a consist-
ently optimistic worldview. Already in Genesis, Schopenhauer
points out, the acts of creation are followed by the locu-
tion: “And God saw that [it was] good” (‫)וירא אלהים כי טוב‬. In fact,
Schopenhauer continues, so good is this creation, according to the
biblical view, that it leaves nothing to look forward to outside of this
world, and the Bible consequently recommends simply rejoicing
in the joys of the present (Ecclesiastes IX. 7–10). On that view, the
world in all its parts is impeccable by hypothesis. Any seeming im-
perfection within the world, including those pertaining to human
beings and their lives, must be merely apparent.
Schopenhauer finds an equivalent view in Spinoza’s pantheism.
For Spinoza, God is a being whose “essence excludes all imper-
fection and involves absolute perfection” (E1p9s), and it is the
only substance of which we can conceive (E1p14) and in which
we (like everything else) have our being (E1p15). The conclusion
to draw is that we, too, are parts of that perfect entity. And so, as
Schopenhauer sees it, Spinoza’s theory, just like the biblical world-
view, is essentially optimistic. By the basic assumption of these two
systems, there can be no fault in our existence, and hence nothing
to improve. Schopenhauer, however, finds this optimistic outlook
unconvincing, for two main reasons. First, given the immense suf-
fering one witnesses in the world, optimism generally generates
some version of the classical problem of evil, which it is unable to
solve. One’s individual life cannot plausibly be construed as “per-
fect,” as it must be if we consider it a part of a perfectly created
cosmos. Second, optimism itself, once adopted, ironically makes
12 Introduction
individuals worse than they otherwise would have been. For, since
optimism encourages one to look favorably upon one’s individual
life, it also promotes egoism, which inevitably leads to cruelty.
In Chapter 2, we shall turn to Schopenhauer’s own pessimistic
theory and to Nietzsche’s critique of it. Schopenhauer presents an
alternative to Jewish and pantheistic optimism, and the unreason-
able self-commendation that he believes they promote. Human
life, as Schopenhauer thinks it is standardly lived, is objectively fu-
tile and indeed miserable. Life, for him, involves continuous strife
(WWR I, §61: 331), which is inescapable even by means of suicide
(§54: 281). Whenever we find ourselves under the impression that
our human condition is any better than that, we are simply mis-
taken. However, Schopenhauer also thinks that there is a way out
of this predicament. The solution is to be found in his notion of the
“denial of the will-to-live” (§68: 397). Knowing and acknowledging
that no form of life can be free from suffering, and that attempting
to alleviate one’s suffering from within the framework of one’s
life is necessarily done in vain, one gradually grows frustrated
with living as such, and ceases to will it. Such a process, if carried
out properly, ultimately yields “[t]‌rue salvation” (§68: 397). By
dimming (and, ultimately, eliminating) the subjective investment
in one’s own life, with its various aims, goals, choices, and values,
Schopenhauer thinks, one could potentially exist in an objectively
praiseworthy way.
However, Schopenhauer’s claim that self-abnegation is pref-
erable over any standard instance of individual life seems to in-
volve him in a paradox. As Nietzsche (GM III.28) argues directly
against Schopenhauer, and as Thomas Nagel (in Mortal Questions)
later argued against similar positions, the recommendation of
eliminating one’s aims is itself explainable only as the willful pursuit
of an aim. Willing not to will, in other words, is still willing, and a
desire not to desire is still a desire. Indeed, this criticism exposes
an even graver problem for Schopenhauer. Since Schopenhauer
promotes self-abnegation as a desirable goal, his view turns out to
Introduction 13
share an important element in common with the Jewish and pan-

theistic optimistic views he sets out to reject. The very prospect of
solving totally the misery and misfortune inherent to the human
condition implies that, at least in principle, we need not find our-
selves, or at least remain, in an imperfect world or in a less than
fully desirable state.
The problem intensifies when we attend to the theoretical basis
for Schopenhauer’s recommendation. He believes that the de-
nial of the will-to-live would bring about the most desirable state
one could aspire to, precisely because in that state one ceases, for
all intents and purposes, to exist as an individual human being or
phenomenon. But that presupposes that there is something beyond
phenomena for humans to exist as. For Schopenhauer, that is the
“will”—the “thing-in-itself ”—constituting the true reality under-
lying all phenomena. If what we most truly are is a non-phenomenal
metaphysical substratum, however, then whatever phenomenal
attributes we have, including all the imperfections and suffering
Schopenhauer locates in the human condition, do not truly belong
to us. At bottom, we are immutable, eternal, and impeccable, as is
the entire world. As it turns out, the very commendation of world
and self that Schopenhauer abhors in what he calls Jewish and pan-
theistic optimism can be attributed to Schopenhauer’s own view
of the world and the self (understood as what they essentially and
truly are).
Nietzsche does not simply reject Schopenhauer’s recommenda-
tion of the denial of the will-to-live, along with the metaphysics un-
derlying it. He also suggests an alternative. This alternative, which
itself faces a formidable challenge, is the subject of Chapter 3.
Based on his idea of the “death of God” and his rejection of abso-
lute values, Nietzsche recommends creating novel values through
affirming the world and oneself. Nietzsche envisages his al-
ternative as overcoming the problems of both pessimism (à la
Schopenhauer) and optimism (of the kind Schopenhauer him-
self rejects). He describes his Zarathustra as recognizing that the
14 Introduction
optimist is just as bad as, if not worse than, the pessimist (EH IV.4).
Nevertheless, Nietzsche’s view arguably does ultimately revert to
the same evaluation of the world and of oneself that both he and
Schopenhauer find problematic. It has been argued, that is, that
Nietzsche, too, endows the world and its various parts, including
individual human beings, with ultimate value. In The Rebel, Albert
Camus suggests that Nietzsche’s top goal—“creation” (Schaffen)
or “yes-saying” (Ja-sagen), roughly, aligning one’s will with the
world—amounts to thinking of the world as a deity and of one-
self as divine, after and despite the “death of God.” Thus, although
Nietzsche criticizes monotheism for privileging God as singularly
valuable and believers in Him as singularly correct (GS 143), he
himself privileges the world and those individuals who value it in
just this way.
Both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, though criticizing optimistic
views for overvaluing human beings, are nevertheless led, in dif-
ferent ways, to overvalue individual human beings to an arguably
unprecedented degree. There is, however, one readily available view
that seems to deliberately and consistently avoid this consequence.
This view, which dates back to Aristotle and is later developed by
Moses Maimonides, is interestingly one which both Schopenhauer
and Nietzsche would consider optimistic, and rightly so.
Aristotelian optimism will be examined in detail in Chapters 5 and
6. However, in order to appreciate the relevance of that theory to
later views, we will first, in Chapter 4, compare the ancient pessi-
mistic approaches that Aristotle engages with to their modern
counterparts, and especially to Schopenhauer’s view (as we have
already seen, pessimistic sentiments and views make an appear-
ance already in ancient Greek philosophy and literature, and the
connections of those to modern pessimism, as we shall see, do not
elude Schopenhauer himself). In a fragment from a lost dialogue,
titled the Eudemus, Aristotle tells a story about Silenus, who, upon
being captured by King Midas, utters a statement encapsulating a
pessimistic view resembling Schopenhauer’s views on human life
Introduction 15
and existence. I shall argue that Aristotle presents Silenus’s words

in order to reject them, along with Plato’s view in the Phaedo of
death as a blessing and a release. This criticism is applicable to
Schopenhauer’s general view, and it sets the ground for establishing
Aristotle’s own alternative to pessimism.
In Chapter 5, I turn to the details of Aristotle’s optimistic theory.
For Aristotle, the person who has reached the highest value hu-
manly possible, and recognizes her value adequately, qualifies as
“magnanimous” (megalopsuchos). Occupying a middle position
between the “small- souled” and the “vain,” the magnanimous
person is concerned with “honors and dishonors” exactly appropri-
ately, knowing when to accept and reject them and taking the right
amount of pleasure in them when they are deserved (NE IV.3).
Despite a long controversy surrounding the criteria Aristotle thinks
a magnanimous person must meet, there are good reasons to iden-
tify that person with Aristotle’s philosopher, who is best equipped
to appreciate and assess, not only human honors and dishonors, but
also what in Aristotle’s system are the greatest honors in existence—
those attributed to the unmoved movers of the heavenly bodies and
spheres, i.e., Aristotle’s gods. Being acquainted with these ultimate
causes of reality and their magnificence, the magnanimous person
comes to devalue humanity and devotes her life and efforts to the
divine. This devotion to the divine, which seems to go against the
natural tendency of organisms to further their own lives and spe-
cies, is nevertheless quite consistent with Aristotle’s teleological
view of nature, according to which nature exhibits a clear hierarchy
of species, with each species teleologically oriented not only to-
ward its own interests but also toward the good of superior species.
Importantly, this view of nature is predicated on the assumption
that the world functions optimally and is perfectly good as is. Thus,
Aristotle’s view presents an alternative to pessimism. However, it
also avoids a core feature characteristic of biblical and Spinozist op-
timism as characterized by Schopenhauer, of the unintentionally
optimistic features of Schopenhauer’s theory revealed by Nietzsche,
16 Introduction
and of Nietzsche’s inadvertent optimism as analyzed by Camus.

For Aristotle’s view devalues humanity by comparison to superior
entities, and hence resists overvaluing humanity or oneself.
Moses Maimonides consciously appropriates much of Aristotelian
theory and integrates it into both his philosophical system and his
biblical interpretation. In Chapter 6, I discuss Maimonides’s appro-
priation and development of Aristotle’s optimism, which helps to
put that theory in conversation with post-classical debates on the
value of the world and of human life. In the Guide of the Perplexed III,
Maimonides sets out to solve the classical problem of evil. His solu-
tion rests, not on disregarding or explaining away suffering or evil in
the world, but rather on the devaluation of human beings. Coming
to terms with our own inferiority as humans to higher entities such
as the heavenly bodies and the separate intellects, Maimonides
thinks, allows us to adopt a sober and correct optimistic worldview.
In establishing his devaluation of human beings for this purpose,
Maimonides relies on his interpretation of Jewish sources and, im-
plicitly, on his understanding of Aristotle’s philosophy. Various bib-
lical and Talmudic texts venerate viewing oneself, and indeed the
whole of humankind, as lowly. Abraham, Moses, King David, Isaiah,
and Job have all been described as, and commended for, sharing in
this recognition and conducting their lives in accordance with it.
Humans, in general, are likened to a “vanity” in Psalms 144:4, and
to maggots and worms in Job 25:6. Maimonides harmonizes such
statements with his own conception (and ideal) of the righteous
person and prophet—a philosopher who, like Aristotle’s magnan-
imous person, devalues humanity and herself and devotes her life
and efforts to the divine. Based on these views, Maimonides is able
to sustain an optimistic worldview which, far from implying the im-
peccability of human beings, is in fact grounded in the devaluation of
humanity.
Finally, in Chapter 7, I assess the degree to which Aristotelian
theory is capable of answering the challenge that Schopenhauer
poses to optimism. I conclude that, contra Schopenhauer, Aristotle’s
Introduction 17
view, especially as developed by Maimonides, is capable of dealing

with the classical problem of evil without compromising its opti-
mistic principles and without having to resort to personal immor-
tality. I also outline an Aristotelian-Maimonidean response to
Schopenhauer’s claim that optimism inevitably leads to moral de-
pravity and cruelty. Indeed, the Aristotelian-Maimonidean stance
on these issues not only defends optimism against Schopenhauer’s
challenge, but also suggests that it is indeed a view such as
Schopenhauer’s that is essentially self-centered and hence poten-
tially morally hazardous. I close by considering further objections
to optimism (raised both by Schopenhauer and by others), and the
ways in which Aristotelian optimism might respond to them. One
group of such objections focuses on the irrelevance of Aristotle’s
theory to contemporary discussion, given its teleological principles
and commitment to such things as the eternity of biological spe-
cies. I argue that a modified version of Aristotelian optimism can
withstand such objections.
1
Schopenhauer’s Critique of the
Optimism of the Hebrew Bible
and Spinoza
Schopenhauer frequently assimilates Spinoza’s pantheism with

Jewish monotheism, and contrasts both with his own system. In
his view, both Spinoza and Judaism reject personal immortality
and endorse a belief in a deity with the same “moral character”
(moralischen Charakter) and “value” (Werth) (WWR II.L). This
confluence of Spinozism and Judaism, and Schopenhauer’s oppo-
sition to both, seem surprising at first sight. First, Schopenhauer,
by his own admission (WWR II.L), shares with Spinoza the basic
view that the true nature of the world is single and unified, and that,
contra Abrahamic monotheism, the world is not created. Second,
belief in personal immortality is not standardly characterized as
incompatible with Judaism. Indeed, according to recent influential
accounts, it is precisely for rejecting this belief that Spinoza was so
severely excommunicated from the Jewish community he had been
a part of. Third, Spinoza is standardly taken to reject the Jewish con-
ception of God, not least for its moral and practical implications.
Hence it may seem, as indeed has been argued, that Schopenhauer’s
assimilation of Spinozism to Judaism is simply the result of either
anti-Semitism or sheer ignorance (or both).
In fact, however, Schopenhauer’s thesis is the conclusion of a
carefully worked out argument, according to which the basic prem-
ises of both pantheism and theism lead directly to optimism. This
argument, which is undoubtedly mounted in order to reject both
SCHOPENHAUER'S CRITIQUE OF OPTIMISM 19
Spinoza’s philosophy and Judaism, is nevertheless a testament to

Schopenhauer’s admiration for the internal consistency of both sys-
tems, a feature he explicitly denies to Christianity. It is specifically
the optimism to which their ground assumptions allegedly inevi-
tably lead that Schopenhauer rejects in both Judaism and Spinoza’s
pantheism. Schopenhauer views that optimism as doubly problem-
atic. First, he contends, since the world is evidently full of suffering,
optimists face the problem of evil, and cannot successfully respond
to it (at least without resorting to such ideas as personal immor-
tality, which are inconsistent with their theoretical commitments).
Second, it is Schopenhauer’s assessment that, by promoting the
adherence to individual life as an ideal, optimism leads to egoism,
which in turn promotes cruelty, both toward one’s fellow humans
and, even more so, toward nonhuman animals.
1.1 Monotheistic and Pantheistic Optimism
Schopenhauer regards Judaism as “the only purely monothe-

istic religion” teaching “a God creator as the origin of all things”
(FHP §13: 127). He contrasts this tradition with both Buddhism,
which is entirely atheistic, and Brahmanism, as well as Phoenician,
Greek, Roman, and North American religions, which posit
divinities but no Creator God (FHP §13: 127). For Schopenhauer,
the word God necessarily indicates a “world-cause that is not only
different from the world, but is intelligent, that is to say, knows
and wills, and so is personal and consequently also individual”
(FHP §13: 115). The God of Judaism, Schopenhauer thinks, cer-
tainly meets these criteria. Not only has He intentionally and
intelligently created the world, but He also assesses His own cre-
ation as a good one, as is exemplified by the recurring statement
in Genesis 1, following His deeds of creation: “And God saw that
[it was] good” (orig.: ‫)וירא אלהים כי טוב‬. This “optimistic history
of creation,” as Schopenhauer calls it (WWR II.XLVIII: 620), sets
20 The Value of the World and of Oneself
the tone for the rest of Jewish religion and culture as he sees them.
Interestingly, he finds the most distinct pronouncement of this ap-
proach in Clement of Alexandria—a Church Father. In Stromata
III.3, Schopenhauer notes, Clement opposes the Marcionites for
“having found fault with the creation” (WWR II.XLVIII: 621). For
Clement, he continues, upon accepting the fact that God created
the world “it is a priori certain that it is excellent, no matter what
it looks like” (WWR II.XLVIII: 622). This attitude, Schopenhauer
concludes, makes Clement “more of a Jew than a Christian” (WWR
II.XLVIII: 622). Judaism, for Schopenhauer, is essentially opti-
mistic. It is founded on the belief in a God responsible for the crea-
tion of an absolutely flawless world.
Schopenhauer’s interpretation of Judaism on this point is con-
sonant with prominent voices in Jewish theology and philosophy.
In GP III.13, Maimonides comments on Genesis 1:31, where it is
stated that “God saw all that He has created, and behold, [it was]
very good (‫)והנה טוב מאד‬.” The word “very” )‫ )מאד‬is added at
Genesis 1:31 for the first time, after repeated references earlier
in the chapter to God’s seeing His creation and simply declaring
it “good.” According to Maimonides, this addition means that
Creation, in its entirety, conforms to God’s intention perma-
nently (327:16–21).1 Later, he assimilates that idea to “the philo-
sophical opinion (‫ דעת הפילוסופים‬,‫ ”)אלראי אלפלספי‬that “in all
natural things there is nothing that may be described as futile”
(III.25, 365:30–366:9), i.e., to the Aristotelian dictum that “nature
does nothing in vain” (e.g., IA 8, 708a9–11).2 Thus, in GP III.10,
Maimonides extends the statement at Genesis 1:31 to the exist-
ence of particular natural phenomena, including organisms made
of inferior, perishable matter, such as human beings. In the light
of Genesis 1:31, Maimonides thinks, such beings are doomed to
1 The pagination and Judeo-Arabic text of the Guide is based on Joel 1930/1. The
Hebrew translation following quotations of the Guide is by Ibn-Tibbon.
2 Translations of Maimonides’s Guide are taken from S. Pines, Maimonides: The Guide
of the Perplexed (Chicago, 1963), unless otherwise stated.
undergo evils, including their eventual death, but “all of that is

good as well (‫ כל זה גם כן טוב‬,‫)כל דׄ לך איצׄ א טוב‬,” because of the
permanence of being through reproduction and the cycle of life
(317:10–16).3 For Maimonides, then, the account of Creation in
Genesis implies that the world as such is perfectly good, and that
the particular ordering of phenomena as we observe it in the nat-
ural world invariably contributes to that perfection.
One finds endorsement of the optimistic reading of Genesis
1, very much along Schopenhauerian lines, in twentieth-century
biblical scholarship as well.4 More recently, one scholar describes
the account of Creation in Genesis 1 as revealing a “majestic, ra-
tionally ordered, and morally good universe,” a cosmos in which
“nothing . . . is random or incomplete,” and a structure of re-
ality that is “orderly and philosophical.”5 It has also been argued,
based on a comprehensive examination of Scripture, that, much
like Schopenhauer concludes, the Hebrew Bible as a whole is pre-
dominantly optimistic, by contrast to the New Testament.6 Broad
generalizations such as this are of course prone to being chal-
lenged, as indeed they have been.7 But, whichever opinion one
reaches about the philosophical position underlying the books
3 Maimonides, in this respect, alludes to the emendation in Genesis Rabbah 9:5 of

‫ טוב מאד‬at Genesis 1:31 to ‫“( טוב מות‬it is good to die”). Interestingly, this text is often
interpreted as indicating pessimism; see Guttmacher (1903), 78.
4 Thus, Guttmacher (1903, 28–9) reads the declarations in Genesis 1 of Creation as
“good” as endorsing optimism and finds further evidence for this view in the Hebrew
Bible, such as Isaiah 45:18; Psalms 33:6, 9; 104:10–15.
5 R. Hendel, The Book of Genesis: A Biography (Princeton, NJ, 2013), 37–9. However,
Hendel (2015, 43) adds that, by contrast, the account of the Garden of Eden in Genesis
2–3 “depicts a reality that is very earthly and—from the human point of view—very
imperfect.”
6 Guttmacher (1903), 241.
7 In a recent work, Lasine, discussing Schopenhauer’s and Guttmacher’s evaluation
of the Hebrew Bible as optimistic, goes on to survey recent pessimistic interpretations
of parts of books such as Genesis, Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, Elijah, and Ecclesiastes; see
S. Lasine, Jonah and the Human Condition (London, 2019), ch. 1–2 et passim. Lasine
(2019), 15, for his part, argues that the Hebrew Bible contains both optimistic and pessi-
mistic sentiments and that “each of its readers is called upon to decide where they stand
on the issue of human worth and the appropriate role God should play in their lives.” Cf.
n. 23 in this chapter.
comprising the Hebrew Bible, it is reasonable, assuming that such

a unified position does dominate or at least is present consistently
throughout these texts, to turn to Genesis 1 in order to identify
it. For it has been argued that the Priestly writer (‘P’)—a domi-
nant source throughout the Pentateuch responsible for the first
Creation account in Genesis 1—“exhibited . . . consistent thematic
interests,” and in particular was “far more optimistic and expan-
sive [than ‘J’—the Jahwist source], embracing a narrative arc that
began with God’s establishment of the ‘very good’ created order
and culminating in the assurance of God’s enduring presence
among the people through the establishment of a legitimate cult at
Mount Sinai.”8 At the very least, then, Schopenhauer seems to be
on firm ground in tracking a consistently (if not solely) optimistic
tone throughout the Pentateuch, beginning with Genesis 1 and its
account of Creation.
Let us turn to Schopenhauer’s assessment of Spinoza. In the very
last chapter of The World as Will and Representation (II.L), titled
“Epiphilosophy,” Schopenhauer presents an overview of the signif-
icance of his philosophical project, as well as its limitations. He
states that philosophy, be it his or anyone else’s, cannot achieve “a
perfect understanding of the existence, inner nature, and origin
of the world” (WWR II.L: 642). Instead, philosophy, practiced
properly, “sticks to the actual facts of outward and inward expe-
rience as they are accessible to everyone, and shows their true and
deepest connexion, yet without really going beyond them to any
extramundane things, and the relations of these to the world”
(WWR II.L: 640). Though we may not gain perfect knowledge of
the inner nature of the world, we nevertheless may learn quite a
lot, in Schopenhauer’s view. By analyzing phenomena available
for one to experience, and especially oneself (as the phenomenon
8 R. B. Robinson, “Primeval History: Genesis 1–11,” in E. Fahlbusch, J. M. Lochman, J.

Mbiti, J. Pelikan, L. Vischer, G. W. Bromiley, and D. B. Barrett (eds.), The Encyclopedia of
Christianity (Leiden, 2005), 352.
most readily available for one to experience and examine), one

may gain a “key to the inner nature of the world,” and come to
understand the way in which all phenomena relate to this inner
nature, namely, as manifestations or representations of it (WWR
II.L: 642). Schopenhauer takes himself to be the first to have ad-
equately identified this metaphysical substratum underlying all
objects of experience. He acknowledges, however, that others
before him have already attended to the more basic, and crucial,
idea that “the inner essence in all things is absolutely one and the
same” (WWR II.L: 642). Schopenhauer attributes the recognition
of this truth to such thinkers as Parmenides, John Scotus Eriugena,
Giordano Bruno, and Spinoza, who “had taught it in detail” by
Schopenhauer’s time, in his estimation (WWR II.L: 642).
Schopenhauer, then, credits Spinoza with recognizing and de-
veloping a fundamental philosophical truth. Spinoza’s system,
Schopenhauer maintains, elaborately captures the observation,
at the core of both pantheism and Schopenhauer’s own theory,
that all experienced phenomena share a single metaphysical sub-
stratum, and that in this sense everything is one (WWR II.L: 643).
Indeed, the positive influence on Schopenhauer of Spinoza’s phi-
losophy, as well as of his life, has been the subject of extensive dis-
cussion.9 However, Schopenhauer also thinks that Spinoza, like
previous pantheists, makes a crucial error by identifying the true
nature of the world with the Deity, and concluding that everything
is God (WWR II.L: 643). This move, Schopenhauer thinks, leads
directly to “optimism,” i.e., to the view that the world, in all its parts
and details, is perfect (WWR II.L: 644). As we shall see in the next
sections, Schopenhauer believes that systems of thought leading
9 S. Rappaport, Spinoza und Schopenhauer (Halle a/S, 1899), 117–42; H. W. Brann,

“Schopenhauer and Spinoza,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 10.2 (1972), 181–96;
P. F. Moreau, “Spinoza’s Reception and Influence,” in D. Garrett (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to Spinoza (Cambridge, 1995), 408–33 at 423–5; J. Golomb, “The Inscrutable
Riddle of Schopenhauer’s Relations to Jews and to Judaism,” in R. Wicks (ed.), The
Oxford Handbook of Schopenhauer (Oxford, 2020), 425–51, at 426–7; 437–8.
to this “optimism” are significantly challenged by certain unfavor-

able theoretical and ethical consequences that follow from it. It is
important at the outset, though, to see what Schopenhauer thinks
Spinoza’s “optimism” amounts to, and in what way he takes his own
view to deviate from it.
Schopenhauer, both in WWR II.L and consistently throughout
his writings, compares Spinoza’s optimistic worldview to that of
Judaism, and that comparison sheds light on his overall inter-
pretation of Spinoza. Like Jewish monotheism, Schopenhauer
thinks, “[p]‌antheism is essentially and necessarily optimism”
(FHP §12: 73). Spinoza’s God is different from that of Judaism,
to be sure. In fact, Schopenhauer notes, it would have been pru-
dent of Spinoza not to even call his substance God (or, Deus)
(FHP §12: 72). As indicated earlier, Schopenhauer thinks God is
by definition a personal being. He also says expressly that person-
ality is precisely what Spinoza denies his God (WWR II.L: 644). In
fact, Schopenhauer thinks Spinoza shares his own basic view, in
that both maintain that the world exists, not due to a creator God,
but rather “by its own inner power and through itself ” (WWR
II.L: 644). Nevertheless, Schopenhauer deviates from Spinoza on
the characterization of the “inner nature of the world” (Spinoza’s
Deus), which he thinks leads in Spinoza’s case directly to optimism
reminiscent of Judaism (WWR II.L: 644). Spinoza’s God is a being
whose “essence excludes all imperfection and involves absolute
perfection” (E1p11s: eius essentia omnem imperfectionem secludit
absolutamque perfectionem involvit). Thus, Schopenhauer’s as-
sociation between Spinoza’s Deus and the monotheistic God (in
WWR II.L) is compatible with his recognition (e.g., in FHP §12)
of the substantial dissimilarities between the two.10 The associ-
ation seems to work, for Schopenhauer, as long as both deities
are assumed to be perfect by both systems. And of course, in
Spinoza’s system, God is the only substance conceivable (E1p14),
10 Contra Rappaport (1899), 55–8.

and “Whatever has being, has its being in God” (E1p15: Quicquid
est, in Deo est). The inevitable consequence of deriving one’s
explanations of the natural world from such a starting point, for
Schopenhauer, is the rejection of the possibility of anything less
than a perfect state of the world a priori. The pantheistic world, as
Schopenhauer puts it, exhausts the “entire possibility of all being,”
and it is for this reason that he thinks pantheism, like Judaism, is
“essentially optimism” (WWR II.L: 644).
The optimistic worldview underlying both Judaism and
Spinozism is a crucial common denominator between them, and
constitutes a crucial difference between them and other religions
or systems of thought, in Schopenhauer’s view. As he puts it
(WWR II.XVII: 170):
I cannot, as is generally done, put the fundamental difference of

all religions in the question whether they are monotheistic, poly-
theistic, pantheistic, or atheistic, but only in the question whether
they are optimistic or pessimistic, in other words, whether they
present the existence of this world as justified by itself, and con-
sequently praise and commend it, or consider it as something
which can be conceived only as the consequence of our guilt, and
thus really ought not to be, in that they recognize that pain and
death cannot lie in the eternal, original, and immutable order of
things, that which in every respect ought to be.
On the most crucial issue, then, Judaism and Spinozism are

grouped together, and are contrasted with both Christianity and
Schopenhauer’s philosophy. Significant though the difference
might be between a personal benevolent Creator God and God
understood as an infinite and eternal substance functioning as the
inner nature of the world, Schopenhauer believes both principles
consistently lead to importantly similar results. In particular, as
we shall see, he thinks that by excluding the possibility of consid-
ering the world anything less than perfect, both systems lead to
identical views on the problem of evil, the possibility of an afterlife,

and certain ethical issues. Indeed, Schopenhauer criticizes both
systems, occasionally simultaneously, specifically for upholding
these views.
1.2. The “Problem of Evil”
Any view or system of thought upholding optimism must con-

front the challenge of accounting for those features of the world
that appear to be less than optimal. Schopenhauer thus takes
Spinoza’s theory to be faced with that challenge as well. He thinks
that it ultimately fails to meet the challenge. Since here, again,
he links the failure with the connection between Spinoza’s pan-
theism and Jewish monotheism, it is helpful to discuss, first, the
reasons why Judaism cannot successfully accomplish that task, in
his view.
For Schopenhauer, Judaism is committed to the good-
ness of the world given its creation by a personal God. Unlike
Christianity, which introduces an evil force to account for the
world’s ills, and even regards “the devil” as “ruler” over “the
world,” Judaism seems to simply accept this world as entirely
good (WWR II.XLVIII: 624). It is perhaps this feature that leads
Schopenhauer to declare Judaism “the only purely monotheistic
religion” (FHP §13: 127), which he indeed says is a distinction
(Ruhm), by contrast to other features for which it ought to be
criticized (more on these later) (FHP §13: 126). Surely, it is not
its “monotheism” per se that Schopenhauer commends Judaism
for, since he thinks (as does Spinoza) that a personal Creator
God cannot exist. Rather, Schopenhauer applauds the “purity”
of Judaism’s monotheism. Judaism begins with postulating a
perfectly good, omnipotent God, and consistently attributes to
Him all of creation, without introducing additional agents or
factors.
But, given such a commitment on the part of Judaism, it must

according to Schopenhauer face up to the following fact (FHP
§13: 120–1):
. . . the melancholy constitution of a world whose living beings

subsist by devouring one another, the consequent distress and
death of all that lives, the multitude and colossal magnitude of
evils, the variety and inevitability of sufferings often swelling to
the dreadful, the burden of life itself hurrying forward to the bit-
terness of death, all this cannot honestly be reconciled with the
idea that the world is supposed to be the work of a united infinite
goodness, wisdom, and power.
Alluding to the classical problem of evil, Schopenhauer says here

that God cannot be perfectly good and omnipotent while still
allowing for the imperfections and evils we know the world to con-
tain. Theism, Schopenhauer notes, often responds to this problem
by invoking “all kinds of shifts, evasions, and theodicies” (WWR
II.XLVII: 591). Such shifts might include, for instance, introducing
the devil as a counterforce to God’s goodness. Even such moves,
Schopenhauer thinks, “succumbed irretrievably to the arguments
of Hume and Voltaire”—both presenting versions of the classical
problem of evil (WWR II.XLVII: 591). But Judaism does not even
have such means at its disposal. It must content itself with God’s
own assessment concerning His creation—that it is “good”—in the
face of even our most direct experience.
A similar problem arises for pantheism, or so Schopenhauer
charges. In fact, after discussing the problem of evil and its
consequences for theism, he continues: “[b]‌ ut pantheism is
wholly untenable in face of [the] evil side of the world” (WWR
II.XLVII: 591). Of course, the problem of evil confronting pan-
theism results from the inconsistency between the existence
of evil in the world and the existence of the pantheistic, not the
theistic, God. The basic problem with the pantheistic God, for
Schopenhauer, is that it is supposed to provide an explanation of

all of reality, without itself being known or explained by any means,
and a fortiori not by means of experience (WWR II.L: 643). If eve-
rything in existence has its being in and as a direct consequence of a
perfect God, then anything, regardless of the way we experience it,
must itself be divine and faultless. As Schopenhauer puts it, on the
assumptions of pantheism “the world would be a theophany” (WWR
II.XXVIII: 349). But this optimism is untenable, Schopenhauer
suggests, since it goes against the observable fact that “pain as such
is inevitable and essential to life” (WWR I, §57: 315). We have, as
Schopenhauer often reminds us, direct knowledge and experience
of the “preponderance of want, suffering, and misery, of dissension,
wickedness, infamy, and absurdity” (WWR II.XLVII: 591). Such
“terrible and ghastly phenomena,” as Schopenhauer sarcastically
puts it in response to John Scotus Eriugena’s proto-pantheistic view,
would make “fine theophanies!” (WWR II.L: 643).
Though Schopenhauer does mention “palliatives and quack
remedies” used by pantheists to combat charges such as his (WWR
II.L: 643), it is not clear specifically what these devices are and,
since they are mentioned in the context of discussing pantheism
in general, it is not clear that Schopenhauer thinks they have been
adopted by Spinoza himself. It is possible, however, that one of
those pantheistic “quack remedies” for the problem of evil which
Schopenhauer appeals to is Spinoza’s own oft-discussed doctrine,
stated in the preface to Ethics 4, that “good and bad (bonum et
malum)” are “no positive [property] in things considered by them-
selves (nihil etiam positivum in rebus, in se scilicet consideratis),”
but rather merely indicate “modes of thought or notions (cogitandi
modos seu notiones)” resulting from our comparisons between
objects. As it seems, had Spinoza embraced that doctrine in its en-
tirety, it would have provided him with a possible solution to the
problem of evil as it pertains to his philosophy, since there would
be nothing objectively evil to generate such a problem to begin
with. However, as has been pointed out by Steven Nadler, Spinoza
in fact does not have this solution at his disposal. For, as it turns out,
Spinoza does maintain that some things, like gaining knowledge of

God, are objectively good (E4p28), implying that good and bad (or
evil) are not entirely subjective, human-made categories.11 Spinoza,
then, could not defend his optimism against Schopenhauer’s charge
by appealing to the subjectivity of good and evil.
It has also been argued, in the context of comparing Spinoza
to Schopenhauer, that (1) for Spinoza, thinking that evil is prev-
alent in the world is an error, resulting from failure to recognize
the necessity of all events and the absolute perfection of God,12 and
(2) despite Schopenhauer’s criticisms (cf. WWR II.XLVII; WWR
II.XVII), for Spinoza one’s astonishment at the suffering in the
world is resolved with true knowledge, similarly to the way that
for Schopenhauer himself recognizing the will as the essence of
all things explains suffering.13 However, as far as Schopenhauer is
concerned, (1) explaining away the prevalence of evil in the world
is necessarily one-sided, restricting one to evaluating the world
exclusively “from the outside,” or “from the physical side” (WWR
II.XLVII: 591). Looking at things also “from within,” or from “the
subjective and the moral side,” Schopenhauer argues, one comes to
realize that the prevalence of evil and suffering is ultimately ine-
liminable and that, consequently, the characterization of the world
as a deity is wholly inappropriate (WWR II.XLVII: 591). And (2),
quite distinctly from the prevalence of evils, pantheism is incapable
of accounting for the fact that we tend to be astonished by the very
existence of the world and “the evil and wickedness” within it, which
would be felt, and would demand an explanation, even if evils
were “far outweighed by the good” (WWR II.XVII: 170–2). Such
astonishment, Schopenhauer thinks, leads to the true conclusion
that the world’s nonexistence “is preferable to its existence” (WWR
II.XVII: 171; cf. WWR II.XLVI: 576)—a conclusion that Spinoza’s
optimism cannot accommodate.
11 S. Nadler, “Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil,” in E. J. Kremer and M. J. Latzer
(eds.), The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy (Toronto, 2001a), 66–80, at 69–70.
12 Rappaport (1899), 42, citing E5p6s, E5p15, and E5p33.
13 Rappaport (1899), 49–51.
1.3. Denial of Personal Immortality
One standard way out of the problem of evil is of course via the idea
of reward in an afterlife. While Schopenhauer criticizes Spinoza for
not supporting either this or an analogous feature, he also thinks
that he would have been inconsistent in doing so. No internally
consistent optimistic theory can allow for the possibility that any
features of either human life or the world at large leave anything to
be desired. And so, it is to Spinoza’s credit that he does not compro-
mise the consistency of his theory by resorting to an idea promising
improvement in a life to come.
Here, too, Schopenhauer interprets Judaism as closely akin to,
and as substantially informing, Spinoza’s theory. For Schopenhauer,
Judaism “has absolutely no doctrine of immortality” (FHP §13: 125).
He is often accused of being ignorant on the subject,14 and he has been
more generally called a “metaphysical anti-Semite” who “abhorred
Judaism, of which he knew very little.”15 More recently, it has been
shown that at least Schopenhauer’s early comments on Judaism were
either neutral or even positive.16 In any case, Schopenhauer is aware
of discussions of metempsychosis in testimonies regarding Jews (e.g.,
in Tertullian and Justin) (WWR II.XLI: 506). He also reads a part of
the Talmud (Sota 12a) as referring to the transmigration of soul be-
tween Abel, Seth, and Moses (WWR II.XLI: 506),17 though it should
be noted that the Talmudic text only implicitly draws a connection
14 H. Zohn, “Review of Schopenhauer und das Judentum by Henry Walter

Brann,” International Philosophical Quarterly 17.3 (1977), 359–60, at 359; D. Brann,
Schopenhauer und das Judentum (Bonn, 1975), 12–13; C. Janaway, “Schopenhauer’s
Christian Perspectives,” in S. Shapshay (ed.), The Palgrave Schopenhauer Handbook
(Cham, 2017c), 351–72, at n. 8; Golomb (2020), 433–4; n. 31.
15 Brann (1972), 195. For a recent account arguing that Schopenhauer’s views were
not antisemitic, despite his metaphysical critique of Judaism and occasional antisemitic
remarks (especially in later writings), but rather engaged critically with Judaism, re-
garding it as a “formidable enemy,” see Golomb (2020), 440 et passim.
16 See R. Wicks, “Schopenhauer and Judaism,” in S. Shapshay (ed.), The Palgrave
Schopenhauer Handbook (Cham, 2017), 325–49.
17 See Brann (1975), 13.
between these three figures, which is then developed as an account

of metempsychosis (gilgul) in Lurianic Kabbalah.18 But these ideas,
in Schopenhauer’s estimation, deviate from “the real religion of the
Jews,” i.e., from the texts of the Hebrew Bible (FHP §13: 125). These
texts, he says, directly exclude the possibility of an afterlife, in sev-
eral places (FHP §13: 125–6; cf. 2 Chronicles 34:28; Exodus 34:7;
Numbers 14:8; Tobias 3:6: Deuteronomy 5:16, 33; Ecclesiastes 3:19),
and when such ideas are presented, e.g., in Daniel 12:2, they are due
to external (Babylonian) influences, mentioned explicitly in Daniel
1:4, 6 (FHP §13: 125–6). And here again, Schopenhauer is on firm
ground. According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, the Hebrew Bible as
a whole “is comparatively inexplicit on the fate of the individual after
death,” and, although it seems to emerge from certain passages that
“there existed a belief in an afterlife of one form or another,” “the first
explicit biblical formulation of the doctrine of the resurrection of the
dead occurs in the book of Daniel [sc. 12:2].”19
For Schopenhauer, the absence of personal immortality from
Judaism in its original form should not surprise us. First, since
only eternal, and hence uncreated, things can be imperishable
(FHP §13: 124), Judaism, which is committed to the creation of
humans “out of nothing” (WWR II.XLI: 506), cannot consistently
promise the lingering of human souls after death. “[N]‌o doctrine
of immortality is appropriate to a creation out of nothing” (WWR
II.XLI: 488), and Judaism, unlike Christianity and Islam, thus
exhibits “perfect consistency” on this issue (FHP §13: 125).20 The
18 See S. Magid, From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History and the Interpretation of
Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala (Bloomington, 2008), 68; 256 n. 193.
19 F. Skolnik and M. Berenbaum (eds.), Encyclopedia Judaica, 2nd edition, vol.
1 (Detroit, 2007), 441. For Guttmacher (1903, 115), Daniel 12:2 is exceptional in the
Hebrew Bible for introducing the idea of immortality. See also Lasine (2019, 132–4)
on the general absence of personal immortality from the Hebrew Bible, with a few
exceptions which nevertheless “prove the rule: nothing worthwhile happens after one
dies,” so that we might as well follow Eccl. 9:7–10 and “content ourselves with eating
our bread and drinking our wine with joy . . .” (2019, 134). As we shall see presently,
Schopenhauer appeals to these verses in a similar vein.
20 See Wicks (2017), 341.
second reason why Schopenhauer thinks Judaism should not ad-

vocate personal immortality, if it is to remain consistent, is that its
belief in a Creator God implies optimism, as we have seen. If every-
thing created by God “turned out excellently,” Schopenhauer says,
again echoing the opening chapter of Genesis, then one should
“just enjoy his life as long as it lasts” (WWR II.L: 644). Indeed, he
finds a conclusion to just this effect in Ecclesiastes 9:7–10, in which
Qoheleth recommends joyfully eating one’s bread and drinking
one’s wine, wearing white clothing, letting one’s head lack no oil,
and living one’s life with a beloved wife throughout one’s “vain days”
under the sun, for “there is no deed, calculation, knowledge or
wisdom in the grave [orig.: ‫ ]שאול‬to which you are headed.” At the
same time, Schopenhauer also recognizes as pessimistic “the Fall”
in Genesis,21 as well as Ecclesiastes 7:3, stating that “sorrow is better
than laughter.”22 Indeed, Schopenhauer says of Ecclesiastes 7:3 that
it is a text Spinoza should have attended to (FHP §12: 72–3). And
it has been argued that there is more in the Bible that is congenial
to Schopenhauer’s view, and that Ecclesiastes’s optimism, which
is built “on pessimistic foundations,” is echoed by Schopenhauer’s
philosophy, particularly in the Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life.23
21 It is also possible, however, to read Genesis 3 as consonant with optimism.

Guttmacher (1903, 42–4; 57–8), while calling the account of “the Fall” “a sad and some-
what pessimistic tale,” goes on to say that it does not originally trace sin back to Adam,
and that the idea of the inherent moral depravity of human nature is added to the ac-
count and given the status of doctrine in Christianity, giving that religion “a pessimistic
tinge” distinguishing it from Judaism.
22 See Brann (1975), 14–18; cf. WWR II.XLVIII–XLIX; FHP §12. Again, Guttmacher,
while interpreting Ecclesiastes as overall pessimistic (1903, 84–5), qualifies that reading
by saying that “Ecclesiastes is not a Pessimist, in the modern acceptation of that term”
because, “[u]‌nlike the modern Pessimist, he nowhere makes assertion that this is the
worst of all possible worlds” (on this point, Guttmacher cites Schopenhauer), and does
not adhere to the idea that the world either degenerates or is to be denied (1903, 87).
Unlike Schopenhauer, Guttmacher adds (1903, 88), Ecclesiastes’s despair does not lead
him “to a denial of God’s existence.”
23 See Golomb (2020), 430–1; Brann (1975), 14–18. Controversy on the assessment
of the attitude and general message of Ecclesiastes still rages to this day. Knopf reads
the book as containing an optimism regarding the permanence of certain things in
the cosmos and one’s potential share in good deeds; see “The Optimism of Koheleth,”
Journal of Biblical Literature 49.2 (1930), 195–9. More recently, Sneed argues against
interpretations maintaining “that the recurrent carpe diem found throughout the book
Schopenhauer thinks that the second consideration against im-

mortality noted previously—that optimism makes the idea of an
afterlife gratuitous—applies to Spinozism as well as to Judaism, and
his discussion of it in WWR II.L in fact occurs within the context
of discussing Spinoza’s optimism. Schopenhauer’s point is precisely
that since Spinoza’s Deus leads to optimism, exactly as the Jewish
God does, his system, just like Judaism, alleviates the need for an-
ything like judgment in an afterlife. Human beings, on that view,
should seek nothing exceeding the scope of their natural life, a point
that, as Schopenhauer notes, Spinoza himself puts in words clearly
reminiscent of Ecclesiastes (WWR II.L; cf. E4p67d). Indeed, it has
been suggested that Schopenhauer’s own idea of the “pure sub-
ject of knowledge” was originally influenced by Schleiermacher’s
interpretation of Spinoza as denying personal immortality while
affirming the eternity of the soul in God.24 Schopenhauer’s inter-
pretation of Spinoza as denying personal immortality seems plau-
sible. Steven Nadler, for example, suggests that Spinoza, while
arguing that the mind “remains” after death inasmuch as it acquires
knowledge of the order of reality (specifically, intuitive knowledge,
or knowledge of the “third kind”) (E5p38), cannot countenance
anything like personal immortality, e.g., because knowledge, es-
pecially when unlinked to continuous memory, is not sufficient to
preserve personal identity.25 Nadler further argues that Spinoza’s
arguments for the eternity of knowledge reveal his attitude toward
organized religions, with their empty promise of personal immor-
tality, which even such figures as Gersonides felt the need to support
is its real message and, thus, that the book is not ultimately pessimistic”; M. Sneed, The
Politics of Pessimism in Ecclesiastes (Atlanta, 2012), 8. Some of the controversy surrounds
the interpretation of the word ‫( הבל‬see M. Sneed, “‫ הבל‬as ‘Worthless’ in Qoheleth: A
Critique of Michael V. Fox’s ‘Absurd’ Thesis,” Journal of Biblical Literature 136.4 [2017],
879–94, and M. V. Fox, “On ‫ הבל‬in Qoheleth: A Reply to Mark Sneed,” Journal of Biblical
Literature 138.3 [2019], 559–63), and the possible influence of Greek pessimism on
Ecclesiastes (see Sneed 2012, 46; Guttmacher 1903, 253–4). See also Lasine (2019), ch.
1–2; 129–32.
24 Rappaport (1899), 125–6.
25 Nadler (2001a), 76–8.
even though the conclusions of their theories are closer to Spinoza’s

own.26 Schopenhauer would agree with Nadler’s assessment, with
one caveat. For him, one organized religion in particular, namely
Judaism, at least in its original form, in fact does not promise an
afterlife, and is for this reason (and others) closely akin to Spinoza’s
worldview. In fact, Nadler himself concurs with Schopenhauer’s in-
terpretation of the Hebrew Bible as excluding any reference to the
immortality of the soul, as do other prominent scholars.27
It has been suggested that Schopenhauer ought not to criticize
the rejection of personal immortality, since he himself thinks indi-
vidual lives are perishable.28 It is of course true that Schopenhauer
countenances no doctrine of personal immortality. But, first, his
criticism of the denial of immortality by Judaism and Spinoza’s
philosophy is directed at the alleged inability of these optimistic
systems to avoid or dismantle the problem of evil. Schopenhauer,
precisely because he is not an optimist, acknowledges the existence
of an abundance of evils and suffering in the world and finds no
need to explain them away. Second, Schopenhauer’s philosophy in
fact does provide a substitute for immortality, in the form of the ne-
gation of the will-to-live and the abnegation of one’s phenomenal
existence—the subject matter, to a large extent, of the entire fourth
book of WWR I (which we shall revisit in Chapter 2).
1.4. Ethical Consequences
Apart from the theoretical problems that Schopenhauer locates

in maintaining optimism, he also takes issue with its practical
implications. As he puts it, “optimism is not only a false but also a
26 Ibid., 78.
27 S. Nadler, Spinoza’s Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind (Oxford, 2001b), 49,
citing S. P. Raphael, Jewish Views of the Afterlife (Northvale, NJ., 1994), 42; cf. Wicks
2017, 340–1. See also p. 31 in this volume.
28 Brann (1975), 17.
pernicious doctrine, for it presents life as a desirable state and man’s

happiness as its aim and object” (WWR II.XLVI: 584). Optimism
sees nothing suboptimal about the world as we know and experi-
ence it, and hence offers nothing in terms of an alternative to it. A
fortiori, then, optimism sees no reason to supply an alternative to
the life of individual human beings, with their various goals and
aims. It also provides no motivation to look beyond individual
phenomena, toward the unified essence that they might all share.
But viewing the world exclusively through this individuation be-
tween phenomena in general, and in particular between our own
self and all other living things, is conducive to egoism. In fact,
Schopenhauer insists that “egoism has its continuance and being
[ . . . ] in the fact that the objectification of the will has for its form
the principium individuationis” (WWR I, §61: 332). Schopenhauer’s
idea seems to be the following. Optimism accepts the individua-
tion of phenomena at face value, as the optimal way in which the
world might be arranged. But such individuation has as its inevi-
table consequence the privileging of one’s own being over all phe-
nomena that one sees as distinct and remote from oneself (WWR I,
§61: 332):
[W]‌hereas each individual is immediately given to himself as the

whole will and the entire representer, all others are given to him
in the first instance only as his representations. Hence for him his
own inner being and its preservation come before all others taken
together.
The consistent optimist, Schopenhauer charges, must accept this

egoistic consequence.
Now, it is true that pantheism maintains that all phenomena
are essentially one. As we have seen, Schopenhauer commends
Spinoza for developing that very idea. But merely recognizing that
shared essence is not enough to escape egoism. For Schopenhauer,
it is necessary that one recognize that “the in-itself of [one’s] own
phenomenon is also that of others, namely that will-to-live which

constitutes the inner nature of everything, and lives in all” (WWR
I, §66: 372). This more specific recognition is crucial in developing
empathy for the suffering of other people and creatures, because it
is precisely the fact that the will-to-live constitutes the inner nature
of all living things that guarantees their continuous suffering, as
Schopenhauer painstakingly explains in WWR I, §56–59. Far from
recognizing the shared essence of all things as a source of profound
and inescapable suffering, pantheism detracts from the prospects
of empathy. On the one hand, it offers as the shared essence of all
things something entirely unknowable (in Schopenhauer’s terms,
the pantheistic God “is an x, an unknown quantity”), which there-
fore is not conducive to recognizing, let alone understanding, the
suffering in another person or creature as related to one’s own
(WWR II.L: 643). And, on the other hand, pantheism explains
away suffering, and assures us that the world, qua God, though un-
known, is “what is best” (WWR II.L: 643–4).
It has been argued that the fact that Schopenhauer’s “will” is ulti-
mately unknowable compromises his critique of the unknowability
of the pantheistic God.29 Nevertheless, Schopenhauer’s proposed
way out of egoism is rooted precisely in the idea that the inner na-
ture of all individuated phenomena, unlike the God of pantheism,
not only is one and the same, but is discoverable (if not capable of
being perfectly understood; see section 1.1), and is useful both for
appreciating the source of suffering in oneself and for empathizing
with other beings who suffer similarly as a result of being, along
with oneself and every other phenomenon, manifestations of a
single “will.” Insofar as this applies to nonhuman living things as
well, Schopenhauer thinks a person recognizing this truth would
“not cause suffering even to an animal” (WWR I, §65: 372). By con-
trast, “from [the] standpoint of egoism [ . . . ] the sight or description
of another’s sufferings affords us satisfaction and pleasure” (WWR
29 Rappaport (1899), 47–8.

I, §58: 320). Happiness, in Schopenhauer’s view, is essentially neg-

ative, in the sense that it only amounts to the avoidance of suf-
fering, which alone is “positive” and “proclaims itself immediately”
(WWR I, §58: 319–20). For this reason, he thinks, we (operating
as individuated phenomena oblivious of our true nature) actually
enjoy remembering sufferings we no longer have to endure, as well
as, similarly and for the same reason, witnessing others’ suffering
(WWR I, §58: 320; cf. Lucretius, De rerum natura II.1). Though the
manifest reason for this latter enjoyment is being reminded that we
ourselves are spared the suffering we witness in others, rather than
the fact that these others are indeed suffering, Schopenhauer notes
that this type of pleasure “lies very near the source of real, positive
wickedness” (WWR I, §58: 320).
For Schopenhauer, as it turns out, maintaining that this world is
impeccable, as both Spinoza and original Judaism do, leads directly
to moral depravity, specifically to taking enjoyment in inflicting
pain. And again, Schopenhauer finds both Spinoza and Judaism
consistent with their ground principles on this point. Thus, he
criticizes Spinoza for his “contempt for animals,” which, apart
from being “absurd and abominable,” Schopenhauer also regards
as “thoroughly Jewish” (WWR II.L: 645). It has been argued that
Schopenhauer’s identification of cruelty toward animals in the
Hebrew Bible is wrongheaded, as the Bible prescribes the proper
treatment of and conditions for working animals (Deut. 5:14; 25:4),
and indeed condones compassion toward beasts instead of cru-
elty (Proverbs 12:10).30 To these one may add the injunction to let
the poor and the beasts eat from one’s fields during the Sabbatical
year (Leviticus 25:6–7), the prohibition on slaughtering an an-
imal and its offspring on the same day (Leviticus 28:28),31 and the
30 Wicks (2017), 339–40. See also Guttmacher (1903, 63–4), who argues, more gen-
erally, that “to the ancient Hebrew the hedonistic value of life did not imply selfishness,”
citing in this respect, e.g., Deuteronomy 16:9–11.
31 In Chapter 7, we shall return to this text, and to the interpretation of it by
Maimonides, who also stresses the humane treatment of non-rational animals based on
his understanding of the Hebrew Bible.
description of God as merciful “toward all His creations (‫על כל‬

‫ ”)מעשיו‬and as “fulfilling the will of every living creature (‫ומשביע‬
‫( ”)לכל חי רצון‬Psalms 145:9–16; cf. 145:9).32
However, Schopenhauer is not entirely misguided in locating an
unfair treatment of animals in the Hebrew Bible. It has been noted
that “[t]‌he Bible contains no comprehensive principle regarding
the rights of animals,” and that “in the Biblical account of crea-
tion man is made sole ruler over the lower creatures, with the right
to use them for whatever purpose he desires (Gen. i. 28; Ps. Viii.
6–8).”33 Lynn White has influentially argued, similarly, that in the
Creation account inherited from Judaism “no item in the physical
creation had any purpose save to serve man’s purposes.”34 As a re-
cent survey of scholarship on ancient Judaism between 2009 and
2019 shows, the anthropocentric interpretation of the Bible has had
its critics, but has also consistently enjoyed support,35 with scholars
appealing to such features as the “androcentrism and anthropo-
centrism in Deuteronomy’s categories of man, woman, child, and
animal,”36 and the exploitation of animals for meat-eating, sacri-
fice, and tool-making.37 This provides at least partial support for
Schopenhauer’s estimation of the attitude toward animals in the
Bible. For his part, Schopenhauer appeals to Genesis, in which the
creation of human beings brings with it their dominion over all
32 Z. Kaplan, “Cruelty to Animals,” in F. Skolnik and M. Berenbaum (eds.),

Encyclopedia Judaica, 2nd edition (Detroit, 2007), 165–6.
33 L. Ginzberg and J. H. Greenstone, “Cruelty to Animals,” in I. Singer (ed.), Jewish
Encyclopedia (New York, 1960), 376–8 at 376–7.
34 L. White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Geologic Crisis,” Science 155 (1967),
1203–7 at 1205.
35 See B. Berkowitz, “Animal Studies and Ancient Judaism,” Currents in Biblical
Research 18 (2019), 80–111, at 94.
36 Berkowitz (2019), 94.
37 Berkowitz (2019), 94; 16–17. Wicks (2017, 340), discussing Schopenhauer’s in-
terpretation specifically, acknowledges the existence in the Bible, and especially in
Leviticus, of animal sacrifice (though he says that “one may presume that the killing is
not intended to be cruel”) and of the ritual of the scapegoat in Leviticus 16:21–2 (which,
Wicks notes, “is unclear regarding the level of suffering that is being imposed upon the
animal”).
living things (1:26–30), as does God’s pact with Noah (9:2–3). He

compares these texts to Spinoza’s E4app cap. 26 and E4p37s, and
he criticizes TTP 16 as being “the true compendium of the immo-
rality of Spinoza’s philosophy” (FHP §12: 73; WWR II.L: 645 n. 7).
At E4app cap. 26, Spinoza says that, since we can only take pleasure
in and form friendships with other human beings, the considera-
tion for our benefit (nostrae utilitatis ratio) dictates making use of
other living things for our sake, rather than preserving them.
Schopenhauer also mentions an anecdote, told by Colerus,
about Spinoza’s practice of torturing spiders and flies, which
Schopenhauer says “corresponds only too closely” to his (Spinoza’s)
theory (FHP §12: 73). It has been argued that Schopenhauer thinks
Spinoza, in theorizing and behaving in this way, failed to draw
the correct conclusions from his pantheistic theory, because “a
pantheist should not make such a rigid distinction between men
and animals since, after all, they, like everything else, are modes
of God or Nature.”38 This interpretation rests on Schopenhauer’s
comment, referring to Spinoza’s attitude toward animals, that
Spinoza “occasionally loses sight of the conclusion where it would
have led to correct views” (FHP §12: 73). Schopenhauer does
not specify which type of “conclusion” he has in mind. Berman
assumes that the reference is to the conclusions of pantheism,
which Schopenhauer allegedly thinks should lead away from cru-
elty to animals, and that Schopenhauer explains Spinoza’s over-
sight as being due to his Jewish background.39 However, since, as
we have seen, Schopenhauer has independent reasons to think
that pantheism does lead to egoism, wickedness, and the infliction
of suffering, particularly on animals, we may do well to consider
a different possibility. In speaking in FHP §12 of the “conclusion”
which Spinoza does not follow, Schopenhauer may well have in
38 D. Berman, “Spinoza’s Spiders, Schopenhauer’s Dogs,” Philosophical Studies 29

(1982), 202–9, 204.
39 Berman (1982), 204–5.
mind, not the conclusions of pantheism in general, but specifically

that conclusion which pantheism shares with Schopenhauer’s own
theory, namely that “the world exists [ . . . ] by its own inner power
and through itself ” (WWR II.L: 644). This view, when correctly
followed, Schopenhauer thinks, indeed leads to the renunciation
of cruelty toward animals, as well as to the rest of the features of
Schopenhauer’s philosophical system. But when this basic view
is used to establish pantheism—when it is supposed, as it is with
Spinoza, that the inner nature of the world is God, and hence per-
fect—the idealization of individuation, and with it, egoism and
anthropocentrism, follow.40 Though there is room for a compar-
ison between Spinoza’s resulting view and Judaism, and though
Schopenhauer draws this comparison himself, he also shows how
it is that each system independently yields the conclusions he
finds problematic. His analysis and arguments may of course be
criticized, but they should not, it seems, be reduced to antisemitic
rambling.
1.5. Conclusion
Schopenhauer rejects Spinoza’s pantheism for several features

which it shares in common with Judaism, and which follow from
the basic assumptions of both systems. Both systems posit a God
whose nature necessarily entails optimism. Consequently, both
systems must explain away the presence of evil in the world. But
doing so, Schopenhauer contends, flies in the face of our most
basic experience. Again, given their adherence to optimism, nei-
ther system, if it is to be consistent, can resolve the problem of evil
by positing personal immortality. Finally, their optimistic approach
40 See Rappaport (1899), 102–3; cf. ibid., 97–9. Against Schopenhauer’s interpretation,
it has been argued that Spinoza condones neither egoism (thinking, rather, that happi-
ness requires altruistic behavior), nor contempt for animals (to be used only to secure
the health needed for virtue, according to Spinoza); Rappaport (1899), 97–9.
forces both systems into anthropocentrism and egoism, with grave

moral consequences. It is sometimes assumed that Schopenhauer
criticizes Judaism for introducing God as a source of hope or sta-
bility amid vexations and fleeting phenomena.41 Two things may be
said in response to that assessment, based on the analyses presented
thus far. First, Schopenhauer rejects both Judaism and Spinozism
first and foremost for their optimistic outlook, which he takes to
be the feature most fundamentally distinguishing them from
other systems of thought (WWR II.XVII: 170). And so, as long as
these systems retain their optimistic conclusions and worldview,
Schopenhauer would object to them in principle, and regardless of
their conception of divinity. Second, as it happens, Schopenhauer
thinks and argues that in both Judaism and Spinozism it is pre-
cisely the conception of God which leads directly to the opti-
mistic conclusions he abhors. For Schopenhauer, neither Judaism
nor pantheism offer their deity as a deus ex machina, intended to
furnish hope in the face of a preexisting pessimistic assessment
of reality. Rather, in his opinion, both systems proceed from the
postulation of their particular version of God, which shapes, and
serves as the indispensable theoretical basis for, their entire opti-
mistic (and consistent) worldview.
It may be asked whether Schopenhauer’s critique is applicable to
all types of optimistic theory. We have defined optimism, to begin
with, as the view according to which the world is optimally ar-
ranged and valuable (O1) and human existence is preferable over
our nonexistence (O2). The views expressed in the Hebrew Bible
and held by Spinoza, at least as Schopenhauer understands them,
clearly qualify as optimism under this definition, but also go be-
yond it in adhering to the perfection and ultimate value of all phe-
nomena within the world. Is optimism necessarily and essentially
committed to the perfection of the world in such a way that implies
41 See Brann (1975, 17), who, citing Ecclesiastes 2:23–4, argues that Schopenhauer
criticizes Judaism for that feature, and not so much for its recommendation to enjoy life.
the flawlessness of all phenomena within it and is thus in principle

incapable of responding successfully to the problem of evil? And
does every form of optimism necessarily lead to egoism, and conse-
quently to moral depravity, by focusing one’s attention on oneself as
such a flawless phenomenon?
As we shall see later, there is in fact a form of optimism, going
back to Aristotle and Maimonides, that escapes both of these
charges, and takes the world to be perfectly ordered and valuable in
a way that nevertheless accommodates various imperfections and
misfortunes pertaining, e.g., to human beings. Such an optimistic
theory is capable of accommodating these features because it takes
humans, e.g., to be less valuable than other existing beings. And it is
also for this reason that this form of “sophisticated” optimism can
argue against egoism, seeing that, as a human being, one belongs
to a relatively insignificant class of beings. Before we examine this
alternative form of optimism, however, we must investigate and
evaluate Schopenhauer’s own pessimistic view. As we shall see in
the next chapter, following Nietzsche’s critique of Schopenhauer,
there are reasons to think that Schopenhauer’s positive view fails,
and that its failure consists in the fact that it inconsistently reverts
to an optimistic approach. Interestingly, Nietzsche’s own attempt at
rejecting both optimism and pessimism also arguably reverts to a
form of optimism unbeknownst to him, as we shall see in Chapter 3,
following Camus’s reading of Nietzsche. By that point in the discus-
sion, and for these reasons, then, we would be in a position to ap-
preciate the need to take seriously a consistently optimistic theory
as an alternative.
2
Self-Abnegation and Its Reversion
to Optimism
Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer straightforwardly rejects optimism, whether in its

monotheistic or its pantheistic variety, for assigning value to the
world and to one’s own existence where none is to be found. At
Reisebuch 33, pp. 30–1 (Payne, 13–14), he provides a full and ex-
plicit formulation of his view of the valuelessness of the world and
everything in it:
. . . by virtue of time we have the passing away, the loss, the death,
the empty and perishable nature of all things; by virtue of space the
constant frustration, thwarting and mutual prevention of all the
will’s phenomena and their efforts and tendencies [ . . . ]. We see
that the fundamental framework for revealing the will’s essential
nature was found at once to manifest immediately the inner con-
tradiction and variance, the vanity and wretchedness (Nichtigkeit
und Unseligkeit) that cling to that essential nature and accompany
the whole of its phenomenal appearance. (my emphasis)
Schopenhauer elaborates on the relation between time and the val-

uelessness of the world in WWR. He speaks, that is, of the “vanity
(Nichtigkeit) of all objects of the will” and argues that “in the end
time proclaims the judgement of nature on the worth of all beings
that appear in it, since it destroys them” (II.XLVI: 574; my em-
phasis). Similarly, in the context of discussing the superiority
of the insight of Christian tragedies compared to those of the

Greeks, Schopenhauer argues that Christian tragedy exhibits a
“cheerful abandonment of the world in the consciousness of its
valuelessness and vanity (Werthlosigkeit und Nichtigkeit)” (WWR
II.XXXVII: 434). At Brieftasche 9, pp. 17–18 (Payne, 160–1), finally,
Schopenhauer says that the “deep conviction of the worthlessness
of all things” (my emphasis) is “happier” than the “condition of de-
sire” that “attaches a value to phantoms and illusions,” because “the
former [is] a state of knowledge.”
Viewing all things in existence as valueless and vain, as
Schopenhauer does, leaves no room for regarding human existence
as preferable over its alternative. As we saw in the previous chapter,
he invokes the classical problem of evil in order to point out that op-
timism cannot explain away the plentiful imperfections witnessed
in the world. When we honestly examine the human condition, and
the observable world in general, we are forced to conclude that it
is invariably dominated by unavoidable suffering and misfortunes.
Schopenhauer is thus a committed pessimist. As we shall see in this
chapter, however, he also offers a solution to the misery inherent
in the human condition, by promoting resignation, or the “denial
of the will-to-live,” as an ideal. As we shall also see, this solution
generates problems of its own. In particular, it involves a substan-
tial internal inconsistency, and it reverts to the optimistic approach
Schopenhauer means to reject.
2.1. Schopenhauer’s Aternative to Optimism:

Phenomena, Will, and the Recourse to
Resignation
As we saw in the previous chapter, Schopenhauer shares with

Spinoza the basic assumption that the world exists “by its own
inner power and through itself ” (WWR II.L). For Schopenhauer,
as for Spinoza, nothing in or about the world should be explained
Self-Abnegation and Its Reversion to Optimism 45
by appeal to an external cause, such as a transcendent God. Human

beings, of course, are a part of the world. And so, according to both
Schopenhauer and Spinoza, we should not appeal to a cause outside
the world to account either for our own existence or for any facts
concerning ourselves. If, for example, we wish to understand why
our lives seem meaningless, why it is that we suffer deeply and con-
tinuously, or what possible solutions to these problems, if any, are
available to us, we should not do so by invoking some divine plan
in store for us. Rather, we should strive to understand the world of
which we are a part.
Schopenhauer’s reason for thinking that understanding what the
world essentially is would yield insight into our own essence and
condition is one that he thinks he shares with Spinoza, as well as
with a whole host of previous thinkers. It is the assumption that
“the inner essence in all things is absolutely one and the same”
(WWR II. L: 642). One of the things Schopenhauer finds so dis-
appointing in pantheism (both in Spinoza’s version of it and in
general) is that this view, as Schopenhauer sees it, leaves the basic
question concerning the essence of the world unanswered. As such
an essence pantheism posits its God, which for Schopenhauer is en-
tirely devoid of content—it is “an x, an unknown quantity” (WWR
II.L: 643). But, Schopenhauer complains, “what is unknown must
everywhere be explained from what is better known, not vice versa”
(WWR II.L: 643). What is best known and most readily available
to us, Schopenhauer notes, is our “self-consciousness” (WWR
II.L: 643). And so, we should rely on that datum in attempting to
understand the world and our place in it.
There are many things about oneself of which one is conscious,
of course. One may be conscious of one’s attitudes toward and ex-
pectations from one’s environment, one’s personal traits, one’s
various strengths and shortcomings compared to others, etc.
However, when we focus on what all such aspects of ourselves
have in common, Schopenhauer insists, we would find one fea-
ture at the basis of all of them, and indeed of any other observable
phenomenon. This fundamental feature is the “will,” and it is in fact

the thing most directly known to and experienced by us (WWR
I, §21: 109–10). It is the true nature underlying the entirety of
one’s dispositions and behavior. “Upon reflection,” furthermore,
one recognizes that the “will” in fact underlies the workings of all
other human beings, nonhuman animals, and even inanimate na-
ture (WWR I, §21: 109–10). In short, the “will” is the true nature
of all phenomena. As such, it is itself distinct from all phenomena.
In Schopenhauer’s words: “it is not representation at all, but toto
genere different therefrom. It is that of which all representation, all
object, is the phenomenon, the visibility, the objectivity. It is the in-
nermost essence, the kernel, of every particular thing and also of
the whole” (WWR I, §21: 109–10).
Coming to learn of one’s true self as “will” entails that one
must reject all of one’s phenomenal characteristics as nones-
sential. This realization may be difficult to cope with, initially,
as it implies the identity in essence between us and, not only all
other people, but all other phenomena as well, including non-
rational animals and inanimate objects. There is, however, also
an apparently major (but, as we shall see, questionable) advan-
tage on offer. Viewing ourselves as consisting essentially of “will”
could—and according to Schopenhauer, should—relieve us of
our fear of death.
For Schopenhauer, sense perception is epistemically prior to
other forms of cognition, such as rational thought using abstrac-
tion: “perception is throughout the source of all knowledge,”
whereas abstractions are of an “ensnaring and insidious nature” (I,
§4: 41). However, it is only through abstraction that we access past
or future events. Unlike the objects with which one is confronted
at present, entertaining past or future occurrences requires ac-
tive imagination or reason abstracting from immediate sense
data, and hence advancing beyond those data to create “concepts”
(II.XLV: 572). The past and future contain only “concepts and
phantasms” (I, §54: 279), then, and are “as empty as any dream”
(I, §3: 7). The phenomenon of the will must, therefore, exist at the
present. And since the phenomenon of the will just is life,1 there is
no fear that life would ever come to an end.
Individuals, of course, inevitably perish. Schopenhauer’s claim
is not that, say, the individual person Arthur Schopenhauer, born
in 1788, will live on forever. Rather, the point is that what that in-
dividual, like any other, essentially is, namely will, has life as its
eternal phenomenal counterpart (I, §54: 275). It may occur to us
that the continuation of life cannot be comforting unless it also
entails the continued existence of our individual selves. Thus, for
instance, Bernard Williams claims that if I manage to survive “by
means of an indefinite series of lives,” then it is no longer I who
does the surviving.2 But Schopenhauer thinks that such rea-
soning is based on a misunderstanding. Because we associate life
at present with our individual selves, we overlook the fact that,
if anything is worthwhile in life, it is the continuation of the will
manifesting itself phenomenally at the present, and that indeed re-
mains (I, §54: 280).
That is, however, a big “if.” And as Schopenhauer is quick to note,
there are quite convincing reasons for us not to find the continu-
ation of life comforting, but rather depressing. Life is inherently
disagreeable. It “swings like a pendulum to and fro between suf-
fering and boredom” (I, §57: 312). Individual living things of all
species are inevitably engaged in “a constant struggle” (I, §61: 331),
with no possible resolution or acquiescence, as long as life persists.
Such struggle and the suffering resulting from it in all living things,
Schopenhauer thinks, are inevitable precisely because all living
1 I, §54: 275: “[W]‌hat the will wills is always life, just because this is nothing but the
presentation of that willing for the representation.”
2 B. Williams, “The Makropoulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality,” in
his Problems of the Self (Cambridge, 1973), 82–100, at 92; cited and discussed in Benatar
(2017), 154.
things are representations of the same underlying essence, viz., the

will-to-live. It has thus been argued, correctly, that of all the points
that Schopenhauer presents in favor of pessimism, like the empir-
ical evidence for the preponderance of suffering and the (question-
able) anti-Leibnizian argument for this world being the worst one
possible (cf. WWR II.XLI), his chief argument for pessimism is the
metaphysical argument that as representations of the will-to-live
we are doomed to an existence dominated by suffering, with any
happiness attained being merely negative, i.e., only a temporary
respite from suffering.3
Indeed, since, as Schopenhauer thinks, life persists eternally in
the way we have outlined, there is no point in attempting to es-
cape it by means of suicide, either (I, §54: 281). The only way out of
life with its constant suffering, for Schopenhauer, is through what
he calls the “denial of the will-to-live” (I, §68: 397). Knowing and
acknowledging that no form of life can be free from suffering, and
that attempting to alleviate one’s suffering from within the frame-
work of one’s life is done in vain, one gradually grows frustrated
with living as such, and ceases to will it. As long as this is not done
by choosing suicide (which, to repeat, is futile as far Schopenhauer
is concerned), but rather by “resignation” or stifling of the will, such
a process yields “true salvation” (I, §68: 397).
Schopenhauer’s goal of salvation requires the denial of the “will-
to-live” present in all aspects of our lives: our inclinations, feelings,
thoughts, behavior, etc. Thus, this goal presupposes that there is
something to salvage in ourselves over and above those individual
characteristics. For Schopenhauer, that additional feature is the
will—the fundamental and essential nature of all phenomena.
3 C. Janaway, “Schopenhauer’s Pessimism,” in C. Janaway (ed.), The Cambridge

Companion to Schopenhauer (Cambridge, 1999), 318–43. Cf. Beiser (2016, 46–51), fo-
cusing on WWR I, §57–9 in discussing Schopenhauer’s argument for pessimism based
on the nature of suffering. On the rootedness of Schopenhauer’s pessimism in his met-
aphysics, and on his arguments for pessimism, see also G. Simmel, Schopenhauer and
Nietzsche, trans. D. Weinstein and M. Weinstein (Urbana/Chicago, 1991), c hapter 4.
2.2. Schopenhauer’s Paradox
It is not entirely clear that a view that takes self-abnegation to be

preferable over any individual life can even be consistent. Thomas
Nagel brings up an important relevant concern in his discussion
of the “self-etiolation” propounded by “certain Oriental religions”:4
. . . insofar as . . . self-etiolation is the result of effort, will-power,

asceticism, and so forth, it requires that one take oneself seriously
as an individual—that one be willing to take considerable trouble
to avoid being creaturely and absurd. Thus one may undermine
the aim of unworldliness by pursuing it too vigorously.
Elsewhere, Nagel speaks of an individual observing their own life

internally, and hence taking it “seriously,” as adopting the “subjec-
tive perspective,” and of the stance through which one observes
one’s life externally, as it were, and comes to see it as accidental
and insignificant, as the “objective perspective.”5 Nagel’s point
in the preceding quote, put in terms of these two perspectives, is
that attempting to do away with the subjective perspective, and
to cling solely to the objective one, is self-defeating, since the at-
tempt itself is necessarily conjured up through the subjective per-
spective. Schopenhauer, whom Nagel does not mention explicitly,
is vulnerable to a similar critique; he commends asceticism as a
method for denying the will-to-live, and with it all the aspirations
and aims adopted in one’s life, but he cannot do so consistently,
since the choice of doing so in itself constitutes adopting just such a
goal. One is tethered to the subjective perspective and cannot act or
make decisions based on a purely objective stance.
There are correlations between Nagel’s “objective” and “sub-
jective” perspectives and similar dichotomies alluded to by
4 T. Nagel, Mortal Questions (Cambridge, 1979), 21–2.

5 T. Nagel, The View from Nowhere (Oxford, 1986), 208–31.
Schopenhauer. For example, Janaway sees Nagel’s “objective”

and “subjective” perspectives as prefigured by Schopenhauer’s
characterizations, respectively, of materialistic explanations
versus conscious experience, determinism versus free will and,
finally, actions as events versus actions as “what we as self-con-
scious objects do.”6 However, the distinction between the perspec-
tive of an individual human being viewing their life and the state
Schopenhauer expects to be achieved by denying the will-to-live is
also importantly different from Nagel’s two perspectives. And, in-
terestingly, the differences are such as to make Nagel’s critique even
more pressing when applied to Schopenhauer’s view.
First, then, Nagel introduces both the “objective” and the “sub-
jective” perspectives as points of view through which an individual
may (indeed, must) view her own life. For Schopenhauer, on the
other hand, by denying the “will-to-live” we can and should at-
tain a stance so removed from individual human life that such a
life is no longer assessed either positively or negatively—it is no
longer evaluated (or otherwise engaged with) at all.7 When Nagel
criticizes views recommending self-etiolation, he is concerned
with views advocating the rejection of what he calls the “subjec-
tive perspective,” but which still retain an objective perspective in
viewing one’s life. Whereas Schopenhauer advocates distancing
oneself from one’s various valuations and projects, he more radi-
cally recommends eliminating any concern with one’s individual
life—in fact, with any individual phenomenon whatsoever—alto-
gether. But if, as Nagel argues, it is inconsistent of a theory to rec-
ommend detachment from one’s life as a life project, it seems even
more problematic to recommend a life project of withdrawing from
life completely.
6 C. Janaway, Self and World in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy (Oxford, 1989), 292–4.

7 Janaway (1989, 315) argues that this solution, according to Schopenhauer, provides
the only way of fully gaining objectivity à la Nagel. Janaway does recognize, however,
that, if we accept Schopenhauer’s solution, “then we must ask to what extent Nagel’s
problem is a genuine one.”
Second, although the state Schopenhauer expects to be achieved

by denying one’s will-to-live differs from both of Nagel’s perspectives
insofar as it does not offer a view on one’s individual life at all, it also
shares important similarities with both of Nagel’s perspectives. Like
Nagel’s objective perspective, and unlike the subjective one, upon
denying the “will-to-live,” along with individual life and its various
values and aspirations, one is no longer invested in such a life or
such values and aspirations. But, like Nagel’s subjective perspective,
and unlike the objective one, having denied the “will-to-live” one
does not end up viewing oneself “as a small, contingent, and ex-
ceedingly temporary organic bubble.”8 Or rather, one views one’s
phenomenal existence—one’s life as an individual human being—
in those terms, while also recognizing that, essentially, one is some-
thing altogether different, and not remotely ephemeral (toward
the end of the chapter, we shall return to Schopenhauer’s positive
characterization of that inner nature we all share, and the value he
ultimately places on it). Nagel’s charge against “quietist” positions
has been that one cannot consistently pursue exclusive objec-
tivity, because subjective interest is built into the enterprise. And
this problem again intensifies for Schopenhauer’s particular posi-
tion, because for him, quite clearly, subjective interest is involved
in (and, as we shall see, ultimate value is placed on) the state that he
thinks would be produced through total resignation.
According to Nagel’s criticism, to repeat, renouncing one’s indi-
vidual life would involve turning one’s back on one’s aims, desires, and
choices, which themselves are constitutive parts of one’s individual
life (as well as, for Schopenhauer, breaking with one’s individual life
in its entirety). However, as Nagel points out, it seems that if one
is to renounce one’s individual life, one must accept that course of
action as one’s aim, and hence desire and choose it. Aiming not to
aim is still an aim, and a desire not to desire is still a desire. This
objection is equally applicable to Schopenhauer’s view. As Janaway
8 Nagel (1988), 210.

notes, “since denial [i.e., the denial of the will- to-

live, which
Schopenhauer recommends] is an act, and in this case, it would
seem, an act directed towards a certain end, it is surely as much an
exercise of the individual will as anything else is.”9 If so, then the
self-etiolation Schopenhauer recommends is self-defeating, and
cannot constitute a proper solution to the inevitable problems as-
sociated with willing as it is manifested in phenomena and their
behavior.
Nagel does mention one way in which one might achieve self-
etiolation, namely if one “simply [allowed] his individual, animal
nature to drift and respond to impulse, without making the pursuit
of its needs a central conscious aim.”10 He subsequently remarks
that such an attitude would only be achieved “at considerable disso-
ciative cost” and would certainly not result in a “meaningful life.”11
This may be taken to imply that, if one were to give in to one’s nat-
ural impulses in that way, then that would be a way of genuinely
escaping one’s individual life with its various projects, aims, etc.
Similarly, focusing on Schopenhauer’s case, Janaway notes that
escaping the will is problematic for the reasons mentioned earlier
“unless the inception and continuance of this totally passive state
were itself something that merely happened to me, as opposed to
something I tried to bring about” [ . . . ] “I should simply witness its
[sc. ‘the will’] withering away without attaching any value to that
process.”12 The trouble, as Janaway sees it, is that Schopenhauer
does not in fact view his solution as resulting from such a pas-
sive process: “Schopenhauer does not seem to have this in mind,
speaking instead of ‘severing’ the bonds of willing that tie us to the
world, and of voluntary renunciation.”13
9 Janaway (1989), 284. See also Simmel (1991, 148) on the negation of the will as
being itself an exercise of power.
10 Nagel (1979), 22.
11 Ibid.
12 Janaway (1989), 284.
13 Ibid., 284–5.
Schopenhauer indeed speaks of the denial of the will-to-live as

something that is achieved actively. He says, furthermore, that even
once this denial is achieved, “it must always be achieved afresh by
constant struggle” (WWR I, §68: 391). However, these descriptions
apply only to one of two ways of achieving the denial of the will-to-
live that he proposes. Whereas the first, and admittedly primary,
way of achieving denial of the will-to-live is “through the mere
knowledge of the suffering of a whole world which one acquires
voluntarily,” “the second path” is “through the excessive pain felt
in one’s own person” (WWR I, §68: 393). Schopenhauer describes
the events relevant to this alternative way of achieving resignation
as follows:
In real life we see those unfortunate persons who have to drink

to the dregs the greatest measure of suffering, face a shameful,
violent, and often painful death on the scaffold with complete
mental vigour, after they are deprived of all hope; and very often
we see them converted in this way. (WWR I, §68: 393)
Certain painful occurrences, then, are powerful enough to bring

about the denial of the will-to-live of their own accord, as it
were, without active participation on the part of the individual
undergoing the transformation. And if we accept the Nagel-
Janaway criticism of the idea of self-etiolation, then this second,
passive way of achieving the denial of the will-to-live would be the
only one Schopenhauer could endorse consistently.
Now, it would have been bad enough for Schopenhauer’s
purposes had it been the case that self-etiolation could only result
from passive suffering and could not be initiated voluntarily. But
his theory faces an even graver problem. First, there is a reason why
Schopenhauer regards the active way of denying the will-to-live
as primary, other than the rarity of the extreme suffering leading
to the second, passive way. In fact, speaking of active denial of the
will-to-live as it is exemplified, e.g., in the life of St. Francis of Assisi
and Madame de Guyon, Schopenhauer makes it clear that that pro-

cess would be extremely rare as well. In this regard, he quotes the
following statement by Spinoza approvingly: “all excellent things
are as difficult as they are rare” (nam omnia praeclara tam difficilia
quam rara sunt: WWR I, §68: 384–5; cf. E5p42s). The main reason
why active denial of the will-to-live is presented as primary, rather,
seems to be the idea that reaching even a most favorable state pas-
sively and involuntarily is not normally thought of as a marked
achievement.
Second, it is not clear that Schopenhauer’s view of self-etiolation
would be saved from inconsistency even if it narrowed down the
path toward self-etiolation exclusively to the passive experience of
pain or misfortune. The original inconsistency we have identified
in that view was that for individuals to reach self-etiolation they
would also need to be acting for a purpose, which cannot be done
by a self-etiolated individual. But, even if we assume that one can
be “thrown into” a state of self-etiolation by some external cause,
there is no prima facie reason why entering that state, and espe-
cially remaining in it, would not count as acting for a purpose.
And, if one does act for a purpose even in such cases, then one is
still engaged in an activity that should not be available in a state of
total self-etiolation. We may suppose that, in cases of extreme and
transformative suffering such as those Schopenhauer describes,
the changes in character and behavior do not occur voluntarily or
willingly. However, as long as we choose to speak of the new char-
acter and behavior of the people thus affected as being their own
(and, as we shall presently see, Schopenhauer certainly chooses to
do so, speaking, e.g., of their newly acquired “purity of disposition”
and tendency to “forgive their enemies”; WWR I, §68: 393), we
should accept the characterization of the goal-directedness of their
actions, too, as apt descriptions of whatever it is that they them-
selves do. Whatever we might say about the circumstances affecting
those people’s decisions or behavior, they act consciously to achieve
a purpose, and so cannot be consistently said to have reached
genuine self-abnegation, which is supposedly characterized by the

absence of such actions.
Of course, we may envisage a possibility of individuals being
forced into a purely disinterested state, in which no action is ever
carried out for any purpose. But Schopenhauer’s own view, as we
have just seen, does not admit of such cases. That is revealing.
Schopenhauer, we might think, should have welcomed such
scenarios, as they would seem to rescue his view from the incon-
sistency we have been discussing. The strength of the passive way
of achieving self-etiolation over the active path, for Schopenhauer’s
argumentative purposes, lies in the freedom of passivity from any
conscious personal aims or self-interests, including the aim of, or
interest in, achieving self-etiolation. But it is also quite clear that
Schopenhauer could not have accepted the consequences of a total
freedom of this kind. Consider the mode of existence that is likely
to result from such freedom and such disinterestedness. For Nagel,
as we have seen, such a mode of existence would have “considerable
dissociative costs” and would not result in a “meaningful life.”14
This seems correct. Quite trivially, there can be no meaningful ac-
complishment for those who do not set out to accomplish anything
(to borrow a metaphor from Aristotle, it is only those who com-
pete at the Olympic games that stand a chance of winning; cf. NE
I.8, 1099a3–5). Furthermore, as Nagel implies in linking (genuine)
self-etiolation to dissociation, it is doubtful that those for whom all
intentional action has been discontinued could maintain a sense of
identity, or even function in the world as individual human beings
at all. Certainly, it is hard to imagine that such people would be in a
position to behave in the ways Schopenhauer ascribes to those who
have reached self-etiolation passively:
They now show actual goodness and purity of disposition, true

abhorrence of committing any deed in the least degree wicked
14 Nagel (1979), 22.

or uncharitable. They forgive their enemies, even those through

whom they innocently suffered; and not merely in words and
from a kind of hypocritical fear of the judges of the nether world,
but in reality and with inward earnestness, and with no wish for
revenge. Indeed, their suffering and dying in the end become
agreeable to them, for the denial of the will-to-live has made its
appearance. They often decline the deliverance offered them, and
die willingly, peacefully, and blissfully. (WWR I, §68: 393–4)
It is far from clear how a person with no intentional actions, goals,

or aims can be morally good, choose forgiveness, or abhor wick-
edness. These are all examples of goal-directed dispositions and
actions, and should therefore not be available to those who have
reached genuine self-abnegation. It is also clear, however, why
Schopenhauer feels obligated to fill the lives of such people with
what can only be described as purposeful actions. The lethargy
that would have been offered by a life of total self-abnegation, in
which no purpose is achieved or even sought, hardly seems admi-
rable. Unfortunately, it seems that it is only such a life that would
be fully consistent with Schopenhauer’s notion of the denial of the
will-to-live.
Indeed, since Schopenhauer’s idea of the denial of the will-to-live
has been shown to be inconsistent with the pursuit of any purpose
or goal, it is questionable whether he can even remain consistent in
ascribing to the people he describes as having reached self-etiola-
tion passively the ability to “die willingly, peacefully, and blissfully”
(WWR I, §68: 394).15 One may think that Schopenhauer’s notion of
the denial of the will-to-live has no bearing on one’s attitude toward
15 Janaway points out that the welcoming of death by such people is in fact a form of
suicide (and hence, clearly involves intention), as Schopenhauer himself recognizes (cf.
WWR I, §69: 401), and which he approves of, despite his general criticism of suicide;
see C. Janaway, “What’s So Good about Negation of the Will?: Schopenhauer and the
Problem of the Summum Bonum,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 54 (2016), 649–69
at 667–8.
dying or death. However, the attitudes one has toward one’s death
are, of course, adopted within the framework of one’s life. And, in
this sense, adopting death as one’s goal or as a desired outcome is
equivalent to any other goal-directed behavior witnessed in one’s
life, and is therefore incompatible with self-etiolation, or the de-
nial of the will-to-live, as Schopenhauer calls it, since that state
is characterized by the elimination in the individual of any pur-
poseful action. That Schopenhauer himself must accept that result
is clear from his description of his own term—the “will-to-live”—as
a pleonasm. He says:
[ . . . ] and as what the will wills is always life, just because this is
nothing but the presentation of that willing for the representa-
tion, it is immaterial and a mere pleonasm if, instead of simply
saying “the will,” we say “the will-to-live.” (WWR I, §54: 275)
Here Schopenhauer says that the only possible object of willing

is life (presumably, along with everything in it). Since he also
says, as we have seen, that some people (namely, those who have
attained self-etiolation passively through suffering) will death, he
must be committed to the conclusion that death is, quite literally,
a part of life. And he indeed expresses that conclusion himself,
when he says: “[ . . . ] death exists as something already included
in and belonging to life” (WWR I, §60: 330). But, if so, then, for
Schopenhauer’s view to be consistent, the self-etiolated cannot
accept their death willingly any more than they can pursue any
other goal.
Since in fully denying one’s will- to-
live one must refrain
from willing any goal falling within the scope of one’s life (in-
cluding even one’s own death), perhaps, in order to show that
pursuing the denial of the will-to-live is nevertheless possible,
Schopenhauer could as a last resort argue that willing such a de-
nial is not a function of the will-to-live? Recently, Janaway has
argued that Schopenhauer implicitly adheres to a distinction
between two types of will—the will-to-live and the will to will-

lessness—with the latter alone being directed toward a final good
(i.e., will-lessness itself) and remaining active after the will-to-
live has been denied.16 One might think that such a distinction
would allow Schopenhauer to escape the charge of inconsistently
recommending the denial of all goals as a goal, since such a denial
would extend only to the goals of the will-to-live, and would not
affect the goal of the will to will-lessness. However, as Janaway
emphasizes, such a distinction between two types of will is not
explicit anywhere in Schopenhauer,17 and it indeed poses a con-
siderable problem for his theory.18 For Schopenhauer equates the
essence of the individual specifically with the will-to-live, leaving
the source of the will to deny the will-to-live entirely unaccounted
for.19 To this we might add the following considerations. First,
bifurcating the will into two distinct types would seem to under-
mine the idea, central to Schopenhauer’s metaphysics, that indi-
viduation only applies to phenomena, and that “the inner essence
in all things is absolutely one and the same” (WWR II.L: 642).
Second, such a distinction into two types of will would challenge
Schopenhauer’s pessimism, which rests precisely on the idea that
the will-to-live alone explains the behavior of all individuals,
and the strife and misery dominating their existence. Positing an
additional type of will, such as a will to will-lessness, as a factor
16 Janaway (2016), 663–4; C. Janaway, “Schopenhauer on the Aimlessness of the Will,”

British Journal for the History of Philosophy 26 (2018), 331–47 at 344–5.
17 Janaway (2016), 663; Janaway (2018), 344–5.
18 Janaway (2016), 665–7.
19 According to Janaway (2016, 665) and Beiser (2016, 52–3; 80; 237), such objections
have been pointed out already during Schopenhauer’s lifetime, and first, directly to
him, by Julius Frauenstädt. Simmel (1991, 134) argues that Schopenhauer’s employ-
ment of pessimism to account for ascetic resignation (of whose value Schopenhauer
was “profoundly aware”) as the overturning of suffering is inadequate, since given
Schopenhauer’s own metaphysics of the will “there is no identifiable incentive for the
will to turn against itself.” Elsewhere, Janaway (2017c, 365–8) instructively argues, citing
Nietzsche’s criticism in GS 131, that Schopenhauer illegitimately relies on the Christian
notion of “grace” in order to establish the will’s denial of itself, which he cannot satisfac-
torily explain otherwise.
determining individuals’ actions and their outcomes leaves room

for thinking that the suffering Schopenhauer ascribes to the
workings of the will-to-live might be counteracted or even de-
feated. Indeed, as we shall see in what follows, the very idea that
will-lessness is a viable and recommended goal—whether or not
it is the goal of a separate type of will—leaves Schopenhauer’s
view vulnerable to the charge of reverting to optimism.20
2.3. Nietzsche’s Critique and Schopenhauer’s

Latent Optimism
This line of objection to Schopenhauer’s view is in fact already

presented by Nietzsche in the Genealogy of Morals:
We can no longer conceal from ourselves what is expressed by

all that willing which has taken its direction from the ascetic
ideal: this hatred of the human, and even more of the animal, and
more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason itself,
this fear of happiness and beauty, this longing to get away from
all appearance, change, becoming, death, wishing, from longing
itself—all this means—let us dare to grasp it—a will to nothing-
ness, an aversion to life, a rebellion against the most fundamental
presuppositions of life, but it is and remains a will! . . . And, to re-
peat in conclusion what I said at the beginning: man would rather
will nothingness than not will. (GM III.28)21
20 Beiser (2016, 52; 81) discusses the objection that the very possibility of denying
the will distances Schopenhauer’s view from pessimism, and says that it, too, has
been pointed out already by Frauenstädt. Relatedly, Simmel (1991, 98–9) argues that
Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory, on which art provides “absolute peace and happiness,”
leads him to “extravagant optimism,” as do in fact his identifications of happiness with
the cessation of pain and with peace. Simmel (1991, 135) also ascribes to Schopenhauer
the view that in negating the will-to-live “life . . . finds perfection in itself.”
21 Translations of GM are taken from Kaufmann and Hollingdale, unless other-
wise noted.
Though Nietzsche does not mention Schopenhauer by name here,

it is quite clear that he has him in mind in criticizing the ascetic
ideal.22 Earlier, in GM III.5, Nietzsche says that Schopenhauer’s
philosophy enabled Wagner to adopt the ascetic ideal, and that
Schopenhauer “honors” or “reveres” (huldigt) that ideal.23 In
GM III.6–7, largely dedicated to a discussion of Schopenhauer,
this “honoring” of the ascetic ideal is taken up and explained.
Nietzsche discusses Schopenhauer’s focus on aesthetic contem-
plation as a means of quieting the will, and says that it is specif-
ically meant to bypass “sexual ‘interestedness’ ” (geschlechtlichen
“Interessiertheit”) (III.6), and that Schopenhauer viewed sexuality
“as a personal enemy” (als persönlichen Feind) (III.7). By this em-
phasis on Schopenhauer’s hostility toward sensuality, Nietzsche
evidently means to associate him with the ascetic ideal. He goes
on to argue that a disapproval of “sensuality” (die Sinnlichkeit),
coupled with approval of “the whole ascetic ideal,” are the mark of
all true philosophers down the ages, with Schopenhauer as their
most eloquent proponent (III.7). As Nietzsche shrewdly notices,
Schopenhauer’s commitment to opposing certain features of life
(for Nietzsche, specifically “sexuality” and “sensuality”) generates
a renewed purpose and a reason to cling to life. In Nietzsche’s
words, the objects that Schopenhauer posits as his “enemies” in fact
“seduced him ever again to existence” (verführten ihn immer wieder
zum Dasein). By promoting “pity, self-abnegation, [and] self-sac-
rifice” as a “value-in-itself,” Nietzsche claims, Schopenhauer “said
No to life and to himself ” (GM Pref. 5).24 This characterization
of Schopenhauer’s philosophy as life-and self-negating, though
22 See C. Janaway, “Schopenhauer as Nietzsche’s Educator,” in C. Janaway (ed.), Willing

and Nothingness: Schopenhauer as Nietzsche’s Educator (Oxford, 1998), 13–36, esp. 28–
36; J. Constâncio, “Nietzshce on Schopenhauer: On Nihilism and the Ascetic ‘Will to
Power,’” in S. Shapshay (ed.), The Palgrave Schopenhauer Handbook (Cham, 2017), 425–
46, esp. 430–3 and 442.
23 Kaufmann and Hollingdale translate as “pays homage to.”
24 See D. E. Cartwright, “Nietzsche’s Use and Abuse of Schopenhauer’s Moral
Philosophy of Life,” in C. Janaway (ed.), Willing and Nothingness: Schopenhauer as
Nietzsche’s Educator (Oxford, 1998), 116–50 at 140.
intended to be critical, is one with which Schopenhauer would

agree. After all, he himself describes the aim he promotes as the
denial of the “will-to-live.” However, Nietzsche’s point, similarly
to Nagel’s, is that this aim is untenable. Undertaking the project of
resisting life and its aspirations is still the undertaking of a project.
Schopenhauer may promote the denial of the “will-to-live,” but
this very promotion, paradoxically, is a willful act, a phenomenal
manifestation of willing, just as those aims, desires, and choices he
(Schopenhauer) has set out to eliminate.25
On a more nuanced reading, Nietzsche’s criticism of
Schopenhauer and the ascetic ideal in GM III.28 is twofold. On the
one hand, he rejects the specific aim that Schopenhauer promotes,
i.e., the denial of the “will-to-live,” because it is designed to reject
features and goals that Nietzsche considers worthwhile and dis-
tinctly human: sense experience, reason, happiness, beauty, etc.
Again, Schopenhauer would seem to “bite the bullet” on this point.
In successfully denying the “will-to-live,” as he sees it, one would
indeed transcend one’s humanity so as to identify completely with
the fundamental nature of all of reality, i.e., the will. But Nietzsche’s
second point should trouble Schopenhauer. For, according to
Nietzsche, this very rejection of one’s humanity necessarily fails,
since it is itself a distinctly human act. Nietzsche says:
That the ascetic ideal has meant so many things [so viel; alt.: so
much] to man, however, is an expression of the basic fact of the
human will, its horror vacui: it needs a goal—and it will rather will
nothingness than not will. (GM III.1)
For Nietzsche, the real problem with Schopenhauer’s approach is

not that it finds individual human behavior objectionable (prob-
lematic though that is), but rather that it fails to recognize that the
attempt to reject such a behavior only exemplifies it. Schopenhauer
25 See Cartwright (1998), 137–8.

recognized the inability to escape one’s individual human life by

means of suicide, but thought that an escape was still achievable by
means of resignation. Nietzsche, by exposing the self-interest un-
derlying even the most radical forms of self-abnegation, eliminates
the only escape route Schopenhauer had left.
Nietzsche’s criticism of the ascetic ideal in GM III.1 and 28
thus reveals an inconsistency in Schopenhauer’s promotion of
asceticism as a goal, similarly to the objections leveled against
the project of renouncing the “subjective perspective” by Nagel.
Importantly for our purposes, Nietzsche also relates his critique
to a failure on Schopenhauer’s part to uphold pessimism consist-
ently. In GM III.7, Nietzsche makes the point that, without those
envisaged “enemies” of Schopenhauer’s—“deprived of Hegel, of
woman, of sensuality and the whole will to existence, to persist-
ence”—Schopenhauer would not have been able to avoid pessi-
mism. As it happens, since Schopenhauer did react to such foes,
and reacted to them severely and passionately, “he was not [a pes-
simist], however much he desired it.” Nietzsche suggests that this
part of his analysis of Schopenhauer targets him personally. One
is reminded of Nietzsche’s questioning of Schopenhauer’s pes-
simism in BGE 186 given the fact that he used to play the flute
daily after supper. But, in fact, the brunt of the criticism there of
Schopenhauer’s pessimism is Schopenhauer’s theoretical com-
mitment to positive morality. And the discussion in GM III.7, too,
far from being an ad hominem attack, reveals a fundamental flaw
in Schopenhauer’s theory. For Nietzsche, Schopenhauer not only
fails to uphold his ideal of resignation consistently (since doing so
is in itself a goal), but, as a result, he also fails to maintain his pes-
simistic theory. Pessimism not only requires acknowledging that
both the world and one’s life are suboptimal in their current state;
it requires, in addition, forgoing the aspiration to remedy that sit-
uation, realizing that the valuelessness in the world and in one-
self necessarily renders the endeavor futile. But Schopenhauer,
as Nietzsche reads him, commits himself to the possibility of
reaching just such a desirable state, by opposing sexuality and by

adhering to the ascetic ideal.
In line with this criticism, Nietzsche in his correspondence says
twice that Schopenhauer “spoils” pessimism.26 More pertinently,
he comments as follows (NF 1878, 30[97]):27
Schopenhauer [is an] Optimist when he writes (PP II): “There

are two histories, one of politics and the other of literature and art. The
former is the history of the will, the latter that of the intellect. The
former is, therefore, generally alarming and even terrifying—the latter,
on the other hand, is everywhere delightful and serene.” Oho! Ho!
Schopenhauer Optimist, wenn er sagt (Parerga, II. P. 598) “Es

giebt 2 Geschichten: die politische die der Literatur und Kunst.
Jene ist die des Willens, diese die des Intellekts. Daher ist jene
durchweg beängstigend, ja schrecklich—die andre dagegen ist
überall erfreulich und heiter.” Oho! Ho!
Nietzsche does not feel the need to specify why the text that he
quotes here, from a chapter in Schopenhauer’s PP II titled “On
Reading and Books” (§296a), strikes him as advancing optimism.
His reasons, however, are not difficult to decipher. The driving force
behind Schopenhauer’s pessimism is his view of the relation be-
tween the will and individual phenomena. According to this view
(WWR I, §61: 331–2), the will is single and unified, but it is also the
inner nature of all phenomena. Being thus present in each phenom-
enon, the will “perceives around it the innumerably repeated image
of its own inner being; but this inner nature itself, and hence what is
actually real, it finds immediately only in its inner self ” (§61: 332).
As a result, each phenomenon leans toward selfish possession and
26 BVN 1884, 495 (an Heinrich Köselitz); BVN 1884, 498 (an Malwida von
Meysenbug).
27 Translation of Nietzsche’s text is mine. Translation of the quote from Schopenhauer
is from Payne, retaining, however, Nietzsche’s use of emphasis in his quotation.
control over all things, and opposes other phenomena presenting

obstacles for such possession and control (WWR I, §61: 332).
Inevitably, conflict persists between the various phenomena, each
having the will as their inner nature (§27: 146–7; cf. §61: 332). In
the case of humans, particularly, this results in a permanent state
describable as “homo homini lupus” (§27: 146–7; cf. section 2.1
in this chapter), and manifested in the war, suffering, and tension
characterizing political history (WWR II.XXVIII: 357), the same
history that Schopenhauer in the PP II passage quoted by Nietzsche
refers to as “the history of the will.”
This grim appraisal of human life and endeavor would have
called for a pessimistic evaluation of such existence, had it been
exhaustive. The point of Nietzsche’s critique, however, is that
Schopenhauer also reserves room in his theory for a second type
of history—the history “of literature and art”—which he sees as
gratifying and cheerful, and as divorced from, and apparently un-
affected by, the wretched effects of the will upon its phenomena.
Not all human affairs, then, necessarily lead to the egoism, cruelty,
and suffering generally characterizing the interactions between
phenomena insofar as each has the will as its essential nature.
Literature and art, with their favorable features, offer a counter-
balance. By literature, Schopenhauer means primarily philosophy,
whose history he describes as “the main branch” of the history of
literature in a part of section §296a of “On Reading and Books”
that Nietzsche does not include in his quotation (section §297 then
goes on to elaborate on the history of philosophical literature). In
the rest of §296a (Payne, 560), Schopenhauer argues that philos-
ophy in fact has effects that are registered “also in the other kind
of history” (namely, in the political history “of the will”), and that
it constitutes “the most powerful material force” (die gewaltigste
materielle Macht).
The reason why Schopenhauer thinks that philosophy is
such a powerful force, and why he is even willing to attribute
to it certain effects on the “history of the will,” is that for him
philosophy—which fundamentally differs in method from sci-

ence (which “never aims at the inmost nature of the world”; WWR
I, §7: 28; cf. §15: 81–2), and which “acquaints us with the inner
nature of the world” (§53: 274)—can and should lead one toward
the denial of the will-to-live, potentially altering one’s role in the
history of the will from one among many constantly conflicting
and competing individuated phenomena to a “nonparticipant.”28
Art, which for Schopenhauer is capable of generating a similar
effect, albeit temporarily, is understandably listed alongside phi-
losophy in this context, though on a smaller scale (it is specifi-
cally philosophy that is described in “On Reading and Books,”
§296a: 560, as “the most powerful material force”; my emphasis).
As Schopenhauer puts it, “[n]‌ot merely philosophy but also the
fine arts work at bottom towards the solution of the problem
of existence” (WWR II.XXXIV: 406). But, Nietzsche seems to
claim, if a solution of this kind is tenable—if through philos-
ophy and art “delight and serenity” are achievable by renouncing
the “alarm and terror” of political affairs—then there is a fea-
sible condition to which one should aspire and upon reaching
which one’s life would no longer count as valueless. Indeed, as we
have seen, Nietzsche explicitly states that Schopenhauer has
turned self- abnegation into a “value- in-
itself ” (GM Pref. 5).
Understood thus, Schopenhauer’s view ends up resembling the
optimism that he criticizes Judaism and Spinoza for promoting
(see Chapter 1).
At the end of GM III.7, Nietzsche says the following:29
What, then, is the meaning of the ascetic ideal in the case of

a philosopher? My answer is—you will have guessed it long
28 However, in Schopenhauer’s view, philosophy on its own, being “always theoretical”

and yielding “negative knowledge,” can only bring us so far; for true “transformation of
character,” or “salvation,” one needs in addition to possess virtue (which is untaught) and
to make use of or accept “mysticism” (see WWR I, §53: 271; II.XLVIII: 611–13).
29 Translation modified from Kaufmann and Hollingdale.
ago: the philosopher sees in it an optimum of conditions for the

highest and boldest spirituality and smiles—he does not deny
“existence,” he rather affirms his existence and only his exist-
ence, and this perhaps to the point at which he is not far from
harboring the impious wish: perat mundus, fiat philosophia, fiat
philosophus, fiam!
Commitment to the ascetic ideal appears, at first sight, to be a com-

mitment to denying human existence, and with it all aspirations
and projects. However, Nietzsche claims here, that is only a pre-
tense. This commitment in fact amounts to a clinging to one’s ex-
istence, and the very specific and concentrated effort of cleansing
it of certain allegedly obtrusive features. Endowed with such pur-
pose, existence cannot consistently be viewed pessimistically.
Schopenhauer, in particular, rejects sensuality and sexuality, and
this very rejection, for him, injects existence with meaning and
purpose. It constitutes “an optimum of conditions” (Optimum der
Bedingungen) for affirming and recommending a contrasting state
of affairs, assessed, counter-pessimistically, as inherently valuable
and desirable. One obvious remaining question is what this pref-
erable mode of existence might consist of, for Schopenhauer, since
it cannot consist of anything like the life of an individual human
being. Let us turn to that question.
Nietzsche’s discussion presents serious criticisms of Schopenhauer’s
position, challenging its internal consistency and its success in pro-
viding an alternative to earlier views. Indeed, the theoretical basis
for Schopenhauer’s recommendation of resignation brings his posi-
tion even closer to the optimistic views that he detests. Schopenhauer
believes that the denial of the will-to-live would bring about the most
desirable state one could aspire to precisely because in that state one
ceases, for all intents and purposes, to exist as an individual human
being or phenomenon. But that presupposes that there is some-
thing beyond phenomena for humans to exist as. For Schopenhauer,
that is the “will”— the “thing- in-itself ”—constituting the true
reality underlying all phenomena. As he writes, the “inner nature” or

“thing-in-itself ”
. . . is really the same identical thing in all individuals, whether

they exist side by side or one after another. Now this is the will-
to-live, and hence precisely that which has so pressing and urgent
a desire for life and continuance. Accordingly, this remains im-
mune from, and unaffected by, death. But there is also the fact
that it cannot attain to a better state or condition than its present
one; consequently, with life, the constant suffering and dying of
individuals are certain to it. To free it from this is reserved for
the denial of the will-to-live; through this denial, the individual
will tears itself away from the stem of the species, and gives up
that existence in it. We lack concepts for what the will now is; in-
deed, we lack all data for such concepts. We can only describe
it as that which is free to be or not to be the will-to-live. (WWR
II.XLIV: 559–60)
Upon denying the will-to-live, all that survives is the will, under-
stood then as being “uprooted” from any phenomenal features,
and so much so that its mode of existence at that point defies pos-
itive description. Schopenhauer assimilates what remains after the
“abolished will” with “nothingness” (Nichts) (I, §71: 411).
It has been argued that Nietzsche, in speaking of “willing noth-
ingness” (das Nichts wollen)30 in GM III.28, intentionally couples
two terms that for Schopenhauer are supposed to be “mutually ex-
clusive,” in order to make the point that for Schopenhauer nothing-
ness, though itself “a state of will-lessness,” is also the object of direct
willing by the person aiming at it.31 To be sure, Schopenhauer’s
state of “nothingness” is supposed to be contrasted with the active
pursuit of goals by individuals, and this does generate a problem for
30 Translation modified from Kaufmann and Hollingdale.
31 Janaway (1998), 31.

Schopenhauer insofar as it is just this nothingness that constitutes

the ultimate goal of human aspiration, for him. But, at the same
time, for Schopenhauer this state of nothingness is not purely a neg-
ative state. Indeed, he seems to refer to it as “nothingness” simply
because it cannot be known or characterized by us:
This question [sc. what is the will “in itself ”?] can never be
answered, because, as I have said, being- known of itself
contradicts being-in-itself, and everything that is known is as
such only phenomenon. But the possibility of this question
shows that the thing-in-itself, which we know most immediately
in the will, may have, entirely outside all possible phenomenon,
determinations, qualities, and modes of existence which for us
are absolutely unknowable and incomprehensible, and which
then remain as the inner nature of the thing-in-itself, when this,
as explained in the fourth book, has freely abolished itself as will,
has thus stepped out of the phenomenon entirely, and as regards
our knowledge, that is to say as regards the world of phenomena,
has passed over into empty nothingness (Nichts). If the will were
positively and absolutely the thing-in-itself, then this nothing
(Nichts) would be absolute, instead of which it expressly appears
to us there only as a relative nothing. (II.XVIII: 198)
As Schopenhauer says here, we are acquainted with the thing-in-

itself only as will and are completely oblivious of any properties
that it has entirely separately from phenomenal manifestations, i.e.,
those properties that belong to it upon the successful ascetic project
of the denial of the will-to-live. Since the will is not the thing-in-it-
self absolutely, the characterization of its completely independent
state as “nothingness” should be understood, not as absolute noth-
ingness, but rather as “relative” nothingness, i.e., as nothingness
as far as we are concerned and are capable of grasping. As he puts
it in WWR I, §71: 411–12, what persists upon the “abolition of
the will” is “for all who are still full of the will, assuredly nothing
(Nichts).”32 Nothingness is only appropriate as a characterization

of the independent state of the thing-in-itself from the standpoint
of individuals, who only have access to the will and its phenom-
enal manifestations (and as Schopenhauer notes, to those who have
denied the will already the “real world of ours with all its suns and
galaxies” would be nothing as well; WWR I, §71: 412).
Despite committing himself to the unknowability of the inde-
pendent, non-phenomenal state (or “relative nothingness”) of the
thing-in-itself, Schopenhauer is quite willing to leave room for the
possibility of positively characterizing that state through mysticism
(II.XLVIII: 612). His repeated references to the “salvation” from
willing through resignation certainly suggest, albeit negatively, that
he expects the condition following the denial of the will-to-live
to be valuable.33 Toward the end of the second volume of WWR,
Schopenhauer goes farther, and offers a brief positive characteri-
zation of that state. By contrast to the condition of “appearing as
a world in which suffering and death reign,” Schopenhauer states,
we may think of the non-phenomenal mode of existence of the
thing-in-itself as “the infinitely preferable peace of blessed noth-
ingness” (L: 640). As we would expect, and as Schopenhauer
makes perfectly clear in this discussion, the thing-in-itself whose
pure independent state constitutes such “blessed nothingness”
is that from which the “will has sprung” (L: 640), along with its
phenomenal manifestations, including individual humans, who
therefore have this thing-in-itself as their true essence. If what we
most truly are is a non-phenomenal metaphysical substratum,
32 Emphasis mine. Again, in II.XLVIII: 612: “if something is no one of all the things
that we know, then certainly it is for us in general nothing. Yet it still does not follow
from this that it is nothing absolutely, namely that it must be nothing from every possible
point of view and in every possible sense, but only that we are restricted to a wholly nega-
tive knowledge of it; and this may very well lie in the limitation of our point of view.” And
in PP II, XIV, §161: 312: “And so for us who are the phenomenon of willing, this denial is
a passing over into nothing.”
33 By contrast, Janaway (2017c, 364) argues that for Schopenhauer there is “nothing
good” either in the world as will or in the “ultimate reality beyond will,” and that he
“struggles even to” argue for the goodness of “the subjective state of will-less consciousness.”
however, then whatever phenomenal attributes we have, including

all the imperfections and suffering Schopenhauer locates in the
human condition, do not truly belong to us. At bottom, we lack
any such flaw, as does the entire world. As it turns out, the very
commendation of world and self that Schopenhauer abhors in
what he calls Jewish and pantheistic optimism can be attributed to
Schopenhauer’s own view of the world and of the self, understood
as what they essentially and truly are.34
Indeed, Schopenhauer goes as far as attributing value to life itself,
insofar as it is capable of leading one to reach the pure, non-phe-
nomenal state of the will. In PP II, XIV, §172: 321, depicting a brief
dialogue between “man” and “world-spirit,” the latter contemplates
telling man that “the value of life (der Werth des Lebens) consists
precisely in its teaching him not to will it,” as “[f]‌or this supreme
dedication life itself must first prepare him.”35 In an essay titled
“Transcendent Speculation on the Apparent Deliberateness in the
Fate of an Individual” (PP I), Schopenhauer speaks of the “occult
power that guides even external influences” as having “its root
only in our own mysterious inner being,” which he describes as
the kernel of truth underlying notions such as divine providence
(pp. 212–13). But, whereas all events, including the entire lives of
individual humans, are determined in this fashion, the “ultimate
aim” of “such guidance” cannot be “our transient welfare for the
time being,” which is “insignificant, imperfect, futile and fleeting”
(p. 222). Hence, “we have to look for this ultimate aim in our eternal
existence that goes beyond the life of the individual” (p. 222). The
“ultimate aim of temporal existence” is, then, “the will’s turning
away from life,” and “everyone is gradually led to this in a manner
34 Rappaport (1899, 52–3) argues that though Schopenhauer is right that Spinoza’s
pantheism is optimistic, that is so because it is monistic, which should equally apply to
Schopenhauer’s own view (cf. Rappaport 1899, 58).
35 Contrast with WWR II.XLI: 465, where Schopenhauer says that the objective value
of life is very “precarious” (misslich; Payne translates: “uncertain”). My thanks to Anna
Schriefl for a helpful discussion concerning this sentence.
that is quite individually suited to him and hence often in a long and
roundabout way” (p. 223). Admittedly, Schopenhauer concedes
that the views expressed in this essay “might perhaps be termed
a mere metaphysical fantasy” (p. 201). However, it is certainly
no coincidence that that fantasy accords with the sentiment of
Schopenhauer’s overall view. The upshot of the essay is that the true
essence of an individual dictates the trajectory of their life, aiming
at overturning the will-to-live, which (as we know from WWR) is
the topmost goal to be achieved by human beings.
Of course, Schopenhauer thinks that only a slight minority of
people achieve that goal. And so, he goes on to speak of death,
which of course does await all humans, as the “real result, and, to
this extent, the purpose of life,” because at that time “palingen-
esis is prepared together with the weal and woe that are included
therein” (PP I: 223). For the most part, death merely trades one
individual phenomenon manifesting the will-to-live for another.
But, to those who die after successfully denying their will-to-live
appropriately, death counts as a “deliverance,” since upon it “the
world has at the same time ended” (WWR I, §68: 382). The inner
nature of such people, at least, guides them toward the state that
Schopenhauer considers most valuable. Dienstag has argued that
on Schopenhauer’s view, one may only achieve valuable states tem-
porarily: the denial of the will-to-live “must always be achieved
afresh by constant struggle” (cf. WWR I, §68: 391), and happiness
or joy “is scattered here and there, like the gold in Australia, by the
whim of pure chance according to no rule or law” (PP I: 419).36
Dienstag concludes that Schopenhauer’s view, which allows for
the possibility of happiness but nevertheless does not guarantee it,
“is pessimism enough.”37 However, when Schopenhauer speaks,
in the very same chapter Dienstag alludes to (WWR I, §68), of the
death of certain individuals as a deliverance, as we have seen, he
36 Dienstag (2006), 111–12.
37 Ibid.
clearly has a permanent solution in mind. Indeed, he goes on later

in the chapter to speak of the stages one undergoes in preparation
for the “self-denial” of the will as advancing from “personal suf-
fering,” through a stage at which one “retires into himself,” know-
ledge of oneself and the world, a transformation and rising above
suffering, followed by bliss and the renunciation of desires, upon
which one would “gladly welcome death” (WWR I, §68: 392–3).
At the very end of the chapter, Schopenhauer speaks of the “com-
plete denial of the will,” “final denial,” and “perfect sanctifica-
tion and salvation,” culminating in “the highest joy and delight
in death” (WWR I, §68: 397–8). Schopenhauer’s view, then, is
that it is quite possible, if rare, for the solution he advocates to be
instantiated permanently, and this stance can quite appropriately
be viewed as optimistic.38
2.4. Conclusion
For Schopenhauer, the essence of all phenomena is the will.

Individual human beings, as such phenomena, also have will for
their essence, and their various other characteristics and properties
are, by implication, nonessential. Since all phenomena exist at pre-
sent, and since life is such a phenomenon (in fact, life just is the
phenomenon of the will), life is necessarily unending. Though that
fact might prima facie be taken to be comforting, the prospect of
living eternally begins to weigh on us once we realize the ubiquitous
nature and inescapability of life’s negative features, in particular
suffering and boredom. The only way out of this quite frightening
prospect, Schopenhauer claims, is by denying one’s “will-to-live,”
thereby departing from one’s individual life and identifying entirely
38 Dienstag (2006, 116–17; cf. ibid., 114), in the context of attributing to both
Schopenhauer and Freud a similar “technique of self-inhibition,” does acknowledge that
Schopenhauer at least “holds out a greater prospect for the success of this project than
does Freud.”
with one’s essence as will. However, ultimately, Schopenhauer

cannot advocate that solution consistently. First, actively pursuing
self-etiolation defies the purpose of such an enterprise, which
crucially includes the annulment of all goals and motivations.
Second, even if self-etiolation is gained passively, for instance by
suffering excessive pain—a possibility which Schopenhauer allows
for—the difficulties do not dissipate. One might ask, for instance,
whether such an occurrence would count as a genuine achieve-
ment. Furthermore, the fact that a given self-denying behavior
is passively induced need not mean that it is not purposive. And
Schopenhauer’s own characterization of those who have reached
such a state allows for much more purposive and motivated beha-
vior than it should.
Finally, Schopenhauer’s ideal of self-denial (whether achieved
actively or passively) is also inconsistent with his pessimism. It
assumes that there is some way of solving totally the misery and
misfortune inherent to the human condition, and that hence, at
least in principle, we need not content ourselves with an imperfect
world or with a less than fully desirable state of our own existence.39
Indeed, Schopenhauer views the will in a pure state devoid of any
phenomenal manifestation, to which he says we should aspire to
assimilate ourselves as much as possible through resignation, as
ultimately valuable. And since, though in principle ineffable, that
will in that state (and with such value) is the best we can appeal to
in order to adequately describe the world as it truly and essentially
is, Schopenhauer’s view turns out to share an important element in
common with the Jewish and pantheistic optimistic views he sets
out to reject.
39 Janaway (1999, 34) notes that the idea that the only thing that “could give value
to our existence, and to that of the whole world” is dissolving one’s individuality and
defeating the will-to-live “is surely Schopenhauer’s most pessimistic thought.” We might
add to this assessment that the reasons for Schopenhauer’s thinking so, and the state that
he hopes to achieve through such accomplishments, ultimately make his theory lean
toward optimism.
Schopenhauer is of course avowedly committed to the fun-

damental propositions we have associated at the outset with pes-
simism, namely, that the world is horribly constituted and is
valueless (P1), and that our existence within this world is worse
than nonexistence (P2) (see the Introduction). Nevertheless, his
view ultimately (and inconsistently) leans toward the opposing
pair of propositions with which we have identified philosophical
optimism. First, Schopenhauer thinks that the world as it actu-
ally is, namely qua will, is ultimately valuable; and one could rea-
sonably even attribute to him the view that even the phenomenal
world, for all the suffering and strife that it produces, is itself per-
fectly structured, insofar as (1) it is set up for salvation through the
denial of the will-to-live, and (2) “the whole of nature is the phe-
nomenon, and also the fulfilment, of the will-to-live” (which, as we
have noted, Schopenhauer regards as ultimately valuable) (WWR
I, §54: 276) (O1).40 As for human existence, we have already seen
that Schopenhauer not only sketches the possibility for a path in
human life leading to an extraordinarily and enduringly valuable
and choice-worthy state, but also directly attributes value to human
life (section 2.3; cf. PP II, XIV, §172: 321) (O2).
In GS 370, Nietzsche discusses his gradual divergence from
nineteenth- century pessimism, spearheaded by Schopenhauer,
which he identifies with “romanticism,” characterized by suffering
from the “impoverishment of life,” leading one to seek41
. . . mainly mildness, peacefulness, goodness in thought and in

deed—if possible, also a god who truly would be a god for the
40 In fact, in the context of arguing against optimism and teleology, Schopenhauer

acknowledges both that natural phenomena “are certainly beautiful to behold” and that
the world is “durably constructed,” and goes on to focus on the suffering that living things
nevertheless undergo in order to make his case (WWR II.XLVI: 581). Cf. Chapter 7.
On Schopenhauer’s view that the harmony in nature is due to the will-to-live being the
unifying essence of all things, see Simmel (1991), 42.
41 Here and in the following, translations from GS are taken from Nauckhoff, and
translations of Nietzsche contra Wagner are taken from Norman, unless otherwise noted.
sick, a ‘saviour’; as well as logic, the conceptual comprehensibility

of existence—for logic soothes, gives confidence—in short, a cer-
tain warm, fear repelling narrowness and confinement to opti-
mistic horizons.
Like the criticism evinced in GM III, which we have discussed

earlier, what bothers Nietzsche about romantic pessimism in
this aphorism is that it ultimately reverts to optimism.42 The sal-
vation43 Schopenhauer offers in light of his grim evaluation of
human life—grounded, as Nietzsche says here, in the philosoph-
ical knowledge he presumes to outline in his writing—is essen-
tially optimistic. It glorifies a valuable state allegedly achievable
by human beings.
Nietzsche goes on to contrast Schopenhauerian pessimism
with a future phase, which he refers to as “Dionysian pessimism.”
The term is somewhat unfortunate, as it has led some to conclude
that Nietzsche in GS 370 is advocating a type of “[u]‌nadulterated
pessimism,” and that he is criticizing Schopenhauer because he
thinks that “he is not pessimistic enough.”44 Earlier in the aphorism,
Nietzsche speaks of the romantic and the Dionysian as “two types
of sufferers,” and he goes on to characterize the “Dionysian” person
as one who is capable of withstanding terrible “sights” and “deeds,”
finding them “permissible, as it were” (gleichsam erlaubt).45 The
Dionysian person seems to be referred to as a pessimist, then, in the
attenuated sense that she confronts the same ghastly phenomena
42 For further discussion of the criticism of Schopenhauer in GS 370, see Dienstag

(2006), 179–80, and D. Berman, “Schopenhauer and Nietzsche: Honest Atheism,
Dishonest Pessimism,” in C. Janaway (ed.), Willing and Nothingness: Schopenhauer as
Nietzsche’s Educator (Oxford, 1998), 178–95, at 190–2.
43 Nietzsche’s identification of Schopenhauer’s ideal of the denial of the will-to-live
with the Christian idea of salvation is quite faithful to Schopenhauer, who argues that
“[t]‌he doctrine of original sin (affirmation of the will) and of salvation (denial of the
will) is really the great truth which constitutes the kernel of Christianity . . .” (WWR I,
§70: 405; cf. §48: 233).
44 Dienstag (2006), 180.
45 I translate gleichsam erlabut as “permissible, as it were,” instead of “perhaps accept-
able,” which seems less committal than Nietzsche intends.
that led Schopenhauer to a pessimistic evaluation of the world. But

the Dionysian attitude toward those same phenomena is anything
but pessimistic in the proper designation of that word, as such a
person tolerates them and even finds them “permissible.” It ought
not to surprise us, therefore, that Nietzsche later republishes GS 370
in a paraphrased form, in which he replaces “Dionysian pessimist”
with “Dionysian Greek,” and omits altogether the parenthetical re-
mark sealing GS 370 concerning the “pessimism of the future” to be
known as “Dionysian pessimism” (cf. NCW, “We Antipodes”). In
the final analysis, Nietzsche presents a consistent and uncompro-
mising rejection of pessimism in general, and of Schopenhauer’s
pessimism in particular.46
But although Nietzsche himself does not aim to correct
Schopenhauer’s reversion to optimism by introducing a radical
form of “[u]‌nadulterated pessimism,”47 one at this point might
nevertheless urge that such a revision of pessimism might still be
tenable, and could, once formulated, withstand the criticisms of
Schopenhauer’s pessimistic theory that we have surveyed in this
chapter. Historically, Schopenhauer’s theory has been taken to be
radically pessimistic, and understandably so, as it concludes that
the only appropriate response to an adequate assessment of the
world and human life is total resignation—a conclusion that both
Schopenhauer himself and his later readers recognize as a form of
“quietism.”48 Based on the criticisms we have seen in this chapter,
Schopenhauer cannot even espouse the quietist renunciation of all
goals, since that in itself amounts to adopting a goal. But what of
an even more radical, or “purer,” version of pessimism, that would
46 Berman (1998, 194–5), discussing GS 370, argues that whereas Nietzsche retains
much of Schopenhauer’s pessimism, he ends up offering, in the form of his ideal of the
Übermensch, a “modest optimism,” on which the “nihilistic trend” of his day would ulti-
mately yield a new value. As we shall see in the next chapter, Nietzsche, while nominally
rejecting both pessimism and optimism, is more convincingly interpreted as reverting to
the introduction of a full-fledged optimistic set of ideals.
47 Dienstag (2006), 180.
48 WWR II.XLVIII: 613; Beiser (2016), 43–4, et passim.
(unlike Schopenhauer’s) truly forgo all values, and with them all
goals, including the goal of forgoing all goals?
As we have defined it previously, pessimism maintains that
no aspect or part of our woeful world is valuable (P1), and that
human nonexistence is preferable to our existence (P2). P2 already
commits one to valuing one conceivable state of affairs (human
nonexistence) over another (our existence). Valuing such a state as
a goal to be achieved either actively or passively (as Schopenhauer
does) contradicts P1, which precludes the pessimist from declaring
anything valuable. But not valuing that state deviates from P2.
Indeed, P1 is arguably already internally inconsistent, since from
the disvalue inherent in the world (due to inevitable suffering, e.g.)
and the nonexistence of anything valuable, it should follow that a
state of affairs in which the world as a whole does not exist is valu-
able.49 In order to remain consistent, it would seem that a pessimist
must maintain that whereas the nonexistence of the world and of
humans would have been valuable had it been attainable, it is im-
possible in principle.
Even if we assume that denying the existence of anything valuable
outright is theoretically possible, it yields unwelcome results, how-
ever. As we shall see in the next chapter, following Camus’s reading,
Nietzsche, attempting to move beyond both optimism and pessi-
mism, begins by denying allegedly objective values and disvalues,
but quickly supplants these with an ultimate value and ideal of his
own, seeing that some such feature is necessary for justifying any
judgment, decision, preference, or action.
49 Schopenhauer, for his part, characterizes pessimism precisely as the view that the
world “ought not to be” (WWR II.XVII: 170).
3
Nihilism and Self-Deification
Camus’s Critical Analysis of Nietzsche
in The Rebel
Nietzsche, as we saw in the previous chapter, rejects Schopenhauerian

pessimism, according to which the world and human life are value-
less and doleful, for its internal inconsistency. Nietzsche does not
opt for optimistic views that take the world and oneself to be ulti-
mately valuable, but rather takes issue with them as well.1 In EH IV.4,
he describes his Zarathustra as recognizing that “the optimist is just
as decadent as the pessimist, and perhaps more harmful.”2 In HH
I 28, Nietzsche elaborates on his opposition to both optimism and
pessimism:3
Words in bad odour.—Away with those overused words optimism

and pessimism! We have had enough of them. Occasion for using
them is growing less day by day; it is only idle chatterers who still
have such an indispensable need of them. For why in the world
should anyone want to be an optimist if he does not have to de-
fend a God who has to have created the best of worlds if he him-
self is goodness and perfection—but what thinker still has need
of the hypothesis of a God?—But any occasion for a pessimistic
creed is likewise lacking, unless one has an interest in provoking
1 On this point, see also C. Janaway, “On the Very Idea of ‘Justifying Suffering,’ ”
Journal of Nietzsche Studies 48 (2017b), 152–70, 158–62.
2 Translations of Nietzsche, except those embedded in Camus’s text, are taken from
Kaufmann, unless stated otherwise.
3 Translations of HH are from Hollingdale, with some modification.
Nihilism and Self-Deification 79
the advocates of God [ . . . ] [I]‌t is quite obvious that the world

is neither good nor evil, let alone the best of all or the worst of
all worlds, and that these concepts ‘good’ [gut] and ‘evil’ [böse]
possess meaning only when applied to men, and perhaps even
here are, as they are usually employed, unjustified: in any event,
we must cast off both that conception of the world that inveighs
against it and that which glorifies it.
Though Nietzsche in this aphorism initially objects to the use of the

terms “optimism” and “pessimism,” he then goes on to clarify that
what he takes issue with, most basically, are the very conceptions that
these two words are meant to convey. His view is that we ought not to
think of the world as either good (as optimism does) or evil (as pessi-
mism does), because these designations are, at most, applicable only
to persons.
The reason why the debate between optimism and pessimism is
appropriate in the context of theology, Nietzsche signals, is that the
personal, monotheistic God and his creation are both traditionally
conceived of as perfectly good. Accepting the existence of such a deity
amounts to adopting an optimistic worldview. Alternatively, one may
reject such optimism in favor of pessimism, as Schopenhauer does
when he criticizes Jewish monotheism and Spinoza’s pantheism (see
Chapter 1). In referring to optimism and pessimism in this apho-
rism, Nietzsche clearly ultimately addresses these views as we have
defined them at the outset, and especially the primary proposition of
each, namely, the optimistic proposition that the world is optimally
arranged and valuable (O1) and the primary pessimistic proposition
that the world is woeful and worthless (P1).
Equally clearly, when Nietzsche refers to pessimism here, he has
Schopenhauer’s pessimism specifically in mind.4 In HH II, preface
4 According to Schacht, in HH Nietzsche distanced himself from his earlier influences

by Schopenhauer and Wagner; see F. Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, translated by
R. J. Hollingdale, introduction by R. Schacht (Cambridge, 1996), x. However, Schacht
(1996, xiv) also seems to maintain that Nietzsche was opposed to pessimism in his
1, he reports that, while working on the Untimely Meditations (be-

tween 1873 and 1876), he was “already deep . . . in the critique of and
likewise the further elaboration on pessimism as understood hith-
erto, and already ‘believed in nothing anymore,’ as the people put it,
not even in Schopenhauer.”5 And, in the sections leading up to HH
I 28, he says that “the whole medieval Christian conception of the
world and of the nature of man could in Schopenhauer’s teaching
celebrate a resurrection” (I 26), and that the needs first satisfied by
religion and then intended to be satisfied by philosophy “can be
weakened and exterminated,” as he clearly thinks they should be (I
27). Thus, for Nietzsche, whereas Schopenhauer’s rejection of opti-
mism is to be commended, his pessimistic alternative is to be simi-
larly rejected. This is so because, once one has recognized that there
are no absolute values (or disvalues), as Nietzsche already hints at
in HH I 28,6 both optimism and pessimism are rendered obsolete,
and the debate between them becomes irrelevant.
Nietzsche also presents an alternative. In later works, he
recommends creating novel values through affirming the world
and oneself. Nietzsche envisages his alternative as overcoming
the problems of both pessimism and optimism. But it, too,
has been criticized, similarly to Nietzsche’s own criticism of
Schopenhauer, for reverting to a form of optimism. In this
chapter, I shall focus on one such criticism, advanced by Camus
in The Rebel. According to Camus, Nietzsche proposes his ideal of
creating value and affirming the world and oneself as a solution
earlier published writings as well. See also Cartwright (1998, 134 n. 86) on the extent of
the criticism of Schopenhauer in HH.
5 The word that I translate here as “elaboration,” Vertiefung, is rendered by
Hollingdale as “intensifying,” which risks giving the reader the impression that
Nietzsche takes himself to have either embraced pessimism or endowed it with
meaning. See also Cartwright (1998, 135, 138 n. 110, 145). Closer to the intended
meaning, Cohn translates Vertiefung in this text as “study”; see F. Nietzsche, Human
All Too Human, trans. P. V. Cohn (New York, 1911), ad loc. I am thankful to Anna
Schriefl for a helpful discussion of this text.
6 As Schacht (1996, vii) notes, HH in general “presaged the . . . crisis” that Nietzsche
“subsequently came to call ‘the death of God.’ ”
to a problematic consequence of his project of dismantling objec-

tive values, namely, that having no such values (or corresponding
disvalues) makes genuine choice and value judgments impos-
sible. I argue that Camus’s critique of that solution provides a vi-
able response to (i) Nietzsche’s very introduction of a new value,
(ii) the specific content of the value Nietzsche introduces, and (iii)
the consequences of Nietzsche’s proposal.
First, Nietzsche doubts the legitimacy of any presumed “im-
mediate certainty,” such as the one that Descartes’s methodic
doubt concerning traditional sources of knowledge is supposed
to uncover (BGE 16). But, Camus insinuates, Nietzsche fails to re-
alize that his own methodic demolition of traditional values (and
disvalues) should similarly lead him to doubt our ability to estab-
lish any substantive value. Second, Camus thinks that Nietzsche’s
recommendation of “creation” implies considering the world
and oneself divine, after and despite the “death of God.” This
highlights a tension in Nietzsche’s view. Nietzsche privileges the
world as singularly valuable and its affirmers as singularly cor-
rect. However, he criticizes monotheism for privileging God and
believers in God in just this way (GS 143). Third, Camus argues
that Nietzsche’s idea of creation leads one to affirm violence and
suffering. Nietzsche concedes that some suffering is necessary
for the process of creation (BGE 225, 270). But, Camus argues,
since Nietzsche’s view purports to have normative import, while
valuing affirmation exclusively, it indirectly promotes valuing
violent acts and systems as such. Though Camus’s responses to
Nietzsche are compelling, his own view remains unsatisfactory.
His recommendations of “rebellion” and “moderation” (roughly,
accepting the insoluble tension, for all, inherent in the ina-
bility either to make meaningful value judgments and decisions
or to avoid making value judgments and deciding) contain
contradictions—the very ones that he argues Nietzsche’s view is
meant to resolve—w hich cannot cohere with a viable theory
concerning value.
3.1. Nietzsche’s Insight Concerning

the Constraints of Total Freedom
Nietzsche’s philosophical project, as Camus understands it in The

Rebel, is divided into two steps. Nietzsche first observes the col-
lapse of objective value systems in the cultural and intellectual en-
vironment of his day, pointing out certain distressing consequences
that he thinks would follow. He then offers a remedy, in the form
of the creation of a new value system of his own. Camus believes
that this characterization applies broadly to much of Nietzsche’s
mature writing. Though he describes his discussion of Nietzsche
in The Rebel (in the section titled “Nietzsche and Nihilism”) as “a
commentary on Der Wille zur Macht,” he also says that he is con-
cerned there with Nietzsche’s “final philosophic position, between
1880 and his collapse” (R, 66).7 That statement seems appropriate,
since Camus would commend Nietzsche’s position in Human, All
Too Human (published in 1878), presented at the beginning of this
chapter, renouncing (or at least doubting) the existence of objec-
tive values (and disvalues) and pronouncing the debate between
pessimism and optimism futile, without yet offering the alternative
position forthcoming in his later works (cf. HH I 28). Camus’s crit-
ical discussion of Nietzsche’s later, two-tiered theory is filled with
references to Nietzsche’s published works from 1881 onward, in-
cluding The Gay Science, Twilight of the Idols, Zarathustra, Beyond
Good and Evil, and the Genealogy of Morals. Camus assumes that
these works present a unified theory—corresponding to the two
steps we have introduced—and he goes on to evaluate them crit-
ically as such. The analysis, as we shall see, yields an ambivalent
attitude toward Nietzsche. Camus approves of Nietzsche’s observa-
tion of the dismantling of values (and disvalues), which he thinks
7 Translations of and page numbers for The Rebel are taken from A. Camus, The Rebel,
trans. A. Bower (New York, 1956).
is correct and important. However, he objects to, and presents an

elaborate and forceful critique of, Nietzsche’s positive proposal.
First, the observation: Camus sees the core of Nietzsche’s diag-
nosis of the cultural climate of his day in his pronouncement of the
death of God. Instead of the loci classici of this idea in GS 125 and
in Zarathustra, Camus first cites Twilight of the Idols VI.8, in which
Nietzsche states that it is by denying God and the responsibility
of God (or, rather, as Kaufmann translates it, the responsibility in
God: die Verantwortlichkeit in Gott) that “we will deliver the world”
(R, 65). This formulation emphasizes both the broader implications
of the idea of the death of God for the status of all moral values and
ideals, and the potential eventual transition from that occurrence
to a new, promising state of affairs. The death of God triggers much
more than just atheism. It either itself automatically initiates, or at
the very least calls for, a comprehensive and methodical re-exami-
nation, and ultimately the annulment, of all values (and disvalues).
Moral valuations, à la Socrates and Christianity, as well as socialism
and all forms of humanitarianism, all fail to survive the scrutiny of
such an investigation, and are discarded as remnants or shadows of
God (R, 67–70).
For Camus, it is after the quieting of all such remaining idols,
and in large part on the basis of the successful completion of such
a move, that Nietzsche arrives at what is at once both an important
insight and a disillusioning and potentially unbearable prospect.
The problem is encapsulated in Camus’s notion of the “absurd.”
Camus characterizes absurdity as he is concerned with it in The
Rebel as referring to the same concept dealt with in the Myth of
Sisyphus, only applied specifically to the case of “murder” rather
than the problem of “suicide” (R, 5). The main idea is that believing
in nothing and acknowledging neither any meaning nor any value
(or their opposites) implies that “everything is possible” and that
any act, including murder, “is neither right nor wrong” (R, 5). As
Camus puts it, by systematically dismantling all supposed objec-
tive criteria for valuation, beginning with God and ending with
any ideology supplanting Him, Nietzsche precludes any “basis of

morality” and meets the concept of absurdity “face to face” (R, 62).
However, as we shall now see in detail, the absurdity resulting from
the absence of all morality and all value systems generates a serious
problem, one which Nietzsche would ultimately set out to solve
(though, for Camus, his proposed solution would be no less prob-
lematic). One might expect the nihilistic jettisoning of all moral
and ideological baggage to be a relief. However, as Camus argues on
Nietzsche’s behalf, the “total freedom” from “God” and the “moral
idols” in fact generates, at least initially, “a new form of anguish”
(R, 70). In the absence of familiar value systems, Camus’s reading
continues, one is faced with a daunting task:
It is he, and he alone, who must discover law and order. Then
the time of exile begins, the endless search for justification, the
aimless nostalgia, “the most painful, the most heartbreaking
question, that of the heart which asks itself: where can I feel at
home?” (R, 70)
Nietzsche himself brings up this last point perhaps most clearly in a

text not cited in Camus’s discussion. Immediately before presenting
the “madman” who proclaims the death of God in Gay Science
125, Nietzsche writes: “We have left the land and have embarked.
We have burned our bridges behind us” (GS 124). This statement
clearly anticipates the words of the “madman,” according to whom
it is “We” who have killed God, viz. destroyed the basis for objective
valuation, though we may not yet be able to fully appreciate this
deed or its consequences (GS 125). Nietzsche goes on to describe
humanity, once it has rejected objective valuation, or at any rate
rendered it obsolete, using the following analogy:
Oh, the poor bird that felt free and now strikes the walls of this
cage! Woe, when you feel homesick for the land as if it had offered
more freedom—and there is no longer any “land.”
As Camus has argued, then, Nietzsche thinks that, inevitably, post-

nihilists are initially at a loss. Robbed of their “home,” i.e., the se-
curity and familiarity of their old value systems now rejected, they
seek to either return to that home or replace it. Unless and until they
have done so—and this is the point that Camus emphasizes—they
are necessarily caged. Freedom from all valuation in fact amounts
to no freedom at all, but rather brings about a form of servitude.
Camus elaborates:
. . . if the eternal law is not freedom, the absence of law is still less
so. If nothing is true, if the world is without order, then nothing is
forbidden; to prohibit an action, there must, in fact, be a standard
of values and an aim. But, at the same time, nothing is authorized;
there must also be values and aims in order to choose another
course of action. Absolute domination by the law does not rep-
resent liberty, but no more does absolute anarchy. The sum total
of every possibility does not amount to liberty, but to attempt the
impossible amounts to slavery. Chaos is also a form of servitude.
Freedom exists only in a world where what is possible is defined
at the same time as what is not possible. Without law there is no
freedom. If fate is not guided by superior values, if chance is king,
then there is nothing but the step in the dark and the appalling
freedom of the blind. (R, 71)
Precisely what type of freedom is it that is lost, according to Camus’s

reading of Nietzsche, upon the disappearance of objective values?
Though he speaks of the absence of such freedom as the inability
to “choose another course of action,” he evidently does not mean to
say that lacking values robs one of freedom of the will or of volun-
tary action. It is implausible that the absence of moral or ideological
principles and standards would prohibit one from acting freely, if
that were otherwise possible for them. Indeed, it is rather the coex-
istence of Nietzsche’s (apparent) commitment to both determinism
and the value found in one specific kind of personal project, i.e.,
self-creation, that has generated a scholarly controversy among his

interpreters.8
The problem Camus identifies, by contrast, concerns norma-
tive standards. It is the problem of absurdity we have already
mentioned. In saying that “values and aims” are necessary “in order
to choose another course of action” (R, 71), Camus means that such
values and aims are required, not for being the free agents of our
actions, but rather for having any grounds for meaningful choice
(here, his argument applies not only to nihilism, but also to the
“radical pessimism” sketched at the end of Chapter 2, intended to
consistently reject the existence of anything valuable out of hand).
And without any grounds for such choice, his argument runs, the
notion of choice becomes vacuous, not because we are forced to act
in a specific way by a deterministic world order, but rather because
anything we do of our own accord should be just as amenable to
us (and to anybody else) as any other thing we might do. Though
I take myself to be free to put on my right sock in the morning first,
and am fully aware of that possibility, there is a real sense in which
I am reluctant to speak of putting on my left sock first as a “choice.”
I would have considered my day, in all its details, virtually unaltered
had the right sock been put on first. Choice seems to come in when
acting differently makes somewhat of a meaningful difference, be
it even the most minute. Nietzsche’s insight, according to Camus,
is that, upon the death of God and the idols, responding to a minor
annoyance by either ignoring the person responsible or extreme
violence amounts to no more of a choice than putting on either the
right sock or the left one first.
As Camus interprets him, Nietzsche’s observation constitutes
a remarkable achievement, as it embodies and epitomizes what
8 See, for example, D. E. Cooper, “Self and Morality in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche,”
in C. Janaway (ed.), Willing and Nothingness: Schopenhauer as Nietzsche’s Educator
(Oxford, 1998), 196–216; B. Leiter, “The Paradox of Fatalism and Self-Creation in
Nietzsche,” in C. Janaway (ed.), Willing and Nothingness: Schopenhauer as Nietzsche’s
Educator (Oxford, 1998), 217–57.
Camus calls “rebellion.” “Rebellion,” for Camus, involves the

transition from experiencing absurdity as an individual con-
dition to seeing it as a “mass plague” (R, 22). It stems from the
recognition that without religious or other absolute values it is
doubtful that any “rule of conduct” may be established (R, 21),
or reliably followed, by either individuals or the communities
to which they belong. Complete freedom from values entails
the lack of freedom to act from genuine or meaningful choice
based on value judgment. This conflict at the basis of “rebellious
thought” explains why Camus describes it as “a perpetual state
of tension” (R, 22). Troubles begin to occur, however, when “the
rebel forgets his original purpose, tires of the tremendous ten-
sion created by refusing to give a positive or negative answer, and
finally abandons himself to complete negation or total submis-
sion” (R, 25). In that case, there occurs an attempt to compensate
for the “fall of God” by introducing new values, and specifically
by initiating a “desperate effort to create . . . the dominion of
man” (R, 25). The attempt to combat optimism by questioning
existing values, in other words, gives rise to a new brand of opti-
mistic theory upholding values that are no less questionable. This
is precisely what Camus believes happened in Nietzsche’s case, as
we shall presently see.
3.2. Nietzsche’s Solution
Camus interprets Nietzsche’s recommendation of “accepting

oneself as if fated, not wishing oneself ‘different’ ” (EH I.6; trans.
Kaufmann) as responding to the concern revealed and expressed by
“rebellious thought.” Since the world “pursues no end” and “accepts
no judgment,” i.e., since the world in and of itself is devoid of values
and consequently of genuine choice, Nietzsche suggests we should
“replace all judgements based on values by absolute assent, and by
a complete and exalted allegiance to this world” (R, 72). We should,
in other words, not only accept, but welcome, every detail of the
world’s history, including every detail of our personal history.
And doing so would amount to a genuine choice, indeed the only
genuine choice we could possibly make, since, in the absence of any
criteria by which we could determine the value of anything in the
world, the only value judgment remaining concerns whether this
state of affairs, i.e., this entire world as is, with its total lack of value,
is something we approve or disapprove of. Disapproval would leave
us where we left off upon recognizing the illegitimacy of all ob-
jective values. Approval would generate what is perhaps the only
value imaginable following that recognition (upon recognizing
the lack of value in the world at large, one would be hard pressed
to find a justification for valuing one part or aspect of the world
over another). Further, the choice enabled by this value need not
be a singular occurrence. It could, and presumably for Nietzsche
preferably would, be renewed regularly, as one expands one’s know-
ledge and experience of oneself and of the world as one encounters
new details concerning both. This is what Camus means when he
says that Nietzsche’s idea of absolute assent offers “unbounded
freedom,” and that “[t]‌otal acceptance of total necessity is his para-
doxical definition of freedom” (R, 72).
Camus proposes to examine closely the implications following
from the content of this value. According to it, the role once played
by God, as sole source and arbiter of values, is now given to the ne-
cessity of all phenomena. Camus accordingly labels this transition
the “deification of fate” (R, 72; more on this in section 3.4). Unlike a
moral God, however, the deified world or fate is venerated precisely
for its lack of moral concern, for being “implacable,” for offering
“no redemption” and for being “inconsequential” (R, 72–3). It is
also in this sense that Camus thinks Nietzsche views fate as “in-
nocent” (a feature Camus repeatedly emphasizes), again not in the
sense of having pure intentions, but rather in the sense of having no
intentions whatsoever. The term comes from the exposition of the
three metamorphoses of the spirit in Zarathustra. Camus quotes
the following part of Zarathustra’s characterization of the final
metamorphosis into a child (R, 73): “The child is innocence and

forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first
movement, a sacred ‘Yes’ ” (Z 1, “On the Three Metamorphoses,”
trans. Kaufmann). Camus’s choice of this text for establishing his
interpretation of Nietzsche’s idea of assent is appropriate, for at
least two reasons. First, the “innocence” (Unschuld) Zarathustra
attributes to the spirit in its final mutation as a “child” is one of a
non- reflective (or, pre-reflective), unconcerned nature, associ-
ated with forgetfulness. That is just the type of innocence Camus
attributes to fate and the world on Nietzsche’s behalf.
Second, the metaphor of the “child,” representing the last and
(paradoxically) most evolved stage of the spirit, links the recom-
mendation of assenting to fate to the idea of the affirmation of one-
self (or, as Camus would put it, it links the “deification” of both). In
the very next line in Nietzsche’s text, which Camus does not quote,
Zarathustra goes on to say: “For the game of creation, my brothers,
a sacred ‘Yes’ is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he
who had been lost to the world now conquers his own world” (Z 1,
“On the Three Metamorphoses”). The objects to be created in this
last step by the spirit, and to be consequently owned by it, are the
individual’s will as well as the entire world. Zarathustra goes on in
“On the Blessed Isles” to elaborate on this idea of creating (schaffen)
one’s own will and one’s own world in terms of turning the “world”
into one’s “will” (as well as one’s “reason,” “image,” and “love”). What
is supposed to be achieved by the “Yes-saying” (Ja-sagen) of the
child, then, is the alignment of the world, and one’s experience of
the world, with one’s will. This is the “game of creation” Zarathustra
speaks of. As Camus puts it, “[t]‌o say yes to the world, to reproduce
it, is simultaneously to re-create the world and oneself, to become
the great artist, the creator” (R, 74). The idea is encapsulated in Z 4,
“On Old and New Tablets,” section 3:
To redeem what is past in man and to re-create all “it was” until
the will says, “Thus I willed it! Thus I shall will it”—this I called
redemption and this alone I taught them to call redemption.
A perfect correspondence between all the details of the world’s his-

tory and one’s wishes makes the world valuable to us, in at least one
obvious sense. Indeed, if the world (as it is) is exactly what we want
and all that we could ever want, then we do not simply find value in
it, but we identify it with value completely and exclusively. This ul-
timate value of the world, however, also confers value on us, in two
ways. First, if the world is desirable in all its details, then our lives
in all their details must be desirable as parts of the history of that
world. Second, if the world is valuable to the extreme, then the rec-
ognition of that fact is valuable for its accuracy (as well as for being
itself a part of the history of that world).
3.3. The Reintroduction of Values
Camus characterizes the “absurdist position” itself as “the equiv-

alent, in existence, of Descartes’s methodical doubt” (R, 8). He
speaks, as well, of the role of “rebellion” in our lives as the same as
that of Descartes’s cogito “in the realm of thought,” both functioning
as a “first piece of evidence” (R, 22). He sees rebellion as one’s recog-
nition of the universality of the absurdity one once associated only
with one’s own life and experience, a recognition arrived at based
on a repeated experience of the conflict between the impossibility
of value judgments and the apparently inescapable expression of
just such judgments by any action one might perform (“To breathe
is to judge”) (R, 8). Camus takes that recognition to be analogous to
Descartes’s recognition of his own existence as a “thinking thing”
(res cogitans), a recognition arrived at based on the repeated experi-
ence of sources of information once accepted as reliable indicators
of truth being revealed as unreliable. Camus claims that the recog-
nition of the rebel, expressed by the formula “I rebel—therefore we
exist,” yields a “value” (R, 22).
Such a value, however, must be of a very specific kind, insofar as it
is based on the universalization of a sense of absurdity which, until
universalized, “does not provide us with values” at all (R, 9). Indeed,
it seems that what really motivates Camus to speak of any value
being generated by rebellion is simply his view of rebellious thought
as essentially consisting (much like absurdity) of tensions or contra-
dictory notions. The meaning of anything must be “obtain[ed] from
meaninglessness”; “[t]he world . . . is both movement and stability”;
and, most importantly for our present purposes, “[t]‌he moral value
brought to light by rebellion . . . assumes no reality in history until
man gives his life for it or dedicates himself entirely to it” (R, 296).
Not speaking of there being value in rebellion would not be true to
the essential feature of that phenomenon—the “tremendous ten-
sion created by refusing to give a positive or negative answer” (R,
25). But the only kind of value rebellion might engender, precisely
because that value is only to be understood as contrasting with lack
of value, so as to provide the tension built into the notion of rebel-
lion, has no positive content of its own. Such a value—let us, for
the sake of the present discussion, refer to it as “qualified value,” to
distinguish it from other values, which Camus takes issue with—
is “obtained from” valuelessness, not simply in the sense of having
lack of value as its origin, but because it is nothing but the negation
of the lack of value.
By contrast, any unqualified value one might think of
introducing, for Camus, would go against the rebel’s “original
purpose” (R, 25). Nietzsche, as Camus interprets him, proposes
just such an unqualified value. The details of Nietzsche’s proposal
will become an object of extensive criticism by Camus, as we shall
see. However, Camus’s criticism of Nietzsche begins with the very
transition from observing the vacuous nature of all (unqualified)
values to introducing a new unqualified value, of whatever spec-
ification. In this context, Camus again alludes to Descartes, this
time comparing him to Nietzsche. Just as Descartes embarks on a
“methodical doubt” concerning all sources of information, such as
one’s senses and mathematical reasoning, Nietzsche practices the
“methodical negation” of values (R, 66). And, similarly, Descartes’s
arrival at a presumed certainty (i.e., the “cogito”) is akin to

Nietzsche’s arrival at a new unqualified value (i.e., “total affirma-
tion” or “self-creation”). Camus alludes to this further comparison
between the conclusions of the two by stating, in this context, that
“according to Nietzsche, he who wants to be a creator of good or of
evil must first of all destroy all values” (R, 66).9
Nietzsche, be it noted, has his own criticism of Cartesian philos-
ophy, which, as Camus’s discussion reveals, is in fact applicable to
Nietzsche’s own philosophy. Nietzsche, criticizing the general no-
tion of “immediate certainties” in BGE 16, addresses Descartes’s co-
gito explicitly. After laying out reasons for thinking that Descartes’s
presumed certainty is unfounded, such as the shaky nature of the
assumptions that an “I” exists to begin with, or that the meaning of
the term “thinking” is immediately accessible or understandable,
Nietzsche goes on to address a representative of such Cartesian rea-
soning as follows: “ ‘Sir,’ the philosopher will perhaps give him to
understand, ‘it is improbable that you are not mistaken; but why in-
sist on the truth?’ ” It would not be surprising, and at any rate would
have been fitting, for Camus to have compared Nietzsche’s proce-
dure to Descartes’s with the intention of applying Nietzsche’s crit-
icism of Descartes to Nietzsche’s own reasoning. Nietzsche’s point
against Cartesian immediate certainty is that a process of method-
ical doubt concerning sources of certainty should lead one to antic-
ipate our inability to arrive at any certainty. What Nietzsche fails to
realize is that, similarly, his methodical demolition of unqualified
values should lead him to anticipate our inability to arrive at any
such value. The best we can hope to achieve, for Camus, is the per-
petual tension between our recognition of the total lack of value
in our lives and the qualified value in appreciating the applicability
9 In this respect Camus cites, quite appropriately, GM III.24, in which Nietzsche says
that “[i]‌f a temple is to be erected a temple must be destroyed” (trans. Kaufmann and
Hollingdale), and Z 2.12 (“On Self-Overcoming”): “Thus the highest evil belongs to the
highest goodness: but this is creative” (trans. Kaufmann).
of that total lack of value to everyone. Camus, then, might have

addressed Nietzsche, or anyone else attempting to reintroduce an
unqualified value on the basis of the rejection of all such values,
similarly to the way Nietzsche addresses the Cartesian, with the fol-
lowing modification: “ ‘Sir’ . . . it is improbable that you are not mis-
taken; but why insist on an unqualified value?’ ”
3.4. The Content of Nietzsche’s Proposed Value:

Deification of Fate and Self-Deification
As we have seen, Camus commends Nietzsche for observing the

fall of objective values, and for enunciating the inevitable problem
in reconciling that fact with the aspiration to make genuine choices.
He thinks of these ideas as the epitome of what he calls “rebellious
thought.” But Nietzsche goes wrong, Camus thinks, as soon as he
attempts to solve the problem at hand. As we saw in section 3.3, he
thinks Nietzsche cannot consistently introduce any new substan-
tive value to solve that problem. But, as we shall now see, Camus
finds the specific value Nietzsche chooses to introduce particu-
larly problematic. In fact, he directs the brunt of his criticism of
Nietzsche toward the content of that specific value, i.e., the value
one finds in what Nietzsche calls the “creation” (Schaffen) of oneself
and of the world, by which he has in mind the alignment, as far as
it can be achieved, of one’s will with the world as one experiences it
(see section 3.2).
For Camus, this goal is the farthest one imaginable from that
of “rebellious thought.” As we have already mentioned, Camus
thinks it is precisely when the rebel “forgets his original purpose”
that they begin their “desperate effort to create . . . the dominion of
man” (R, 25). And this happens, as he says, once “the throne of God
is overturned” (R, 25). The choice of the verb “create” to describe
the activity marking the rebel’s transgression against the purpose
of rebellion is not arbitrary. Nor is the description of this activity

as taking place after God’s dethroning or fall coincidental. Camus
clearly has Nietzsche in mind here. In Nietzsche’s specific case, as
Camus puts it later on (and his reading is supported by materials
from Zarathustra and elsewhere; see section 3.2), “creation” means
to “accept everything,” or “to say yes to the world” (R, 74). And
this is counter-rebellious, because in affirming the world in this
way, one replaces God with the world. The world is now “the only
divinity” (R, 74). What Camus must mean by speaking of Nietzsche’s
elevation of the world to the status of the deity, or by speaking of his
“deification of fate” (R, 72), is that Nietzsche places an ultimate value
on the world comparable to the one God had enjoyed before His
“death,” as Nietzsche would put it. Even though valuing the world
in that way does not bring back “[a]‌moral God, [acting from] pity,
and [offering] love” (R, 73), it does purport to alleviate the tension
rebellious thought has at its core. Genuine choice is no longer im-
possible, supposedly, because, although standard morality and tra-
ditional values are overthrown, one now can (and, according to the
new value system Nietzsche instills, one should) make the genuine
choice of accepting the world, both in general and in its various
details and events as they occur.
Nevertheless, Camus means to imply, the problem rebel-
lion addresses cannot be successfully solved by deifying the
world, just as it could not be solved by believing in God, and
for the same reason. While valuing God or the world of course
constitutes a value judgment, it does not necessarily enable any
further value judgment. For example, Camus thinks, it does not
guarantee value judgments concerning moral, interpersonal, and
social matters. One could believe in and value God and all His
deeds, and that stance could both alter one’s attitude concerning
one’s life and be continuously renewed and applied to specific
cases and situations. However, at any point one may in principle
wake up to the realization that, regardless of one’s beliefs, “[t]‌he
world continues on its course at random, and there is nothing
final about it” (R, 66–7).10 And on that realization, it is impos-

sible to make up one’s mind as to how one should, e.g., treat one’s
neighbor. For that purpose, and for valuing anything other than
God Himself, Camus says, God is rendered “useless, since He
wants nothing in particular” (R, 67).
Now, since this realization in fact focuses on the inability to find
value in the world, we might think that valuing the world in the way
Nietzsche proposes would escape the difficulty and provide us with
a satisfactory system of values, capable of grounding, e.g., moral
judgments. But that is not so. Again, the world in all its details may
be valued, and one may shape one’s life and attitude accordingly.
But, if the world is also taken to have “nothing final about it,” merely
valuing it would not enable, say, moral discriminations between
this or that decision or action occurring within it. If the only cri-
terion for valuing anything is its being (a part of) the world, then
we are left with no criterion for preferring certain things occurring
in the world over others. Such judgments are, as Camus puts it,
“based on what is, with reference to what should be—the kingdom
of heaven, eternal concepts, or moral imperatives” (R, 67). World
affirmation allows us to value our actions and decisions for “what
they are,” but it does not enable us to value them for what they
“should be”—a necessary condition, as Camus (understandably)
contends, for morally relevant judgments to occur.
This problem is illustrated, and aggravated, by the valuation
based on general world affirmation of one specific feature of the
world, namely oneself. Camus thinks that, on Nietzsche’s pro-
posal, it is not only the world that is being elevated to the status
of a deity. The person doing the affirmation also “participates in
the divinity of the world,” and she does so precisely by affirming it
(R, 73–4). Camus has already made the point that the (potential)
10 Presumably, to remain consistent, one would at that point be required to forgo belief
in God as endowing the world and phenomena within it with a purpose, if one held such
a belief to begin with.
rebel (alluding, as we have seen, specifically to Nietzsche) goes

wrong in beginning to contemplate replacing God by “creating . . .
the dominion of man” (R, 25). This act of creation begins with val-
uing or deifying the world, whereby one assumes the role of God.
Camus addresses Nietzsche’s choice of the word “creation” and
alludes to the “ambiguous meaning it has assumed” (R, 74). The
idea is that the act of affirming the world is equivalent to the crea-
tion of the world by the God of the Bible. In both cases, it is that very
act that is supposed to ground the value to be found in the world.
But, for Camus, as we have seen, both valuations are insufficient for
establishing a comprehensive value system, capable of generating,
e.g., criteria for morally acceptable behavior. For such a purpose
“man,” just like God before him, is “useless” (cf. R, 67). Nietzsche’s
proposal, as Camus understands it, was certainly meant to sup-
plant the belief in God, and to overcome the absurdity generated by
transcending that belief. But Nietzsche’s solution to the problem of
absurdity amounts to reverting to a conception of God, this time in
the form of the world, and consequently also of oneself (as a part of
that world). “Nietzsche’s message,” as Camus interprets it, “is that
the rebel can only become God by renouncing every form of rebel-
lion” (R, 73). But, as he thinks, this move would constitute a regres-
sion, rather than progress, and rebellion is therefore preferable.
Apart from being unable to generate a comprehensive value
system, there is a further potential problem with Nietzsche’s
proposed valuation of the world and of oneself. And, though Camus
does not discuss it explicitly, that further issue follows directly from
his comparison between Nietzsche’s view of the belief in God and
his (Nietzsche’s) idea of affirmation or creation. At GS 134, titled
“The greatest advantage of polytheism,” Nietzsche argues that mon-
otheism “was perhaps the greatest danger that has yet confronted
humanity.” The reason is that positing the existence of one and only
true deity (“one normal god”) allows for only one true way of life
(“one normal human type”), presumably the life dictated by that
deity or by one’s attitude toward it. Having only one acceptable way
of life, for Nietzsche, paves the way toward “premature stagnation,”

a state which he seems to characterize by the internalization of the
“morality of mores” (Sittlichkeit der Sitte), such that it is no longer
capable of being transcended. Nietzsche is not suggesting that belief
in God carries with it the risk of morality, e.g., in its Judeo-Christian
variety, becoming ingrained in future generations. What he argues
may become internalized in this way, i.e., Sittlichkeit, should be
rather understood in this context as a set of pre-moral customs or
norms shaping one’s way of life.11 Nietzsche argues that such cus-
toms lead to the belief in the immutability of “all of man’s inner life”
(GS 46), and he associates them with the high value standardly given
to an unshakable character, whose “views, aspirations, and even
faults” are not prone to change (GS 296). It is primarily such a belief
in the impossibility and undesirability of changing oneself and one’s
view that monotheism poses as a threat, according to Nietzsche.
Monotheism brings about this adherence to a single mode of
behavior and belief as being exclusively desirable and correct
by allowing for only one deity, according to Nietzsche. And so, if
Camus’s comparison between Nietzsche’s valuation of the world
and the belief in (one) God is apt, it directs Nietzsche’s criticism
of monotheism against his own proposed view. Just as monothe-
istic belief grants God a special status as the object of the highest
value, and thereby also privileges believers in God as behaving
and reasoning in a singularly appropriate way, Nietzsche’s view,
Camus would argue, grants the world a special status as the object
of the highest value, and thereby privileges those who affirm it as
behaving and reasoning in a singularly appropriate way. And so,
just like monotheism, the idea of world affirmation leads to “stag-
nation” by fixing an ideal and regarding any deviation from it as a
fault (cf. GS 134). Camus himself criticizes that aspect of Nietzsche’s
11 On this point, see S. Robertson, “The Scope Problem: Nietzsche, the Moral, Ethical
and Quasi-Aesthetic,” in C. Janaway and S. Robertson (eds.), Nietzsche, Naturalism and
Normativity (Oxford, 2012), 81–110, at 83 and n. 3.
view directly, for instance when he speaks of that view as “making

[rebellion] jump from the negation of the ideal to the secularization
of the ideal” (R, 77). Whether one venerates God or the world, it is
an error, and one that Nietzsche himself recognizes in a different
context, to expect such veneration to be singularly correct or to ex-
pect its object to be singularly valuable.
It may be retorted that Nietzsche’s view in fact does allow for, in-
deed anticipates, a change in human beings.12 Nietzsche speaks of
the “overman” as transcending humanity in its current form, and so
his idea of creation, it may be argued, should not in fact result in the
fixed or “stagnated” conception of humanity with which Nietzsche
charges monotheism (cf. GS 134). Importantly, however, Camus’s
criticism does not disregard that feature of Nietzsche’s view. Indeed,
for Camus, Nietzsche’s “overman” just is an appellation for human
beings once they have fully affirmed, “created,” or, as Camus would
put it, “deified,” the world and themselves. It is through affirmation,
as Camus puts it, that “a superior type of humanity” is supposed to be
achieved (R, 77–8). He goes on to put on a par Nietzsche’s contention
that “[t]‌he [human] species must be deified” with “his ideal of the
superman” which “must be adopted so as to assure salvation for all”
(R, 107). Surely, adopting world affirmation as a goal would require
some effort and change, just as the spread of monotheism initially
did. Camus’s point, though, is that, in the case of both, the ideal, once
achieved, is similarly problematic in being resistant to change.
Camus’s criticism does not leave out Nietzsche’s idea of the
eternal recurrence, either. Camus links this idea to his description
of Nietzsche’s view as deifying humanity. He says that for Nietzsche:
. . . he who consents to his own return and to the return of all

things, who becomes an echo and an exalted echo, participates
in the divinity of the world. . . . By this subterfuge, the divinity of
man is finally introduced. (R, 73)
12 See D. Sherman, Camus (Chichester, 2009), 153.

According to Camus here, it is the affirmation of the world, spe-

cifically by affirming the eternal return of all things and events in
the world, that constitutes the goal whose achievement results in
the human being that Nietzsche considers ideal. This interpre-
tation is based on Camus’s understanding of Nietzsche’s ideas of
affirmation as a goal, and of the human being fulfilling that goal—
the “overman,” according to Camus—as ideal. In the passage just
quoted, Camus adds the idea that affirmation is achieved through
accepting the doctrine of eternal recurrence, as Nietzsche himself
conveys, for instance when he speaks of the eternal recurrence as
“this topmost formula of affirmation (Bejahung)” (EH: Z, 1). But
the “divinity of man” that Camus speaks of in the quoted passage
(cf. R, 73), as we have seen, is based on his understanding of
Nietzsche’s idea of affirmation as deifying the world, and neither
of these requires an appeal to the doctrine of eternal recurrence in
order to work as a criticism of Nietzsche. It is thus ultimately irrele-
vant whether Camus takes Nietzsche to be advancing the eternal re-
currence as a cosmological thesis. It occasionally appears that he does,
e.g., when he characterizes it as the idea that “the world reproduces
itself in the course of its eternal gyrations” (R, 73). And, since the cos-
mological interpretation of Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal return has
been largely criticized in contemporary scholarship, this fact has been
used to dismiss not only Camus’s specific discussion of the eternal
recurrence, but also his criticism of Nietzsche’s view as “divinizing
the world.”13 However, as we have so far seen, Camus’s criticism of
Nietzsche’s idea of affirmation for “deifying” the world and oneself
is based on the valuation of these objects, and the consequences
of that valuation. And so, that criticism seems to stand, regard-
less of whether or not Nietzsche also takes the world to resemble
God in being eternal. Indeed, it is not even clear that Camus thinks
13 See W. E. Duvall, “Camus Reading Nietzsche: Rebellion, Memory and Art,” History
of European Ideas 25 (1999), 39–52, at 51 and n. 17. As a criticism of interpreting
Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal recurrence as a cosmological doctrine, Duvall cites A.
Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, MA, 1985). Cf. Sherman (2009), 153.
Nietzsche advances the eternal recurrence as a cosmological thesis.

Specifically with regard to human beings affirming themselves,
Camus explicitly denies them immortality on Nietzsche’s behalf,
saying that, for Nietzsche, “[d]‌ivinity without immortality defines
the extent of the creator’s freedom” (R, 73).14
In the aphorism that we began with from HH (I 28), Nietzsche
rebukes both optimism and pessimism, arguing that they are only
viable in a theological debate concerning a deity presented as per-
fectly good and purported to be responsible for the existence of
a perfect world. According to Camus’s criticism, Nietzsche’s own
view does not succeed in escaping the framework of such a debate.
Indeed, that criticism suggests that Nietzsche’s valuation of the
world and of oneself amounts to a deification of both, with the re-
sult that Nietzsche not only re-enters the debate between optimism
and pessimism, but also chooses sides, namely, he supports an op-
timistic view, taking the world and individual existence to be ulti-
mately valuable.15
14 As has been helpfully pointed out to me by Maciej Kałuża, Camus’s critique of

Nietzsche is prefigured by, and quite possibly influenced by, Karl Jaspers. In his
work on Nietzsche, originally published in 1936, Jaspers argues that “. . . in spite
of Nietzsche’s attempt to avoid transcendence by rejecting belief in God and
substituting pure this-worldliness, he remains strongly inclined to transcend”; K.
Jaspers, Nietzsche, trans. C. F. Wallraff and F. J. Schmitz (Chicago, 1965), 434. For
Jaspers, this tendency manifests itself in Nietzsche’s ideas of the eternal recurrence,
which “has taken the place of belief in God” (ibid., 430), and of the Übermensch,
which “is to be created to take the place of transcendence” (ibid., 432) (however, un-
like Camus, Jaspers [ibid.] thinks that the idea of the Übermensch, initially appearing
as intended to function as a surrogate for transcendence and as a goal, “in the end
becomes increasingly indefinite and disappears into a void”). Jaspers, like Camus
after him, thinks of Nietzsche’s positive view as betraying “an unbeliever’s will to
believe” (ibid., 435), and a dogmatic last resort after his nihilistic project (ibid., 442).
Another interesting criticism that Jaspers presents in this vein is that Nietzsche also
clings to tradition, glorifying the past, and in particular pre-S ocratic philosophy
(ibid., 443).
15 Simmel (1991, 136–9 et passim) ascribes to Nietzsche an optimistic view on which
life, and the features in which life affirms itself, have “absolute value” (while a final goal
of “the cosmic process” is rejected), and human evolution answers the “need for redemp-
tion.” Simmel (1991, 140–3) also assimilates Nietzsche’s view of the value of individuals
within the transcendent goal of evolution (and the “redemption” gained thereby) both to
Christianity and to Schopenhauer’s view in answering a desire for immortality or union
Nietzsche’s view thus turns out to be consonant with the two

propositions we have associated with optimism at the outset,
namely, that the world is optimally arranged and valuable (O1) and
that human life is preferable to our nonexistence (O2) (indeed, as
we have just seen, Nietzsche in fact goes beyond O2, as he thinks
that human life is not merely valuable enough to be preferable but
is indeed perfectly valuable as such). That is a particularly grave
charge, as far as Nietzsche is concerned, because Nietzsche, while
rejecting both optimism and pessimism, is particularly critical to-
ward optimists, whose view he considers especially pernicious (as
we saw at the beginning of this chapter; cf. EH IV.4). It is interesting,
in this respect, that Camus in fact also offers, besides the theoret-
ical critique of Nietzsche’s recommendation of the affirmation of
the world and of oneself, an account of the practical dangers of that
recommendation, to which we shall now turn.
3.5. The Implications of Nietzsche’s

Proposed Value: Suffering and Violence
Camus finds Nietzsche’s recommendation of the affirmation or cre-

ation (Schaffen) of both the world and oneself problematic for its
consequences as well. For Camus, the world affirmation Nietzsche
with “the absolute.” Simmel (1991, 164–5) wonders what the objective status of allegedly
valuable individual qualities in human life and its evolution in Nietzsche’s view might be
grounded in, if not in some “prior ranking”: “Only an optimistic and enthusiastic belief
in life [ . . . ] can regard values constituted by other sources as forming the nerve center of
life and of its actual development.”
See also Cartwright (1998, 141–2), who argues that Nietzsche’s rejection of both pes-
simism and optimism in HH I 28 is “an odd remark for the later advocate of eternal
recurrence and amor fati.” Cartwright (1998, 145–7) also points out an affinity between
Schopenhauer’s saints and Nietzsche’s Übermenschen, both being “telic” and “salvific”
ideals, rather than merely “prescriptive.” He concludes (1998, 150 n. 60) that Nietzsche’s
ideals of the Übermensch and the eternal recurrence are “ultimate optimism,” which goes
against Nietzsche’s description of himself as “giving Schopenhaurian pessimism greater
depth.” But, as I have already argued (cf. n. 5 in this chapter), at least the statement to that
effect at HH II, preface 1, should be understood quite differently.
advocates amounts to the “unreserved affirmation of human im-

perfection and suffering, of evil and murder, of all that is problem-
atic and strange in our existence” (R, 72). And, since affirming the
world entails affirming one’s own life, Nietzsche is also faced with
the consequence that “accepting this earth” means “to accept his
own suffering” (R, 74). As far as suffering is concerned, Nietzsche
would seem to be willing to “bite the bullet.” Though Zarathustra
speaks of creation as “the great redemption from suffering,” he
goes on to say that suffering is required for creating (“Upon the
Blessed Isles”; cf. BGE 225). He also assents to the claim that life
is merely suffering (“On the Preachers of Death”), proclaims him-
self “the advocate of suffering” (“The Convalescent,” 1), and, toward
the end of the book, famously says that his suffering and pity do
not matter, since it is not happiness that he seeks, but rather only
his work (“The Sign”). In BGE 270, similarly, Nietzsche states that
“[p]‌rofound suffering makes noble.”16 Nietzsche does not simply
acknowledge the need to affirm suffering, including one’s own, as
part of affirming the world in all its details. He positively welcomes
this result, thinking that suffering is part and parcel of the project of
recreating oneself and the world.17
However, it is not the acceptance of suffering per se that Camus
objects to. “After all,” as he puts it, “pain, exile or confinement are
sometimes accepted when dictated by good sense or by the doctor”
(R, 101). Rather, Camus criticizes Nietzsche for affirming suffering
without a satisfactory basis or reason for doing so. As we have seen,
he sees Nietzsche as initially facing the problem of accounting for
the possibility of genuine choice in the absence of objective values.
The impossibility of genuine choice implies, as one specific case,
the impossibility of deciding between violent action, leading to
suffering, and nonviolence. Thus, there is no reason not to inflict
16 Cartwright (1998, 137, 148) argues that the role of suffering in Nietzsche’s concep-
tion of self-overcoming is comparable to its role in Schopenhauer’s ideal of resignation.
17 For a recent discussion of Nietzsche’s views on suffering, see C. Janaway, “Attitudes
to Suffering: Parfit and Nietzsche,” Inquiry 60 (2017a), 66–95 and Janaway (2017b).
suffering and, by the same token, when suffering is inflicted, there

is no reason behind it. This is the problem Camus says any “rebel”
faces. It is the problem of being unable to justify suffering, or to have
“some principle by which [it] can [even] be explained” (R, 101). The
honest and courageous way to handle this problem, and hence the
way in which Camus’s “rebel” would handle it (if she does not forget
her purpose), is by acknowledging it and resigning oneself to it.
By contrast, whoever begins as a “rebel” but, like Nietzsche, is
overwhelmed by the consequences of the tensions that rebellion
implies, seeks to supplant old and obsolete values with new ones.
He seeks “a moral philosophy or a religion” (R, 101). In Nietzsche’s
case, Camus thinks, the new value is the ultimate value placed on
the world in all its details, and the new religion is the one deifying
the world and oneself. As we saw in section 3.4, however, Camus
argues that Nietzsche’s proposal fails to support a value system
grounding any value judgment or justifying (or denouncing) any
action or decision. A fortiori, that proposal is incapable of justifying
either the infliction or the undergoing of pain or suffering as such.
These can only be justified insofar as suffering might be useful or
even necessary for bringing about the change in one’s character that
enables one to affirm the world and oneself. But, once affirmation
has been reached (say, by all human beings in existence), Camus
points out, Nietzsche’s view cannot consistently yield any further
criterion by applying which we would have reasons to prefer either
to inflict or to undergo suffering rather than its opposite, in any
given case.18
18 Nehamas (1985, 135–6) argues that, for Nietzsche, the value of suffering depends
on whether one can affirm it as an essential part of one’s life, whose projected value as
a whole is based on the “organization” of its parts and the “greatness” it exemplifies.
Neiman (2015, 225–6) interestingly argues that for Nietzsche life has no “meaning” (viz.
“intelligibility” or “sense”) but, since she takes his notion of affirmation to be meant to
justify life, including the suffering within it, “aesthetically,” I take it that on her view, too,
Nietzschean affirmation is nested in (aesthetic) value. Janaway (2017b, 162–5), who also
argues that suffering for Nietzsche has no fixed normative value, maintains that it is good
if and when it contributes to “growth” or “wellbeing.” The brunt of Camus’s criticism of
Nietzsche’s view is that it cannot take up any such criterion for valuation consistently.
Now, insofar as it is purported to be able to yield such a criterion,

Nietzsche’s idea of affirmation “destroys,” as Camus puts it, and it
“ends in murder and loses the right to be called rebellion” (R, 101).
Unlike rebellion, which gives up on justification and the stable basis
for any normative judgment, Nietzsche’s idea of affirmation leads
one to believe that normative justifications and values are available.
And if, lacking any genuine criteria for normative valuation, one is
nevertheless committed to the existence or potential existence of
normative values and justifications, one should not be surprised
if any behavior whatsoever ends up being perceived as justified or
valuable, including the infliction of suffering or “murder.” This is
what Camus has in mind when he points out that valuing the af-
firmation of the “totality of human experience” clears the path for
those who “would gather strength from lies and murder” (R, 77).
And, when he goes on to state that Nietzsche’s “involuntary re-
sponsibility goes farther” (R, 77), he means to say that Nietzsche’s
proposal not only allows for the sporadic justification or valua-
tion of violence, but also enables their systematization. As Camus
sees it, by deifying that individual who succeeds in achieving the
Nietzschean ideal of creation, Nietzsche introduces the expecta-
tion for such an achievement to “eventually lead to a superior type
of humanity” (R, 78). A system resulting from such an expectation
would be one in which “crime could no longer serve as an argument
and in which the only value reside[s]‌in the divinity of man” (R, 79).
Frequently recurring horrendous acts or dispositions can, due to
their prevalence, make their way into the conception of humanity
to be affirmed, resulting in the idealization or deification of humans
capable of, indeed priding themselves in, unthinkable horrors.19
19 Nehamas (1985, 167): “I think [Nietzsche] realizes that his framework [i.e., ‘his
ideal life, the life of the Übermensch’] is compatible with more types of life than he
would himself be willing to praise. This is a risk inherent in his ‘immoralism,’ and it
is a risk he is willing to take.” See also Neiman (2015), 221. Simmel (1991, 159–60)
argues against understanding Nietzsche’s “immoralism” as “a negation of morals.”
Simmel (1991, 168–9), however, does recognize that Nietzsche is willing to endorse
The first example that comes to our mind, as to Camus’s, is National

Socialism (R, 79).
It is sometimes argued against Camus’s criticism of Nietzsche
that Nietzsche’s idea of affirmation does not in fact amount to
total affirmation. Specifically, Nietzsche’s proposal leaves room for
negating nihilism, a negation which is indeed deemed necessary,
if affirmation is to be established as genuinely valuable.20 Camus
recognizes, of course, that the value Nietzsche proposes, with its
problematic implications, appears after nihilism, and indeed as a
response to the void created by the nihilistic rejection of previous
values:
We also remark that it is not in the Nietzschean refusal to

worship idols that murder finds its justification, but in the
passionate approbation that distinguishes Nietzsche’s work.
To say yes to everything supposes that one says yes to murder.
(R, 76)
For Camus, though Nietzsche responds to nihilism, he certainly

does not reject it. There is, to begin with, the obvious point
that affirming world history must include the affirmation of
nihilism as a momentous part of cultural development. More to
the point, Nietzsche’s idea of affirmation, as Camus understands
it, depends on there being no objective values—indeed, af-
firmation is, essentially, the acceptance of that nihilistic state
of affairs. Nihilism, then, is not rejected after all. The trouble,
as Camus sees it, is that Nietzsche fails to fully appreciate the
significance of accepting the fact that no objective values exist
“selfishness,” “recklessness,” “harshness,” and even “cruelty” in the service of “perma-

nent values” and “strength.”
20 A. Woodward, “Camus and Nihilism,” Sophia 50.4 (2011), 543–59 at 547–8, citing
Deleuze; Sherman (2009), 153.
and expects normative justifications to be attainable despite that

fact. As a result, he suggests affirmation as a value by which one
might nevertheless shape one’s conduct. But, without recourse
to objective values (precisely because nihilism is still accepted
and operative), that suggestion fails to provide any criterion
for moral judgment. It thus, as Camus puts it, indirectly entails
saying “yes to murder” (R, 76).
Finally, it is true that Camus, in criticizing Nietzsche for
the practical consequences of his view, seems to draw a neces-
sary causal connection between Nietzsche’s works and the rise
of twentieth-century atrocities. He states that the “desperate
effort to create . . . the dominion of man” (his description of
Nietzsche’s project, as we have seen) “will not come about
without terrible consequences” (R, 25), and that absolute assent,
like absolute negation, “ends in murder” (R, 101). He also says,
citing Dostoevsky, that in giving human beings “the opportu-
nity for dishonesty . . . one could always be sure of seeing them
rushing to seize it” (R, 77).21 Nevertheless, this criticism pri-
marily targets the open- ended nature of Nietzsche’s posi-
tion. The point is that, because affirming the world provides us
with no comprehensive value system, any value system can be
constructed and supported consistently on the basis of such af-
firmation. Conceivably, then, instead of systematic murder,
Nietzschean affirmation could have been consistently adapted
into a system of charity and goodwill, both options being avail-
able due to the same theoretical weakness inherent in Nietzsche’s
idea. Camus may think that human nature would inevitably
tip the scale toward the less promising side, but his criticism of
Nietzsche does not hang on that fact.
21 Sherman (2009, 153–4) accepts Camus’s attribution to Nietzsche of “responsibility

for what was made of him,” partly because Nietzsche “not only speaks of truths that his
contemporaries are not ready to hear but does so in a way that can appear to support
their own worst proclivities.” But see the following footnote.
3.6. Camus’s Alternative and Its Limitations
As Camus sees it, Nietzsche runs into theoretical difficulties by

attempting to solve the problem he recognizes, correctly, in the
postulation of any normative value. Camus thinks that such a so-
lution is doomed to fail, and that the details of Nietzsche’s spe-
cific attempt at a solution are particularly unsatisfactory. Camus’s
own proposal, in keeping with this line of reasoning, is to give in
completely to the recognition of the original problem. Through
“rebellious thought” we come to discover that the most extreme
form of freedom, viz. freedom from all values, leaves us with no
freedom of perhaps the most desirable kind, viz. it leaves us with
no freedom to plan our lives, or to act, based on genuine choices.
Precisely what went wrong with previous potential rebels, such
as Nietzsche, is that they forgot the “original purpose” of rebel-
lion, and “tire[d] of the tremendous tension created by refusing
to give a positive or negative answer” (R, 25). Camus suggests we
should recognize that this tension is insurmountable, and live
accordingly. He views it as our task to preserve moderation (R,
301), which he understands as the acceptance of the coexistence
of contraries (meaning and meaninglessness; stability and move-
ment; innocence and culpability; etc.) (R, 296–7).22 That task,
though admittedly difficult, ultimately bears fruit. Camus says
that moderation “shines brightly at the climax of an interminable
effort” (R, 301). Confronted with the problem posed by rebellious
thought, it is highly challenging to fight the urge to introduce new
idols or novel values by which to live. But that is precisely what
22 It is interesting to note that Sherman (2009, 153) takes “the nub of truth in Camus’s
position” to be that Nietzsche “walk[s]‌a perilously thin tightrope” between absolute ne-
gation and absolute affirmation, and “occasionally falls to one of these sides or the other”
(it is also partly based on this idea that Sherman accepts Camus’s attribution to Nietzsche
of responsibility for atrocities done in his name; see the previous footnote). However,
if that were Camus’s perception of Nietzsche’s view, then, based on our analysis in this
chapter, he would not have criticized Nietzsche for it, but rather would have commended
him for adhering to a form of “moderation,” or at least for attempting to do so.
is expected of the true rebel, who would realize the illegitimacy

of all such values and idols. In The Rebel, Camus emphasizes the
severity of that very problem, which Nietzsche, who formulated
it so adequately and influentially himself, nevertheless futilely
proceeded to attempt to solve.
However, Camus’s positive proposal seems to face a serious
challenge. His notions of “the absurd,” “rebellion,” and “mod-
eration,” to repeat, represent the recognition and acceptance of
irresoluble conflict and contradiction. Camus’s is a radical prop-
osition, according to which one in principle cannot expect to
determine whether or not there are values. Thus, the rebel, in
Camus’s view, recognizes that total freedom from values goes
hand in hand with the absence of freedom to make meaningful
decisions (R, 71). The true rebel refuses to acknowledge either
value or valuelessness, and declares nothing either meaningful
or meaningless (R, 25, 296). They are not committed to the exist-
ence of any substantive value, and indeed allow for talk of value
(“qualified value,” as we have called it) only insofar as they are
also unwilling to conclusively assert the nonexistence of values.23
Recognizing this inability to “give a positive or negative answer”
(R, 25), Camus says, is the best we can aspire to. Toward the end
of The Rebel, he argues that, though we may not wish to expect
23 It has been argued, by contrast, that Camus’s notion of rebellion represents a “love
of existence” paralleling Nietzsche’s “amor fati,” and that the rebel for him adopts “in-
dividual ‘dignity’ or ‘integrity’ ” as “a supreme good” or “universal value”; see M. Ure,
“Camus and Nietzsche: On the Slave Revolt in Morality,” in M. Sharpe, M. Kaluza, and
P. Francev (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Camus (Leiden/Boston, 2020), 137–57 at 144,
151–4. (For Ure [2020, 155–6], though, Camus’s rebels ultimately fail by succumbing
to a comparison between themselves and others, and hence to ressentiment.) But while
Camus characterizes rebellion as involving “the sublimation of the individual in a hence-
forth universal good,” which he unpacks in terms of the rebel being “willing to sacrifice
himself for the sake of a common good” (R, 15), he also quickly adds that the values
in whose name the rebel acts thus “are still indeterminate” (R, 16). More importantly,
Camus later clarifies that rebellion’s “universe is the universe of relative values” and that
“it only repeats that all is possible and that [ . . . ] it is worth making the supreme sacrifice
for the sake of the possible” (R, 290).
rebellion to “to solve everything” (R, 305), “[n]‌o possible form

of wisdom today can claim to give more” than it does (R, 303).
The mistake of failed rebels, like Nietzsche, we are given to infer,
lies in their desire to seek more than is attainable, in particular
to establish stable and consistent meaning and value (or, indeed,
meaninglessness and valuelessness) where none can be found.
A true rebel, by contrast, must be satisfied with less, and must
resign herself to being unable, in principle, to make any definite
determinations concerning value.
Given this prospect, it is understandable that Nietzsche, e.g.,
would not remain a consistent “rebel,” as Camus thinks he once was
(prior to 1880, as is exemplified in HH I 28, which we discussed
earlier). It has been argued that Camus, despite disassociating him-
self from pessimism in certain contexts, nevertheless himself holds
a pessimistic view, raising “issues” such as “the burden of temporality,
the dearth of happiness, the futility of striving, boredom, and many
others.”24 But rebels, as Camus understands and glorifies them, can
affirm neither value or meaning nor their contraries, and hence
ultimately can take no position on the debate between optimism
and pessimism.25 A value theory based on the principles of rebel-
lion in fact seems impossible, since the ideal upon which it would
have been based (namely, “moderation”) is essentially devoid of
any content. This is a problem that Camus himself recognizes, and
he consequently ultimately refrains from letting rebellion stand as
is. In the very last sentence of The Rebel, he announces that “[a]‌t
the moment of supreme tension, there will leap into flight an un-
swerving arrow, a shaft that is inflexible and free” (R, 306). This
statement seems to promise a resolution to the tension inherent
24 Dienstag (2006), 118–22.

25 Neiman (2015, 296–8) stresses the tensions in Camus’s thought between the “depth
of metaphysical evil” and “the bleakness of the cosmos,” on the one hand, and an “oddly
hopeful picture of the human,” on the other hand, and between an affirmative and a dis-
approving attitude toward “Creation” (in the face of hatred toward “the Creator”).
in moderation and, what is more, genuine freedom.26 And such a

promise certainly does not sit comfortably with Camus’s insistence
on the contradiction between freedom and unfreedom inherent in
the human condition.
Arguably, Camus’s notion of “moderation” and its limitations
are meant to be exemplified in The Fall—the last novel published
during Camus’s lifetime. Throughout the work, Camus goes out of
his way to imbue his protagonist, Jean-Baptiste Clamence, with the
tensions and contradictions characterizing “rebellion” and “moder-
ation” in The Rebel. According to Clamence’s report about his past,
he used to love to help blind people cross the street (F, 20),27 but
also witnessed a woman jump to her death from a bridge without
helping her or even reporting the incident (F, 70). He transitioned
from “chastity” to “debauchery” (F, 102). He speaks of the double
nature of humanity, of his profession and of himself (F, 10), and
states that as humans “we lack the energy of evil as well as the en-
ergy of good,” like the “neutral angels” in Dante’s Limbo (F, 83–4).
It is no surprise, then, that interpretations of The Fall are often as
mutually contradictory as Clamence’s own actions and sentiments.
Some see in the novel a caricature of Nietzsche’s glorification of
fate, with Clamence understood as a paragon of self-affirmation
(and thus, we might say, of optimism).28 Others read it as endorsing
non-Nietzschean values (or rather, we might say, as endorsing the
pessimistic assessment of human nonexistence as preferable to its
opposite), with Clamence as self-denying.29
26 Indeed, Camus makes a similar point already in the Myth of Sisyphus. As Dienstag
(2006, 132) notes: “Confronting the absurd anew, Camus believes, ‘restores and
magnifies . . . my freedom of action. That privation of hope and future mean an increase
in man’s availability’ (MS 56–57).” Dienstag is quoting from A. Camus, The Myth of
Sisyphus and Other Essays, trans. J. O’Brien (New York, 1991).
27 Translations of and page numbers for The Fall are taken from J. O’Brien (1956).
28 W. E. Duvall, “Camus’s ‘Fall’: From Nietzsche,” Historical Reflections /Réflexions
Historiques 21.3 (1995), 537–52.
29 See Sherman (2009, 99), for whom Clamence “makes use of a subjective reason that
is life-denying rather than life-affirming” [ . . . ] “the values that Clamence brings about
are diametrically opposed to Nietzsche’s own objectives.”
The most plausible interpretation of Clamence in The Fall,

however, is as a consistent rebel, whose tragic end brings to the
fore the flaws inherent in the worldview and ideal portrayed and
recommended in The Rebel. As Aronson puts it, commenting on
the novel:30
The most seemingly straightforward features of life are in fact

ambiguous and even contradictory. Camus recommends that we
avoid trying to resolve them. We need to face the fact that we can
never successfully purge ourselves of the impulses that threaten to
wreak havoc with our lives. Camus’s philosophy, if it has a single
message, is that we should learn to tolerate, indeed embrace the
frustration and ambivalence that humans cannot escape.
I would add to this interpretation that, as mentioned earlier, Camus

by The Fall shows signs of disillusionment with the prospects of
adopting that solution of reconciliation with, and embracing of, the
tensions inherent in the human condition (in short, with “modera-
tion”). Clamence, having once glorified the “freedom” that modera-
tion was meant to afford by embracing absurdity and contradiction
(just as Camus himself does in the last sentence of The Rebel), ulti-
mately grows seriously skeptical about it:
Once upon a time, I was always talking of freedom. At break-

fast I used to spread it on my toast, I used to chew it all day long,
and in company my breath was delightfully redolent of freedom.
[ . . . ] I must be forgiven such rash acts; I didn’t know what I was
doing. I didn’t know that freedom is not a reward or a decoration
that is celebrated with champagne. [ . . . ] Oh, no! It’s a chore, on
the contrary, and a long-distance race, quite solitary and very ex-
hausting. [ . . . ] At the end of all freedom is a court sentence; that’s
30 R. Aronson, “Albert Camus” (SEP 2011, rev. 2017), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/

camus/.
why freedom is too heavy to bear [ . . . ]. Ah, mon cher, for anyone
who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of
days is dreadful. (F, 132–3)
In short, you see, the essential is to cease being free and to obey, in
repentance, a greater rogue than oneself. (F, 136)
The audience of Clamence’s preaching, by his own reckoning,

exhibits “the melancholy of the common condition and the despair
of not being able to escape it” (F, 143). Finally, when Clamence
talks of his own happiness, he refers to the words “I am happy” as
“evil words,” and proceeds to describe the memory of youth as one
that “drives one to despair” (F, 144).
Clamence’s life is a (fictional) case study in following rebellion as
a guide. After a period of fully embracing contradiction and living
accordingly, Clamence is on a downward spiral, ending in his re-
nunciation of his former expectation to benefit from “moderation”
by gaining freedom. By presenting Clamence in this fashion, Camus
signals that his own ideal of “moderation” cannot bring about the
positive outcome originally envisaged for it. Rather, establishing
moderation as one’s ideal inevitably involves the adoption of a non-
theory and the inability to make meaningful decisions.
4
Aristotle’s Critique
of Ancient Pessimism
So far, we have focused on Schopenhauer as a representative of

pessimism, and indeed of the opposition to philosophical opti-
mism. The other criticisms discussed (Nietzsche’s critique of
Schopenhauer and Camus’s critique of Nietzsche) identify la-
tent optimism within a purportedly non-optimistic view, thereby
showing the view in question to be internally inconsistent. But
those critiques do not attack the optimism inherent in such views
as such (what is more, both Nietzsche’s and Camus’s views ul-
timately run into theoretical problems of their own, as we have
seen). In the remaining discussion, we shall examine an opti-
mistic view advanced by Aristotle and developed by Maimonides.
As we shall see, the view propounded by these authors not only
succeeds in avoiding inconsistency by embracing optimism
wholeheartedly, but also manages to escape the basic critiques of
optimism mounted by Schopenhauer. To be sure, these thinkers
work in entirely different periods and philosophical traditions,
and any comparison between them should be careful to avoid
anachronism as far as possible. To see why Aristotelian optimism
can nevertheless pose an alternative to Schopenhauer’s pessi-
mism, it would be useful to look at Schopenhauer once again, and
to isolate those features in his views that appeared on the scene
(as Schopenhauer himself recognizes) already in ancient Greece,
and that Aristotle therefore could respond to in his writings, as
he indeed does. In this chapter, we shall focus on a fragment from
Aristotle’s Eudemus, which relates a story about Silenus who,
upon being captured by King Midas, states a version of philo-

sophical pessimism reminiscent of Schopenhauer’s negative as-
sessment of humanity and human life (as well as of P2, the second
proposition we have associated with pessimism, viz., that human
nonexistence would have been preferable to our existence). We
shall see that Aristotle ultimately opposes such pessimism, and
that his response to it can be applicable to Schopenhauer’s posi-
tion without egregious anachronism.
4.1. Aristotle on Ancient Pessimism
In Consolatio ad Apollonium 115b–e (Eudemus fragment 6, Ross),

Plutarch discusses the “many and wise men” who, both now and in
the distant past, have assessed human existence negatively, thinking
that life is a penalty (τιμωρίαν) and that being born is the biggest
misfortune (συμφορὰν τὴν μεγίστην). He reports that “Aristotle
says that Silenus, too, has declared this, upon being captured by
Midas,” and proceeds to quote a passage from Aristotle’s lost dia-
logue Eudemus, or On the Soul. Elsewhere, Plutarch tells us that the
Eudemus was meant to commemorate Eudemus of Cyprus after his
death (Plut. Dion 22.3 =Eudemus fragment 1a, Ross) and, as both
the alternative title and the surviving fragments of the work sug-
gest, the discussion in it focused on issues concerning the nature of
the human soul, death, and immortality. Plutarch quotes from the
dialogue as follows:
“For this reason, O greatest of all and most blessed, besides

believing that the dead are blessed and happy, and that it is not
pious to say something false concerning them and to slander
[them], just as [it is not pious to say something false] concerning
people who have presently become better and greater— and
these things [are] so old and ancient in our midst that no one at
all knows the starting time, nor the person who has laid [them]
Aristotle’s Critique of Ancient Pessimism 115
down first, but they continue to be believed through unlimited

eternity—besides these things, indeed, you see that [idea] which,
being repeated, is circulated for many years by people through
word of mouth.” “What is this?” he said. And that person,
responding, said: “that not to come into being is best of all, and
that dying is better than living. And it has been attested thus
to many people by the daemonic. And I suppose they say that
when that Midas, after the chase at which he captured Silenus,
asked and inquired what on earth is best for human beings and
what is the most choice-worthy of all, first [Silenus] wanted to
say nothing but to keep inexpressibly silent. But, after using just
about every device, he induced him to utter something to him,
being compelled, he said: ‘ephemeral seed of a painful daemon
and severe luck, why do you force me to say those things that
are better for you not to know? For, the most painless life is [the
one lived] with ignorance of the evils proper to oneself. But for
human beings, it is impossible for the best thing of all to come
into being, nor [is it possible for them] to partake of the nature
of the best (for, best for all men and women is not to come into
being); indeed, after this and primary among the things practi-
cable for a human being, second, is, having come into being, to
die as soon as possible.’ It is clear, therefore, that he spoke thus
to the effect that what is carried out in death (τῆς ἐν τῷ τεθνάναι
διαγωγῆς) is better than that in life.”
The view attributed to Silenus in this text—that the best thing

for humans is “not to come into being” (μὴ γενέσθαι), and that
second best is for them “to die as soon as possible” (ἀποθανεῖν ὡς
τάχιστα)—is endorsed neither by the speaker in this part of the di-
alogue nor by Aristotle himself as author. Nor does Plutarch claim
that Silenus’s statement reflects Aristotle’s own view, stating care-
fully that it is what Aristotle says Silenus has declared (115b5–
6). Rather, Aristotle commits himself in the text only to the
propositions that (a) “the dead are blessed and happy” and that, as
Silenus should have stated, (b) “what is carried out in death is better
than that in life.”
Both of these propositions, as we shall see, are in line with
Aristotle’s views in the extant corpus. In Nicomachean Ethics I.10–
11, Aristotle asks whether happiness can be attributed to the dead.
His discussion there, together with his discussion of friendship
in Nicomachean Ethics IX.9, yields the conclusion that the happi-
ness of dead virtuous agents may persist in case a friend sharing
relevantly similar characteristics with them continues to act vir-
tuously on their behalf, supporting proposition (a). And, in the
Metaphysics and De anima, Aristotle is committed to the persist-
ence of the human intellect after death, supporting proposition
(b). Furthermore, the particular formulation of these propositions
in the Eudemus fragment helps to further our understanding of
Aristotle’s views in the corpus of the status and value of human
death and of the relation of that status to the type of immortality
available to humans. Aristotle repeats his claim that death is an evil
in several parts of the corpus but does not offer an explanation for
it. In the Eudemus fragment, he provides such an explanation. By
linking the rejection of Silenus’s commendation of human nonex-
istence to Aristotle’s own views on the happiness of the dead and the
immortality of the human intellect, Aristotle indicates that com-
mitment to propositions (a) and (b) is insufficient to make death
count as a good thing. Because there is no personal immortality,
but rather only either a temporary continuance of one’s happiness
by one’s friends or the eternal persistence of an impersonal intellect,
no individual human would enjoy any good posthumously, and so
death cannot be positively valuable for them. Nor, I shall argue, can
death be considered good from the standpoint of either the human
species or the universe at large, given Aristotle’s overall theory.
This reading of the Eudemus fragment strongly suggests that,
in the dialogue, Aristotle not only did not straightforwardly ad-
here to either conventional wisdom or Plato’s view, but vehemently
criticized both. Silenus’s dictum in the fragment, which Aristotle
rejects, reflects both dominant voices in earlier Greek literature and

popular opinion. Silenus endorses what Werner Jaeger has called the
“naive pessimism” of “popular wisdom,” according to which life is
simply too burdensome to be worth the trouble (regardless of what
might or might not happen posthumously),1 and it has been noted
that Silenus’s words, taken at face value, echo many occurrences of
pessimism in Ancient Greek literature expressing a similar senti-
ment.2 They have been instructively compared, for instance, to the
similar statement by Sophocles to the effect that “not to be born” (μὴ
φῦναι) is best and that second best is to return to where one came
from “as soon as possible” (ὡς τάχιστα) (OC, 1224–7).3 Indeed, it has
been noted that Aristotle himself does not regard Silenus’s words as
containing anything “very novel.”4 For, he prefaces his introduction
of the story by saying that the dictum that “not coming into being
is best of all and that to die is better than living” “endures in repeti-
tion by human beings through word of mouth for many years” (Plut.
Cons. ad Apoll. 115c7–d2). Aristotle, to repeat, alters that opinion
directly and substantively, so that he is at most willing to regard only
an appropriately revised version of it (namely, the two propositions
he endorses in the fragment, as we have outlined them) as true.
Apart from suggesting that Silenus’s dictum reflects popular
wisdom, Jaeger also reads Platonism into the specific wording
Aristotle chooses for Silenus, who opposes “becoming” (γενέσθαι)
in favor of, as Jaeger maintains, the soul’s eternal contemplation of
Forms in an afterlife.5 Jaeger’s influential conclusion is that in the
1 See W. Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Philosophy, trans. R.

Robinson (Oxford, 1948), 48.
2 See M. Davies, “Aristotle Fr. 44 Rose: Midas and Silenus,” Mnemosyne 57 (2004),
682–97 at 682 n. 2; M. Hubbard, “The Capture of Silenus,” Proceedings of the Cambridge
Philological Society 21 (1975), 53–62, at 59.
3 See W. Nestle, “Der Pessimismus und seine Überwindung bei den Griechen,” Neue
Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum 47 (1921), 81–97, at 86, who also notes that this
dictum goes back to Thgn. Elegiae, I. 425–8.
4 Hubbard (1975), 59.
5 Jaeger (1948), 48; Hubbard (1975), 49. Hubbard leaves it open “whether at the date
of the Eudemus Aristotle was still intellectually committed to this essentially Platonic
Eudemus Aristotle “is completely on Platonic ground.”6 Indeed,

Plato in the Phaedo commends death in a way reminiscent of
earlier Greek literature, and both are echoed by Silenus’s words
in Aristotle’s Eudemus. Again, on the reading I will be offering,
Aristotle rejects Silenus’s position, in particular the proposition that
never coming into being is best and that dying as soon as possible is
second best, along with the occurrences of that pessimistic position
in both popular opinion and Plato’s philosophy, especially in the
Phaedo.7
We shall first see, based on a close reading of the fragment of
the Eudemus, that Aristotle in this text rejects Silenus’s statement,
and retains the propositions mentioned earlier, namely, that hap-
piness is applicable to the dead and that the activity in death is
better than the one in life. I will argue that these two propositions
are supported, respectively, by Aristotle’s discussions of the
happiness of the dead in the Ethics and of the immortality of
the intellect in the Metaphysics and De anima (as well as other
fragments of the Eudemus). We will then turn to the issue of the
evaluation of death and see that the Eudemus fragment sheds
position or whether he was merely using it for consolatory purposes.” One problem
with Jaeger’s interpretation of Silenus’s words as deviating from popular opinion toward
Platonic metaphysics is the fact that Aristotle already uses the supposedly Platonic ter-
minology of “becoming” in laying out the apparently universal opinion that it is best of
all “not to come into being” (μὴ γενέσθαι), at Plut. Cons. ad Apoll. 115c7–d2. Thus, it is
hard to imagine why, as Hubbard (1975, 49) suggests, “[i]‌t seems reasonable to suppose
that Midas did not torment Silenus so savagely just to find out what everybody knew al-
ready, but that the form of the revelation in Silenus’s mouth had some extra relevance to
the purposes of the Eudemus.”
6 Jaeger (1948), 48.
7 Bos suggests that our Eudemus fragment deviates from Plato’s Phaedo, though,
interestingly, not by rejecting the view of earthly existence as punishment, but rather
by intensifying it, extending it beyond humans (such as Midas) to all beings sharing a
body (such as Silenus), and indeed to the “entire cosmos,” with the one exception being
“pure, free nous”; see A. P. Bos, Cosmic and Meta-Cosmic Theology in Aristotle’s Lost
Dialogues (Leiden, 1989), 104–5. But whereas Silenus is indeed “introduced as the pris-
oner of greedy king Midas,” that imprisonment does not extend to Silenus’s view in the
fragment that it is better, specifically for human beings (ἀνθρώποις: 115e2; ἀνθρώπῳ
[Babbitt 1962] or ἀνθρώποις [Ross]: 115e6), not to be born or to die as soon as possible,
and in this sense, as Bos says himself, “Silenus is presented as the one who is much more
free” (1989, 104).
considerable light on Aristotle’s view on that matter. Finally, we

shall see that Aristotle’s rejection of ancient pessimism applies
also to Schopenhauer’s version of the theory. As Schopenhauer
himself rightly notes, his own pessimism is grounded in, and is
largely akin to, views traceable back to ancient thought and lit-
erature. It is true that Schopenhauer does not subscribe to Plato’s
view of human immortality, and it is quite possible that he
elects not to cite Silenus’s dictum in Aristotle’s Eudemus as sup-
port for his own view because he wishes to dissociate himself
from the Platonic view of immortality that this fragment seems
to echo. Nevertheless, the pessimism with regard to human ex-
istence expressed by Silenus’s dictum is fully congruent with
Schopenhauer’s view, and Aristotle’s response to it is therefore di-
rectly applicable to Schopenhauer. Indeed, Aristotle’s reaction to
pessimism and his proposed alternative view could not be easily
dismissed by Schopenhauer. Although Schopenhauer criticizes
Aristotle’s endorsement of human immortality, Aristotle’s rejec-
tion of pessimism is quite independent of that commitment, and
his optimistic theory is in fact in line with Schopenhauer’s rejec-
tion of personal immortality as one finds it in Plato. This paves the
way toward viewing Aristotle’s theory as potentially overcoming
Schopenhauer’s challenge to optimism (discussed in Chapter 1).
4.2. The Propositions Committed to in

Eudemus Fragment 6, Ross
Right at the outset, the fragment introduces a certain belief as

worthy of being endorsed, with the anticipation of a second such
belief to follow:
διόπερ, ὦ κράτιστε πάντων καὶ μακαριστότατε, πρὸς τῷ

μακαρίους καὶ εὐδαίμονας εἶναι τοὺς τετελευτηκότας νομίζειν
καὶ τὸ ψεύσασθαί τι κατ᾽αὐτῶν καὶ τὸ βλασφημεῖν οὐχ
ὅσιον ὡς κατὰ βελτιόνων [ἡγούμεθα] καὶ κρειττόνων ἤδη

γεγονότων. . . . (115b9–c3)8
For this reason, O greatest of all and most blessed, besides

believing that the dead are blessed and happy, and that it is not
pious to say something false concerning them and to slander
[them], just as [it is not pious to say something false] concerning
people who have presently become better and greater. . . .
The description of what is stated in this passage as old and ancient

“in our midst” (παρ’ ἡμῖν) at 115c4 suggests that it is “we”—the
speaker, the addressee, and presumably people generally speaking,
indeed throughout the ages—who take it to be true. The content
of the statement is that the dead are happy, and that it is impious
to lie about them. Contrary to the tendency in the translations of
this text,9 this part of the text need not say that upon death people
become “better and greater.” At this point, all we can attribute to
Aristotle (or, more accurately, to the speaker in the dialogue) is the
idea that lying about the dead and lying about our superiors are
both unholy. And that is just as well, because, as we shall see, the
idea that something in death is superior to life—specifically, that
the activity carried out in death is better than the ones carried out
in a human life—is indeed stated later in the text as the additional
belief anticipated here (i.e., by πρὸς at 115b10).
The additional belief anticipated previously is discussed be-
ginning at 115c7 (πρὸς δὲ δὴ τούτοις). The discussion is convo-
luted. Aristotle first brings up the ancient dictum that not to come
into existence is “best of all” and that “to die is better than living”
(115c8–d1). He then recounts the celebrated story of Midas and
8 The text follows F. C. Babbitt, Plutarch’s Moralia, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA, 1962), un-
less otherwise noted. I omit ἡγούμεθα, following D. Ross, The Works of Aristotle, Volume
XII: Selected Fragments (Oxford, 1952), 18 n. 4, citing Bernays.
9 ὡς . . . γεγονότων at 115c2–3 is translated as follows: Babbitt (1962): “from our feeling
that it is directed against those who have already become our betters and superiors”;
Ross (1952): “since they have already become better and greater.”
Silenus, which expresses a similar sentiment. According to that

story (115d2–e7), King Midas, upon capturing Silenus, exhorts him
to reveal “what on earth is the best thing for human beings and what
is the most choice-worthy of all?” Upon being forced to answer,
Silenus replies, reluctantly, that the life of ignorance of one’s proper
evils is the most painless. He adds that it is impossible either for the
best thing to come about for human beings or for them to share in
the best nature, since the best thing for everyone is not to come into
existence, and that, after this, the second-best thing, and the first of
the things practically achievable by humans, is, upon having come
into existence, to die as soon as possible (ἀποθανεῖν ὡς τάχιστα).
Now, it may seem that this statement by Silenus formulates the
belief anticipated at 115b10 and endorsed by the speaker in the
Eudemus (or by “us,” as that speaker puts it). On that interpreta-
tion, what “we” believe, in addition to the happiness of the dead and
the unholiness of slandering them, is that it is best for humans not
to come into existence, and second best to die soon. However, we
should note that Aristotle goes on, in Plutarch’s quoted passage, to
write the following, at 115e7–9:
δῆλον οὖν [ὅτι] ὡς οὔσης κρείττονος τῆς ἐν τῷ τεθνάναι

διαγωγῆς ἢ τῆς ἐν τῷ ζῆν, οὕτως ἀπεφήνατο.10
It is clear that he has declared thus to the effect that what is carried
out (τῆς . . . διαγωγῆς) in death is greater than that in life.
We may think that this line is no longer Aristotle’s, but rather

reflects Plutarch’s assessment of Aristotle’s text. But that is un-
likely.11 The line echoes the language used by Plutarch in his initial
paraphrase of Aristotle’s text. At 115b1–4, Plutarch cites Crantor as
having suggested that many wise men, both now and in the past,
10 ὅτι after δῆλον οὖν is inserted by Ross (1952), following Reiske.

11 Ross (1952) and Babbitt (1962) include this line, plausibly, as part of Plutarch’s di-
rect quotation from Aristotle.
have lamented “human affairs” (τἀνθρώπινα), thinking that life is

a penalty and that, to begin with, a human coming into existence is
the greatest misfortune. Then, Plutarch adds, before proceeding to
quote the lines of the Eudemus, with which we began:
τοῦτο δέ φησιν Ἀριστοτέλης καὶ τὸν Σειληνὸν συλληφθέντα τῷ

Μίδᾳ ἀποφήνασθαι. βέλτιον δ’ αὐτὰς τὰς τοῦ φιλοσόφου λέξεις
παραθέσθαι. φησὶ δὴ ἐν τῷ Εὐδήμῳ ἐπιγραφομένῳ ἢ Περὶ ψυχῆς
ταυτί. (115b5–8)
And Aristotle says that Silenus, while seized, also declared

(ἀποφήνασθαι) this to Midas. But it is better to provide the words
of the philosopher themselves. Indeed, he says, in the work titled
the Eudemus or On the Soul, as follows.
Silenus’s declaration, which Aristotle communicates in the

Eudemus, is described here using the same verb (ἀποφήνασθαι)
used in 115e7–9 (there, ἀπεφήνατο), which suggests that there, too,
the subject of the verb is Silenus, rather than Aristotle. Most likely,
115e7–9 is Aristotle’s assessment of Silenus’s words, appearing in
the Eudemus after the description of the myth.
It is still possible, in principle, that Plutarch at 115e7–9 is himself
assessing Silenus’s declaration—possible, but implausible. As we have
just seen, the theses Plutarch has initially set out to support by quoting
from Aristotle’s Eudemus were that (i) coming into existence is the
greatest misfortune for human beings and that (ii) life is a penalty. And
these points are straightforwardly supported by Silenus’s statements
in Aristotle’s quoted text, that (i) the best thing for humans is not to be
brought into existence and (ii) the best practicable thing for humans is
to die soon (115e4–7). The suggestion at 115e7–9 that the take-home
lesson from Silenus’s declaration is that “what is carried out in death is
greater than that in life” in fact seems to distance what is to be retained
from Silenus’s words from these two theses. This remark suggests that,
for all of Silenus’s prattling about human birth as a tragedy and death
as salvation, there is one thing that we may learn from him, and that
is the superiority of “what is carried out” (διαγωγή) in death. This is
reason enough, I submit, for us to think of 115e7–9 as the final part of
the passage Plutarch quotes directly from Aristotle’s Eudemus (a fur-
ther question, and one to which we shall turn later, is why Plutarch
chooses to quote this entire passage of the Eudemus).
One might raise questions concerning Aristotle’s estimation
of the status of Silenus’s statement. If the statement is taken to be
authoritative, then on what basis does Aristotle take himself to
be justified in revising it? On the other hand, if he does not take
the statement to be authoritative, what motivates him to discover
some truth underlying it in the first place? Since Aristotle (or, the
speaker in this part of the Eudemus) introduces Silenus’s words
after stating that the idea they convey “has been attested to many
people by the divine (παρὰ τοῦ δαιμονίου)” (115d1–2), it may
seem that he appeals to Silenus as such a “divine” source, i.e., as a
divine authority to be trusted rather than criticized.12 It is not clear
whether Aristotle’s original readers would by default assume that
Silenus is to be trusted in this way, since, apart from being depicted
as a wise prophet, he is also depicted as a drunkard.13 But, even
assuming Silenus as he appears in the fragment should be under-
stood to be a wise or prophetic figure, the examination of Silenus’s
words is not based on a direct utterance by Silenus, but rather (as
Aristotle noncommittally puts it, and perhaps deliberately so) on
what “people perhaps say” (λέγουσι δήπου) about him (115d3).14
12 I am thankful to an anonymous referee for this suggestion.

13 On the contrast between these two depictions of Silenus, see W. Smith, A Dictionary
of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 3 (London, 1867), 822–3.
14 Aristotle may be motivated to retain truth from Silenus’s statements, properly modi-
fied, by his general methodology. Famously, in Top. I.1–2 he discusses endoxa—opinions
held “by all, or by the majority, or by the wise” (100b21–2)—and their use “for training,
for conversation, [and] for philosophical knowledge” (101a27–8). Silenus’s words may
well count as an endoxon held either by the many (because it has been propagated among
people for many years; cf. Plut., Cons. ad Apoll. 115c8–9), or by the wise (because it “has
been attested . . . by the divine”; cf. 115d1–2). There is, though, scholarly debate, which
I cannot enter into here, on the extent to which Aristotle relies on this methodology in
his various works. See, e.g., G. E. L. Owen, Logic, Science and Dialectic (Ithaca, NY, 1986),
Second, even if the speaker in the dialogue took himself to be en-

gaging with Silenus’s actual words (or with the words attributed to
him by an authoritative theological source, say), the speaker could
be assuming that these words, like the cryptic words of the Pythia
at Delphi, should not be taken at face value, but rather must be
placed under rigorous scrutiny so as to decipher their true, under-
lying meaning. Indeed, that seems to be indicated by the remark
concluding the fragment—that “it is clear, therefore, that he [sc.
Silenus] spoke thus to the effect that what is carried out in death is
better than that in life” (115e7–9). The task of the speaker in this
part of the dialogue, in that case, would be to criticize and rule
out the surface meaning of Silenus’s words, exposing them for the
falsehoods that they are.15
Now, it is this conclusion at 115e7–9—that, as Silenus’s words
ought to be interpreted, “what is carried out in death is greater
than that in life”—that finally fulfills the promise made at 115b11
(πρὸς . . .), and which Aristotle begins to work toward at 115c7
(πρὸς δὲ δὴ τούτοις), of providing an additional belief to be
endorsed “by us.” This conclusion vehemently need not, and as we
shall see for Aristotle does not, entail either Silenus’s claim that life
is a punishment or his contention that dying as soon as possible is
best. Nor, as we shall also see, are these ideas entailed by the happi-
ness that Aristotle ascribes to the dead, both earlier in the fragment
and elsewhere in the extant corpus.
Finally, it may seem that the context in which the fragment is
quoted by Plutarch’s Letter to Apollonius suggests that Silenus’s
dictum represents Aristotle’s own view. Plutarch’s text is intended to
offer “consolatory words” (τῶν παραμυθητικῶν . . . λόγων) (102b)
to a friend after the death of his son. The quotation is preceded by
quotations from Hesiod and an unknown lyric poet affirming the
239–51; D. Frede, “The Endoxon Mystique: What Endoxa Are and What They Are Not,”
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 43 (2012), 185–215.
15 For a discussion of similar interpretations by Aristotle of certain myths as having
underlying truths, see Segev (2017b), 126–8.
abundance of evils (κακά) in human life (115a), as well as by a ref-

erence to Crantor’s report that “human things” have been bewailed
by many wise men in whose view human life is a punishment and
birth the greatest misfortune (115b). It is followed by the conclu-
sion that we must not assume that a young person misses out on
goods by dying (115f). And this might lead one to suspect that
Plutarch is quoting Aristotle as an authority on the idea that he
(Aristotle) both attributes to Silenus in the Eudemus and himself
accepts in full.16 However, Plutarch arguably quotes philosophers
out of context throughout the Moralia for his own argumentative
purposes.17 And there is also a further, more charitable reason for
thinking that the Letter to Apollonius, in particular, might misrep-
resent Aristotle’s view. For it has been argued that the text, as we
have it, is “the original rough draft of the letter which was to be
sent to Apollonius,” and that “[i]‌n selecting some of the quotations
Plutarch had put down enough of the context, so that later the lines
he might finally choose to insert could be smoothly interwoven
with the text, and the text itself was no doubt to be subjected to fur-
ther polish.”18 Finally, Plutarch’s point in quoting the passage may
be to allude to the common, traditional opinion that Aristotle raises
there, without either acknowledging, addressing, or evaluating
Aristotle’s own attitude toward it. For all these reasons, the con-
text of the quoted passage may well misrepresent its original intent,
and it ought not to disqualify an interpretation according to which
Aristotle presents Silenus’s words in order to criticize them.
The conclusion to draw is that Aristotle in Eudemus frag-
ment 6, Ross presents Silenus’s dictum in order to criticize it, and
16 I am thankful to an anonymous referee for this suggestion.

17 R. W. Sharples, “Nemesius of Emesa and Some Theories of Divine Providence,”
Vigiliae christianae 37 (1983), 141–56 at 149–50 and fn. 53–4, citing Babut, says that, in
De Stoicorum repugnantiis 37 1051c, “Plutarch may be quoting Chrysippus out of con-
text” on the issue of divine providence. Brenk argues that in De Is. et Os. 374c–e and else-
where “Plutarch distorts or radically twists Plato’s meaning” (here, specifically referring
to Plato’s Symposium); see F. E. Brenk, With Unperfumed Voices (Stuttgart, 2007), 340.
18 Babbitt (1962), 106.
that he ultimately retains two related but substantially modified

propositions, namely, that the dead can be happy and that the ac-
tivity in death is better than the one in life. In the next section, we
shall take up each of these propositions in turn and show that each
is supported by relevant discussions in Aristotle’s extant corpus.
4.3. The Happiness of the Dead and

the Immortality of the Intellect
Aristotle is committed both to the idea that the dead can be happy
and to the claim that the activity carried out in death is superior
to the one carried out in a human life. Whereas these theoretical
commitments may seem to lean toward pessimism with regard to
human existence, or at least toward endorsing Silenus’s suggestion
that death is preferable over a human life, Aristotle reaches an al-
together different conclusion. In order to see how he arrives at that
solution, and what his resulting optimistic view consists of, we must
examine what his commitment to the two points just mentioned
amounts to.19
Let us turn to the first proposition endorsed in the fragment, viz.,
that the dead are “blessed and happy.” Famously, Aristotle raises
and discusses this very issue in Nicomachean Ethics I.10–11. There,
Aristotle considers the supposition that a human being can only be
considered happy after having died. At first, he asks whether this
view should be rejected as “totally absurd,” in light of the fact that,
as has already been established back in the “function” argument of
I.7, happiness is an activity, and hence should only be found among
the living (1100a10–14). He then considers an argument in favor
of that apparently absurd position. Certain good and bad things,
like honor and dishonor or the fortune or misfortune of relatives,
19 I deal with these issues more fully in my paper on “Death, Immortality, and the
Value of Human Existence in Aristotle’s Eudemus Fr. 6, Ross,” Classical Philology
(forthcoming b).
are attributed to the living even when they are unaware of them,
and therefore attributing such things to the dead cannot plausibly
be rejected based on their lack of awareness (1100a18–21). Indeed,
it would be absurd, Aristotle says, to think that the dead would not
be affected by posthumous occurrences (though it would also be
absurd to think of them as wavering between happiness and unhap-
piness based on posthumous events) (1100a21–30).
Ultimately, Aristotle resolves to refute the view that, because it
cannot be determined in advance how much fortune or misfor-
tune would befall individuals during their lifetime, happiness can
only be attributed to the dead. The reason for entertaining that
possibility, Aristotle argues, is the mistaken assumption that “luck
events” (αἱ τύχαι) determine happiness, whereas in fact happiness
consists of virtuous activity emanating from an unshakable char-
acter (1100a31–1101a6; cf. NE II.4, 1105a32–3). And though great
misfortunes may indeed detract from one’s happiness, a human
being who persists in virtuous behavior would generally count as
happy (1101a6–21), and misfortunes occurring after one’s death
are even less capable of affecting happiness, since if anything good
or bad reaches the dead, it would only be “something feeble and
minute” (ἀφαυρόν τι καὶ μικρὸν) (I.11, 1101b1–9). This conclu-
sion excludes the possibility of happy living people being rendered
happy or miserable as a result of moderate misfortune, but it still
leaves room for the dead to be either miserable or happy.
Indeed, though there is disagreement in the literature as to which
positive theses we might derive from Nicomachean Ethics I.10–11
concerning the dead and the ways in which they may partake of
happiness, largely revolving around the issue of whether the dead
might exhibit some form of consciousness,20 there is a reason
20 For K. Pritzl (“Aristotle and Happiness after Death: Nicomachean Ethics 1. 10–11,”
Classical Philology 78.2 [1983], 101–11), when Aristotle brings up in these chapters the
idea of posthumous circumstances as affecting the happiness or unhappiness of dead
people, he is echoing a traditional view according to which the dead, though inactive,
are to some degree conscious of goings on among the living. Without actively endorsing
these beliefs himself, Pritzl argues, Aristotle shows that they harmonize with his own
external to those chapters for thinking that Aristotle considers the

dead capable of happiness. The reason is rooted in Aristotle’s theory
of friendship. Since Aristotle thinks that two individuals sharing a
close friendship based on virtue function as each other’s “second
self,” a person who goes on living and performing characteristically
virtuous activities after her friend has died can in principle prolong
the happiness of her deceased friend. Thus, Dominic Scott draws
on Nicomachean Ethics IX in arguing that NE I.10–11 may accom-
modate the idea that the dead can to some extent have a continued
existence, and that posthumous actions or fortunes may affect their
existence, even if we straightforwardly deny them any awareness
of such events.21 The dead, that is, may either (1) have posthumous
success (or failure) based on the results achieved by their surviving
products, or (2) survive, more literally, in the form of their friend,
whom Aristotle famously regards as “another self,” or their product
(e.g., a student), which Aristotle regards as the same as the pro-
ducer “in actuality” (IX.7, 1168a7).
However, Scott also makes it clear that, in his interpretation of
Aristotle, neither mode of posthumous existence is sufficient to
grant the dead happiness, since they cannot be the subjects of ac-
tion (praxis).22 On that view, Aristotle would be willing to speak of
the continuation of a dead person’s existence by their living friend
only in an attenuated sense. In this regard, Scott argues against
view of the happiness of the living, which is determined by activity but influenced by
external factors and interpersonal relationships. For P. W. Gooch (“Aristotle and the
Happy Dead,” Classical Philology 78.2 [1983], 112–16), Aristotle does not endorse beliefs
of the dead as conscious even passively, and implicitly thinks of them as irrelevant, since,
even if the dead had awareness, it would be too dim or remote to either contribute to or
detract from their happiness (cf. I.11, 1101b1–9). See also G. B. Matthews, “Death in
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle,” in B. Bradley (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy
of Death (Oxford, 2012), 186–9 at 198–9, who argues that when Aristotle speaks of the
impact of posthumous occurrences on the happiness of the dead he does not mean that
“this may happen by backward causation,” but rather only that being virtuous or lacking
virtue “has natural consequences, including natural consequences for one’s children and
one’s reputation.”
21 D. Scott, “Aristotle on Posthumous Fortune,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy
18 (2000), 211–29.
22 Scott (2000), 227–8.
Crisp, who argues that Aristotle should attribute posthumous ac-

tivities, and therefore eudaimonia, to the dead, since he thinks that
“the activities of friends of mine can be counted as my activities
([NE] 9. 9, 1170a2–4).”23 In the text that Crisp appeals to (NE IX.9,
1170a2–4), Aristotle says that the blessed person will need friends
in order to contemplate actions that are “fitting” (ἐπιεικεῖς) and
proper (οἰκείας) to oneself, which Scott suspects is not “enough to
show that one person’s praxis can be another’s.”24 Nevertheless, a
close analysis of the text reveals that it does in fact support the at-
tribution to Aristotle of the idea that a dead person’s happiness can
be quite literally prolonged via their characteristic activities contin-
uing to be performed by their living friend.
Aristotle’s statement should be assessed in the context in which
it appears. Aristotle says the following (NE IX.9, 1169b33–1170a4):
That which is one’s own (τὸ οἰκεῖον) is among the pleasant things,
and we are capable of contemplating our neighbors more than
ourselves, and their actions [more] than our own (τὰς οἰκείας),
and the actions of the excellent, being friends, are pleasant for
the good (for they have both of the things pleasant by nature).
Indeed, the blessedly happy person will need friends of this sort,
if he indeed chooses to contemplate actions [that are] fitting and
[are his] own (οἰκείας), and those of the friend who is good are of
such a kind.
It is true that oikeion could mean that which is appropriate for or

characteristic of a person, rather than what in fact belongs to that
person. But, in the text just quoted, Aristotle distinguishes be-
tween the actions of one’s neighbors and those actions that are
oikeiai, saying that the former are easier for us to contemplate than
the latter. His point, then, could be either (a) that one more easily
23 Scott (2000), 228–9, n. 26; R. Crisp, “Aristotle’s Inclusivism,” Oxford Studies in

Ancient Philosophy 12 (1994), 111–36, at 134–6.
24 Scott (2000), 229, n. 26.
contemplates the actions of one’s friends than actions characteristic

of oneself, or (b) that one more easily contemplates the actions of
one’s friends than one’s very own actions. Consider option (a). The
actions of one’s neighbors may well be characteristic of oneself (if
one happens to be similar in character to one’s neighbors). And,
indeed, Aristotle’s point in what follows in the passage is that it is
easier to contemplate specifically those actions of one’s neighbors
that are characteristic of oneself (focusing on the case of friends
having an excellent character).
But, if Aristotle focuses on those actions of one’s friends that
are characteristic of oneself, then there would not be the relevant
contrast between them and the actions than which they are said
to be easier to contemplate, on option (a). Option (b), then, ac-
cording to which the actions described in this passage as oikeiai
are those that actually are one’s own, seems to be the correct one. If
so, then the view Aristotle goes on to enunciate in the subsequent
part of the text is that a good person A is pleased by the actions of a
good person B who is A’s friend, because B’s actions are both good
and are A’s own, in the sense of actually belonging to A (as well
as to B).25 This discussion is prefigured by VIII.3, 1156b14–17,
where, discussing perfect friendship holding between good
people, Aristotle says that the good are pleasant to each other
without qualification because “for each [person], his or her own
actions or those of such a kind (αἱ οἰκεῖαι πράξεις καὶ αἱ τοιαῦται)
are according to pleasure, and [the actions] of the good are ei-
ther the same or similar (αἱ αὐταὶ ἢ ὅμοιαι).” The pleasant actions
described as oikeiai here again should refer to actions belonging to
oneself, as they seem to be distinguished from actions that are of
“such a kind” (τοιαῦται) as to be one’s own.26
25 See the reconstruction of the argument in T. Irwin (trans. and comm.), Aristotle:
Nicomachean Ethics (Indianapolis, 1999), 149 and 297–8.
26 A similar usage occurs at Div. 463a22–3, where Aristotle says that certain dreams
function as causes “of each [person’s] own actions” (τῶν οἰκείων ἑκάστῳ πράξεων), pre-
sumably referring to future actions to be actually performed by the dreamer.
Aristotle’s statement at Nicomachean Ethics IX.9, 1170a2–4,

then, does commit him to the view that the actions of a person
(i.e., the excellent person) can be the same as another’s (a person
sharing a friendship with that person based on their common vir-
tuous character as well as, as we shall see later, their intimate ac-
quaintance). The rest of the chapter provides additional support
for attributing this view to him. He goes on to argue, based on the
thesis that the friend functions as “another self ” (established pre-
viously; cf. IX.4, 1166a29–32), that the being of the friend of the
excellent person (ὁ σπουδαῖος) is just (or almost) as choice-worthy
for that person as “his own being” (τὸ αὐτὸν εἶναι) (1170b5–8).
I submit that the reason why the friend’s being is as choice-worthy
as one’s own, for Aristotle, is that the being of each is to an im-
portant extent identical to that of the other. A person of the same
character as me who dedicates her life to engaging in exactly the
same (say, contemplative) activity as me would, when I die, quite
literally continue my activity once I am gone. Indeed, it seems that
Aristotle utilizes this idea of the friend as another self when he
argues, in Nicomachean Ethics IX.8, 1169a18–29, that sacrificing
one’s life for one’s friends is “a great fine thing.”27 If we take this
idea seriously, then Aristotle’s theory in the Nicomachean Ethics
begins to align with the text with which we began (Eudemus frag-
ment 6, Ross). It aligns, that is, with the first proposition put forth
in that fragment, according to which “the dead are blessed and
happy” and therefore should not be slandered. In the Nicomachean
Ethics, too, we now see, Aristotle thinks of the dead as capable of
happiness, albeit by proxy (i.e., by their living friend performing
virtuous activity on their behalf) and, as we shall see, only tempo-
rarily (i.e., as long as their friends are still alive and perform such
activities on their behalf).
27 Arguably, it is an equivalent relationship potentially obtaining between individual

citizens and their city that Aristotle implicitly uses in NE IX.8 to justify self-sacrifice, not
just for the sake of one’s friends, but also for one’s city.
Nevertheless, the question remains as to why, as the second

proposition put forth in the Eudemus fragment maintains, “what is
carried out in death is greater than that in life” (Plut. Cons. ad Apoll.
115e7–9). It might appear, prima facie, to mean that the dead are
not only well off but are in fact better off than the living. Perhaps,
one might think, since the dead are, by assumption, less affected
by external events and circumstances (I.11, 1101b1–9), they would
be less susceptible to suffering the results of an unforeseen tragedy
or excessive misfortune, which generally make it impossible for a
(living) person to count as happy (I. 5, 1095b31–1096a2). Indeed,
this was the intuition which, as Aristotle says in the opening re-
mark to I.10, has led Solon to speak of the dead alone as being happy
(1100a14–18). The dwelling on misfortune is not accidental. It is of
course true that the conclusion reached at 1101b1–9 implies that
the dead are also less affected than the living by the occurrences
of positive events or good fortune. But that fact is less relevant to
assessing their overall happiness by comparison to the living, since,
in any event, great fortune would not render a living person sig-
nificantly happier. Happiness, for Aristotle, generally only requires
a modicum of “thriving conditions” (εὐημερία), a point on which
Solon is again, unsurprisingly, cited (X.8, 1178b33–1179a17).
However, there is a problem with this suggestion. For, if we at-
tribute happiness to the dead by making them the agents of vir-
tuous activity vicariously, by having their friends, or “other-selves,”
perform such activities, then the happiness of the dead would only
be as secure as the activity of their living friends is. Great misfor-
tune may not affect the dead directly, but, by directly affecting their
friends, we should expect its results to be as grave as halting the
activity in which their happiness consists. If so, then the happiness
of the dead would hardly be more secure than that of the living,
and one might then rightly ask in what way, if any, their happiness
could be superior, as the Eudemus fragment, on the proposal we
have introduced, suggests that it is. Alternatively, it may be that by
saying that the activity carried out in death is better than the one
carried out in life Aristotle does not in fact have in mind the activity
of a living friend acting as their dead friend’s second self. Though he
thinks such an activity is available, and does guarantee happiness
for the dead, he might also think that a further type of posthumous
activity is superior both to it and to any activity carried out by living
people.
It is worth noting here that, for Aristotle, the happiness afforded
to the dead through the activities of their living friends does
not seem to extend beyond the natural life of their living friend,
let alone to all eternity. One might think that, if the happiness of
a dead person A can be continued by their living friend B, then it
should also be continued, after the death of B, through the activity of
person B’s friend C—whom A has never met. But this does not seem
to be Aristotle’s view, since he suggests that close character friend-
ship requires “intimate acquaintance (τῆς συνηθείας)” whereby
friends come to love each other’s characters (τὰ ἤθη) and become
“similar in character (ὁμοήθεις)” (NE VIII.4, 1157a10– 12).28
A and B must associate in order to gain enough in common (pre-
sumably including, apart from their characteristic activity, also
other personal traits and properties) for them to count as each
other’s other self, and the same would hold true for B and C. B
having established such a relationship with both A and C, though,
does not entail that A and C would have enough in common with
each other for such a relationship to hold between them.29
But the activity “carried out in death” mentioned in the second
proposition of Aristotle’s fragment, which is described as superior
to any activity carried out in life, may well be eternal. The end of
Nicomachean Ethics I.10 (1101a19–21) might allude to that possi-
bility. There, after surveying potential difficulties with attributing
happiness to the living, Aristotle concludes that we may safely do
28 Cf. Irwin (1999), 233.

29 I am thankful to Christopher Hauser for a useful discussion on issues concerning
transitivity arising from Aristotle’s view of the happiness of the dead.
so; in particular: “we say that those of the living who procure the
things mentioned above [sc. virtuous activity and sufficient ex-
ternal goods present in a complete life; cf. 1101a14–16] are blessed,
but blessed as human beings” (δ’ ὡς ἀνθρώπους).30 This refer-
ence to the blessedness of human beings as human beings seems
to be unexpected at this point in the text. Throughout the chapter,
Aristotle has been concerned solely with human happiness, and
the extent to which the happy human life is determined by a cer-
tain type of activity though it is also somewhat affected by external
circumstances. And the view emerging from this chapter and the
next one, as we have seen, is that whenever a dead person’s happi-
ness continues posthumously thanks to a living friend, that is so
because the living friend herself leads a happy human life.
What, then, is the purpose of reminding the reader that the
blessed living are blessed as humans? One possibility is that these
human forms of blessedness are to be contrasted with ones that are,
as it were, super-human. The happiness of the living (and of the
living acting on behalf of the dead) makes for a blessedness of only
a human level because it is confined to the time frame of a human
life and is conditioned on the availability of adequate resources and
on the avoidance of unforeseen tragic misfortune before the end
of life (1101a14–19). We might also add the necessarily tempo-
rary and imperfect way in which living people engage in virtuous
activity of the highest kind, if they find themselves capable of en-
gaging in it at all (Metaph. Λ.7, 1072b14–16). We might thus expect
the activity affording nonhuman blessedness that is mentioned in
Nicomachean Ethics I.10, if it can indeed be shown to be superior
to that of the living, to consist in virtuous activity unhindered by
30 Inserting ὡς at 1101a21 with the Paris 1497 translation and following Aspasius (see
OCT). Aspasius in his commentary reads this text either as including or as meaning “ὡς
ἀνθρώπους,” explaining that Aristotle adds this qualification because he believes that the
happiness of god differs from that of humans (pp. 30, 33–5, Heylbut). Note that the same
point I am making here could be made with ὡς being omitted. In that case, Aristotle
would be claiming that happy living people are, specifically, “happy human beings,” as
opposed to happy nonhumans.
such human circumstances and constraints. This could refer to the

blessedness of nonhuman entities, such as gods, whom Aristotle of
course describes, along with their life and activity, as blessed (see
NE X.8, 1178b8–28). But, since Nicomachean Ethics I.10 deals in
its entirety with happiness as it pertains to human beings in life
and after death, the reference is more likely to some activity more
closely pertaining to human beings, which is nevertheless non-
human and especially blessed. As we shall see presently, Aristotle
does think that such an activity exists. It is, specifically, the activity
of the disembodied human intellect, which continues eternally
after the death of the individual human being.
Let us focus, then, on that type of immortality that Aristotle
might be willing to attribute to human beings, not insofar as their
activities are continued by their friends, but insofar as their very
own soul, or a part of it, persists and is active posthumously. It has
often been remarked that, in the extant corpus, Aristotle gener-
ally only commits himself to the persistence of the activity of the
human intellect, with all traces of soul affections or memory being
erased,31 whereas in the Eudemus he is “endorsing a personal im-
mortality for the soul.”32 More recently, Lloyd Gerson has argued,
convincingly, that in fact the Eudemus is not at odds with Aristotle’s
overall theory, and that its view of human beings, like the view in
the treatises, allows for the immortality of the human intellect, but
not of any other parts or affections of the human soul.33 The evi-
dence for Aristotle’s view on immortality in the extant treatises is
mostly shaky. Primarily, De anima III.5, which is sometimes taken
to directly affirm the immortality of the human intellect because
of its reference to a kind of νοῦς (the so-called νοῦς ποιητικός)
that is “immortal and eternal” (430a22–3),34 has famously been
interpreted in radically different ways. Alexander of Aphrodisias,
31 Gooch (1983), n. 3.
32 Pritzl (1983), n. 20.
33 L. P. Gerson, Aristotle and Other Platonists (Ithaca, NY, 2005), 51–9.
34 See Gerson (2005), 53.

and many following him,35 take the chapter to affirm only the im-
mortality of a nonhuman, divine (active) intellect and not of the
human (passive) intellect, which is mortal. In Metaphysics Λ.3,
1070a24–6, Aristotle seems to entertain the possibility that the
intellect “remains” (ὑπομένει), while dismissing the immortality
of the entire soul out of hand. De anima I.4, 408b18–29 states,
qualifiedly, that the human intellect “seems not to be destructed”
(ἔοικεν . . . οὐ φθείρεσθαι), and that it is “perhaps something more
divine and unaffected” (ἴσως θειότερόν τι καὶ ἀπαθές).36
However, in that last text, Aristotle does commit himself di-
rectly to the claim that “thinking and contemplating, too, wane
when some other thing on the inside is destructed, but [it] itself is
impassible” (408b24–5: καὶ τὸ νοεῖν δὴ καὶ τὸ θεωρεῖν μαραίνεται
ἄλλου τινὸς ἔσω φθειρομένου, αὐτὸ δὲ ἀπαθές ἐστιν). The internal
decay Aristotle has in mind is of a physiological kind, such as en-
feeblement due to aging, disease, and drunkenness, as mentioned
in the immediately preceding lines. Since αὐτὸ at 408b25 should
refer to the human intellect, Aristotle here says that our intellect is
not susceptible to being affected. This is to be contrasted with either
“waning” (attributed to “thinking and contemplating,” i.e., intel-
lectual activities actually carried out by human beings, which in-
volve, not only the intellect, but also at least phantasia; cf. DA III.7,
431a16–17)37 or “being destructed” (attributed to the human body).
On either option, the result is that the intellect cannot perish.38
Now, ancient testimony directly relates this passage to Aristotle’s
view in the dialogues (Eudemus frag. 3, Ross =Elias, in Aristotelis
Categorias Commentarium 114.25), suggesting that Aristotle in the
Eudemus is interested in establishing the immortality, not of the
35 See, for instance, V. Caston, “Aristotle’s Two Intellects: A Modest Proposal,” Phronesis
44.3 (1999), 199–227; M. F. Burnyeat, Aristotle’s Divine Intellect (Milwaukee, 2008).
36 Gerson (2005), 52–3 and n. 19.
37 See also C. H. Kahn, “Aristotle on Thinking,” in M. C. Nussbaum and A. O. Rorty
(eds.), Essays on Aristotle’s De anima (Oxford, 1992), 359–79, at 366–7.
38 See also Kahn (1992), 361 and 366–7.
whole human soul, but rather only of the intellect.39 According to

this report by Elias, the view in Aristotle’s dialogues, including the
Eudemus, must have been congruent with his views in the extant
treatises, including De anima, specifically on the issue of the im-
mortality of the soul or a part of it. And this provides additional
support for the conclusion, emerging regardless from an inde-
pendent study of these different works, that these works exhibit
consistency, at the very least on this issue.40
Aristotle, both in the Eudemus and in the extant corpus, then,
seems to countenance the immortality of the human intellect, not
of the entire human soul. A disembodied intellect, Aristotle must
think, would enjoy uninterrupted intellectual activity, being at that
point free from the demands and weakening of the body, which
impede intellectual activity in the case of living human beings. It
has been argued that the persistence of the intellect does not com-
promise personal immortality, since Aristotle urges us to identify
ourselves with our intellect.41 Indeed, Aristotle does tell us that
we should “immortalize ourselves as much as possible” (NE X.7,
1177b33), and moreover goes on to say that we should do so, i.e.,
choose a life dominated by theoretical activity, because a human
39 Gerson (2005), 52–5, contra Jaeger (1948), 50. For Gerson, this does not mark a
deviation from Plato, since Plato only subscribes to the immortality of the intellect as
well. Bos (1989, 105) seems to think that Aristotle’s view of nous as capable of sepa-
rate existence, which he finds in the Eudemus, does mark a deviation from Plato’s view.
M. Hubbard (1975, 56–60) argues for some connection (though, emphatically, not nec-
essarily an equivalence) between Aristotle’s views on the intellect in the Eudemus and
De anima. Hubbard bases this on the presence in Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, which
contains a paraphrase of the story of Silenus as it appears in the Eudemus (I.114), of an
appeal to the puzzles in De anima III arising from attributing a self-reflective activity to
the intellect and the fact that human intellection does not persist eternally (I.73).
40 Two fragments from the Eudemus (i.e., Eudemus Fr. 1, Ross =Cicero, Div. I.53 and
Eudemus Fr. 5, Ross =Proclus, in Remp. 2.349.13–26, Kroll) may initially seem to sup-
port the immortality of more than just the intellect, and perhaps of the entire human
soul. However, a close reading shows that this reading is not necessary. For further dis-
cussion, see Segev (forthcoming b). Cf. Gerson (2005), 56–9; Most (1994), n. 36.
41 Gerson (2005), 56–7, citing Protr. frag. 10c, Ross =Iambl. Protr. 48, 9–21, Pistelli.
Gerson argues against views such as Jaeger’s. The Protrepticus fragment (10c, Ross) also
supports the immortality of the intellect, stating (ll. 11–13) that “only this [sc. νοῦς/
φρόνησις] seems to be, of the things that are ours, immortal (ἀθάνατον), and only [it is]
divine”; see Gerson, ibid.
being “primarily” consists of intellect (1178a2–7). Nevertheless,

though human beings may consist of intellect “primarily,” they
do not consist of intellect exclusively, and it is the life of the hy-
lomorphic compound, the one that incorporates not only the-
oretical activity but also actions reflecting character traits and
involving feelings, that Aristotle in the very next chapter describes
as “human” (X.8, 1178a9–21).42
There is truth, therefore, in the claim that only the immortality of
the entire soul is “the historically accurate way of describing what
moderns often anachronistically call individual immortality.”43 We
tend to think of the immortality of the individual person as at least
involving the continuation after death of the person’s memories (of
perceptual experiences, bodily affections, etc.) and character traits,
and not as the mere continuance of pure intellectual activity set
over a predetermined set of intelligible objects and qualitatively in-
distinguishable from the activity of any other intellect, human or
otherwise, which is all that Aristotle’s view seems to allow. It also
seems true that myths of posthumous reward or damnation, such
as those presented by Plato, “inevitably involve the survival of ‘the
whole soul,’ ” and that they “lose all sense if applied to Aristotle’s
Nus [sic].”44 One might say that, on Aristotle’s considered view,
there is nothing but eternal reward, and no room for damna-
tion. For the theoretical activity that he seems to think invariably
succeeds human life is, for him, the best and most pleasant type
42 See also J. Whiting, “Human Nature and Intellectualism,” Archiv für Geschichte der
Philosophie 68 (1986), 70–95. Kahn (1992, 375) argues that, for Aristotle, “personal self-
awareness is conceived as a function of the aisthētikon.” If true, that would constitute
a further reason to deny personal immortality on Aristotle’s behalf. Indeed, on Kahn’s
interpretation, Aristotle’s conception of the immortality of the intellect is anything but
personal. Kahn (1992, 361, 376), discussing the description of nous in DA II.2 as “a dif-
ferent kind of soul” which “alone can be separated, as the eternal from the perishable,”
argues that nous for Aristotle falls outside of the hylomorphic account of a human being
and is rather a principle whose “essential work” is “the whole domain of human culture.”
A thorough discussion of Aristotle’s various remarks on the nature of the intellect and its
immortality is beyond the scope of this chapter.
43 Jaeger (1948), 49.
44 Jaeger (1948), 50, contra Gerson (2005), 55.
of activity in existence (Metaph. Λ. 7, 1072b14–19). But even this

statement would need to be qualified since, as we shall see pres-
ently, it is misleading to interpret Aristotle as thinking that it is the
individual person herself who will be enjoying the reward in ques-
tion posthumously.
Nor would it do to appeal to the happiness of the dead afforded
them by their living friends, as discussed in the previous section,
in order to attribute to Aristotle a belief in personal immortality. It
may be that the intimate acquaintance required for that type of con-
tinued happiness secures the persistence, not only of the deceased
person’s characteristic activity, but also of (some of) their character
traits, dispositions, and memories. And the continuation of all of
these features may well have amounted to personal immortality
(standardly conceived), had it continued ad infinitum. But, as we
have seen earlier in this section, the preservation of the departed
friend’s happiness by a living friend seems to be limited in time to
the length of the natural life of the latter.
To return to the fragment with which we began (i.e., Eudemus
fragment 6, Ross), we can by now see that its thesis concerning
the superiority of the activity carried out in death is supported by
Aristotle’s view in the extant corpus. But, for Aristotle, this thesis
does not entail that the person continues on eternally; rather, it
requires only that we acknowledge that being a disembodied in-
tellect is better than being a person. The wording of the conclusion
of the Eudemus fragment is instructive in this respect. It speaks of
“what is carried out in death” (τῆς ἐν τῷ τεθνάναι διαγωγῆς) as
superior to the διαγωγή in life. The same word, διαγωγή, is used
to describe the mode of existence of the eternal unmoved movers
of the heavens, which are of course themselves pure intellectual
activities, and on that account considered living things (Metaph.
Λ. 7, 1072b14–30). Aristotle goes out of his way to dissociate the
posthumous existence of the intellect from the existence of the
human being prior to death. By contrast, consider, for example,
Socrates’s statement in Plato’s Phaedo that one has a good reason to
hope that “after one dies one will incur the greatest goods” (64a).
Such statements, Aristotle seems to signal, either misguidedly or
carelessly imply that the human being herself continues to exist
after death.45
In addition, as we have noted in section 4.2, Aristotle is careful
to dissociate himself from Silenus’s idea that human life in ge-
neral is a sham and that early death is a blessing. After having
attributed to Silenus the view that dying as soon as possible is the
best practicable choice for human beings, he refrains from fol-
lowing in Silenus’s footsteps in formulating his own conclusion.
Here, too, he dissociates himself, not only from Silenus, but also,
quite obviously, from Plato. Famously, Socrates, in the Phaedo,
while rejecting suicide as an escape from life (61c–62c), rejects it
based on the idea that the gods are our prison-guards, and alone
have the right to release us. The implication is that dying, if and
when we are afforded it, is a blessing and a release, and Socrates
indeed proceeds to argue for that position in the rest of the dia-
logue. One could have expected Aristotle to accept Plato’s view
on this point, since he, too, thinks that the activity occurring after
death is vastly superior.46 But Aristotle must consider the death of
individual humans an evil for them, because he thinks individuals
cease to exist when they die and are not in any way the subjects of
the lingering posthumous activity of their intellect. As we shall
presently see, Aristotle indeed characterizes death, consciously
and consistently, as such an evil. Finally, one might think that
45 However, as we have also seen earlier in this section, there are also reasons to think
that the virtuous activity of an individual human being, and thus their eudaimonia,
persists, or may persist, by being carried out by their living human friends. Allowing for
this possibility in fact strengthens Aristotle’s claim that the activity carried out in death is
better than those carried out in life, since it allows posthumous activity to persist in two
distinct, but apparently not mutually exclusive, ways.
46 Georg Luck, who sees Aristotle’s dialogues as “early” and committed to “Plato’s doc-
trine,” draws a connection between our Eudemus fragment and the Orphic mysteries,
which are meant to “help people bear the burden of life” until death’s salvation; see G.
Luck, Ancient Pathways and Hidden Pursuits (Ann Arbor, 2000), 12. For Luck (2000, 13),
Midas in the fragment is supposed to represent excessive attachment to “earthly goods.”
Aristotle’s evaluation of death or human nonexistence could align

with Silenus’s and Plato’s by taking into consideration, not what
is either good or bad for an individual human being to incur, but
rather what is valuable for either the human species as a whole or
the universe at large. However, I shall conclude, Aristotle thinks
of the death or nonexistence of humans as an evil from those
perspectives as well.
4.4. Death as an Evil
Aristotle’s view of death as an evil to be avoided rather than a

good to be welcomed can again be helpfully compared to Plato’s
view in the Phaedo. There, Socrates maintains that, unlike the
philosopher, all other people (πάντες οἱ ἄλλοι) regard death as a
great evil, and so, when they face death, they do so out of fear of
a greater evil, which makes them, paradoxically, “courageous by
fearing and alarm” (68d). Aristotle agrees with that assessment. In
Eudemian Ethics III.1, he says that a person who “endures . . . death”
(ὑπομένει . . . τὸν θάνατον) because of either pleasure or the avoid-
ance of greater pains cannot be justly called brave (1229b32–
1230a4). In Nicomachean Ethics III.7, similarly, he argues that
it is cowardly to die “fleeing poverty, or erotic love, or something
painful” (τι λυπηρὸν), because fleeing “painful things” (τὰ ἐπίπονα)
is “soft,” and a person facing death in such a way does not do so
because it is fine, but rather acts thus “escaping an evil” (φεύγων
κακόν) (1116a12–15).
However, there is also a significant point of divergence between
Aristotle and the Socrates of the Phaedo. Socrates contrasts those
who prefer death over a burdensome life to the philosopher, who
believes that “he will encounter wisdom (φρονήσει) clearly no-
where else but there [sc. in Hades],” and hence would not be
fearful of death (68b). Philosophers, then, are primarily coura-
geous (68c), and Socrates, following suit, claims to be “neither
angered nor vexed” by the prospect of leaving life, believing that

he “will encounter there, no less than here, both good leaders and
good companions” (69d–e). For Socrates, those who prefer death
fearing a burdensome life are not wrong for preferring death. They
are wrong for preferring death for the wrong reasons. The philos-
opher, who still prefers death, would face it courageously because
of recognizing it as a good. Indeed, philosophers “desire death”
(θανατῶσι) (64b8), expecting it to afford them the “greatest goods”
(μέγιστα . . . ἀγαθὰ) (63e8–64a2).
If it is not directly in response to Phaedo 63e–64a that Aristotle
says, in Nicomachean Ethics III.9, 1117b9–15, that the courageous
person would be overly pained by death, since that person assesses
living as “most of all valuable” (μάλιστα . . . ἄξιον), and that death
would deprive the virtuous and happy person of “the greatest
goods” (μεγίστων ἀγαθῶν), it may as well have been. In saying
so, Aristotle reverses Socrates’s position. He argues that the vir-
tuous and happy person—and hence necessarily also the philos-
opher, who for Aristotle is the most virtuous and perfectly happy
person (cf. Nicomachean Ethics X.7)—has most to gain by staying
alive and should not welcome death.47 This is what we would expect
him to think, in light of our discussion so far. Because for Aristotle,
as we have seen, though the human intellect persists eternally and
operates posthumously in a purer and superior way to any instance
of thinking occurring during a human life, the immortality of the
intellect does not afford personal immortality. And, since the person
herself ceases to exist at death, she ought not to regard the posthu-
mous activity of her intellect, good though it might be, as hers.48
47 Again, Aristotle mentions cases in which the virtuous person ought to sacrifice their
life for the sake of a friend or their city (see NE IX.8; cf. section 4.3). But, in those cases,
it is not death that is being preferred as such, but rather “the fine” (τὸ καλόν) inherent to
the accomplishment of having secured one’s city or saved one’s friend. Matthews (2012,
197–8) argues that, for Aristotle, brave self-sacrifice contributes to one’s happiness be-
cause it results from the virtuous character developed by an agent through habituation.
48 Matthews draws a contrast between Plato, for whom suicide is an act of impiety,
and Aristotle, for whom such an act is mere cowardice (2012, 196), and between
It is hardly surprising, then, to find Aristotle explicitly describing

death in negative terms. He lists it among “the bad things” (τὰ
κακά) alongside ill repute, poverty, sickness, and lack of friendship
(NE III.6, 1115a10–11; cf. III.1, 1110a26–7), and among bad things
that are “painful and destructive” (ὀδυνηρὰ μὲν καὶ φθαρτικὰ),
alongside bodily torment and distress, old age, illnesses, and lack
of nourishment (Rh. II.8, 1386a7–9). Under special circumstances,
for example ones which would require of the virtuous person to
give up their own life in battle (NE III.9, 1117b9–15), the virtuous
person would prefer to cut their life short and would genuinely
count as courageous for doing so. However, all things being equal,
such a person sees nothing courageous in preferring death as such.
And that is because she thinks that life, when lived properly, i.e.,
when it features and is dominated by virtue and virtuous activity, is
worth living, and is in fact among the “greatest goods” obtainable.
Nor can we confine the preferability of life as it is described in
Nicomachean Ethics III.9 to the person having courage or the other
character virtues, leaving room for the possibility that Aristotle
thinks philosophers should take an alternative, welcoming ap-
proach toward death, à la Plato’s Phaedo, based on the posthumous
persistence of purely intellectual activity. First, when Aristotle
speaks, in III.9, 1117b9–15, of the virtuous and happy person as
Plato’s view of immortality and Aristotle’s attempt “to help us face up to our mor-
tality in a way that will enhance our chances of living worthy lives” (2012, 199). I am
generally sympathetic to this account, as long as one takes “mortality” in this con-
text to contrast specifically with personal immortality. Matthews (2012, 194–5), while
acknowledging the references to the immortality of the intellect in DA I.4 and to the
eternal active intellect of DA III.5, nevertheless appeals to NE III.6 1115a26–8 to
argue that “Aristotle rules out there being an afterlife of any sort . . .” (Matthews [2012,
91–4] also argues that Plato in the Phaedo does not sufficiently support his own view
of the afterlife and the comfort it is meant to afford, and that he fails to show how that
view squares with his particular conception of immortality as the persistence of a
separated soul akin to the Forms). But 1115a26–7 only states that there “seems” to be
nothing either good or evil for the deceased (δοκεῖ: 1115a27). Furthermore, Aristotle
can in fact be committed to there being nothing either good or bad for the deceased—
because there is no personal immortality—and still endorse the immortality of the
human intellect.
being pained by death as a result of assessing their life as valuable,

and as being deprived of the greatest goods, he insists that these
statements hold truer the more the person in question is virtuous
and happy, which for him means that they would apply most of
all to the philosopher, who has obtained the highest virtue of the-
oretical wisdom (NE X.7–8). Further, the descriptions of death
as an evil that we have mentioned earlier (from the Nicomachean
Ethics and Rhetoric), far from being restricted to death in the case
of people of virtuous character, actually seem to apply to death in
the case of human beings in general, certainly including fully vir-
tuous people.49 Seeing that Aristotle is committed to the idea that
philosophers, too, shun death as an evil fits in with the interpreta-
tion we have offered, according to which Aristotle thinks that the
persistence of the human intellect does not afford personal immor-
tality. If an individual, say a philosopher, herself ceases to exist at
death, then it is understandable that she would view her death as
an evil. Aristotle, then, seems to oppose straightforwardly Silenus’s
view that dying soon is the best practicable good for human beings,
throughout the corpus.50
49 As has been helpfully pointed out to me by an anonymous referee, in NE IX.9,

1170a19–24, Aristotle says that, though living is good in itself (καθ’ αὑτὸ), that is
so because (or, rather, when) it is “determinate” (ὡρισμένον), and so, “one need
not take up in discussion” a life that is indeterminate (ἀόριστος), i.e., a life that is
wretched and corrupted, or led in pain. Aristotle’s view may be, then, that life is a
good, and death an evil, in the case of virtuous people, but that death is good in the
case of the (excessively) vicious, who will be spared a wretched life by it. Indeed, as
we shall see in the following footnote, in EE I.5 Aristotle makes the point that cer-
tain types of life (e.g., the life of a child, a life devoid of pleasure, etc.) are not worth
leading (1215b22–1216a9). On the other hand, in GC II.10, 336b27–9, he makes
the point that, in all (ἐν ἅπασιν), nature always desires what is better, and being is
better than non-being (see later discussion in this section). Depending on the force
of ἅπασιν, Aristotle may mean here that being is better than non-being in all possible
cases, so that living any human life, e.g., would be better than death. Clarifying this
issue comprehensively is beyond the scope of the current project. What is important
for us to note is that, even if Aristotle did not regard death as an evil for certain vicious
individuals, his view would still be sharply contrasted with Plato’s with regard to the
value of death in the case of the virtuous and happy agent, above all the philosopher.
50 At first sight, Aristotle’s discussion in EE I.5 may seem to (exceptionally) sup-
port Silenus’s position. There, Aristotle says that many things (e.g., diseases, excessive
Nevertheless, one might at this point ask the following con-

cerning Aristotle’s views of life as valuable and generally preferable
over death. In describing death as an evil, Aristotle compares it to
such things as “ill repute” and “poverty.” But, while poverty is cer-
tainly unfortunate for the poor, Aristotle seems to think that it is
nevertheless not only inevitable (Pol. IV.11, 1295b1–3), but also cru-
cially beneficial for the functioning of political communities. For he
lists as a necessary part of the polis the sector of hired workers (τὸ
θητικόν) (IV.4, 1291a6), who are poor (III.5, 1278a21–3). Perhaps
there is room, then, for interpreting Aristotle as suggesting that,
similarly to poverty, death, while unfortunate for those individuals
who are about to encounter it, is nevertheless beneficial, all in all,
for human communities or for humanity in general? Along similar
lines, R. A. H. King argues that, for Aristotle, “[c]‌yclic coming to be
and passing away enables material things to exist—that is, to exist
as nearly permanently as they can as material things.”51 Death, on
such a view, may be considered beneficial to the species as a whole
because it enables its members to partake of eternity.
The first thing to note is that whatever good death is expected to
procure by enabling the cycle of life, for Aristotle, is ultimately due
to rescuing human beings from the very nonexistence that death
brings forth. Death, in other words, remains an evil—a problem
pains, and winter storms) induce one to give up on life, “so that it is clear that if one
gave [us] the choice, it would have been choice-worthy from the beginning not to come
into being, at any rate due to these things” (1215b20–2). But, in fact, Aristotle is not
even treating here the same issue discussed in our Eudemus fragment (contra White
[1992], 57). His point must rather be that it would have been choice-worthy not to come
into being in the first place had one known for a fact that diseases, excessive pains, and
winter storms would await one upon coming into existence. Neither this discussion,
nor the subsequent discussion of specific types of life that it would be choice-worthy not
to lead (1215b22–1216a9), implies, as Silenus’s dictum does, that human life as such is
not choice-worthy. It is therefore not surprising that Aristotle goes on in the rest of the
chapter to discuss the opinions of those who think that life is choice-worthy with a cer-
tain goal in view (1216a11–16, b3–8). I am thankful to Giulio Di Basilio for a helpful
discussion on this text.
51 R. A. H. King, Aristotle on Life and Death (London, 2001), 16.

that the cycle of life is intended to resolve, or at least to ameliorate.

In On Generation and Corruption II.10, 336b25–34, Aristotle speaks
of reproduction as employed by “God” as “the remaining device”
(τῷ λειπομένῳ τρόπῳ), i.e., as a last resort, to enable those living
things that must come into being and perish to approximate being—
presumably, the being of those entities that exist without ever going
into or out of existence, like the heavenly bodies and their unmoved
movers. Thus, though reproduction makes up for death, to an extent,
Aristotle can consistently maintain that death itself is an evil, since,
for any living thing and for any living species, non-being is worse
than being (336b28–9).52 This view amounts to “an overturning”
(Umkehrung) of Silenus’s “wise saying,” to quote Nietzsche (BT 3;
trans. mine). Not only is it not the case, as Silenus would have it,
that death, by ending existence, is a good only surpassed by never
coming into existence, but, rather, death is only viewed somewhat
positively, if at all, because, although it directly ends the existence of
any individual human being, it indirectly also permits the continued
existence of the species.53 Put differently, death is and remains an
evil because, if it had been pursued consistently as a goal, it would
have brought about the end of humanity—a result that Silenus
would seem to welcome, but that Aristotle vehemently opposes.
It remains possible, in principle, that Aristotle regards death as
an evil only when viewed from the standpoint of individual humans
52 See D. Henry, “Aristotle on the Cosmological Significance of Biological Generation,”

in D. Ebrey (ed.), Theory and Practice in Aristotle’s Natural Science (Cambridge, 2015),
100–18. Henry argues that in GC II.10 Aristotle suggests that biological generation
occurs because of its contribution to the good of the universe as a whole, as opposed to
the good of the living things engaged in reproduction. For a criticism of this reading, see
M. Segev, “Review of David. Ebrey (ed.), Theory and Practice in Aristotle’s Natural Science
(Cambridge, 2015),” in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/
theory-and-practice-in-aristotle-s-natural-science/ (2015).
53 Indeed, in giving a general characterization of death as an evil, Aristotle seems
to think that it remains an evil even once reproduction is no longer possible or
recommended, and after one is no longer performing a viable service to one’s commu-
nity. But, if the continuation of the species were the sole or main criterion for assessing
the value of death, we would have expected Aristotle, and the fully virtuous person as he
conceives of her, to think that death would be welcome at least when that purpose is no
longer being served.
or the human species, and not, so to speak, sub specie aeternitatis.54

In other words, one possibly should welcome death, or one’s own
nonexistence, not because it is good either for oneself or for one’s
species, but rather because it is preferable overall, for the world at
large. But that suggestion, too, ultimately fails. As we have seen, for
Aristotle, the fully virtuous person, too, is expected to renounce
death as an evil. But that person, qua fully virtuous, must exhibit the-
oretical wisdom, and must therefore be in a position to recognize the
(objectively) best possible state of affairs and to prefer and pursue it.
Since even that person shuns death, she presumably does so on the
basis of knowledge of the relevant facts, in this case, that the exist-
ence of human beings is, overall, preferable to their nonexistence (as
argued in this section, death may be viewed semi-favorably insofar
as it facilitates the continued existence of humanity by enabling the
cycle of life; but death would still be valued negatively overall, insofar
as individual human beings pursuing it consistently would lead to
the eradication of humanity).55
We might ask, at this point, what are the presumed facts that
would lead Aristotle’s fully virtuous person to conclude that the
existence of humanity is, overall, better than its nonexistence. In
Metaphysics Λ.10, famously, Aristotle compares “the nature of the
universe” (ἡ τοῦ ὅλου φύσις) to an army, in that “the good and the
best” pertains to it both “as something separate” (corresponding
to an army general) and “with respect to the order” (τὴν τάξιν)
(corresponding to the well-ordered soldiers of a proper army)
54 In a recent work, David Benatar (2017) helpfully distinguishes between the “ter-
restrial meaning” of life, i.e., the meaning of life as viewed from the perspective of the
individual, the community, or humanity at large, and “the cosmic meaning” of life, i.e.,
the meaning of life as viewed “sub specie aeternitatis.”
55 This argument can also explain, mutatis mutandis, why it is that Aristotle, who
considers death an evil for the individual, would not consider it a good thing for the
individual’s intellect either, though that intellect would, upon death, enjoy eternal intel-
lectual activity in a disembodied state (I am thankful to Andrew Payne for bringing this
issue to my attention). A pure intellect, like (but presumably even more fully than) the
living philosopher, should recognize the evil in the death of individual humans, based on
objective facts.
(1075a11–15). By “the good and the best” found in the order of the
universe, Aristotle has in mind the fact that “everything [in the uni-
verse] is put in order together toward a single end” (πρὸς . . . ἓν
ἅπαντα συντέτακται) (1075a16–19). Finally, Aristotle mentions, as
a further analogy for the order in the universe, the household, in
which “the free,” slaves, and beasts all share in tasks contributing,
to varying degrees, “to the whole” (εἰς τὸ ὅλον) (1075a19–25).
With the household in this analogy obviously corresponding to
the universe, David Sedley convincingly interprets “the free” as
corresponding to the heavenly bodies, and the slaves and beasts as
standing for the sublunary world and the species within it, the point
being that “[n]‌atural species are less regular in their behaviour than
the stars, but they still, in their own modest way, contribute to the
common good.”56
Aristotle likens the good state of the cosmos to that of god (e.g.,
Pol. VII.3, 1325b28–9), and he is even reported to have stated that
“the world itself is [a]‌god” (mundum ipsum deum . . . esse) (De phil-
osophia, fragment 26, Ross =Cic. Nat. D. I.13.33). Presumably, by
saying such things he subscribes to the perfection of the ordered
universe (paralleling O1: the first proposition we have associated
with optimism), in which even the least significant parts contribute
to the good of the whole, and are indispensable, since dispensing
of them would detract from the perfect world being as it is. Such a
view is consistent, and indeed may well have led Aristotle to con-
clude, against Silenus’s dictum, that human life is to be cherished
as such an indispensable part of the universe, and that it would not
have been better for humans either to die or never to have been
born (paralleling O2: the second proposition we have associated
with optimism).
As we have seen in the previous sections, based on the evidence
from both the Eudemus and the extant corpus, what Aristotle
56 D. Sedley, “Is Aristotle’s Teleology Anthropocentric?,” Phronesis 36 (1991), 179–96,

at 193.
wishes to retain from Silenus’s dictum is that the dead are happy,
and that the activity in death is superior to the activities carried
out in life. Aristotle accepts these points because he thinks that the
dead are capable of happiness (by a living friend continuing to per-
form their characteristic virtuous activities on their behalf), and
that disembodied intellects posthumously enjoy the highest and
most pleasurable activity of all, i.e., continuous theoretical contem-
plation. We are now in a position to appreciate Aristotle’s reasons
for rejecting the rest of Silenus’s statements, particularly the idea
that humans are better off either dying or, preferably, never having
been born. Silenus’s idea amounts to a radical rejection of the worth
or value of human existence. Things would have been better off,
Silenus suggests, had humans never existed. Aristotle vehemently
disagrees. Even a scenario in which the only thinking beings in
existence are disembodied intellects, exercising perfect intellec-
tion eternally, would have been worse than the world as we know
it. Though living human beings are inferior to pure intellects, and
though one can expect one’s intellect to be engaged in pure intellec-
tual activity eternally after one’s death, humans contribute, in their
own way, to the perfection of the world, and their contribution,
though limited, is indispensable. Wishing for them to cease to exist
or to never have existed, as it turns out, is to wish for the world to
be imperfect—a state of affairs which cannot be desirable either as
such or, a fortiori, for the fully virtuous person capable of properly
evaluating the cosmos and the things within it.
4.5. Aristotle, Plato, and Schopenhauer
Aristotle rejects Silenus’s dictum, as he presents it in the Eudemus,

according to which humans are better off either not existing or
dying quickly. He does so by arguing that, though the dead can be
happy, and the human intellect persists after death in a superior
state, death nevertheless remains an evil. This is so, for Aristotle,
for at least three reasons. First, the individual human being neces-
sarily ceases to exist at death, so that no good can be enjoyed by the
deceased. Second, death prevents human beings from partaking
of immortality directly, and leaves them with merely the approxi-
mation of eternal existence through reproduction. Third, human
beings and their lives are an indispensable part of the world and are
necessary for its perfection. As we have seen, Aristotle’s negative
assessment of human death or nonexistence goes not only against
Silenus’s statement, but also against Plato’s view in the Phaedo, ac-
cording to which death ought to be welcomed (though not self-
induced). As we shall see presently, Aristotle’s response applies
equally to the pessimistic approach of Schopenhauer, who himself
aligns his view consciously and explicitly with Greek pessimism
and with parts of Plato’s theory.
In WWR II.XLVI, a chapter titled “On the Vanity and Suffering
of Life,” Schopenhauer dedicates a discussion to the history of
opposition to optimism. He says that if one were to “record the
sayings of great minds of all ages” on this point, “there would
be no end to the citations” (585). In this context, Schopenhauer
mentions the Greeks, who were “deeply affected by the wretched-
ness of existence.” He quotes, in this respect, apart from Homer
and Euripides, Theognis’s Elegiae I.425–8 and Sophocles’s OC
1224–5, both of which make the point that it is best for human
beings not to be born (μὴ φῦναι), and that the next best thing for
them is to die as soon as possible. These texts are of course strik-
ingly similar to Silenus’s statement as described by Aristotle in the
Eudemus (in Fr. 6, Ross, taken from Plutarch’s Moralia).57 Though
Schopenhauer himself does not cite this text in that discussion,
he does cite, apart from the closely related texts by Theognis and
Sophocles, another relevantly similar part of Plutarch’s Moralia,
discussing the traditional practice of lamenting birth and
57 On the connection between these texts, see Nestle (1921), 86.

celebrating death (WWR II.XLVI: 585–6; cf. Plut., De audiend.

poet. 36f1– 3). The general sentiment expressed by Silenus’s
dictum certainly seems to be one that Schopenhauer himself
would subscribe to.
It is therefore unsurprising that scholars have found Nietzsche’s
allusion in BT 3 to Silenus’s statement as it is presented in
Plutarch’s quotation of Aristotle’s Eudemus to be a reference to
Schopenhauer’s pessimism.58 There, Nietzsche says that Silenus’s
dictum expresses, in his words, the “horror and dreadfulness
of being” (die Schrecken und Ensetzlichkeiten des Daseins).59
Nietzsche sees “the dreadfulness or absurdity of being” (das
Entsetzliche oder Absurde des Seins) in question as a fact, of which
one can have “true knowledge” (wahre Erkenntniss), and whose
“horrific truth” (grauenhafte Wahrheit) was grasped not only by the
Greeks, but also by Shakespeare (in Hamlet), and is still accessible
by us today (BT 7). Nietzsche is here quite clearly influenced by
Schopenhauer, who also invokes Hamlet in support of the idea that
“complete non-existence would be decidedly preferable to” human
existence (WWR I.59: 324).60 Furthermore, when Nietzsche in BT
7 describes the inaction of the Dionysian man, who has gained
“the true knowledge and the glimpse into the ghastly truth,” he
says that for such a person “existence . . . is denied” (das Dasein
wird . . . verneint), upon recognizing the extent of the dreadful-
ness and absurdity of existence, an idea that he again associates
with Silenus’s “wise saying.” This wording is clearly reminiscent of
Schopenhauer’s recurring notion of, and recommendation for, the
58 See, most recently, Beiser (2016), 45, and T. Stern, “Nietzsche’s Ethics of
Affirmation,” in T. Stern (ed.), The New Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche (Cambridge,
2019), 351–73, at 357–8. Indeed, Stern (2019, 358, 372 n. 17) asserts that Schopenhauer
identifies “the wisdom of Silenus” [ . . . ] “as evidence that life’s misery was known long
ago,” citing only WWR II. XLVI: 585.
59 Translations of the BT are mine.
60 Shakespeare’s King Henry IV is also used as support for this idea in WWR
II.XLVI: 587, discussed in the previous paragraph.
“denial of the will-to-live” (Verneinung des Willens zum Leben).61

Indeed, in WWR I, §70: 405, Schopenhauer says, even more rem-
iniscently of Nietzsche’s wording, that the “will-to-live . . . must
be denied if salvation is to be attained from an existence like
ours” (Wille zum Leben, welcher verneint werden muß, wenn
Erlösung aus einem Daseyn, wie das unserige ist, erlangt werden
soll). Granted, in the far later preface to the BT (1886), Nietzsche
accuses his earlier self of “having dimmed and corrupted, with
Schopenhauerian formulations, Dionysian apprehensions,” and
is being especially critical of Schopenhauer’s “theory of resigna-
tion” (Resignationismus) (“Attempt at Self-Criticism” 6). However,
in originally writing the BT, Nietzsche certainly seems to have as-
sociated Schopenhauer with Silenus’s “wise saying,” and such an
association seems quite understandable.62
There is, however, also a possible reason why Schopenhauer
would not (and should not) have adhered to the specific formula-
tion attributed to Silenus in Aristotle’s Eudemus. As we have seen,
Aristotle in the Eudemus has been taken to attribute to Silenus,
perhaps in addition to the general or “popular” pessimistic atti-
tude toward human life characterizing Sophocles’s and Theognis’s
remarks, the specifically Platonic idea regarding the subordination
of the perceptible realm of “becoming,” including human beings
and their existence, to the realm of “being,” featuring immaterial,
intelligible, eternal, and immutable Forms.63 In the Phaedo (78b–
80b), Plato famously argues for the immortality of the human
soul based on (inter alia) its affinity to the Forms. The view that
emerges is one of an immaterial soul which, upon the death of the
individual, would continue on to contemplate the Forms eternally.
Now, Schopenhauer directly criticizes Plato’s conception of the
soul as immaterial and immortal, though he also thinks that this
61 As we saw in section 2.4, Nietzsche later dissociates his notion of the Dionysian
person from pessimism; see p. 76.
62 See Beiser (2016), 45: “Schopenhauer is indeed our modern Silenus.”
63 See section 4.1; cf. Jaeger (1948), 48.
view should be amended, rather than jettisoned entirely. In FHP

§4: 43–6, Schopenhauer attributes to Plato “a deceptive doctrine of
the toughest vitality,” which he says is expounded most fully in the
Phaedo, and which he summarizes as follows:
What knows in us is an immaterial substance, fundamentally dif-

ferent from the body and called soul; the body, on the other hand,
is an obstacle to knowledge. Hence all knowledge brought about
through the senses is deceptive; the only true, accurate, and sure
knowledge, on the other hand, is that which is free and removed
from all sensibility (thus from all intuitive perception), conse-
quently pure thought, i.e. an operation exclusively with abstract
concepts.
As Schopenhauer goes on to say (FHP §4: 46), although he thinks

that this doctrine of Plato’s is “purposeless, mistaken, and even im-
possible,” he also regards his own view as “its corrected analogue.”
According to that correction, “only the intuitive knowledge, that is
kept clear of all connection with the will, reaches the highest ob-
jectivity and hence perfection” (FHP §4: 46). Schopenhauer refers
his readers at that point to the third book of WWR I, where he
discusses aesthetic experience as enabling one to temporarily cog-
nize the essences of objects (which Schopenhauer in fact refers to as
“Platonic Ideas”), not as an individual, but as “pure, will-less subject
of knowledge” (§38: 179). Plato in the Phaedo, Schopenhauer claims,
“deplore[s]‌the soul’s connexion with the body,” and “wish[es] to be
liberated from this connexion.” But the “true meaning of that com-
plaint,” for Schopenhauer, is a wish for liberation from individual
existence and the denial of the will (II.XLVIII: 608–9).
Arguably, then, Schopenhauer cannot accept the particular for-
mulation of Silenus’s dictum presented in Aristotle’s Eudemus as
is, because it endorses a view of the soul and its incorporeality and
immortality that he himself rejects. However, he stands behind
both the general sentiment behind that dictum—that humans are
better off dead or, even better, not having been born in the first
place—and a revised version of Plato’s pessimism with regard to
bodily existence, i.e., pessimism with regard to existence as a phe-
nomenon dominated by the will-to-live. Indeed, Schopenhauer,
while objecting to suicide, similarly to Plato in the Phaedo
(WWR I, §69), comes close to Plato’s positive assessment of death,
and even cites Plato’s Apology as support for his view on this issue
(WWR II.XLI: 465):64
Now the boundless attachment to life which appears here [sc. in

the prevalent fear of death] cannot have sprung from knowledge
and reflection. To these, on the contrary, it appears foolish, for
the objective value of life is very uncertain, and it remains at least
doubtful whether existence is to be preferred to non-existence;
in fact, if experience and reflection have their say, non-existence
must certainly win. If we knocked on the graves and asked the
dead whether they would like to rise again, they would shake their
heads. In Plato’s Apology this is also the opinion of Socrates. . . .
Schopenhauer, then, shares with Silenus (as he is represented in

Aristotle’s Eudemus) a basic common pessimistic outlook con-
cerning human life. According to both, humans are better off never
having come into existence. Furthermore, Plato, as Schopenhauer
himself recognizes, shares with both the idea that death is pref-
erable over a human life. Thus, when Aristotle presents Silenus’s
dictum in the Eudemus, and responds directly to those points in it,
his criticism can be legitimately directed at Plato (whom Aristotle
arguably had in mind himself in developing his critique) and
Schopenhauer as well.
64 In WWR II.XLVI: 586, Schopenhauer also cites as further evidence of ancient sup-
port for his pessimism Socrates’s description in Plato’s Apology of long sleep as preferable
to any day in the life of the happiest living person. On Socrates’s assessment of death in
the Apology, and its difference from the Phaedo, see Matthews (2012), 186–90.
It may be suggested that Schopenhauer, for one, would not be

bothered by Aristotle’s response to pessimism, since, along with
that response, Aristotle endorses a doctrine of the immortality of
the intellect, which Schopenhauer rejects out of hand. Indeed, not
only does Schopenhauer object to Plato’s view of the soul’s immor-
tality in the Phaedo, as we have seen, but he also criticizes Aristotle
directly on this point. In his marginal notes on his copy of Bekker’s
edition of Aristotle’s corpus, commenting on DA 413b23–7, in
which Aristotle says that the intellect “alone seems to be sepa-
rable, just as the eternal [is separable] from the perishable,” and
cross-referencing it with 408b18–31, in which Aristotle says that
the intellect “seems . . . not to perish,” Schopenhauer comments as
follows:65
Ecce! (cf: p. 408.) Fons erroris qui manavit in saecula: confer

supra ad [412b28–413a6] ubi contrarium enuntiatur.
Here! (cf. p. 408.) The source of the error which has spread
through the ages: compare to [412b28–413a6] above, where the
contrary is expressed.
In the passage that Schopenhauer alludes to as containing the

correct view that contradicts what Aristotle says in 408b18–31
and 413b23–7, i.e., 413a4–5, Aristotle argues that “the soul is not
separate from the body.” If Aristotle’s critique of pessimism in
the Eudemus presupposes the immortality of the intellect, then,
Schopenhauer may well dismiss it for that reason (and indeed, we
as readers may do well to ask, similarly, what merit there might
be in Aristotle’s critique in that case, assuming we do not happen
to otherwise adopt his views on the immortality of the human
intellect).
65 The transcription and translation of Schopenhauer’s note is my own. Schopenhauer’s

copy of Bekker is located in, and has been digitized by, the Schopenhauer-Archiv,
Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main.
However, it in fact seems that Aristotle’s critique of pes-

simism does not depend upon his ideas concerning immor-
tality. Whereas the immortality of the soul plays a major role in
motivating Plato’s view that death is a blessing, for Aristotle, as
we have seen, death is an evil precisely because the immortality
that it furnishes is insufficient for establishing either a promise of
a personal afterlife or any other consolation in the face of death.
Indeed, Aristotle’s alternative to pessimism is not only inde-
pendent of a commitment to personal immortality. It arguably
requires his rejection of that notion in order to be internally con-
sistent, and for a reason that Schopenhauer himself points out.
As we have seen in Chapter 1, Schopenhauer commends the op-
timism of the Hebrew Bible and Spinoza for its internal consist-
ency partly because that version of optimism rejects anything
like a notion of personal immortality, which would have been
in tension with its conception of the world as perfect (cf. WWR
II.L: 644). Similarly, Aristotle’s view leaves no room for viewing
the world as something one should aspire to escape, through ei-
ther death (as in Plato’s Phaedo) or the quieting of all aims and
goals in one’s life (as Schopenhauer recommends). For Aristotle,
the world is perfect as is and, on that assumption, there can be
nothing external to the world or subsequent to one’s existence in
it that one should aspire to attain.66
Now, as we have seen, Schopenhauer also thinks that monothe-
istic and pantheistic optimism is flawed, primarily because it ul-
timately fails to resolve the “problem of evil,” i.e., to reconcile the
supposed perfection of the world with the many imperfections
readily observable within it. Although Aristotle does not address
66 It is true that one could well imagine a consistently optimistic view which, in addi-
tion to the value inherent in the world and in human life, also posits a valuable afterlife
available to human beings (I owe this observation to Ursula Coope). Schopenhauer’s
point, however, is presumably more specifically that optimism cannot consistently posit
an afterworld or afterlife as a solution to the valuelessness or disvalue of the world or of
human existence. By rejecting personal immortality, Aristotle’s view escapes that charge.
this problem as such, his theory has resources for dealing with
it. Aristotle’s optimistic valuation of the world, as we have seen,
is not committed to the view that each and every part of the
world is perfectly valuable. Rather, for him, the perfection of the
world incorporates an axiological hierarchy, with human beings
ranking below certain beings (like the heavenly bodies) and
above others (like non-rational animals and plants). As argued
earlier in this chapter, Aristotle could appeal to that hierarchical
structure to respond to the pessimistic sentiment, expressed by
Silenus in the Eudemus, that it would be best for humanity not to
exist (paralleling P2, the second basic proposition we have associ-
ated with pessimism). For, in Aristotle’s view, the perfection of the
world necessarily requires all of its parts to exist within it. But that
hierarchy of value could also be used to combat Schopenhauer’s
challenge (and thus to defend the two basic propositions of philo-
sophical optimism that we have outlined, i.e., O1 and O2). For, if
the world’s perfection does not entail that each of its parts must be
perfectly valuable, then the world could potentially be perfectly
valuable while still containing suffering and evil pertaining to the
lower ranking among its parts.67 As we shall see, Maimonides, in
developing his own version of Aristotelian optimism, capitalizes
on this hierarchy in value, and uses it to deal explicitly with the
classical problem of evil. Before we see how he goes about doing
so, however, we must expound on Aristotle’s positive optimistic
theory, and the attitude he expects the type of person cognizant
of it to exhibit.
67 It is true that Silenus’s dictum in the Eudemus only gives Aristotle occasion to criti-
cize pessimism about human existence. But the Aristotelian response to such pessimism
appealing to cosmic perfection may be extended to apply to Schopenhauer’s pessimistic
assessment of all of life. Aristotle would reject such pessimism out of hand because he
thinks that the world is perfect as is, even if its parts are not all equally valuable.
5
Optimism and Self-Devaluation #1
Aristotle
In the previous chapter, we saw that Aristotle responds to views

concerning the value of the world and of human existence that
can appropriately be called pessimistic. He rejects the Platonic un-
derstanding of death as a deliverance, and the idea, familiar from
ancient Greek literature, that it would have been best for humans
not to have come into existence in the first place. For Aristotle, by
contrast to such views, death is to be shunned as an evil, prima-
rily because human beings are an indispensable part of a perfect
world order. This already commits Aristotle to a form of optimism,
adhering to the perfection of the world and the value of human
existence.
In this chapter, we shall expound the details of Aristotle’s opti-
mistic theory, and the psychological characteristics and behavior
that he thinks should appropriately be cultivated given that theory.
This in turn would require examining Aristotle’s view of the proper
attitude toward the divine. Human beings, in his view, are more
valuable than other mortal species and inanimate matter, but they
are far less valuable than certain beings that he regards as divine,
like the heavenly bodies and their unmoved movers. Aristotle does
not explicitly state how it is that one should ideally relate to such
beings. He does, however, speak of an unreciprocated relationship
of friendship (φιλία) between humans and such gods. I argue that
Aristotle’s conception of the magnanimous person sheds light on
that relationship. The magnanimous person, who is a philosopher,
devalues humanity and devotes her life and efforts to the divine.
Optimism and Self-Devaluation #1 159
And by doing so, Aristotle thinks, the person in question both

engages in the highest intellectual pursuit humanly achievable
and becomes practically virtuous, thereby overturning egoism and
acting generously and justly toward others.
Aristotle’s recommendation of total devotion to the divine may
seem to go against the natural tendency of organisms to further
their own lives and species. Nevertheless, I argue that this recom-
mendation is consistent with his teleological view of nature. As
scholars have recognized, Aristotle maintains that a living thing of
any species is naturally directed toward two distinct ends, namely,
performing its characteristic activities (goal (a)) and serving beings
superior to it in rank and value (goal (b)). The latter end culminates,
and most directly and noticeably so in the case of humans, in the
dedication of one’s efforts to the divine and ultimate cause of the
entire cosmos, i.e., the first unmoved mover. Since that divine prin-
ciple serves as the cause of the entire cosmos, whose condition it
continuously maintains, by dedicating oneself to that principle
one ipso facto also dedicates one’s efforts to the maintenance of the
world and its condition. Indeed, since humans are themselves a
part of the world, dedicating oneself to the divine principle (goal
(b)) necessitates pursuing one’s characteristic activity as a member
of the human species as well (goal (a)), as that activity is part and
parcel of the world as caused and maintained by the divine.
For Aristotle, then, the world of course depends on the divine
prime mover for its existence. But, as it turns out, he also thinks
that the prime mover in turn depends for its own existence on the
world being the kind of thing that it is, i.e., an eternal, divine, and
perfectly ordered cosmos exhausting all of time, space, and being.
This perfection essentially involves having exactly as many kinds of
thing, including living species, as are currently found in the world,
each contributing its own peculiar qualities and functions to the
whole. This view amounts to optimism, as we have defined it, for
it implies both that the world is perfectly good and that our ex-
istence within it, like the existence of any other thing within it, is
worthwhile, insofar as the contribution of all such things is nec-

essary to secure that perfection. Among such contributors, the
human species uniquely both is capable of, and regularly (but peri-
odically) succeeds in, achieving full philosophical knowledge. And
this fact, too, is indicative of Aristotle’s philosophical optimism.
Not only is the full philosophical knowledge obtainable by human
beings proof of the world’s comprehensibility and hence of its per-
fect and rational order, but the activity of contemplating that know-
ledge (which for Aristotle also constitutes the most perfect type of
happiness) provides humans with a goal that renders their life, as
long as it is properly oriented toward that goal, superior to their
nonexistence.
5.1. Superiority-Friendship with the Divine
The only gods whose existence Aristotle accepts are the unmoved
movers of the heavenly bodies and spheres, possibly in addition
to the heavenly bodies themselves, and these beings are incapable
of any humanlike intentional action, let alone of looking after, or
answering the prayers of, individual human beings.1 Aristotle also
thinks that traditional religious content and practices are politi-
cally necessary, and should be included and indeed mandated in
any correctly organized political community.2 Since this content
and these practices refer to anthropomorphic gods, which do not
exist, Aristotle cannot think that by worshipping such gods one is
relating in any direct way to the true gods of his metaphysics. Prayer,
sacrifices, and other traditional religious rituals, in other words,
while important, have nothing at all to do with existing deities, in
his view. These two facts leave one obvious issue unresolved. How is
1 See, e.g., G. R. Lear, Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics (Princeton, NJ, 2004), 195; Segev (2017b), ch. 1.
2 On this point see Segev (2017b), ch. 2; and M. Segev, “Traditional Religion and Its
Natural Function in Aristotle,” Classical World 111.3 (2018), 295–320.
it that Aristotle thinks human beings should relate to those deities

that he thinks do exist? What, more precisely, is the status of human
beings in relation to such gods, and what is the appropriate attitude
to develop toward them on its basis? Answering these questions
will help us to appreciate Aristotle’s form of optimism, on which
the hierarchy in value in the world demands that we devalue hu-
manity by comparison to the divine, while revering the divine and
dedicating our life to it.
Aristotle thinks of human beings as both very similar to and rad-
ically different from the ultimate causes of being, i.e., the unmoved
movers of the heavenly bodies and spheres, which he calls gods. The
activity constituting the eternal nature of these beings, i.e., theoret-
ical contemplation of their own nature, is identical in kind to the
best activity achievable by human beings, which Aristotle in fact
sees as a part of, and sometimes completely assimilates to, human
nature (NE X.7 1178a2–8). But, whereas the gods of Aristotle’s met-
aphysics consist in an eternal and perfect instance of that activity,
humans, being subject to the various constraints of sublunary
mortal hylomorphic living things, can only perform that activity
(when they can perform it at all) in a limited way and at limited
times (Metaph. Λ.7, 1072b14–26).
Both this similarity and this difference are relevant to under-
standing the attitude Aristotle thinks human beings could, and
ideally should, adopt toward those divine beings.3 They help us to
understand what Aristotle means when he says that, though the
gods cannot love us (EE VII. 3, 1238b18–30), we may nevertheless
have φιλία (love, friendship) toward them, and that our φιλιά to-
ward them, similarly to the one we have toward our parents, would
be φιλία toward the “good and excellent” (NE VIII. 12, 1162a4–7).
Although Aristotle generally considers φιλία a relation between
two equals (VIII.5), he also discusses a special form of friend-
ship holding between the unequal. In this type of “superiority
3 The discussion in the rest of this paragraph is based on Segev (2017b), 22–5.
friendship,” equality is in a way achieved by the inferior party loving

the superior party more than it is being loved by it, and the more so
the farther the two parties are apart in worth (VIII.7, 1158b11–28).
Aristotle explicitly gives our relation to the gods as an example of
superiority friendship (1158b33–1159a3), and the most extreme
kind of it, since the disparity in this case is so great that our love to-
ward gods remains totally one-sided.
Aristotle distinguishes between three forms of friendship, based
on pleasure, utility, or the good (VIII.2–3), and says that superi-
ority friendship can be found in all three (NE VIII.13, 1162a34–
b4). Since, as was mentioned earlier, humans have the capacity to
engage in the best activity possible, the activity in which the nature
of Aristotle’s gods consists, we may (admittedly very rarely) have
superiority φιλία toward the gods based on that shared good pro-
perty. It may be asked what might be gained by engaging in such a
one-sided relationship. Anticipating this question (with regard to
superiority friendship in general) (VIII.14, 1163a34–35), Aristotle
states that the inferior friend, honoring and loving his superior,
does incur a “gain” (κέρδος), namely, an “aid fulfilling the lack”
(τῆς δ᾽ ἐνδείας ἐπικουρία) (1163b1–5). He makes it clear that such
“gains” would include the virtue the inferior party would attain
(1163b12–14), i.e., as a result of engaging in a superiority friend-
ship based on goodness. It is also quite clear that Aristotle thinks
the inferior party in a superiority friendship is able to gain much
more from the superior party than would have been possible in a
friendship with an equal. As Aristotle puts it, a son—the inferior
party in the relationship of superiority friendship obtaining be-
tween him and his father—is incapable of doing anything “com-
parable in value” (ἄξιον) to the things that were done for him
(1163b18–21). In fact, the second example Aristotle gives in this
discussion of a superior party one could never honor enough is “the
gods” (1163b15–18: τοὺς θεοὺς). Assuming he has in mind here the
true gods of his metaphysics (and the point could be made on his
behalf even if he does not), his point must be that, in entering into a
superiority-philia with them, we could never expect to honor them

enough: not only would it be impossible to benefit them in any way
by honoring or loving them, given that they are entirely indifferent
to us, but we would also never be able to match the increase in
virtue that we would gain by entering a relationship of superiority
friendship with them.
Clearly, then, Aristotle thinks that one should love and honor the
true gods, and that doing so, while having no effect on those gods,
would be to one’s own advantage. We are left wondering, though,
exactly what loving or honoring the gods entails. Aristotle does not
unpack the attitudes humans are expected to have toward the gods
upon embracing a relation of φιλία toward them. There is, how-
ever, ample evidence for his views on relevant issues, e.g., in his
discussions of magnanimity and natural teleology. Based on that
evidence, we may address this issue on Aristotle’s behalf, and I shall
attempt to do so in what follows.
5.2. Magnanimity and the Divine
In NE IV.3, Aristotle discusses the character virtue of magna-

nimity (μεγαλοψυχία). He characterizes the magnanimous person,
who holds an intermediate position between the “small-souled”
(μικρόψυχος) and the vain, as being appropriately concerned with
“honors and dishonors,” knowing when to accept honors, when to
reject them, and how to take the appropriate amount of pleasure in
them (when they are deserved). Interestingly, the reason the mag-
nanimous are appropriately concerned with honors, in Aristotle’s
view, is that they are hardly concerned with them at all. They are
not disposed toward honor “as the greatest good,” honor being for
a person of their kind a rather “minute” thing (1124a16–19). The
magnanimous person favors truth over opinion (δόξα), i.e., over
the reputation that would be gained by speaking frankly about
one’s acquaintances (1124b26–28). That person is also not prone to
wonder (οὐδὲ θαυμαστικός), since “nothing is great for him,” and is

neither hasty nor impetuous, being “zealous about few things” and
deeming “nothing great” (1124b26–1125a15; cf. EE III.5, 1232b4–6).
There is controversy concerning the kind of truth Aristotle
expects the magnanimous person to be concerned with, and the
type of honors he expects that person to pursue.4 It is important
to note, in this respect, that Aristotle insists that the magnanimous
are worthy of the greatest things (NE IV.3, 1123b15–17, 26–28). In
line with this requirement, it is stated in MM I.25 that the magnani-
mous person “will be about, not every honor, but the best (περὶ τὴν
βελτίστην), and the honorable good having the status of a principle
(τὸ τίμιον ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἀρχῆς τάξιν ἔχον).” Now, Aristotle explicitly
says of the objects with which philosophers are concerned, and the
science pertaining to them, i.e., metaphysics, that they are the “most
honorable” (NE VI.7, 1141a18–20; Metaph. A.2, 983a5; cf. NE X.8,
1178b28–31). It is these honors, then, that interest, or should in-
terest, the magnanimous person most of all.5 Philosophers, then,
4 The view according to which Aristotle intends for his magnanimous person
to be the philosopher devoted to contemplative activity, a version of which I argue
for in the following, goes back to Aspasius, and is defended, e.g., by R. A. Gauthier,
Magnanimité: L’idéal de la grandeur dans la philosophie païenne et dans la théologie
chrétienne (Paris, 1951); and Frederick A. Seddon, Jr., “Megalopsychia: A Suggestion,”
The Personalist 56.1 (1975), 31–7. The alternative position, according to which the mag-
nanimous person is concerned with other types of (non-philosophical, and presumably
moral) action and honor is defended, e.g., by R. Crisp, “Aristotle on Greatness of Soul,”
in R. Kraut (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Malden, MA,
2006), 158–78, at 175–6. According to E. Schütrumpf, “Magnanimity, Μεγαλοψυχία,
and the System of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie
71.1 (1989), 10–22, at 20, Aristotle’s magnanimous person, “like the Platonic phi-
losopher, cannot value anything very much and this includes honour”; hence, such a
person exhibits a lack of “worldly attachment.” However, Schütrumpf insists (1989, 16),
Aristotle’s notion of magnanimity “replaces philosophy . . . with honour.” Richardson
Lear (2004, 169–74) presents a mixed alternative, according to which both types of ac-
tion and honor are relevant to Aristotle’s conception of magnanimity. M. Pakaluk, “The
Meaning of Aristotelian Magnanimity,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 26 (2004),
241–75, at 267–8, argues that magnanimity, for Aristotle, “leads someone to seek . . . the
preconditions, or circumstances, for the exercise of philosophical wisdom,” but does not
specify whether the magnanimous person would necessarily succeed in that endeavor.
5 If so, then the kind of honor pursued by the magnanimous person will not, contra
Crisp (2006, 174), “make him dependent on others,” i.e., on people honoring that person.
are the most fitting candidates for being magnanimous agents,

in his view. The “few things” about which such people would be
“zealous” are the eternal objects of metaphysics and the study of
them. This goes well with Aristotle’s remark in MM I.25 about the
honorable thing that the magnanimous would pursue as being a
“principle,” as he describes happiness or flourishing (εὐδαιμονία)
as an “honorable and divine” principle and “cause of goods” (NE
I.12, 1101b35–1102a4).6 The most honorable activity attributed
to the magnanimous would be happiness, understood specifically
as theoretical activity. All other things, including character virtue
and the activities pertaining to it, would not arouse their “wonder,”
since, though they too are honorable, the magnanimous person, as
Aristotle says, “will not be about” them, or about anything but the
“best honor” (MM I.25).
Aspasius, in his commentary on the NE, interprets Aristotle’s
conception of the magnanimous person similarly. Appealing to
Aristotle’s points that the magnanimous person would be neither
“prone to wonder” (θαυμαστικός) (NE IV.3, 1125a2) (in Aspasius’s
reading, wonder about such things as “great ornaments or bodies
or sums of money or music contests”), nor “prone to discussing
human beings” (ἀνθρωπολόγος) (1125a5),7 he goes on to associate
a person having such features with a philosopher, as described, for
6 The connection between these two texts is pointed out by Armstrong in the Loeb
edition of the Magna Moralia: G. C. Armstrong and H. Tredennick (trans.), Aristotle:
Metaphysics Books 10–14. Oeconomica. Magna Moralia (London/Cambridge, MA,
1935), 524.
7 J. Howland, “Aristotle’s Great-Souled Man,” The Review of Politics 64.1 (2002),
27–56, at 45, argues that, given Aristotle’s comment in Metaph. A.2 that philosophy
begins in wonder, the description in NE IV.3, 1125a2–3 of the magnanimous person
as lacking wonder entails that such a person lacks “the defining mark of the phil-
osophical soul.” But, on Aspasius’s reading, the magnanimous person only lacks
wonder with regard to certain (specifically, mundane) things. This reading is pref-
erable, because it does justice to the fact that Aristotle’s remark in NE IV.3 is made in
the context of describing the magnanimous person as distinct from “the fawners” (οἱ
κόλακες) and from “a person prone to discussing human beings” (ἀνθρωπολόγος)
(1125a1–5).
instance, in Plato’s Theaetetus (114. 18–24, Heylbut).8 Aspasius

then says:
But nor does he speak about himself. What, then, are the exchanges
and conversations of the magnanimous person, since he will have
no speech concerning human beings? Or would someone not be in
error in saying about him that he is entirely prone to speaking of di-
vinity, and is knowledgeable concerning these things, and against
“the many,” and about nature? But if he will [be knowledgeable]
also concerning human things, it would be concerning some other
virtue and the things active in accordance with it.
ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ περὶ αὑτοῦ λέγει. τίνες οὖν αἱ τοῦ μεγαλοψύχου ὁμιλίαι
καὶ λόγοι, ἐπειδὴ ἀνθρώπων αὐτῷ λόγος οὐκ ἔστιν; ἢ οὐκ ἄν τις
ἁμαρτάνοι εἰπὼν περὶ τούτου ὅτι τὸ μὲν ὅλον θεολόγος ἐστὶ καὶ
περὶ τούτων καὶ πρὸς τοὺς πολλοὺς καὶ περὶ φύσεως ἐπιστημῶν;
εἰ δ’ ἄρα καὶ περὶ ἀνθρωπίνων, περὶ ἄλλης τινὸς ἀρετῆς καὶ τῶν
κατ’ αὐτὴν ἐνεργειῶν. (114. 24–29, Heylbut)
Here, Aspasius spells out what seems to be an inevitable corollary

to one of Aristotle’s discussions of the magnanimous. If, as Aristotle
explicitly states, the magnanimous person would be concerned
with no human beings and with no human affairs (not even af-
fairs pertaining to that person’s own individual human life), then,
if that person is to engage in any conversation or argumentation at
all, those would have to be conversations or arguments concerning
something extra-human. The remaining available topics are the
divine (corresponding to Aristotle’s science of metaphysics) and
the natural world (corresponding to Aristotle’s physics, and hence
8 Gauthier (1951, 107) refers in this respect to Theaet. 173e and 174a. In the former,
Socrates self-referentially (and self-mockingly) describes a philosopher behaving inap-
propriately in court, which fits in well with Gauthier’s interpretation of Aristotle’s mag-
nanimous person as modeled on Socrates. However, note that the reference may well be
to 174a, containing Plato’s famous anecdote concerning Thales as absent-minded.
presumably excluding considerations pertaining to humans qua

anything other than natural substances).
Aspasius’s argument, furthermore, parallels one of Aristotle’s
own. In NE X.8, Aristotle argues that perfect happiness or flour-
ishing (εὐδαιμονία) is a kind of contemplative activity, by con-
sidering the actions plausibly attributed to the gods, whom “we
take to be the most blessedly happy and flourishing” (1178b8–9).
Having ruled out humanlike (and hence unworthy) actions such
as generous donations, and having also eliminated complete inac-
tion, Aristotle concludes that these gods must contemplate, leaving
that activity as the most suitable candidate for constituting human
flourishing as well (1178b7–23). Complementing that conclusion,
MM II.12 introduces an analogy between human and divine self-
sufficiency. After concluding, similarly to NE X.8, that god would
not reasonably be asleep, it is concluded that he must contemplate,
and will contemplate himself, since there is simply no better ob-
ject (1212b33–1213a4). On Aspasius’s interpretation, Aristotle in
NE IV.3 is implementing a similar argument based on a process of
elimination. But, instead of identifying the best human activity by
locating the activity of god first, in NE IV.3 the process is applied
directly to the activity to be performed by the magnanimous them-
selves. Since the magnanimous person is “best” (ἄριστος) (NE IV.3,
1123b26–7), it is reasonable to refer to his or her characteristic ac-
tivity in order to discover the best human activity or pursuit, sim-
ilarly to the appeal to the gods in X.8. And, again similarly to X.8,
once we have eliminated all actions that would have been unworthy
of such a person, we are left with only one option, namely theoret-
ical contemplation of such things as the nature of the divine.
Another important link between NE IV.3 and X.8 occurs at X.8,
1178b17.9 There, Aristotle states that “things having to do with
actions” (τὰ περὶ τὰς πράξεις) are “minute” (μικρὰ). It is true that,
9 Gauthier (1951, 113) appeals to this text in arguing that full-fledged magnanimity is
a trait belonging to the philosopher.
read in context, this description is applied to practical matters only

as they would have been regarded by the gods (in the very next line,
Aristotle continues to describe practical matters as unworthy of the
gods: ἀνάξια θεῶν), with the conclusion that the only activity attrib-
utable to the gods is theoretical activity (1178b20–22). However, this
fact does not at all make the remark irrelevant to human concerns.
On the contrary, it is based precisely on the comparison with the di-
vine that Aristotle goes on to identify the activity most constitutive
of human flourishing, too, with theoretical activity (1178b22–3).
Indeed, as we have seen, Aspasius’s interpretation of NE IV.3 implies
that Aristotle’s discussion there of the magnanimous person, who
is also supposed to be a paragon of goodness (albeit admittedly an
inferior one by comparison to the gods), mirrors that argument in
X.8. Now, just as human beings are expected to imitate the gods by
focusing their attention on the theoretical apprehension of eternal
objects, they ought also, as Aristotle indicates here, to imitate their
transcendence over all other activities, including practically virtuous
behavior. Even the best of humans would only be capable of imitating
divine activity to a minimal extent (1178b25–7), and Aristotle makes
it quite clear that the same restrictions would hold for their ability to
transcend practical circumstances and considerations, since human
nature is not self-sufficient and demands attention to one’s “bodily
health, nurture and other care” (1178b33–35). Nevertheless, the
philosophically oriented and (we might now add) magnanimous
person ought, as much as possible, “to be immortal” (ἀθανατίζειν),
by attending to the feature of oneself that is best (κράτιστον), and not
“to mind” (φρονεῖν) human or mortal things (X.7, 1177b31–34).
It has been argued that, apart from philosophers, people of vir-
tuous character, who are concerned with truths and honors related
to practical matters, could also be magnanimous, in Aristotle’s
view.10 Given what we have just seen, that would require the honors
10 Lear (2004, 169–74) makes this point, arguing against Gauthier’s position. Crisp
(2006, 175–6), for his part, argues that “given the lack of any explicit reference by
to be pursued by such people to be included among the greatest.

But Aristotle does not seem to think that they are. When he says,
in NE IV.3, after stating that the magnanimous person is “worthy
of the greatest things,” and is “best” and “good” (1123b26–29), that
greatness in each of the virtues would also seem to be the mark of
such a person (1123b29–30), he does not say, and need not imply,
that every virtue should count as one of the greatest things of which
that person is worthy.11 Rather, Aristotle seems to be saying in what
follows (1123b31–1124a1) that one would expect the magnani-
mous person to exhibit character virtue, presumably to the full ex-
tent,12 and that this fact is to be explained as follows.
Refraining from base behavior would be an inevitable outcome
of the magnanimous person’s disposition to deem “nothing great.”
That person would simply not care enough about practical ends to
make the effort to accomplish them maliciously. We might have
expected the magnanimous to be invested in practically virtuous
actions, and to center their life around those.13 But, according to
what Aristotle is signaling here, the sober outlook of the magnan-
imous shows human life and activities in general to be relatively
insignificant. The magnanimous person, nevertheless, still leads a
human life, of course. And the reason why that life contains virtuous
activities rather than vicious ones is that, as Aristotle goes on to say, it
would be odd if such a person, who is worthy of the greatest honors,
would not be worthy of lesser honors, including those awarded for
practically virtuous actions. Being the type of person worthy of the
greatest honors requires being worthy of basic honors, and that in
turn requires being practically virtuous. The magnanimous person,
however, need not care about practical virtue, except insofar as
Aristotle to a link between philosophy and greatness of soul, the case for [interpreting
Aristotle’s magnanimous person as the philosopher] is not strong.” See also Crisp
(2006), 176.
11 Contra Richardson Lear (2004), n. 56.
12 But see Pakaluk (2004), 258–9.
13 This point has been helpfully pointed out to me by an anonymous referee.
it is necessary for engaging in the only activity and with the only
objects that such a person does care about. Indeed, the magnan-
imous would care about many other things only in that limited
sense, including material goods, which of course would not thereby
be included in the category of the most honorable goods. Thus,
though magnanimity cannot come about without character virtues
(1124a1–3), that does not mean that these virtues are among the
most honorable things of which the magnanimous are worthy or
which they deem most honorable.
There is a sense in which the person of character virtue does
count as magnanimous, in Aristotle’s view. As he states in EE III.5,
magnanimity “seems to follow all the virtues,” as it amounts to “dis-
cerning correctly the great and the small among the goods” and
looking down on “the great things contrary to reason” (1232a31–
b1).14 For instance, the courageous person would look down on
dangers (and would presumably also be able to distinguish the
greater and the lesser good in the relevant domain) (1232b1–2).
And, in that sense, courage would be “followed by” magnanimity.
But Aristotle also goes on to distinguish that type of magnanimity
from magnanimity understood as “a single” (μία) virtue (1232b25–
31), which he ascribes to those who deservedly possess and cherish
things that are honorable, not simply by the consensus of a mul-
titude or an esteemed few, but as a matter of objective fact (cf.
1232b17–21). Here, philosophers seem to fit the bill. These people
would pronounce the largest number of things worthless, or “mi-
nute,” and would not be roused to “wonder” by them, confining
themselves rather to those activities and objects that truly are the
most honorable and best of all.
If Aristotle’s descriptions of the magnanimous person should
apply to his conception of a philosopher, as we have seen should
be the case, then we should be able to determine the attitude
philosophers should take toward both the honorable things they
14 On this part of the EE see Crisp (2006), 164–5.

are concerned with and things inferior to those things by looking at

the attitude the magnanimous take toward more and less honorable
things, in Aristotle’s view. It is already clear that such people would
be devoted to their objects of inquiry and would deem them espe-
cially “great” and worthy of wonder. But Aristotle elaborates fur-
ther. The magnanimous, i.e., the philosophers, would in fact appear
“disdainful” (ὑπερόπται) (NE IV.3, 1124a20). They would “seem” to
be characterized by “the trait of being people who look down” (τὸ
καταφρονητικὸν εἶναι), and, specifically, they would “look down”
on those things that they deem “minute” (EE III.5, 1232a38–b4)—
in their case, all things except the objects of their inquiry. And that
impression would not be misguided, because the most unique fea-
ture of the magnanimous is “belittlement” (τὸ ὀλίγωρον) toward
those things that they do not regard as great (1232b9–10). This fea-
ture would be retained, presumably, throughout their lives, and per-
meate their various projects and activities. For example, in acting
generously, or indulging in bodily pleasures strictly to a moderate
degree, as these people surely would, they would simultaneously
regard such things, and humanity in general, as trifles by compar-
ison to the unmoved movers of the heavens. They would long for
those brief periods of time during which their limited human na-
ture allows them to apprehend and imitate such beings in acts of
theoretical contemplation. Indeed, this attitude of the magnani-
mous helps to explain why Aristotle thinks that they must also be
particularly practically virtuous. Having full character virtue, such
people would be prone to acting altruistically, when that is called
for (e.g., they would sacrifice their life for the sake of a friend or
the homeland; cf. NE IX.8, 1169a18–29). And that is exactly what
we would have expected them to be prone to doing, given their
overall outlook. Shifting their attention away from themselves and
humanity and toward the contemplation of superior beings, these
people would be generally less prone to egoism.
The foregoing discussion indicates that, for Aristotle,
philosophers, qua magnanimous, would concern themselves
primarily with the most honorable things, attending to other

things, not “zealously,” but only insofar as and because doing so
would enable their preferred activity. This would also involve the
recognition by the philosophers that, since they are human beings,
they themselves are among the objects to be generally devalued
and disregarded, as is humanity in general. We may say, then, that
Aristotle’s magnanimous philosopher exhibits humility, though
we must be quick to add a caveat. The vice of deficiency related
to magnanimity, i.e., “small-souled-ness” (μικροψυχία), which is
often translated as “humility,” is of course quite different from mag-
nanimity as we have described it. The “small souled” person, for
Aristotle, deems himself worthy of “lesser things than he is worthy
of ” (NE IV. 3, 1123b9–11). Such a person, in failing to pursue well-
deserved goods, seems “to be ignorant of himself ” (1125a19–23).
Not so with the philosophers who, as far as one can be from igno-
rance, devalue themselves correctly.15 The correct self-devaluation
of the philosophers is based on a comparison with beings higher
than humans, and it therefore extends, as we have seen, to the de-
valuation of humanity in general. Philosophers recognize that they
are doing as well as human beings in general can ever do, and that
they deserve to be honored for that reason more than other people
(i.e., non-philosophers) do, dubious an honor though that may
be.16 Thus, they are neither “small-souled,” since they assess them-
selves as the worthiest among human beings, nor vain, since their
assessment is correct. “Small-souled” people wrongly rank them-
selves below other individuals, for various reasons (1123b9–11).
They may, for instance, perform good deeds, and fail to interpret
15 Howland (2002, esp. 46 and 55–6) thinks that Aristotle’s project in the NE, which is
generally influenced by a Socratic ideal, calls for a magnanimity that would amount to a
Socratic form of self-deprecation resulting from the recognition of one’s worthlessness
with regard to wisdom; but Howland in fact thinks that the magnanimous person as
described in NE IV.3 falls short of this ideal.
16 Thus, the honor attached to such people hardly makes them “complacent,” contra
Crisp (2006, 172). Pakaluk (2004, 245) argues that magnanimity as Aristotle conceives
of it “is not an attitude of smug self-satisfaction, because it is principally an attitude of
aspiration.”
them as such. What is certain is that such people fail to combine,

as they should, an appreciation for what is more honorable than
any human being, with the recognition that carrying it out, through
contemplation, is the most honorable human pursuit. This pursuit,
together with this recognition, is the mark of the magnanimous,
who are therefore, and only in this sense, humble.17
Aristotle states that the magnanimous person is incapable of
living “with a view to another” (πρὸς ἄλλον), except a friend or a
loved one (φίλον) (1124b31–1125a1). The behavior and values
characteristic of a magnanimous person are certainly in line with
this statement, especially when we consider the “friends” in view
of whom the magnanimous lead their lives as the gods of Aristotle’s
metaphysics (see section 5.1). The magnanimous person, who
recognizes the inferiority of the human species, would regard
human life as having no absolute or overriding value (ὡς οὐκ ἄξιον
ὂν πάντως ζῆν), and would consequently even be “prone to great
dangers” (μεγαλοκίνδυνος) (NE IV.3, 1124b6–9).18 Such a person
dedicates his or her life fully to the divine, through repeated acts
of theoretical contemplation, on the hypothetical assumption that
such an enterprise would have rendered him or her “most god
17 Richardson Lear (2004, 174) notes that “[t]‌he vice opposed to greatness of soul [in
Aristotle’s view] should not really be called humility . . . when that is conceived in terms
of the Christian virtue. Someone who has Christian humility is not marked by a sense of
inferiority to others. . . . His humility is primarily before God, not his fellow men.” Her
distinction between the humility of the small-souled and Christian humility is there-
fore similar to my distinction between the humility of the small-souled and that of the
magnanimous, respectively. The main difference is that, unlike Christian humility (as
Lear understands it), the humility of Aristotle’s magnanimous person would not depend
on “the grace of God” (ibid.), if that is taken to imply divine intentional action, which
Aristotle rejects. In fact, as we shall see, the self-devaluation that Aristotle thinks the
magnanimous person should exhibit only requires the recognition of the superiority to
oneself of beings which, though considered divine in Aristotle’s system, are quite dif-
ferent from anything like the monotheistic God or even Aristotle’s prime mover.
18 The point is not that human life is objectively valueless, but rather that its value pales
in comparison to other things that the magnanimous person values. I am thankful to an
anonymous referee for a helpful comment on this point, and for suggesting EE VII.2,
1237a16–17 as a relevant text establishing the point that “the human being is one of the
things excellent by nature” and that this in turn implies that human virtue is something
“unqualifiedly good” (ἁπλῶς ἀγαθόν).
loved” (NE X.8, 1179a22–32), had the gods been able to love or
communicate.19
5.3. Self-Devaluation and

Theocentric Teleology
Aristotle regards humanity as significantly inferior to (i.e., less hon-

orable and perfect than) certain higher entities, and above all the
gods of his metaphysics. As a direct corollary, the people whom he
considers wisest, i.e., those who have attained knowledge of what he
calls “first philosophy,” and therefore have a full grasp of the truth
concerning the ultimate causes of being, including their relation to
human beings, to the extent that Aristotle himself does, would also
be aware of the inferiority of humanity to these divine entities. It
is only to be expected that such people would be expected to lead
their lives in accordance with their knowledge of their own infe-
riority, and to nurture a commitment to the beings whose superi-
ority they acknowledge, as much as is humanly possible. Yet, the
conclusions we have reached so far concerning the priorities and
conduct to be recommended based on Aristotle’s view may appear
to be in tension with his overall theory. Specifically, focusing one’s
attention and effort primarily (ideally, though presumably never in
practice, exclusively) on the good that one finds in divinity seems to
fly in the face of Aristotle’s natural teleology. For, according to that
theory, members of a given species are naturally oriented toward
securing, activating, maintaining, and propagating their own life
functions and characteristic features.
The first thing to note in this respect is that, by focusing one’s
attention on the divine in the way Aristotle thinks one should,
and as philosophers adhering to his standards do, one in a sense
does enhance one’s own life and nature, and this for two reasons.
19 See section 5.1 and Segev (2017b), 87–9.

First, as we have seen, the relation at the basis of the philosopher’s

devotion to the gods of Aristotle’s metaphysics is one of superi-
ority friendship based on goodness. As such, this relation, like all
friendships (φιλίαι) based on a shared good feature (as Aristotle
thinks of them), enables philosophers to regard the divine entity
in question as their “other self ” (NE IX.4, 1166a29–32). Perhaps,
then, dedicating one’s life to the divine would amount, in this sense,
to caring for oneself. Second, for Aristotle, not only are humans
capable of sharing a good feature with the gods and befriending
them, but also, by doing so—that is, by cultivating and exercising
their intellect in the very same activity constituting the nature of
these gods—humans are in fact doing what most of all (μάλιστα)
makes them human (cf. NE X.7, 1178a6–7). Viewed thus, it seems
difficult to distinguish between attending to one’s own intellect and
attending to the gods.
These suggestions, however, raise the following difficulties. First,
unlike dedicating one’s life to such things as family life or public af-
fairs, dedicating one’s life to divinity does not directly contribute to
the preservation of the lives and proper functioning of members of
one’s own species, which is, to repeat, what we would expect indi-
vidual organisms to pursue given the principles of Aristotle’s natural
theory. Second, it seems that a relevant distinction could indeed
be made between care for one’s own intellect and devotion to di-
vinity. Humans could revere the pure eternal intellects functioning
as their ultimate causes, or they could attend to theoretical reason
specifically insofar as they may exercise it, being the mortal rational
animals that they are. Aristotle sees an intricate relation between
these two attitudes, and he advocates both. But we may ask whether
his natural teleology permits him to do so consistently. Caring for
oneself, of course, is ubiquitous among individual members of bio-
logical species. Indeed, the devotion to other humans, such as one’s
family, friends, and fellow citizens, which Aristotle condones, also
has analogues in the animal kingdom, as he recognizes. Perhaps
most memorable are the observations Aristotle relates of dolphins
cooperating, under what seems to be a genuine risk to their own

lives, in support of other members of their species (HA IX.48).
But is there any analogue, or relevant evidence, to support
Aristotle’s recommendation (based on his understanding of
human nature) of devoting oneself to nonhuman, eternal unmoved
movers? In fact, there is, at least according to one prominent in-
terpretation of his teleological worldview. In Politics I.8, Aristotle
states explicitly that plants exist for the sake of non-rational ani-
mals, which in turn generally exist for the sake of human beings
(1256b10–22). Based partly on this text, David Sedley concludes
that Aristotle adheres to an “anthropocentric cosmic order,”
due to which “[e]‌ach being serves both its own ends and—to
put it very crudely—the next link in the food chain.”20 As Sedley
recognizes, since the cosmic order in question posits Aristotle’s god
as “the ultimate focus of all aspirations,” it is “[i]n one very strong
sense . . . theo-centric” as well.21 He also recognizes a parallel be-
tween “the combination of a lower with a higher goal” in the case
of nonhuman species and the coexistence in Aristotle’s view of
human beings of a “moral goal” and “the higher intellectual goal
of transcending human nature by means of contemplation.”22 This
comes close to explaining, in terms couched in Aristotle’s natural
teleology, his recommendation to dedicate one’s life to the divine,
and to prefer doing so over benefiting one’s own human life, one’s
human friends, or humanity in general. In Aristotle’s theory, it is as
appropriate and natural for human beings to live for the sake of the
gods as it is for plants to exist for the sake of beasts and for beasts to
exist for the sake of human beings.
Though Sedley’s understanding of Aristotelian teleology as
countenancing a double goal for mortal species, including humans,
helps to explain Aristotle’s recommendation of dedicating oneself
20 Sedley (1991), 190–1.
21 Sedley (1991), 196.
22 Sedley (1991), 191.

to the divine, it also calls for a modification. A double goal for a

non-rational animal, for example, would consist of (a) the goal of
(successfully or excellently) activating and preserving all its char-
acteristic capacities (nourishing itself and reproducing; perceiving
with its senses), and (b) its goal in relation to beings that are supe-
rior to it in value (being used for the purposes of human beings).
For the human double goal to provide an adequate analogue, then,
it would have to consist of (a) activating and preserving all human
characteristic capacities excellently (which would include, not only
moral action, but also theoretical contemplation), and (b) the goal
of humans in relation to beings that are superior to them in value
(dedicating one’s life to the divine). Much of goals (a) and (b), for
humans, would be achieved by performing the same activity, i.e.,
by performing acts of theoretical contemplation. But that is neither
surprising nor unique. It is the (excellent) exercise of the charac-
teristic capacities of mature horses that makes them useful for us
in battle, and it is partly a feature of the (successful) reproductive
process in sheep, i.e., lactating, that makes them useful for human
nutrition.
The fact that goal (a), of activating and preserving our character-
istic capacities, must include as one of those capacities our capacity
for theoretical thinking, follows from Aristotle’s commitment to
the idea that the theoretical intellect constitutes a significant part
of human nature—it is, for him, as was already mentioned, what
a human being “most of all” is (μάλιστα: NE X.7, 1178a6–7). This
fact also helps to clear up a potential misconception of the inter-
pretation advanced so far of Aristotle’s view of the most appropriate
attitude toward divinity. It may appear, at first sight, that that in-
terpretation sets out to establish human theoretical activity as the
highest human goal, or as being alone good only for its own sake,
similarly to exclusivist interpretations of Aristotelian happiness
(εὐδαιμονία) (identifying happiness with excellent theoretical ac-
tivity), and unlike inclusivist interpretations (taking happiness to
include all intrinsic goods as parts). In fact, however, the upshot
of the interpretation advanced thus far is that Aristotle devalues

human virtuous activity in toto. Whichever human activities hap-
piness happens to consist of, these activities conjointly form a goal
distinct from, and subordinate to, the goal of devoting oneself to
beings whose value transcends all human endeavors. The relation
between theoretical and practical virtue and activity, and the re-
lation between these and human flourishing, are both within the
purview of human nature and its overall goal (i.e., goal (a)). Those
who have perfected their human nature and its characteristic
functions to the utmost extent would necessarily come to the rec-
ognition that human life, even at its best, is vastly inferior to the
divine, and that recognition would presumably shape their attitude
and behavior (it would, that is, motivate them to also adopt goal
(b)). And, since that recognition would be based on the estimation
of the happiest human life, it should properly be taken to down-
play the significance or value, not only of the political life or moral
actions of human beings, but of their theoretical wisdom as well.
5.4. Aristotle’s Optimism
For Aristotle, as we have just seen, performing the activities char-

acteristic of one’s species (goal (a)) is required for the successful
dedication of oneself to higher beings, and ultimately to the first
divine causes of all of being (goal (b)). This is most clearly visible
in the case of humans (or, at least, humans capable of philosophical
activity), in whose case goal (b) consists of dedicating their efforts
and activities directly to the gods of Aristotle’s metaphysics. Since
these are, for Aristotle, the fundamental causes of the world as a
whole, appreciating them and contemplating their nature involves
the appreciation and contemplation of the entire world qua their
effect. That in turn necessarily involves recognizing oneself as
a part of the world order caused by these beings. And as we shall
see presently, Aristotle also regards this world order as perfect,
precisely as a result of featuring just as many parts as it does, in-

cluding the various species of living things in existence, along with
their characteristic activities and functions. By dedicating oneself
to the divine causes of the world, then, one also acknowledges one’s
own contribution to the perfection of the world as it is caused and
maintained by these beings, which in turn renders one’s own exist-
ence worthwhile.
We have already seen in Chapter 4 that Aristotle is committed
to assessing the cosmos as perfect, since he thinks that the world,
which either enjoys a state akin to that of god (Pol. VII.3, 1325b28–
9) or is itself a god (De phil. Fr. 26 =Cicero, N.D. I.13.33), is
constituted such that all of its parts are directed toward a single
good end and toward “the whole” (Metaph. Λ.10, 1075a11–29).
This view is supported by specific features of Aristotle’s cosmolog-
ical theory. In Cael. I.1, Aristotle asserts that, unlike bodies that
are “perfect” in the sense of having all “dimensions” (διαστάσεις),
the whole of which all of these bodies are parts—the universe—
is “entirely perfect” (τέλειον . . . πάντῃ), being neither in contact
with nor limited by any other body, and hence forming a unity,
unlike its parts, that is not simultaneously also a plurality (268b5–
10).23 Though what Aristotle has in mind here is most directly
perfection or completeness in magnitude, it has been noted that
the word teleion, which in Greek “undoubtedly has a normative
aspect as well,” is defined by Aristotle as meaning both “some-
thing that includes all its parts . . . and something that with re-
spect of the excellence proper of its kind cannot be surpassed”
(Metaph. Δ.16, 1021b12–1022a3), and that “both senses . . . play a
role in De Caelo I.1.”24
23 There is some controversy about the identity of the “bodies” alluded to at 268b5. G.
Betegh, F. Pedriali, and C. Pfeiffer, “The Perfection of Bodies: Aristotle’s De Caelo I.1,”
Rhizomata 1 (2013), 30–62, at 53–4, have argued, against the common view that the
referent should be individual substances, that the reference is instead to the material
elements.
24 Betegh, Pedriali, and Pfeiffer (2013), 44; cf. ibid. 55.
It is only appropriate, then, that Aristotle goes on in De caelo I.9

to link that sense of perfection of the universe directly to the di-
vine beings whose existence and activity this world order enables.
He makes the point that “the whole world” (ὁ πᾶς κόσμος), which
is made “of all proper matter [i.e., natural and perceptible body]”
(ἐξ ἁπάσης . . . τῆς οἰκείας ὕλης), is unique and perfect (again, in
the sense of not being limited by any external body), and that,
besides the impossibility of there being a body outside of it, there
is, for that reason, no place, void, or time outside of it either
(279a6–18). Now, Aristotle says that it is on account of (διόπερ)
there being no body, place, void, or time outside of the world
as it is that “the things there” (τἀκεῖ) remain placeless, ageless,
and changeless, and thus lead “the best and most self-sufficient
life” (τὴν ἀρίστην . . . ζωὴν καὶ τὴν αὐταρκεστάτην) (279a18–22).
There is controversy over the identity of the beings that are said
at 279a18 to exist “there,” i.e., outside of the world.25 The de-
scription of their best and self-sufficient life, however, is unmis-
takably reminiscent of Aristotle’s description of the gods—i.e.,
the unmoved movers of the heavens—as having the “best life”
(ζωὴ ἀρίστη: Metaph. Λ.7, 1072b28), and as being entirely self-
sufficient (EE VII. 12, 1244b7–10; MM II.15, 1212b33–1213a10;
cf. NE X.7, 1177a27–8).
25 Guthrie argues that Aristotle is speaking there hypothetically about the features that
would have been applicable to certain Platonic beings, had they existed; see W. K. C.
Guthrie, “The Development of Aristotle’s Theology: I,” Classical Quarterly 27 (1933),
162–71. O’Brien argues, convincingly, against that interpretation, and against those
who claim that the reference is to ether; see D. O’Brien, “Life beyond the Stars: Aristotle,
Plato and Empedocles,” in R. A. H. King (ed.), Common to Body and Soul: Philosophical
Approaches to Explaining Life Behaviour in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Berlin/New York,
2006), 49–102. Chroust, inter alios, identifies the beings in question as the unmoved
movers of the heavens; see A. H. Chroust, “Some Comments on Aristotle, De Caelo
279a18– 35: A Fragment of Aristotle’s On Philosophy Proving the Existence and
Perfection of God,” Divus Thomas 79.3 (1976), 255–64. O’Brien (2006) suggests instead
that the beings mentioned in the text are features of Aristotle’s early thought, subse-
quently supplanted with the unmoved movers of the heavens. Thein mentions the possi-
bility that the “things there” of 279a18 could refer to the totality of things, but, as he also
mentions, the plural (τἀκεῖ) counts against this reading; see K. Thein, “Some Conceptual
Difficulties in Aristotle’s De caelo I.9,” Rhizomaa 1.1 (2013), 63–84, at 71.
It has been argued, against this suggestion, that Aristotle goes on

to speak of the “beings there” as moving (279b1: κινεῖται).26 But, in
fact, what is said at 279b1 to be moving seems rather to be the “en-
tire universe” (ὁ πᾶς οὐρανός) mentioned at 279a25–6. In 279a22–8,
Aristotle draws a comparison between the “beings there” of 279a18
and the entire universe, whose αἰών (the duration of its existence), de-
rived from ἀεὶ εἶναι (always to be), is similarly properly named, since
it is “immortal and divine” (the application of being and life to other,
mortal beings is then said to depend on this primary meaning, and to
be more or less accurate in particular cases, presumably depending
on the extent to which the being in question shares in divinity).
At 279a30–5, Aristotle goes on to argue that “the entire pri-
mary and highest divine being”—presumably, the “beings there”
of 279a18—is necessarily unchangeable (ἀμετάβλητον), because
there is nothing more divine that will move (κινήσει) it and because
it already contains “nothing base” and lacks none of “its own fine
things.” Then comes 279b1–3, stating that “indeed, it too (καὶ) is
plausibly moved (κινεῖται) with an unceasing motion (κίνησις),
for all moveable things (πάντα . . . κινούμενα) cease when they ar-
rive at their proper place, but in the case of the body [moving] in
a circle the place from which it has started and at which it ends is
the same.” Paralleling the comparison at 279a22–8, here Aristotle
is again comparing the “highest,” incorporeal category of divinity
(the unmoved movers) to a secondary, corporeal one (the world,
including the heavenly bodies and spheres).27 The upshot of this
26 O’Brien (2006, 63). O’Brien (2006, 64) goes on to argue against a proposal by
Cherniss to read 279a18–35 as a parenthetical remark in order to read 279b1 as referring
to the movement of ether, and against Simplicius’s emendation of κινεῖται to κινεῖ at
279b1. I agree with O’Brien’s rejection of these proposals, but argue that, even without
them, one can read 279b1 as referring to the movement of something other than the oth-
erworldly beings described at 279a18 (see the following discussion).
27 Thein (2013, 79) argues that ἀμετάβλητον at 279a32 is attributed to the universe,
based on similar occurrences in pre-Socratic philosophy (which Thein takes τοῖς
ἐγκυκλίοις φιλοσοφήμασι at 279a31–2 to refer to). But, even if Aristotle does rely on
pre-Socratic philosophy in advancing his argument about divinity here, he may well be
reapplying those discussions to his own conception of divinity.
second comparison is that the unchangeability of the unmoved

movers is applicable to the heavens as well. In particular, though
the heavenly bodies and spheres are in movement, unlike their un-
moved movers, the motion of the heavens is itself fixed and eternal,
for a similar reason to the one explaining the complete, unqualified
unchangeability and immobility of the unmoved movers.28
The beings transcending the cosmos that Aristotle appeals to
in Cael. I.9, then, seem most plausibly to be the eternal intellects
that he discusses elsewhere as the primary causes of reality. On the
eternal intellectual activity constituting the superior life of these
beings depend the cosmos as a whole and all life within it. However, as
Aristotle indicates in Cael. I.9, though these intellects are themselves
divine and “most self-sufficient,” they nevertheless require for their
very existence the cosmos being such as it is, in particular, exhausting
the limits of corporeal spatiotemporal reality in a way that makes it
possible for certain beings to exist outside of it.29 For Aristotle says
that these beings are such as they are because there is no body, place,
void, or time outside “the heaven” (279a16–19). The most plau-
sible meaning of “heaven” to apply to the occurrence in that sen-
tence (and to οὐρανός throughout 279a), among the three possible
meanings delineated at 278b18–21, is the world at large, since that
28 Thein (2013, 73) also argues, against reading τἀκεῖ at 279a18 as referring to the
prime mover, that (1) τἀκεῖ is plural, and (2) the prime mover is not alluded to else-
where in De caelo. But (1) τἀκεῖ can refer to the plurality of unmoved movers of the
heavens, and (2) apart from the fact that Aristotle does allude to an immaterial mover of
the heavens also at Cael. II.6, 288b5–6, as Thein (2013, 73 n. 18) mentions himself, one
could well imagine a brief and single reference to the unmoved movers in this treatise.
De caelo deals with cosmology, and hence unsurprisingly does not delve into the nature
and functioning of metaphysical first causes. Similarly, on a prominent reading of DA
III.5, this brief chapter alludes to the prime mover for the only time in the entire De
anima; see Caston (1999, 216); cf. Chapter 4, pp. 135–6 and n. 35, in this volume.
29 Kosman, too, makes the point that “the eternal and unchanging being that Aristotle
has just described [sc. in Cael I.9, 279a17–22], although conceptually distinct from the
outermost self-moving sphere that it is said to be beyond, is at the same time not inde-
pendent of it”; see A. Kosman, “Aristotle’s Prime Mover,” in M. L. Gill and J. G. Lennox
(eds.), Self-Motion: From Aristotle to Newton (Princeton, NJ, 1994), 135–54, at 144. But
to acknowledge that point, it seems to me, one need not follow Kosman in thinking,
further, that the prime mover functions as the soul of the outermost heaven (see the
following discussion).
is evidently the meaning of οὐρανός as it is used in the preceding

discussion, where it stands for “the whole cosmos” (ὁ πᾶς κόσμος),
which is said there to be one, unique, and perfect (279a6–11). If so,
then Aristotle thinks that the unmoved movers depend on the uni-
verse being the kind of perfect thing that it is (and vice versa), rather
than just on the “outermost sphere,” as is sometimes assumed.30
There is controversy, depending in part on the interpretation
of Cael. I.9, over whether Aristotle considers the prime unmoved
mover the form, or even the soul, of the entire cosmos.31 But,
whichever stance one takes on this issue, one still can and should
ascribe to Aristotle the view that the world is ordered perfectly and
in harmony, indeed mutual dependence, with the best and most
honorable eternal activity.32
The universe being perfect in the sense we have outlined involves
and requires, inter alia, the particular organization of the sublunary
realm and the various phenomena within it. Famously, Aristotle
thinks that the world contains a fixed number of eternal species of
mortal living things (cf., e.g., GA II.1). Aristotle says that by making
30 See Kosman (1994), 143–4. Kosman seems to take τοῦ οὐρανοῦ at 279a16 to refer
exclusively to the “outermost sphere.” But, arguably, even on that reading, Aristotle’s
view would be that the unmoved movers depend on the entire world being such as it is,
since the relevant features of the outermost sphere making it possible for these beings to
exist outside of it (i.e., having no body, place, void, or time outside of it) hold true for it
only if we think of what is outside of it as what is outside of the entire cosmos of which it
is the outer limit.
31 Kosman (1994) argues, largely based on his interpretation of Cael. I.9, that the prime
mover is the soul, or “soul-analogue,” of the outermost heaven. His view is criticized by
L. Judson, “Heavenly Motion and the Unmoved Mover,” in M. L. Gill and J. G. Lennox
(eds.), Self-Motion: From Aristotle to Newton (Princeton, NJ, 1994), 155–76; and F.
Miller, “Aristotle’s Divine Cause,” in E. Feser (ed.), Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics
(London, 2013), 277–98.
32 For more on the support for the world’s perfection based on Aristotle’s cosmology,
see P. Pellegrin, “The Argument for the Sphericity of the Universe in Arisottle’s De
caelo: Astronomy and Physics,” in A. C. Bowen and C. Wildberg (eds.), New Perspectives
on Aristotle’s De caelo (Leiden, 2009), 163–85, at 170. In addition, with regard to the ar-
gument for the sphericity of the heavens in Cael. II.4, Pellegrin (2009, 171–2) notes that
“[t]‌he idea that the hierarchy of forms corresponds to the hierarchy of bodies is evidence
of nature’s perfection.” And, discussing Aristotle’s account of heavenly motion, Pellegrin
(2009, 183) associates Aristotle’s view that “each system of spheres receives the some [sic]
motion from the preceding system and transmits it to the following one” with “a prin-
ciple of economy—a test of the perfection of the overall system.”
reproduction continuous (ἐνδελεχῆ)— thereby guaranteeing

the eternity of the species— “God completed the universe”
(συνεπλήρωσε τὸ ὅλον ὁ θεός) (GC II.10, 336b31–2). Though
Aristotle does not use the same verb (συμπληρόω) in a compa-
rable context in the extant corpus, there is a relevant and strikingly
similar occurrence of it in Plato. At the concluding remark to the
Timaeus (92c), it is announced that the preceding account “con-
cerning the universe” (περὶ τοῦ παντὸς) has come to an end, “for
this world order (κόσμος) here, thus having received and been filled
with (συνπληρωθεὶς) mortal and immortal living things, a visible
living thing encompassing the visible things, a perceptible likeness
of the intelligible god, greatest and best and both finest and most
perfect, one world (οὐρανὸς) here has come to be, being unique in
kind.” Earlier in the dialogue, it is announced that the Demiurge, in
creating the world, has exhausted the number of elements, as well as
their entire quantity and various properties, in order to guarantee
that the world will be whole (ὅλον), complete (τέλεον), unique, and
ageless (32c–33a). It is also said that the Demiurge created the world
as a sphere—the shape containing within it all other shapes—so
that it would contain “all living things” (33b). Later, the Demiurge
is said to have announced to the created Olympian gods that there
are three types of mortal beings that they must bring into being in
order for the world to be “sufficiently perfect” (τέλεος ἱκανῶς) and
so that it “might really be the whole” (ὄντως ἅπαν ᾖ) (41c).
Like Aristotle in De caelo, then, Plato in the Timaeus describes
the perfect and complete world as one that exhausts the quantity
and quality of all bodies and as being unique and spherical. The “fil-
ling” of this world with living species by the Demiurge is under-
stood as a necessary step toward making it perfect in this way. The
remark describing this action of the Demiurge follows the discus-
sion of the last stage of creation, in which humankind, and subse-
quently other living things, came into being (90e–ff ). According to
the account that follows, various genera of animals came into being
as transformations of various types of people. Here, of course,
Aristotle’s account breaks with the Timaeus sharply. Plausibly, his

remark in GC II.10 about God having apparently intentionally
filled the world with eternal species—an uncharacteristic formula-
tion33—is a direct reaction to Plato’s idea of the Demiurge filling the
world with species by transforming existing species into different
ones. But, the question of the eternity of species aside, the perfec-
tion or completeness of the world that Aristotle envisages is similar
to Plato’s, as is the view that among the necessary conditions for
such a perfect world is the existence within it of the specific number
of species currently observable (which, for Aristotle, in addition,
inhere in it eternally).
Thus, part of what makes the cosmos perfect and enables the ex-
istence of beings of the best type functioning as its basic causes, for
Aristotle, is the specific constitution of the sublunary realm with its
specific number and duration of species of living things. It has been
suggested that the material elements in Aristotle’s cosmos themselves
“exist for the sake of plants and animals,” and that the cyclical trans-
formation of these elements discussed in GC II.10 and Metaph. Θ.8,
“as the necessary prerequisite for a good overall cosmic state of af-
fairs, is for the sake of that most excellent of results, the eternity of
the species.”34 Whether Aristotle’s natural teleology extends that far,
or rather begins at the level of natural phenomena constituted by
the elements, it seems clear that the observable world, as Aristotle
conceives of it, is at least ordered, down to the elemental level, as if
33 On the metaphorical nature of this statement, see Henry (2015), 108.

34 M. F. Burnyeat, “Introduction: Aristotle on the Foundations of Sublunary Physics,”
in F. de Haas and J. Mansfeld (eds.), Aristotle’s On Generation and Corruption I (Oxford,
2004), 7–24, at 24. Burnyeat confesses that he has “no clear text” to substantiate that
interpretation, but he does bring up Metaph. Λ.10, 1075a11–25, and its point that “eve-
rything in the cosmos is ordered towards the good of the whole” (ibid.). Scharle argues
that the behavior of the sublunary elements is to be explained teleologically, not because
they enable organic generation, but rather because they “indirectly imitate the prime
mover by being part of a cycle that imitates the superlunary circular movements”; see M.
Scharle, “‘And These Things Follow’: Teleology, Necessity, and Explanation in Aristotle’s
Meteorologica,” in D. Ebrey (ed.), Theory and Practice in Aristotle’s Natural Science
(Cambridge, 2015), 79–99, at 88. See also n. 44 in this chapter.
it were designed optimally to support the eternal existence of both

mortal and immortal species.35
Also relevant to Aristotle’s assessment of the world as perfect
is his commitment to the eternal recurrence of full philosophical
knowledge among human beings.36 Aristotle thinks that, as a result
of an eternal pattern of cataclysms, human civilization is period-
ically eradicated and inevitably re-emerges (see, e.g., Protrepticus
Fr. 8b, Ross =Iambl. Comm. Math. 83. 6–22, Klein [post Fetsa];
De philosophia Fr. 8b, Ross =Philoponus in Nicom. Isagogen I.1,
9–49, Giardina). Thus, for Aristotle, knowledge of all things—in-
cluding productive, practical, and theoretical science—has already
been achieved infinitely many times in the past (and will presum-
ably be fully achieved infinitely many times in the future) (Cael. I.3,
270b19–20; Meteor. I.3, 339b27–30; Metaph. Λ.8, 1074a38–b14;
Pol. II.5, 1264a3–5; VII.10, 1329b25–35).37 He envisages his own
intellectual environment as advancing steadily toward just such an
achievement, with Greek philosophers from Thales onward gradu-
ally refining their methods, concepts, and results, with the intention
35 Nor do we need to take a position on the teleological point for reproduction. It is

sometimes argued that in GC II.10 Aristotle is committed to viewing reproduction as
being for the sake of the cosmic good, but the text does not seem to necessarily sup-
port that view (see Chapter 4, n. 52; cf. Henry 2015). Reproduction may well be
for the sake of the reproducing species itself (see T. K. Johansen, “The Two Kinds of
End in Aristotle: The View from the de Anima,” in D. Ebrey [ed.], Theory and Practice
in Aristotle’s Natural Science [Cambridge, 2015], 119–36), and, in addition, be nat-
urally directed toward higher species (like human beings, and, perhaps indirectly, by
supporting the human activities dedicated to divinity, it would also be directed toward
the divine) (cf. section 5.3).
36 For further discussion of the texts mentioned in this paragraph, see my “Aristotle
on the Intellectual Achievements of Foreign Civilizations,” in B. Castelnerac, L. Gili, and
L. Monteils-Laeng (eds.), Foreign Influences: The Circulation of Knowledge in Antiquity
(Turnhout, forthcoming a).
37 Aristotle’s description of the periodic cataclysms in Meteor. I.14 suggests that
these would be local, rather than global, and so would not demolish all existing human
societies simultaneously; see also A. H. Chroust, “The ‘Great Deluge’ in Aristotle’s On
Philosophy,” L’antiquité Classique 42 (1973), 113–22, at 114–17. Nevertheless, Aristotle
clearly thinks that these local disasters are enough to guarantee that periods of time
would predictably occur during which (at least) full philosophical knowledge is not
yet attained by any existing society, e.g., in Aristotle’s own day, prior to the intellectual
achievements of his own school. See Chroust (1973), 117, 120.
of reaching understanding of the ultimate principles and causes of

reality (Metaph. A in its entirety is dedicated to sketching that his-
toriographical account). Aristotle is apparently convinced that this
intellectual task is being adequately undertaken in his own day and
will finally be accomplished by his own school (Protrepticus Fr. 8a,
Ross =Cicero, Tusc. 3.28.69).
The recurrence of civilization, thus envisaged, ensures the emer-
gence of cultural and intellectual prosperity, but also guarantees
that human history will inevitably be marred by periodic regres-
sion and indeed destruction. One may view this predicament of
human civilization as Sisyphean, with the attainment of the ulti-
mate goal of human progress necessarily being achieved only to ul-
timately slip away. And one might accordingly argue that Aristotle’s
view does not allow for genuine progress and is therefore ultimately
at odds with optimism. This point by itself would not count against
Aristotle’s optimistic theory, since, as we have seen at the outset, a
theory upholding the perfect order and value of the world and the
preferability of human existence, and which would therefore count
as optimistic, can deem progress unnecessary, or even impos-
sible, given a currently perfect world order (see the Introduction).
But Aristotle’s view does allow for, indeed guarantees, progress in
the endeavors of human civilization, i.e., within each given cycle
and prior to the next cataclysm.38 Furthermore, the very idea that
human civilization reliably achieves full philosophical knowledge
at all is in harmony with Aristotle’s optimistic worldview, despite
the interruptions. It assumes, first, that the world is fully com-
prehensible through reason, which is in line with the view that
38 I take this specific type of progress to be what Chroust (1973, 122 n. 23) has in mind
when he says that “Aristotle’s thesis of the ‘cyclic vicissitudes’ of philosophy . . . does not
necessarily defeat his general doctrine of the ever-progressing advance of philosophy.”
Indeed, one might say, with W. J. Verdenius, “Traditional and Personal Elements in
Aristotle’s Religion,” Phronesis 5 (1960), 56–70, at 57, that for Aristotle “[t]‌here is no real
progress in the history of thought at all,” when progress is understood to designate an
intellectual advance across cycles—an impossibility, since for Aristotle “everything” has
already been discovered (see earlier discussion).
the world is optimally and rationally ordered. Second, it implies

that there is a valuable and achievable goal for human beings to
pursue—understanding the ultimate truths about reality and its
causes and contemplating them—the striving toward (and, a for-
tiori, accomplishing) which renders human life preferable over
nonexistence. Indeed, Aristotle regards that kind of contemplative
activity, provided that it is carried out consistently throughout an
individual’s life and is properly accompanied by external goods suf-
ficient for sustenance and comfortable living, as the highest kind of
“happiness” humans might achieve (NE X.7).
At this point one might raise a question concerning those who
would not be in a position to achieve the goal in question indi-
vidually. Aristotle does not only think that civilization advances
gradually, so that generations would pass before any individual
would be capable of properly exercising full theoretical contem-
plation. He also thinks that in society generally, and hence pre-
sumably also by the time civilization advances far enough to allow
certain individuals to reach and exercise full philosophical know-
ledge, most people dedicate their lives to other, non-intellectual
undertakings, such as the pursuit of bodily pleasures or political
honor (NE I.5, 1095b14–23).39 It may seem that, on such a view,
it is only the life of a slight minority of people that is ultimately
considered worthwhile.40 A different conclusion is reached, how-
ever, when one attends to Aristotle’s political theory, and the place
of theoretical contemplation there. Though there has been contro-
versy on the matter, there are good reasons to think that Aristotle
regards theoretical contemplation as the ultimate goal of the ideal
city that he envisages in Politics VII–VIII, and hence as the most
natural and correct goal for political organization in general.41 If
39 I discuss the rarity of theoretical contemplation in M. Segev, “Aristotle on Nature,

Human Nature and Human Understanding,” Rhizomata 5.2 (2017a), 177–209.
40 Indeed, the same point could be made about entire nations or poleis that are not
appropriately set up so as to enable philosophical activity within them, and which never-
theless exist simultaneously with poleis in which philosophers can and do flourish.
41 On this point, see Segev (2017b), 171–3.
so, then as members of a political community who contribute to

the exercise within their community of such a valuable activity by
other members who are capable of directly performing it—e.g., by
providing necessary goods using crafts, protecting the city through
warfare, etc.—non-philosophers would, precisely by virtue of their
contribution, lead lives that are worthwhile in their own right.42
Analogously, Aristotle’s view may well be that generations
leading up to the advent of full philosophical knowledge, and the
thinkers inquiring into philosophical questions within those gen-
erations without yet achieving full answers to them, like Aristotle’s
own predecessors, lead worthwhile lives by virtue of their contri-
bution to the intellectual achievements of the future. Aristotle
famously describes early philosophy as speaking inarticulately
“concerning all things” (περὶ πάντων), since it is at that stage still
“youthful” (νέα) (Metaph. A.10, 993a15–17). He also speaks of phi-
losophy (there, specifically philosophy concerned with “human af-
fairs”: τὰ ἀνθρώπεια) as a project left unfinished by his predecessors
and that one should do one’s best to further so that “it might be
brought to completion” (τελειωθῇ) (ΝΕ Χ.8, 1181b12–15). This
conception of philosophy as an ongoing project developing in a
way resembling the growth of a single human being and having
a definable and achievable telos makes it appropriate to think of
earlier stages in that development, and the efforts of people at those
earlier stages, as being for the sake of that end. Relatedly, Aristotle
clearly thinks of the development of the polis out of more basic
communities as a teleological process (Pol. I.2), and he may think
of the final telos of that process, which would require further histor-
ical stages (a transformation between several types of constitution)
42 For a good account of the mechanism by which Aristotle thinks citizens who cannot
directly perform virtuous activity, like theoretical contemplation, would nevertheless
share in a good life indirectly by participating in the good of the polis, see J. M. Cooper,
“On Civic Friendship and Political Animals,” in G. Patzig (ed.), Aristoteles’ “Politik”
(Göttingen, 1987), 221–42, esp. 240, and J. M. Cooper, “Political Community and the
Highest Good,” in J. G. Lennox and R. Bolton (eds.), Being, Nature and Life in Aristotle
(Cambridge, 2010), 212–64, esp. 263.
after the emergence of the polis from its more basic constituent
parts, as being the emergence specifically of the best polis of Politics
VII–VIII.43 If non-philosophers can partake of the achievements of
philosophers by cohabiting a polis with them and contributing to
its good in the ways available to them, then it would seem that both
non-philosophers and proto-philosophers can similarly partake of
future philosophical achievements by contributing to the good of
the cultural and political enterprise whose end they thereby help to
bring about.
Aristotle thinks that even the most successful philosophers,
reaching full understanding of the nature of the divine and eter-
nally active intellects, would only ever be able to exercise their
knowledge in a limited, imperfect, intermittent and temporary
way (Metaph. Λ.7, 1072b14–18). Nevertheless, as we saw in the
preceding sections, the theoretically wise and magnanimous
person, in Aristotle’s view, leads a life that is certainly worthwhile,
based on their recognition of the superior value that they possess
by comparison to other, less virtuous human beings, as well as their
inferior value relative to divinity, to which they consequently de-
cide to dedicate their lives. Early philosophers, in Aristotle’s view,
may well arrive at a similar result, and would be correct in doing
so. They might, and presumably should, that is, recognize the su-
perior value that their lives and efforts have by comparison to non-
virtuous members of their own society, while also recognizing the
limitations both of their species and of their day, devaluing, as a re-
sult, themselves by comparison to the divine, as well as perhaps by
comparison to future, full-fledged philosophers. In addition, early
philosophers, and non-philosophers contemporaneous with them,
may lead lives that are worthwhile by dedicating themselves to the
divine through contributing to the pursuits of those who are, or
43 For a defense of this further idea, see J. Ober, “Nature, History and Aristotle’s Best
Regime,” in T. Lockwood and T. Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide
(Cambridge, 2015), 224–43.
will be, able to exercise their intellect in full acts of theoretical con-
templation. And the benefits of such contributions would not be
confined to the usefulness for oneself of directing one’s own efforts
toward the noblest activity in existence. They would also be objec-
tively crucially important for enabling philosophers to emerge and
to act. Philosophy cannot emerge fully formed ex nihilo. And, as
Aristotle emphasizes, although theoretical contemplation is the
most self-sufficient activity, philosophers, qua human beings, are
certainly in need of external goods and interpersonal associations
(NE X.8, 1178b3–7).
The cyclical recurrence of civilizations, and of the exercise of
full philosophical knowledge within them, is thus congenial to
Aristotle’s general optimistic worldview. Aristotle’s own compar-
ison of philosophy as practiced in human civilization to a human
being in Metaph. A.8, discussed earlier in this section, is apt. In
his view, individual human beings, some of whom would procure
in maturity philosophical wisdom, cannot exist eternally, though
the eternal cycle of human life, perpetuating the human species
and occasionally producing such accomplished individuals, is
guaranteed (through reproduction). Similarly, an individual cycle
of human civilization, which would at one point in its develop-
ment reach full philosophical knowledge, cannot exist eternally,
though the cyclical pattern of cataclysms eternally demolishing
and giving rise to human civilization anew, which would feature
cultures that in good time would develop fully, is guaranteed (due
to the alteration of dryness and moistness in different parts of the
earth; cf. Meteor. I.14).44
44 Scharle (2015, 88–9), noticing Aristotle’s reference to this cyclical pattern of

drought and inundation as “regular” (Meteor. I.14, 351a26; 352a31; 352b16) and “nat-
ural” (351b8–14), argues that it is meant by Aristotle to be a teleological process aimed
at imitating the activity of the prime mover, similarly to “the diurnal and annual cycle
of evaporation and condensation” and indeed biological reproduction. Scharle (2015,
94), however, regards the imitation of divine activity by these elemental patterns of
change as their only relevant teleological explanation, thinking that all the effects of
these processes (including, presumably, the effects on civilizations and their destruc-
tion), unlike those of biological reproduction, are non-purposive byproducts. Verdenius
Of course, mature specimens of a given species of animal exist

while other ones are still developing, whereas Aristotle envisages a
time at which society as a whole develops toward intellectual matu-
rity. But that need not deter us from thinking of the two processes
as relevantly equivalent. First, the relevant comparison (as Aristotle
notices in Metaph. A.8) is between civilization and an individual
person, rather than the human species. Aristotle’s view of the
eternal existence of the world as a perfect entity “full of being” (see
earlier discussion) is compatible with some of its parts progressing
gradually toward the fulfillment of their natural end (as long as
these beings occur regularly and indeed eternally), and that should
extend both to individual organisms and to human civilization.45
Second, in the case of at least one species, namely humans, though
there would perpetually be individual mature specimens around, it
is not the case that there would always be individual members who
have reached their full natural potentials. For a developing culture
and individuals within that culture would, precisely during the
same periods of time, either exhibit the full realization of human
potential or fail to do so. Indeed, Aristotle may even think that there
is a teleological reason for civilizations to be periodically destroyed.
In Rhetoric II.15, he says:
There is some regular succession (φορὰ) in the generations

(γένεσιν) of men, just as in the things generated by the lands,
and sometimes, should the generation (γένος) be good, extraor-
dinary men are born during some time, and then again [things]
retrograde. (1390b24–27)
(1960, 57–8) argues that the “force which causes the same ideas to appear again and
again would probably have been called ‘nature’ by Aristotle,” and relates it to Aristotle’s
principle that “Nature is always looking for what is best.”
45 Chroust (1973, 122) connects the eternity of the “cultural and intellectual history of
mankind” in Aristotle’s view to Aristotle’s view of the world as uncreated and indestruct-
ible (and, we might add, perfect), since that history “is an essential part or aspect of this
eternal and indestructible physical cosmos.”
A civilization reaching the apex of intellectual progress could not

possibly continue to flourish without a supply of suitably able
human beings to maintain it. Lacking such people, Aristotle may
think, a civilization is better off being demolished, to be supplanted
by a further civilization with adequate members to initiate and sus-
tain its development.
Aristotle’s overall theory, all things considered, turns out to ac-
commodate optimism, understood as the view that the world is
perfectly ordered and valuable and that human life within it is to be
preferred over human nonexistence (corresponding, respectively,
to O1 and O2, the two propositions we have used to define opti-
mism at the outset). Construed thus, his view to an extent already
may be interpreted as an alternative to pessimism, both in its ancient
form and in its modern variety formulated, e.g., by Schopenhauer.
However, doing so, and especially seeing how Aristotelian opti-
mism might respond to Schopenhauer’s criticisms of optimistic
theories (surveyed in Chapter 1), would be further facilitated by
considering Maimonides’s appropriation of Aristotelian optimism,
which, unlike Aristotle’s version of the theory, is explicitly framed,
for example, as a response to the classical problem of evil.
6
Optimism and Self-Devaluation #2
Maimonides on Aristotle and the Hebrew Bible
Maimonides’s debt to Aristotle’s philosophy is clear and often explicitly

acknowledged. Although Maimonides clearly offers an Aristotelian
account of virtue, his ideal of the “righteous” person (hassid),
characterized by radical self-devaluation and humility, is sometimes
taken to be opposed to Aristotle’s view and his “magnanimous” person,
who is appropriately concerned with and receives honors. However,
the two ideals share more in common than first meets the eye. As we
saw in the previous chapter, Aristotle’s virtue of magnanimity in fact
essentially involves recognizing the relatively low value of humanity as
a whole, and consequently dedicating oneself and one’s effort to objects
higher and more honorable than oneself and one’s species. And it is just
this attitude, rather than the debasement of oneself as an individual or
of the group with which one identifies, that Maimonides expects the
hassid to exhibit. Indeed, for Maimonides, as for Aristotle, recognizing
the relatively low value of humanity comes along with viewing the
world at large as perfectly ordered and of human life as preferable to
nonexistence, i.e., it comes along with philosophical optimism as we
have defined it. In this chapter, we shall introduce Maimonides’s op-
timistic theory, as it emerges from his interpretation of Aristotle and
the Hebrew Bible. Because Maimonides appropriates Aristotle’s
view to discussions of issues that he, unlike Aristotle, is directly con-
cerned with, such as the proper attitude toward divinity, and to debates
occurring in full force in his day, such as the one concerning the clas-
sical problem of evil, his view is invaluable toward reconstructing the
Aristotelian stance on these matters. And thus, as we shall see in the
next chapter, these developments by Maimonides of Aristotelian op-

timism are also useful with a view to answering modern challenges to
optimistic theory, such as those mounted by Schopenhauer.
6.1. Interpretations of Self-Devaluation

in the Hebrew Bible and the Maimonidean
Responses to Them
The text of the Hebrew Bible is rife with expressions of the relative
insignificance of human beings. For example:
Genesis 18:27: “And Abraham answered: Here have I agreed to

talk to my Lord, and I am dust and ashes.”1
Exodus 16:8: “And Moses said [ . . . ] and what are we? Your
complaints are not against us, but against God.”2
Psalms 22:7: “And I am a worm and not a man, a disgrace of a

human, and contemptible to the nation.”3
Isiah 41:14: “Do not fear, worm of Jacob. . . .”4
Psalms 144:4: “A human being is akin to a vanity; his days are as a

fleeting shadow.”5
Job 4:19 “The dwellers of houses of clay whose origin is in dust,

they oppress them before the moth.”6
Job 25:6: “A human being is vermin, and the son of Adam is a

worm.”7
1 .‫ויען אברהם ויאמר הנה נא הואלתי לדבר אל אדני ואנכי עפר ואפר‬
2 .‫ונחנו מה לא עלינו תלונותיכם כי על ה׳‬ ... ‫ויאמר משה‬

3 .‫ואנכי תולעת ולא איש חרפת אדם ובזוי עם‬
4 . . . ‫אל תיראי תולעת יעקב‬
5 .‫אדם להבל דמה ימיו כצל עובר‬
6 .‫אף שכני בתי חמר אשר בעפר יסודם ידכאום לפני עש‬
7 .‫אף כי אנוש רמה ובן אדם תולעה‬

Isaiah 40:15: “Yes, the nations are as a drop from a bucket, and are
considered as the dust on a weighing scale. . . .”8
Throughout the long history of Jewish thought, interpreters

grappled with these texts, which devalue human beings,
emphasizing their lowly nature (especially by comparison to God),
and tend to use remarkably similar imagery in doing so (recurring
themes include the images of the “worm” and of “dust”). The texts
at hand also differ in considerable respects. Perhaps most signifi-
cantly for our purposes, they differ with respect to the individuals
or groups of people whose devaluation they express. As we shall
see, this fact affects major lines of interpretation given to these
texts. Thus, Emmanuel Levinas, interpreting Genesis 18:27, Exodus
16:8, and Psalms 22:7, focuses on the self-devaluation of an indi-
vidual human being, and Rashi, interpreting Isaiah 41:14, focuses
on the devaluation of a group. The resulting interpretations of these
texts exhibit various difficulties, both when viewed independently
and when considered by comparison to each other and to Psalms
144:4, Job 4:19, Job 25:6, and Isaiah 40:15.
Maimonides’s interpretation of these last three texts, which
focuses on the devaluation of humanity as a whole, and which
seems to apply to all of the texts in question, largely avoids those
difficulties. Of course, Maimonides could not have had all of the
interpretations in question in mind (though he may well have de-
liberately and consciously responded to Rashi). Nevertheless,
contrasting Maimonides’s reading of the Bible with these alterna-
tive interpretations would pave the way toward understanding,
and appreciating the merits of, his own brand of optimistic philos-
ophy. For, much like Aristotle’s theory on which it is largely based,
Maimonides’s own approach toward the value of the world and of
oneself is based on recognizing the relatively slight value human-
kind possesses by comparison to superior entities, and promotes as
8 . . . ‫הן גוים כמר מדלי וכשחק מאזנים נחשבו‬

an ideal the philosopher who reaches human perfection in the light

of that recognition.
Let us, first, examine the alternative interpretations of the
preceding biblical texts, and some Maimonidean responses to them.
Then, we shall delve into Maimonides’s general view of humility,
based largely on his adoption of the Aristotelian ideal of the “mag-
nanimous person” (megalopsuchos). We shall then be in a position
to assess Maimonides’s own reading of the biblical recommendation
of self-devaluation, and his understanding of the proper worship, or
“love of God,” corresponding to that reading. The recommendation
of that particular version of self-devaluation, as we shall see, allows
Maimonides to respond to the problem of evil, while maintaining an
optimistic view of the world as perfectly ordered and valuable and of
the life of human beings as preferable to their nonexistence. Although
I will argue that Maimonides’s interpretation of the self-devalua-
tion expressed in the biblical verses mentioned previously makes
better sense of them, taken together, than several other prominent
interpretations, it would go beyond the scope of the present project to
establish his interpretation conclusively as the correct reading of these
texts, let alone of the Hebrew Bible as a whole (assuming any project
could realistically be expected to do so). Nor would this be required
for my purpose in discussing Maimonides’s biblical exegesis, which
is, first and foremost, to elucidate the way in which Maimonides avails
himself of the text of the Hebrew Bible to argue for his own version of
Aristotelian optimism.
6.1.1. Individual Self-Devaluation: A Contribution

to Altruism?
Emmanuel Levinas interprets Abraham’s proclamation in Genesis

18:27 that he is “dust and ashes” as an ultimate sign of altruism.9
9 Translations of Levinas are taken from E. Levinas, New Talmudic Readings, translated
by R. A. Cohen (Pittsburgh, 2007).
“In self-denying, in his dust and ashes,” says Levinas, “this thought
that stays or already is as-for-oneself, abnegation, there is an el-
evation of the human creature to another condition, to another
level of the human who, authentic under the incessant threat of
his mortality, remains someone who thinks of the safekeeping
of others.”10 Levinas also finds this idea in the discussion of this
verse in the Babylonian Talmud. There (Chullin, 88b), Abraham’s
words are said to have given rise to two mitzvoth, viz. purification
after contact with the dead by means of sacrificing a red heifer
(burning it to ashes) and the ceremonial investigation of a wife ac-
cused of adultery (in which the suspect drinks water mixed with
ashes). For Levinas, the red heifer symbolizes the “purification”
whose endpoint is “altruism.”11 And he similarly understands
the resolution of the tension and ambiguity in a marriage by the
second mitzvah as an act of purification, also related to the self-
devaluation of Abraham, who “was able to say he is ‘ashes and
dust’ without ceasing for all that, in his mortality, to think of the
neighbor’s salvation.”12 Levinas also links Abraham’s statement,
as does the next page of the Talmud (Chulin, 89a), to the self-
devaluing statements by Moses and Aaron (Exodus 16:8) and by
King David (Psalms 22:7) cited earlier.
The idea that self-devaluation is particularly conducive to al-
truism is one that Maimonides would take issue with, along with
the interpretation of Genesis 18:27 as conveying such an idea.
In GP III.49, Maimonides discusses Aristotle’s view, which he
accepts, according to which friendship is indispensable to human
beings (NE VIII.1). Elaborating on this point, Maimonides goes
on to say that the most perfect form of friendship is found “in
the relationship with one’s children” (‫ בבנים‬,‫ )פי אלאולאד‬and
“in the relationship with one’s relatives” (‫ בקרובים‬,‫)פי אלאקארב‬
10 Ibid., 114.
11 Ibid., 117.
12 Ibid., 119.
(441:28). He goes on to extend such relationships to the members

of a “tribe” (442:1, ‫ המשפחה‬, ‫ )אלקבילה‬sharing a common an-
cestor.13 Here, too, Maimonides echoes Aristotle, who argues
that full brothers who have been raised together share a sim-
ilar character, much more so than other siblings and associates
(VIII.12, 1162a9–15: ὁμοηθέστεροι). The commitment between
such brothers, over time, is “the greatest and most secure,” and
this applies (proportionately) to relatives in general (1262a14–
15). Aristotle’s view, to which Maimonides subscribes, is that one
comes to regard, care for, and help the other, not by valuing the
other over oneself, but, on the contrary, by valuing in the other
what the other shares with oneself.14 Since Maimonides thinks
that the code Abraham abided by and propagated was one of
proto-Aristotelian ethics (MT, Hilchot Deot, I.7), furthermore,
he would have rejected Levinas’s interpretation of Abraham’s
proclamation at Genesis 18:27.
But whether or not we accept an Aristotelian theory of friend-
ship, there are reasons to doubt Levinas’s assumption that one can
honestly and consistently act altruistically based on self-devalu-
ation of the kind that Levinas is suggesting. If Abraham’s self-de-
valuation presents an ideal to be followed, then one should view
oneself as “dust and ashes” by comparison to any other. Clearly,
the resulting views would be mutually inconsistent (any person
X would necessarily view any person Y as more valuable than X,
13 Ibn-Tibbon renders ‫ אלקבילה‬as ‫המשפחה‬, which could refer either to a tribe or to a

family.
14 Indeed, viewing the friend as “another self,” the mark of successful character friend-
ship for Aristotle, applies even to the relationship between children and parents. Even
though Aristotle conceives of that relationship as one of superiority, holding between
unequals, he also thinks parents love their children “as themselves,” and that this is so be-
cause their children in fact are their parents’ “other selves” (ἕτεροι αὐτοί) (1161b27–9).
Presumably, on this view, children, though expected to view their parents as superior, are
not expected to thereby devalue themselves. Rather, they are to look up to their parents
as potential future versions of themselves, which they would in turn value and indeed
aspire to mature into. For a recent discussion favoring Aristotle’s view of loving oneself as
a precondition for loving others over Levinas’s view, see H. Putnam, Jewish Philosophy as
a Guide to Life (Bloomington, 2008), 96–9.
contradicting Y’s simultaneously necessary assessment of X as more

valuable than Y).15 In order to escape the inconsistency, while re-
taining self-devaluation, we could suggest that one should devalue
oneself along with everyone else. But, on that modified suggestion,
Levinas’s reason for privileging the other over oneself would seem
to lose its force—there would be no reason, based on sheer value
assessment, for Abraham to prefer to be selfless rather than selfish.
As we shall see, Maimonides does think that the Torah supports
the devaluation of humanity in general, and that this idea is indeed
consistent with promoting altruism, though not of the Levinasean,
self-effacing variety.
6.1.2. Tribal Self-Devaluation: Mental Prowess

over Physical Strength
Ruth Calderon, in a recent work on the Babylonian Talmud,

discusses the biblical term “worm of Jacob” (‫( )תולעת יעקב‬Isaiah
41:14) and the interpretation of it by Rashi, who claims that the
term refers to “the family of Jacob, which was as weak as a worm,
having no fortitude except in its mouth” (‫משפחת יעקב החלשה‬
‫)כתולעת שאין לה גבורה אלא בפיה‬.16 Calderon argues that the
concept of “the worm of Jacob,” thus interpreted, has generated a
long-standing ideal of manhood among Jews, beginning with the
Talmudic sages.17 That ideal, Calderon continues, developed in op-
position both to the ideals of the Roman Empire and to the biblical
warrior-heroes, and is to be understood as follows:18
15 Relatedly, Putnam cites passages in which Levinas himself concedes that rec-
ognition of the fact that “I am a neighbour of my neighbour” sets limits on the “ ‘uto-
pian’ . . . human responsibility” toward the other at the expense of the ego (ibid.).
16 R. Calderon, A Talmudic Alpha-Beta (Tel-Aviv, 2014), 236–9. Translations from
Calderon (and of the text she quotes from Rashi) are my own.
17 Ibid., 237.
18 Ibid.
History has taught the Sages that the leaders of the revolt brought
forward disaster and destruction in their attempt to strike Rome
using its own tools. The Sages who came after the destruction [of
the Temple], the people of Jabneh and their successors, the people
of the Babylonian Talmudic academies, turn to a different direc-
tion: they rework the destruction and the military downfall of the
Great Revolt and the Bar-Kokhba revolt into a new conception of
Jewish existence, and consequently, of manhood. They turn their
back on the body, resent the evil war, and develop their spiritual
capacities further and further—language, study, Midrashic crea-
tion, philosophical discussion—and the community which cares
for its individuals by ways of grace.
The primacy of intellectual apprehension over physical strength is

indeed undoubtedly dominant in Talmudic sources, as Calderon
notes. Maimonides follows suit, and states expressly that “the per-
fection of the bodily constitution and shape” should not be viewed
as an end, since it pertains to humans only insofar as they are an-
imals (GP III.54; cf. III.18). However, viewing intellectual activity
as the end of physical activity does not require renouncing or
neglecting one’s body, as far as Maimonides is concerned. For him,
bodily perfection, i.e., “being healthy and in the very best bodily
state,” is in fact necessary in order to achieve “perfection of the
soul” (GP III.27).19 Indeed, Maimonides takes issue with “the ig-
norant” who, contrary to “the learned,” view such activities as “ball
games, wrestling, boxing, and suspension of breathing” as “frivo-
lous” (GP III.25).
Furthermore, it is doubtful that the biblical phrase “worm of
Jacob” should indeed be understood as signifying merely physical
weakness, especially if this is taken to commend the people thus
described for their mental or intellectual prowess. Certainly, King
19 See Segev (2017b, chapter 5) for further discussion of these two kinds of perfection
in Maimonides and their relation to Maimonides’s and Aristotle’s views of religion.
David’s description of himself as a “worm” in Psalms 22:7 is strictly

pejorative (he goes on to say that he is disgraceful and nationally
contemptible). Indeed, the use of a cognate word in Job 25:6,20
this time to describe human beings in general, has no redeeming
quality either. As we shall presently see, Maimonides offers an in-
terpretation of Job 25:6, as well as other texts, that is consistent with
these facts.
6.2. Maimonides’s Aristotelian Humility and

Love of the Divine
According to Maimonides, texts such as Psalms 144:4, Job 4:19, Job

25:6, and Isaiah 40:15, describing humans as “the dwellers of houses
of clay,” “a vanity,” “vermin,” “a worm,” “a drop from a bucket,” and
“the dust on a weighing scale,” should be understood as evaluations
of oneself, neither by comparison to other people, nor as a member
of a particular group of human beings, but rather as a part of the
human species. Before we turn to Maimonides’s interpretation of
these texts, offered in GP III.12, it would be useful to examine his
general views on the proper attitude toward the divine, and the
evaluation (and devaluation) of oneself based on that attitude. As
is his wont, Maimonides relies heavily on his understanding of
Aristotelian philosophy in constructing these views, which indeed
closely resemble Aristotle’s ideas discussed in the previous chapter.
In fact, Maimonides’s views are invaluable in furthering our under-
standing of Aristotle’s own view. For the fact remains that Aristotle
never directly accounts for the appropriate attitude toward the di-
vine, or for the identity of the people who are supposed to exhibit
it most fully. Several discussions in Maimonides, I will argue, cor-
rectly and instructively utilize Aristotle’s philosophical principles
to shed light on Aristotle’s view. In particular, they reveal reasons,
20 The word used in Isaiah and Psalms is ‫ ;תולעת‬in Job, ‫תולעה‬.

grounded in Aristotle’s theory, for linking theoretical wisdom,

magnanimity, human perfection, and love of the divine to self-de-
valuation, thereby corroborating the interpretation of Aristotle
offered in Chapter 5.
6.2.1. Maimonidean Humility and

Aristotelian Magnanimity
In several places, and in contexts obviously echoing Aristotle’s

discussions of character virtue as a mean, Maimonides recommends
being “humble” (‫)עניו‬, which he attributes to the “wise” (‫)חכם‬, or
even being “lowly of spirit” (‫)שפל רוח‬, which he attributes to the
“righteous” (‫( )חסיד‬MT, Hilchot Deot I.5, II.3; Commentary on
Pirkei Avot III.1, IV.4, IV.10, V.19).21 It is frequently argued that,
in doing so, Maimonides deviates significantly from Aristotle’s eth-
ical theory, which he otherwise adopts. The argument, as promi-
nently advanced by Daniel Frank, runs as follows. Maimonides’s
“wise” person, who is moderately humble, is intended to be iden-
tical to Aristotle’s magnanimous or “paradigmatically virtuous”
person.22 But whereas Maimonides adopts the Aristotelian doc-
trine of the mean with regard to his “wise” person (in Hilchot Deot
I.2–5; II.2), his “righteous” person exhibits actions that “do not all
lie in the mean,”23 but are nevertheless all regarded as moral (I.5;
II.3);24 indeed, for Maimonides, the righteous person, “because
of his extremism with regard to a particular virtue—humility—is
21 I am grateful to an anonymous referee for helpful comments on this issue, which

have helped me to develop my thoughts in this section.
22 D. Frank, “Humility as a Virtue: A Maimonidean Critique of Aristotle’s Ethics,” in
Eric L. Ormsby (ed.), Moses Maimonides and His Time (Washington DC, 1989), 89–99,
at 93–4, 97.
23 Frank (1989), 94–5.
24 See also T. Rudavsky, Maimonides (Chichester, 2010), at 168–70. Note, though, that
Rudavsky’s table (2010, 169) nevertheless appears to present, on Maimonides’s behalf,
lowliness of spirit (‫ )שפלות רוח‬as the mean between two extreme vices, i.e., “haughti-
ness” (as vice of excess) and “total abasement” (as vice of deficiency).
promoted to a higher level of morality.”25 Frank goes as far as

assimilating Maimonides’s “paragon of virtue”—his “righteous”
person (‫)חסיד‬, who is “lowly of spirit”—to Aristotle’s vicious
“small-souled” person.26 For Frank, this feature of Maimonides’s
thought “manifests nothing less than his anti-Aristotelian theocen-
tric morality.”27
It is tempting to attribute to Maimonides the strict separa-
tion between the morality of the “wise,” which adheres to the
Aristotelian mean with regard to such things as humility and
anger, and the morality of the “righteous,” which does not.28
However, this would still leave us with an apparent inconsistency
in his view, for Maimonides, after recommending the mean with
regard to anger and humility in Hilchot Deot II.2, immediately
goes on to recommend an extreme in both of these cases, and
he goes out of his way to make the recommendations universal,
addressing what it is that a “human being” (‫)אדם‬, rather than ei-
ther the wise or the righteous, should do.29 Furthermore, in GP
I.54, Maimonides argues that a political leader who is a prophet
must keep away from passions, like anger, “as far as a human being
25 Frank (1989), 96. As Frank (1989, 95–6) notes, exceptions to the doctrine of the
mean are present in Aristotle as well (though not with regard to humility). However,
for Frank (1989, 96–7), the very separation of two levels of morality that Maimonides is
committed to in distinguishing the “wise” from the “righteous” is un-Aristotelian.
26 Frank (1989), 94ff.
27 Ibid., 98. Similar ideas are to be found in D. Shatz, “Maimonides’ Moral Theory,” in
K. Seeskin (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides (Cambridge, 2005), 167–92,
at 175; and Rudavsky (2010), 168–9. Rudavsky (2010, 169–70) thinks that Maimonides’s
“righteous” person is meant to be “contrasted to the ‘wise’ ” and “has no analogue in
Aristotle’s examples.”
28 Frank extends his view of humility in Aristotle and Maimonides to the case of
anger; see Frank (1989), 96, and D. Frank, “Anger as a Vice: A Maimonidean Critique of
Aristotle’s Ethics,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 7.3 (1990), 269–81. See also Rudavsky
(2010), 167–70; and Shatz (2005), 176–7.
29 Hilchot Deot II.3: “for the good path is that a human being be not merely humble,
but lowly of spirit, and that his spirit shall be exceedingly low” (‫שאין דרך הטובה שיהיה‬
‫ ;)אדם עניו בלבד אלא שיהיה שפל רוח ותהיה רוחו נמוכה למאד‬Ibid.: “And anger, too, is
an exceedingly bad character trait. And a human being must distance himself from it to
the other extreme” (‫וכן הכעס מדה רעה היא עד למאד וראוי לאדם שיתרחק ממנה עד הקצה‬
‫)האחר‬. See Frank (1990), 274; Rudavsky (2010), 168.
is able” (86:5, ‫ כפי כח האדם‬, ‫טאקה אלאנסאן‬ ׁׂ ‫)חסב‬, but should

nevertheless be “begrudging and vengeful and angry at some
times and at some people, as they deserve, not in anger simply
speaking” (‫ לא לענין הכעס לבד‬,‫( )לא במ ׄגרד אלגצׄ ב‬86:7–8).30 If
a prophet—for Maimonides, a person who has attained human
perfection—is expected to feel anger when appropriate (let alone
a prophet-ruler, calling to mind Moses), the same expectation
must apply to the “righteous” people discussed in Hilchot Deot
(and of whom, in Hilchot Deot II.3, Moses in fact figures as the
paradigmatic example).31
How, then, can Maimonides nevertheless recommend the com-
plete annihilation of anger, and to all people at that? Recognizing
this tension within the Mishneh Torah (though not commenting on
the Guide in this respect), the sixteenth-century rabbi Abraham de
Boton provides a promising answer:
The Rabbi [sc. Maimonides] by saying this [sc. that in certain

things, like humility and anger, the righteous person must tend
to the extreme, and that in a given case one extreme can be better
than the other] does not mean to say that the ultimate extreme
is better than the mean, for certainly the mean is complete and
certainly even the ultimate extreme in relation to humility, which
is to wear rags, is bad, and the middle path is choice-worthy and
that is why the Rabbi wrote above “the straight path” etc. Indeed,
the meaning is that the righteous (‫ )החסידים‬tend a bit toward
the ultimate extreme, which is humility, so that they would never
omit anything from the middle which is the choice-worthy path,
for had they been treading the middle path alone, it is possible
30 Frank (1990, 276) reads GP I.54 as indicating that “for Maimonides the ideal in the
sphere of anger is to display anger when necessary, but never to feel it.” I return to this
point in the following discussion.
31 As Rudavsky (2010, 168) notes, Maimonides’s moral requirement to be angered
when appropriate has its source in Aristotle, e.g., in NE IV.5, 1126a3–6. I am thankful
also to an anonymous referee for a useful comment on this connection.
that they would occasionally be diverted a bit and would go out of

the middle path and into the first extreme, which is pride.32
On de Boton’s interpretation, Maimonides does not view the moral

demands of the “wise” as essentially different from those of the
“righteous.” Both are required, as humans generally are, to reach
the mean in matters pertaining to both humility and anger, inter
alia. It is in the success in meeting these demands that the two types
differ. The “righteous,” in particular, reach the mean more effi-
ciently than the “wise,” and they manage to do so by “tend[ing] a
bit toward the ultimate extreme.” Thus, when Maimonides suggests
that humans in general should aim at “lowliness of spirit,” he is ef-
fectively recommending that they attempt to imitate the righteous.
The same holds with regard to anger:
And even though here he wrote, with regard to the virtue of right-
eousness (‫)מדת החסידות‬, “and he shall be exceedingly lowly of
spirit,” he means to say that such a person [sc. the righteous] tilts
himself toward the low-spirited side so as to arrive at the middle
path, as we have said. But the ultimate extreme is undoubtedly
bad, and that is also the case with regard to the trait of anger: a
human being who is always angry is the first extreme, and not
to be angry at all and to be like a dead person is the ultimate ex-
treme, and to be angry at a thing that is worthy of being angered
at is the intermediate path to all the other traits, but here the
middle path is not to be angered even at a thing that is worthy
of being angered at except at a great thing that is worthy of being
angered at, such as idolatry. And this is what the Rabbi means in
32 Lechem Mishneh ad Hilchot Deot I.4–5 (my translation):

‫ואין כונת הרב בזה לומר שקצה האחרון יותר משובח מהאמצעית דודאי האמצעי שלם‬
‫ובודאי אפילו קצה האחרון מהענוה שהוא ללבוש בלויי סחבות הוא רע ודרך המיצוע הוא‬
‫ אמנם הכונה שהחסידים מטים מעט לצד קצה‬.‫מובחר וזהו שכתב הרב לעיל דרך הישרה וכו׳‬
‫האחרון שהיא הענוה שלעולם לא יפילו דבר מהמיצוע שהוא הדרך המובחר שאם לא היו‬
‫הולכים אלא בדרך המיצוע אפשר שלפעמים יטו מעט ויצאו מהדרך האמצעית אל הקצה‬
.‫הראשון שהוא הגאוה‬
what is called here “great” (‫(גדול‬33 and in the next chapter he did
not write “great” but [that one should not be angered even] “at a
thing that merits being angered at,” etc.34
As was the case with humility, the “righteous” person is not ex-
pected to go to an extreme with regard to anger either, on de Boton’s
reading. It is true that Maimonides says that the righteous person
should not be angered even “at a thing that merits being angered at,”
but this does not imply that such a person either would or should
be altogether devoid of anger. The most serious offenses, like idol-
atry, would anger even the righteous, and appropriately so. It is in-
structive to note in this respect that in GP I.54, immediately after
stating that even the prophet should feel anger when appropriate,
Maimonides adds that such a person should eventually order the
burning of a man without being “angered or outraged or hateful
toward him.” Read in isolation, the point of this statement may ap-
pear to be that the prophet should not get angry at all.35 However,
in context, the statement must mean that even offenses that stand-
ardly call for anger—such things, perhaps, as financial or interper-
sonal transgressions on the part of a community member—should
not stir up the passions of the prophet-leader, leaving room for
the possibility, emphasized by de Boton’s interpretation, that
the prophet would and should be angered at other, more serious
33 Presumably referring to Hilchot Deot I.4: “How [sc. will one adhere to the ‘middle
path’; cf. I.6][?]‌He shall be neither easily angered nor akin to a dead person, who does not
feel; but rather [he shall be] intermediate: he shall not be angered except at a great thing
that merits being angered at . . .” (‫כיצד[?] לא יהיה בעל חמה נוח לכעוס ולא כמת שאינו‬
. . .‫ לא יכעוס אלא על דבר גדול שראוי לכעוס עליו‬.‫ אלא בינוני‬.‫( )מרגיש‬my translation).
34 Lechem Mishneh ad Hilchot Deot I.4–5 (my translation):
‫ואע״פ שכאן כתב במדת חסידות ויהיה שפל ביותר הכונה לומר שנוטה עצמו לצד שפל רוח‬
‫כדי לבוא לדרך המיצוע כמו שאמרנו אבל קצה האחרון בלי ספק שהוא רע וכן במדת כעס‬
‫אדם שהוא כועס תמיד הוא קצה ראשון ושלא לכעוס כלל ולהיות כמת הוא קצה האחרון‬
‫ולכעוס על דבר שראוי לכעוס הוא דרך בינוני לשאר כל הדעות אבל כאן הדרך האמצעית‬
‫היא שלא יכעוס אפילו על דבר שראוי לכעוס אלא על דבר גדול שראוי לכעוס עליו כגון חילול‬
‫ וזה כיון הרב במ״ש כאן גדול ובפרק שלאחר זה לא כתב גדול אלא על דבר שראוי‬.‫שמים‬
.‫לכעוס וכו׳‬
35 See Frank (1990), 276.
occurrences—in de Boton’s view, primarily such things as idola-

trous worship.
De Boton’s interpretation has the merit of resolving an incon-
sistency internal to Maimonides’s view. If we adopt it, and I think
we should, then Maimonides’s “righteous” person, by pursuing
“lowliness of spirit,” ends up aiming at the same virtue as the
“wise,” namely humility. In this respect, Maimonides’s “right-
eous” person would end up resembling, not only Maimonides’s
“wise” person, but also Aristotle’s magnanimous person, more
than is often assumed.36 Indeed, Maimonides’s description
of the “righteous” person’s behavior as “exceeding expecta-
tions” (Hilchot Deot I.5: ‫ )לפנים משורת הדין‬makes him both
superior to the “wise” and closer to Aristotle’s magnanimous
person, who is described as “the best human being” (NE IV.3,
1123b26–8). And the temporary excursions the Maimonidean
“righteous” person takes toward extreme humility, during which
that person would contemplate the lowliness of humanity by
comparison to the divine and thereby (as we shall see in detail in
what follows) gain knowledge of God, would also resemble the
temporary acts of contemplation of divinity Aristotle ascribes to
36 More recently, R. L. Weiss, Maimonides’ Ethics (Chicago/London, 1991), presents

a similar interpretation to de Boton’s. For Weiss (1991, 44–5, 102–15), Maimonides, in
both the commentary on Pirkei Avot and the MT, recommends the extreme with regard
to such things as anger and humility as a therapeutic measure intended to reach and
preserve the mean (but see Weiss, Maimonides’ Ethics, 107 and 114, for cases in which
Maimonides also recommends permanent elimination of anger and debasement). Thus,
Weiss (1991, 115) concludes that “the difference between the standards of wisdom and
piety [sc. hasidut]” ultimately “loses some of its force,” and that “philosophic ethics” and
“religious morality” are on a par, since “both are a moral preparation for attaining know-
ledge of God.” Weiss (1991, 193–4) states that “[w]‌hereas Aristotle largely postpones
a discussion of the morality relevant to the wise man (sophos) until book 10 of the
Nicomachean Ethics, the Maimonidean doctrine of the mean [sc. in EC and Hilchot
Deot] takes its bearings specifically from man’s final end.” However, despite the differ-
ence between the two ethical systems, Weiss continues, “. . . there is a kind of greatness
of soul that is in effect espoused by Maimonides, a conception of magnanimity that
comports with humility and even with self-abasement, properly understood. Humility
can be combined with greatness of soul provided that humility is understood primarily
as the absence of hauteur and that magnanimity is essentially thinking oneself capable of
doing great things.”
his philosopher (who, as we have already seen, is just his mag-

nanimous person).
Now, it is true that, as Frank notes, Maimonides’s recom-
mendation of “lowliness of spirit” is “theocentric,” in the
sense that it advances from the recognition by human beings
of their inferiority to superior beings, including God (inter
alia, as we shall see). Maimonides cites, in support of his rec-
ommendation, biblical lines such as Deuteronomy 8:14: “and
your heart shall become heightened, and you shall forget the
Name your God” (Hilchot Deot II.3), and Isaiah 57:15: “For thus
spoke the heightened and elevated one, who dwells eternally
and His name is holy: I dwell on high and holy, next to those,
and with the oppressed and lowly of spirit” (Commentary on
Pirkei Avot IV.4).37 But, precisely because of its theocentrism,
Maimonides’s conception of righteousness (‫ )חסידות‬or low-
liness of spirit is opposed to Aristotle’s conception of “small-
souled-ness,” and is in line with Aristotle’s conception of
magnanimity. For, as we have seen, magnanimity, as Aristotle
conceives of it, involves the concentration on objects superior to
oneself and the devaluation of oneself and of humanity at large
by comparison to those objects.
It is true that, although Aristotle explicitly argues that we are
vastly inferior to superlunary beings, Maimonides goes beyond
Aristotle’s text in explicitly describing humans as “lowly,” doubt-
lessly being influenced by biblical formulations. Ultimately,
however, such descriptions seem to be a reasonable extension of
Aristotle’s view. Admittedly, for Aristotle, humans are at the top
of the natural hierarchy in the sublunary realm, as they are, in-
deed, for Maimonides. But, also for both, there is a fundamental
divide between that realm and the superlunary one, and an im-
mense disparity in value between us and the divine. On that
37 ”...‫ “ורם לבבך ושכחת את ה׳ אלהיך‬,‫יד‬:‫דברים ח‬

”. . . ‫ “כי כה אמר רם ונשא שכן עד וקדוש שמו מרום וקדוש אשכון ואת דכא ושפל רוח‬,‫טו‬:‫יהושע נז‬
view, the relation between the heavens and the sublunary world,
which includes us, is equivalent to the relation obtaining between
humans and non-rational living things. It is in this sense that I take
Maimonides to be referring to humans as relatively insignificant or
“lowly,” and such descriptions, understood thus, are directly appli-
cable to Aristotle as well.
6.2.2. Maimonides’s Aristotelian Interpretation

of Biblical Self-Devaluation
The Aristotelian basis for Maimonides’s view is perhaps most vis-

ible in Guide of the Perplexed III.12. There, Maimonides sets out to
refute the opinion, falsely held by the “multitude” and championed
by thinkers such as al-Razi, according to which evil surpasses good
in the world. One might expect an attempted refutation of that
claim to appeal to the prevalence of good in the world, or to down-
play the presence of evil in it, as we find it, e.g., in Cleanthes’s re-
sponse to Philo’s formulation of the problem of evil in the tenth part
of David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Although
Maimonides goes on to make a similar point later in the chapter,
his initial strategy is altogether different. On the common opinion
that there is more evil than good in the world, he first comments as
follows:
Every ignoramus imagines that all that exists exists with a view
to his individual sake; it is as if there were nothing that exists
except him. And if something happens to him that is contrary
to what he wishes, he makes the trenchant judgment that all that
exists is an evil.
Maimonides’s point here is that we may alleviate the problem of evil

by appreciating how relatively insignificant human beings are and,
by implication, how little human suffering matters to determining
the amount of good in the world. A human being cognizant of “that

which exists” (‫ המציאות‬,‫ )אלוגׄוד‬and of “the smallness of his part in
it” (318: 24–5), Maimonides claims, will recognize that the world is
indeed good, on balance.
It is this recognition of the fact that humans, and indeed mortal
living things in general, “are things of no value at all in compar-
ison with the whole that exists and endures,”38 that Maimonides
reads in such verses as Psalms 144:4, Job 4:19, Job 25:6, and Isaiah
40:15, where, as we saw earlier in this chapter, human beings are
described as “the dwellers of houses of clay,” and are compared to
“a vanity,” “vermin,” “a worm,” “a drop from a bucket,” and “the
dust on a weighing scale.” Indeed, the devaluation of humanity
emerging from the comparison between humans and super-human
entities could be read into all of the texts we have cited in section
6.1. Maimonides’s philosophical justification for this claim rests on
the vast superiority of certain other beings—the angels (separate
intellects), spheres and the stars—to all things, including all living
things, composed of the four elements (earth, fire, air, and water).
This idea is evidently Aristotelian. It clearly appears in NE VI.7,
where Aristotle states that, though humans may be the best of all
(mortal) animals, the heavenly bodies, or the things “out of which
the cosmos is constituted,” are evidently “more divine” (1141a33–
b2: θειότερα). Maimonides, echoing this statement, states in GP
III.13 that human beings are merely “the most perfect and the most
noble thing that has been generated from this [inferior] matter.”
However, compared to the separate intellects, the spheres, and the
stars, a human being is “very, very inferior” (328:18, ‫פחות מאד מאד‬
,‫)חקירא גׄדא גׄדא‬.39
For Maimonides, then, the problem of evil is sufficiently solved
by appealing to the irrelevance of human beings to determining the
38 GP III.12, 319:5–6: ‫ הוא‬,‫אפה ללוגׄוד כלה אלמסתמר‬

ׁׂ ׄ‫הו שי לא קדר לה בוגׄה באלאצ‬
‫דבר שאין לו שיעור כלל בערך אל המציאות כולו הנמשך‬
39
Translation is mine. Pines translates as “very, very contemptible.”
level of good or evil in the universe, given their inferiority to certain

being that are supremely valuable, and that Aristotle even thinks of
as divinities, i.e., the heavenly bodies and their movers.40 The idea
is that the problem of evil would only have been generated in full
force if these beings were lacking or harmed in any way, and, since
they are not, there is no reason to account for God’s responsibility for
such hypothetical occurrences. However, Maimonides also thinks
that this Aristotelian devaluation of humanity leads us to know
(the Maimonidean) God, to the extent that we may do so at all.41
Maimonides brings up Job 4:19 again in the Mishneh Torah, in his
opening discussion explicating the fundamental tenets of the Torah:
. . . all such and consequent things said in the Torah and in the
words of the Prophets, all of them are parables and poetic devices.
For instance, when it was said: “seated in the heavens, He laughs”
[Psalms 2:4]; “they have angered me in their folly” [Deuteronomy
32:21] [ . . . ] On all this the Sages have said: “the Torah speaks in
the language of human beings.” [ . . . ] And all these things are not
found except in the dark and inferior bodies [i.e.] “the dwellers
of houses of clay whose origin is in dust” [Job 4:19]. But He, may
He be exalted, is exalted and surpasses all of that. (MT, Sefer
Ha’maddah, Hilchot Yesodei Ha’Torah, I.12; translation mine)42
40 Maimonides, in keeping with Jewish Law, makes it clear that it is a fundamental

error—one that he attributes to people at the time of Enosh, who for him were in fact
aware of God’s existence and wished to serve him—to think that “these stars and these
spheres” [ . . . ] “are worthy of being praised, and exalted, and respected,” by which he
means, not simply recognizing their immense value, but deifying them: “to build the
stars temples, to offer them sacrifices . . . and to kneel down in front of them” (MT,
Hilchot Avodah Zara, I.1–2).
41 E. Nagar, “Fear of God in Maimonides’ Teaching (Re-Examination)” (in Hebrew),
Daat 39 (1997), 89–99, argues that, for Maimonides, self-devaluation (which corrects
the mistaken conception of God as imperfect) leads to “fear of God,” understood as the
fear of the loss of intellectual perfection. That fear, in turn, prompts one to possess know-
ledge of God (via negative theology).
42 .‫כל הדברים הללו וכיוצא בהן שנאמרו בתורה ובדברי נביאים הכל משל ומליצה הן‬
‫ על הכל‬. ‫ כאשר שש ה׳ וכיוצא בהן‬. ‫ כעסוני בהבליהם‬. ‫כמו שנאמר יושב בשמים ישחק‬
‫ ] וכל הדברים האלו אינן מצויין אלא לגופים‬. . . [ .‫אמרו חכמים דברה תורה כלשון בני אדם‬
‫האפלים השפלים שוכני בתי חומר אשר בעפר יסודם אבל הוא ברוך הוא יתברך ויתרומם‬
.‫על כל זה‬
Here, Maimonides alludes to his version of negative theology,

explicated most clearly in GP I.51–60, and according to which
God cannot be assigned any positive attributes (save His actions),
let alone ones attributable to human beings. This conclusion goes
hand in hand with the devaluation of humankind insofar as the best
we may aspire to by way of knowing God is to realize and imbibe
our inability to know anything positive about Him.43 As “dwellers
of houses of clay whose origin is in dust,” we can barely approxi-
mate or gain adequate knowledge of the spheres and the stars, and
that is enough to give us an indication of our inferiority. But those
heavenly objects themselves, like all other things in the universe,
and the universe itself,44 depend on God, Who alone truly exists
(Hilchot Yesodei Ha’Torah, I.1–4). Recognizing our complete lack
of positive knowledge concerning the only thing that truly exists
is perhaps the most radical form of self-devaluation. However,
as it happens, it is also the highest achievement, fully arrived at,
Maimonides says, by Moses alone (Hilchot Yesodei Ha’Torah,
I.10; cf. GP I.54), whom Maimonides, unsurprisingly given what
43 Relatedly, M. Katzenellenbogen, Alpha Beta (Frankfurt am Main, 1855), at 18,

connects the usefulness of self-devaluation in coming to apprehend divine truth to
Abraham’s self-devaluation in Genesis 18:27 and the Talmudic discussion of it (BT, Sota
17a; Chullin 88b): “When one dedicates one’s body, soul and spirit to God in total abne-
gation (‫ [ )בביטול גמור‬. . . ] at that exact moment an infinitely recurring light comes to
enlighten that person. And that person shall come to know the wonders of God in the
matter they are occupied with” (my translation).
44 Like the various parts of the universe, the universe itself cannot count as a deity for
Maimonides either (again, by contrast to Aristotle; cf. Chapter 4, p. 148, and Chapter 5,
p. 179). In GP I.72, he argues that the universe, like a human being, is an individual
consisting of parts and ruled by an overarching rational principle. However, unlike
human beings, whose ruling principle is their own intellect, the principle governing the
universe, namely God, is distinct from the world and its parts (133:26–134:3). This fits
in with GP I.69, in which Maimonides argues that God should be understood, not just
as the efficient cause of the universe (i.e., that due to which the universe exists), but also
as its (unenmattered) “ultimate form” (i.e., that due to which the universe is the kind of
thing that it is). As already noted, Maimonides thinks that no part of the world, however
noble, can count as a deity (see n. 40 in this chapter). If the reason for that is that the es-
sence of any such part is relevantly inferior to and dependent on God, the reason why the
universe at large cannot count as a deity seems to be that its essence or organizing prin-
ciple, which is God, is external to it. Maimonides, of course, also presents independent
arguments for the singularity of God (cf. GP I.75; II.1–2).
we have seen so far, brings up as a paragon of “lowliness of spirit”

(Commentary on Pirkei Avot IV.4; cf. Numbers 12:3; Exodus
16:7–8).45 Maimonides, following Aristotle, then, takes human
perfection, and the most complete form of human wisdom, to de-
pend on sober self-devaluation. Maimonides’s humble “righteous”
person, like Aristotle’s magnanimous philosopher, is the person
who has adopted such an attitude, and constructed a worldview
consistent with it.46
This recommendation of self-devaluation may seem incompat-
ible with Aristotle’s theory of friendship, which, as we have seen
earlier, commits both Aristotle and Maimonides (who adopts that
theory) to the idea that genuine care for other people depends,
not on self-devaluation, but rather on valuing the other person as
a “second self.”47 But the tension dissipates once we attend to the
fact that one may, and for Aristotle and Maimonides one should,
devalue oneself along with one’s human friend, and indeed with
all of humanity, while still appreciating oneself (and one’s friend)
for what one is (and what one’s friend is)—a member of a rela-
tively insignificant species, who nevertheless can (as in the case
45 Y. Leibowitz, Discourses on Maimonides’s Theory of Prophecy (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem,

1997), at 756, in the context of discussing GP II.35, takes the biblical description of Moses
as “very humble, [more so] than every human being on earth” (Numbers 12:3), to mean
that he could “recognize and understand in all its depth the meaning of the fact that
man does not know God because God is not knowable by man, and that is the deepest
humility, which only Moses could have arrived at” (my translation). Y. Leibowitz, Seven
Years of Discourses on the Weekly Torah Reading (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 2003), at 661–2,
regards this interpretation as prevalent among Jewish thinkers (presumably, including
Maimonides).
Incidentally, Maimonides’s direct appeal to Moses’s proclamation “and what are we?”
(‫ )ונחנו מה‬in Exodus 16:7–8 to support his understanding of the ideal of “lowliness of
spirit” reinforces the appropriateness of the objection we have raised on his behalf to the
Levinasian interpretation of that same proclamation in 16:8 as recommending (along
with Genesis 18:27) the devaluation of oneself below “the other”; see section 6.1.1.
46 Weiss (1991, 45) adduces an importantly relevant letter from Maimonides to Hisdai
Halevi, in which philosophers are said to be exceedingly humble, as evidence for the
view that “[e]‌xtreme humility, as interpreted by Maimonides, is consonant with a philo-
sophic way of life.”
47 I am thankful to John Cottingham for suggesting this objection to me.
of Aristotle’s magnanimous person and Maimonides’s righteous

person) surpass other members by attaining virtue and acting
accordingly.48
6.2.3. Maimonides on True Worship or

“Love of God”
As we would expect, given the similarity already established be-

tween Maimonides’s and Aristotle’s views, Maimonides approaches
Aristotle’s view on the issue of love toward the divine as well.49 For
Maimonides, as for Aristotle, such love must to a large extent be
based on proper self-devaluation:
And which is the way to loving Him and fearing Him? When a
human being shall contemplate His actions and wonderful, great
creations, and shall see of His wisdom that it has no equal and no
end, he immediately loves and praises and exalts and develops a
great desire to know the Great Name, as David has said: “my soul
thirsts for a living God” [Psalms 42:3]. And as he considers these
things themselves he is immediately taken aback and is afraid
and knows that he is a small, lowly, gloomy creature. . . .50
48 It is true that, as we have also seen, Aristotle’s theory allows for genuine friendship
based on virtue between parties of unequal virtue. But even in that type of friendship,
the inferior party is not to annul or devalue itself entirely, but is rather expected to value
itself at least for the very good that it shares with the superior party. In any case, the idea
of virtue friendship obtaining at least in some (and for Aristotle, indeed in paradigmatic)
cases between equals certainly goes against the Levinasian idea that altruism depends as
such on self-effacement and valuing the other exclusively (cf. section 6.1.1).
49 I am grateful to an anonymous referee for emphasizing the relevance of the two texts
discussed in the following to my overall argument.
50 MT, Maddah, Yesodei Ha’Torah, II.2:
‫והיאך היא הדרך לאהבתו ויראתו [?]‌ בשעה שיתבונן האדם במעשיו וברואיו הנפלאים‬
‫הגדולים ויראה מהן חכמתו שאין לה ערך ולא קץ מיד הוא אוהב ומשבח ומפאר ומתאוה‬
‫ וכשמחשב‬. ‫ כמו שאמר דוד צמאה נפשי לאלהים לאל חי‬. ‫תאוה גדולה לידע השם הגדול‬
. . . ‫בדברים האלו עצמן מיד הוא נרתע לאחוריו ויפחד ויודע שהוא בריה קטנה שפלה אפלה‬
In GP III.51, Maimonides sets out to clarify, inter alia, the worship

carried out by him who knows “the truths unique to Him,” which is
the “purpose of a human being” )ׁ‫)אלגאיה אלאנסאני ׂה‬
ׁׂ (454:18–21).
Citing Deuteronomy 11:13, Maimonides identifies this worship
with “love” (‫ אהבה‬/ ‫)אלמחבה‬
ׁׂ toward God, which he says is com-
mensurate with understanding (‫)אלאדראך‬, and which is then
followed by the active thinking (ׁ‫)אלפכרה‬
ׂ of “the first intelligible” as
much as one can (457). Later in the chapter, Maimonides mentions
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses as having attained the highest de-
gree of that worship (459). These figures, in whose case “unification
in God, that is to say the understanding and love of Him, has be-
come clear” (459:19( )‫ התבאר‬,‫)תבין‬, were able to have their body be
“with other people” while their intellect was with God (459:5–10),
and to rule and gather wealth and property while being totally ab-
sorbed in thinking about God (459:21–460:2). These descriptions
fit in particularly well with Aristotle’s view of the magnanimous
person, as we have interpreted it. Aristotle’s magnanimous person
and Maimonides’s prophet both possess character virtue, but nei-
ther of them holds that virtue, let alone the reputation for possessing
it, in high esteem, caring rather exclusively about what is truly hon-
orable—the extent to which they partake of the divine. Indeed, both
not only “belittle,” or “look down on” (to revisit Aristotle’s termi-
nology), mundane affairs and the virtue and honors proper to them;
they also devalue themselves. It is no coincidence that Maimonides
chooses Moses as his paradigmatic case of a perfect worshipper; for
Maimonides, as we have already seen, Moses is also the paradig-
matic “righteous person” (‫)חסיד‬, being exceedingly lowly of spirit
(see earlier discussion; cf. MT, Hilchot Deot, II.3).
6.3. Maimonides’s Optimism
Like the magnanimous in Aristotle’s view, the righteous, as

Maimonides conceives of them, exhibit humility based on the
realization that humanity at large is insignificant by comparison

to other parts of the universe, such as the heavenly bodies, the sep-
arate intellects, and, above all, God. This conclusion may at first
sight seem to be at odds with optimism, as we have defined it. For,
if the world contains inferior parts susceptible to suffering and var-
ious other shortcomings, then how can it be perfectly ordered or
entirely valuable (O1)? And if human beings are themselves such
inferior parts, then how can their life be preferable to their non-
existence (O2)? As we saw in the previous chapter, for Aristotle
both questions are answered by reference to the necessary con-
tribution that human beings, like all parts of the world, make to
the perfection of the world. The totality of things, including in-
deed the very existence and functioning of the most perfect beings
in existence, requires the existence of all of the world’s parts, in-
cluding humans, and it is primarily this contribution that makes it
worthwhile for those parts, including us, to exist. We have already
seen, in Chapter 1, that Maimonides similarly thinks of the world
as being positively valuable and rationally ordered.51 Thus, he
takes the statement in Genesis 1:31 that “God saw all that He has
created and, behold, [it was] very good (‫ ”)והנה טוב מאד‬to mean
that Creation conforms to God’s intention, and perpetually so (GP
III.13, 327:16–21). The world is “very good,” then, because it is the
successful result of the efforts of a Deity all of whose intentions
and actions are themselves “absolutely good” (‫ טוב גמור‬, ׄ‫)כׄ יר מחץ‬
(III.10, 317:3–7).
In principle, a world ordered and valued in this fashion could
still contain features that are either completely valueless or not
valuable enough for their existence to be preferable over their
nonexistence. Perhaps, certain parts of the world could be value-
less byproducts of the good things whose existence God directly
intends, neither adding to nor detracting from the overall good
inherent in the world. Maimonides, however, rules out such a
51 See pp. 20–1.

possibility. In GP III.25, he proposes that “the parts of the nat-

ural works are all wisely-regulated, ordered, tie in with one an-
other, and they are all causes and effects, and there is nothing
of them that is vain, ridiculous or empty, but they are rather the
works of great wisdom” (367:17–19, translation mine). As bib-
lical support for his view, he appeals again to Genesis 1:31, as well
as to Deuteronomy 32:4, which states that “the work of the Rock
is perfect” (‫( )הצור תמים פעלו‬368:10–12). This understanding of
the world’s perfection, as it emerges from the rest of the chapter,
encompasses both sublunary natural objects and celestial phe-
nomena (cf., e.g., GP I.66). In Maimonides’s view, the cosmos as a
whole is taken to be a perfectly ordered system whose parts are all
intricately connected and are indeed all apparently indispensable
if the world is to remain as it is. Indeed, in GP II.28, Maimonides
argues that nothing must be either added to or subtracted from
the world, since any such change would only be warranted
in case the thing being changed is lacking, “so that it might be
perfected” (‫ שיושלם‬,‫)פיתמם‬, or else to eliminate a superfluous
feature, whereas “the works of God are at the height of perfec
tion” (. . . ‫ פעולות האלוה‬, ‫גאיה אלכמאל‬ ׁׂ ‫ פי‬ . . . ‫אפעאל אלאלאה‬
‫( )בתכלית השלמות‬234:19–235:5; translation mine).
Knowledge of the world’s order and perfection, for
Maimonides, is once again exemplified most readily by the
case of Moses, who has been shown “all existing things—of
which it was said ‘and God saw what he Has done, and behold
[it was] very good’ [Genesis 1:31]—namely, he was shown
them so that he might grasp their nature and their tying in
with one another,” whereby “he grasped the being of [the]
whole world with true and existing understanding” (I.54,
84:11–15).52 Nevertheless, and though “[God’s] deeds are at the
height of perfection” (‫ מעשיו בתכלית‬,‫גאיהׁ אלכמאל‬ ׂ ‫צנוע אתה פי‬
52 Translations in this paragraph are my own.

‫)השלמות‬, most people fail to grasp “the perfection of all that

He has created” (‫ שלמות כל מעשיו‬,‫)כמאל כל מא צנע‬, attending
instead only to some of the wonders exhibited by such things
as animal physiology and celestial phenomena (III.49, 445:1–7).
Maimonides consistently describes God’s “deeds” as perfect,
and he explains that by doing so he means to convey that “all of
His deeds (‫ פעולותיו‬,‫)אפעאלה‬, viz. His creations (,‫מכׄ לוקאתה‬
‫) בריאותיו‬, are at the height of perfection” (II.28, 235:7–11).
The perfection attributed to all of God’s works might seem to
conflict with Maimonides’s view of certain such beings (like the
sublunary species) as inferior to others (like the heavens and sepa-
rate intellects). But the conflict is only apparent. First, in II.28, the
perfection of God’s works is introduced in the context of an argu-
ment for the eternity (a parte post) of the world and its perfection.
God’s works are described there as perfect, specifically insofar
as they constitute a world order lacking nothing and containing
nothing superfluous. Second, by calling x perfect, Maimonides
means that x lacks nothing and contains nothing superfluous for
being the kind of thing that x is.53 And it is quite consistent for two
unequally valuable things to be perfect in that specific sense. What
is important for our purposes is that, since Maimonides conceives
of the entire world as perfect in that sense, he must think of each of
its parts as having an indispensable role to play in the world being
the kind of perfect thing that it is. And since the world also happens
to be supremely valuable, according to Maimonides (following
Genesis 1:31), the role that all phenomena have in maintaining it
makes their existence preferable to their nonexistence.
This last conclusion is in line with Maimonides’s view of the
proper evaluation of human life and death. On both points, as
one might expect given what we have seen so far, he adopts an
53 Compare Aristotle’s definition of perfect (teleion) as that which cannot be surpassed

with respect to the excellence proper to its kind in Metaph. Δ.16, discussed in section 5.4
of Chapter 5.
Aristotelian optimistic stance. Thus, in GP III.10, he remarks on

Genesis 1:31 as follows (317:12–15):
So that the existence of this inferior matter, being such as it is and

entailing a conjunction with privation that necessitates death and
all the evils, all of this too is good for the persistence of being and
the continuation of reality in succession. And that is why Rabbi
Meir interpreted “and it [it was] very good” (‫ ) והנה טוב מאד‬as
“death [was] good” (‫)טוב מות‬. (my translation)
It may seem that Maimonides means to argue here that even death
should be regarded as a good thing overall, because it contributes
to the permanence of being, presumably by enabling the cycle of
life necessary for perpetuating the species.54 However, he explic-
itly says earlier in the chapter that the death of humans is tanta-
mount to their nonexistence, and that it is an evil (‫ רע‬,‫ )שר‬for that
reason (316:24–5). And at 317:12–15, too, he is in fact clear that in
his view it is the existence of earthly creatures, like us, that should
be considered good, despite the evils (‫ הרעות‬,‫)אלשרור‬, like death,
that inevitably befall them.
When Maimonides cites Rabbi Meir’s rendition of ‫והנה טוב מאד‬
in Genesis 1:31 as ‫ והנה טוב מות‬to support his own position, then,
he cannot take it to mean merely that “death was good.” What he ac-
tually says, at 317:14–16, is the following: “And for this reason Rabbi
Meir interpreted ‘‫’והנה טוב מות’ – ‘והנה טוב מאד‬, because of the
matter that we have remarked upon.”55 Rabbi Meir’s emendation
54 See, e.g., H. Goitein, Der Optimismus und Pessimismus in der jüdischen

Religionsphilosophie (Berlin, 1890), 96–7.
55 ‫ ולזה‬, . . .‫ולדׄ לךשרה ר׳ מאירוהנה טוב מאדוהנה טוב מותללמעני אלדׄי נבהנא עליה‬
. . . ‫לענין אשר העירונו עליו‬,‫פירש ׳ר מאיר והנה טוב מאד טוב מות‬
Friedländer translates: “Rabbi Meir therefore explains the words ‘and behold it
was very good’ (tobh m’od); that even death was good in accordance with what we have
observed in this chapter”; see M. Friedländer (trans. and comm.), The Guide of the
Perplexed of Maimonides (London, 1885), vol. 3, 35. Pines (1963, 440) translates: “For this
reason Rabbi Meir interpreted the words: And, behold, it was very [me’od] good-and, be-
hold, death [maveth] was good, according to the notion to which we have drawn attention.”
could be read as ‫– מות‬ ‫והנה טוב‬, i.e., death is consequent upon the
goods of Creation, rather than being good itself. And, given what we
have seen earlier, this is most probably what Maimonides does take
Rabbi Meir’s point to be.
Indeed, in III.51, Maimonides makes the point that the descrip-
tion of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam as having died “by a kiss” means
to convey that their intellect has been perfected to such an extent
that its posthumous activity afforded them “serenity in the face of
death in truth” (ֺ‫)אלסלאמה מן המות באלחקיקה‬
ׁׂ (463:7). The very
fact that death is something that calls for “serenity in the face of,” or
for “salvation” or “deliverance” from, to use alternative translations
of ‫אלסלאמה‬,
ׁׂ 56 suggests that death as such is an evil.
This negative assessment of death is also in line with Maimonides’s

explicitly positive evaluation of human life. In GP III.12, he makes
the point that “[a human being’s] existence is a great good for him and a
grace of God with regard to what He gave uniquely to him and how He
perfected him” (319:14–15; trans. mine), and concludes by stating that
“our being brought into existence is the great, absolute good” (323:18;
trans. mine). It has been argued, understandably, that Maimonides’s
view of the human species as relatively insignificant makes it diffi-
cult for him to justify the preferability of human life over our non-
existence.57 But, apart from stating so explicitly, Maimonides has
56 Ibn Tibbon translates ‫אלסלאמה מן המות‬

ׁׂ as ‫המלט מן המות‬, implying that such
people are afforded an escape from death. Similarly, Pines renders the phrase as “salva-
tion from death,” and Friedländer as “deliverance from death.” These translations are too
strong and seem unjustifiably to saddle Maimonides with the view that the continuation
of the intellect affords one something like personal immortality. Maimonides’s attitude
toward human immortality is of course convoluted and controversial. See, e.g., Nadler
(2001b), 67–80.
57 Goitein (1890, 94–5) maintains that, although Maimonides means to rebut pessi-
mism on the basis of Aristotelian teleology (citing Pol. I.8), by arguing that human suf-
fering is relatively insignificant, that view could only justify the existence of the world,
and not the existence of human beings, which is why Maimonides supplements his ar-
gument with the further point that the suffering of humans is exaggerated and is in fact
outweighed by the good incurred by them. Indeed, for Goitein (1890, 103), Maimonides
ultimately lapses into a form of “ethical and practical pessimism,” since he attributes
most evils to humans’ folly and wickedness, capable of being transcended, as it is indeed
for Schopenhauer, by only a select few.
good reasons to think that the life of humans is preferable to their

nonexistence, for, as we have seen, he views human beings, and all
other parts of the world for that matter, as making an indispensable
contribution to the world being the kind of perfect and valuable
thing that it is.
Maimonides thus not only follows Aristotle with regard to the
merits of devaluing oneself, and humanity at large, and dedicating
oneself to higher beings; he also adopts Aristotle’s optimistic
assessments of the world as perfectly ordered and valuable, of
human death as an evil, and of human life as preferable over human
nonexistence (in line with the basic propositions of philosophical
optimism which we have been referring to as O1 and O2). Indeed,
Maimonides develops Aristotle’s optimism in ways that make
it capable of dealing with certain objections to optimism. One of
Schopenhauer’s central charges against optimism, as we have seen,
was that it is allegedly incapable of resolving the classical problem
of evil. Whereas Aristotle does not deal with the problem as such,
Maimonides provides an Aristotelian response to it, as we saw
earlier in this chapter. In the next chapter, we shall see to just what
extent the Aristotelian-Maimonidean version of optimistic theory
is capable of answering Schopenhauer’s challenges to optimism.
7
An Aristotelian Response
to Schopenhauer’s Challenge
to Optimism
Based on the definitions we have adopted at the outset, philo-

sophical optimism holds that the world is optimally arranged and
valuable (O1), and human existence, as a part of that world, is val-
uable enough to make it preferable over our nonexistence (O2).
Philosophical pessimism, as we have defined it, maintains by con-
trast that the world is poorly constructed, pain-ridden, and value-
less (P1), and that human nonexistence would have been preferable
(P2). In the preceding chapters, we examined Schopenhauer’s chal-
lenge to the optimism of the Hebrew Bible and Spinoza (Chapter 1),
a critique of his pessimism going back to Nietzsche (Chapter 2),
and a critique of Nietzsche’s attempt at rejecting both optimism and
pessimism by Camus (Chapter 3). We then raised the question con-
cerning the applicability of the debate between optimism and pes-
simism to ancient philosophy and concluded that Aristotle can be
reasonably read as responding to and rejecting ancient occurrences
of philosophical pessimism (Chapter 4). As an alternative, Aristotle
presents his own brand of optimistic theory (Chapter 5), later devel-
oped by Maimonides (Chapter 6), which uniquely squares a view of
the cosmos as perfectly ordered and valuable with the assessment of
humans as relatively inferior beings. Having examined Aristotelian
optimism in detail, it remains to be seen whether it provides a viable
response to the challenge Schopenhauer mounts against (other)
optimistic theories. In this concluding chapter, I will argue that
Aristotle’s optimism, especially as developed by Maimonides, is in

fact capable of responding to the main charges that Schopenhauer
levels against optimism, i.e., its presumed inability to resolve the
problem of evil, at least without appealing, inconsistently, to per-
sonal immortality, and its alleged self-centeredness, leading to the
promotion of cruelty toward human beings and especially toward
nonhuman animals.1
7.1. The Problem of Evil
In Schopenhauer’s estimation, the presence and indeed prevalence

of pain and misfortune in the world is enough to point out that op-
timism, understood as the view that the world is perfectly good as
is, is flawed (FHP §13: 120–1; WWR II.XLVII: 591) (see Chapter 1).
Admittedly, the task of defending optimism in the face of the “the
distress and death of all that lives, the multitude and colossal mag-
nitude of evils, the variety and inevitably of sufferings,” etc., seems
daunting (FHP §13: 120–1). Nevertheless, Aristotelian theory ar-
guably has the relevant resources for defending optimism in the
face of this challenge.
1 When discussing optimism in his published works, Schopenhauer criticizes spe-

cific philosophical views that he takes to be optimistic, such as Spinoza’s pantheism,
but chooses not to address Aristotle’s theory. He even uses Aristotle’s text to support
pessimism, at least once (WWR II.XXVIII: 356). Nevertheless, there is evidence that
Schopenhauer does regard Aristotle’s view as optimistic. In the Pandectae II (p. 293
[Payne, 252]), referring to the second book of Aristotle’s Magna Moralia, which he
regards as authentic, Schopenhauer says that chapter 8 (in which Aristotle says that it is
inappropriate to think about god either as a faulty judge or as unjust; cf. 1207a6–11) is
“an entirely monotheistic passage,” and that chapter 15 (in which Aristotle speaks of god
as self-sufficient, lacking nothing, and having all good things; cf. 1212b35–9) “seems def-
initely to assume that monotheism is a well-known and settled affair” (later, in Pandectae
II, p. 331 [Payne, 262], he goes to on attribute “theism,” though not monotheism, to
both Plato and Aristotle). Since Schopenhauer generally associates monotheism—par-
ticularly its view of the world as the product of a perfectly good deity—with optimism
(WWR II.L: 644), and since he describes as monotheistic precisely those discussions in
Aristotle that deal with god’s good nature and justice, it stands to reason that he would
have regarded Aristotle’s overall theory as optimistic.
An Aristotelian Response to Schopenhauer 225
Understanding the Aristotelian response is facilitated by consid-

ering Aristotle’s conception of the virtue that he calls magnanimity
(see Chapter 5). The magnanimous person, for him, is the person
most appropriately concerned with honors (NE IV.3), and indeed
occupies herself with the greatest honors (MM II.5). Since the most
honorable things in existence in Aristotle’s view are the objects of
his metaphysics, in particular the unmoved movers of the heavens,
which he identifies as gods (NE IV.7; Metaph. A.2), it is safe to as-
sume, with some prominent ancient and modern commentators,
that the magnanimous person for him is concerned with just such
objects. Apart from those objects, and by comparison to them,
the magnanimous person, who turns out to be a paradigmatic
Aristotelian philosopher, deems nothing great, appears disdainful,
and looks down on what she deems “small,” including herself and
humanity at large (NE IV.3, EE III.5). This recommendation of self-
devaluation—the magnanimous person, after all, is an Aristotelian
paragon of virtue, whose disposition and actions are therefore to be
thought of as choice-worthy—suggests a response to the problem
of evil based, not on the downplaying of the amount or intensity of
suffering in the world, but rather on the downplaying of the impor-
tance of those beings in the world that are made to suffer.
Aristotle himself, of course, addresses neither Schopenhauer’s
critique of optimism nor the problem of evil as such. However, as
we have seen (in Chapter 6), Moses Maimonides, whose own con-
ception and recommendation of humility (and his corresponding
ideal of the hassid) are in fact closely modeled on Aristotle’s no-
tion of magnanimity (and his magnanimous person), does reply
to the problem of evil along the same Aristotelian lines just
alluded to. That response may be used to reply, on Aristotle’s
and Maimonides’s behalf, to Schopenhauer’s challenge. For
Schopenhauer, positing the existence of God, either through
monotheism or through pantheism, necessarily leads to opti-
mism (because the world, considered either as being divinely
created or as being itself divine, allows for no imperfections),
which in turn generates the problem of evil (because, undeniably,

imperfections abound). By contrast, Maimonides maintains that
proper self-devaluation—understood as the devaluation, neither
of oneself by contrast to other individuals, nor of one group of
people by contrast to others, but rather of humanity at large by
contrast to higher, nonhuman beings—helps one to appreciate
the goodness in the world, which predominantly stems from its
most valuable components and the good state they necessarily
are in, and which is not affected or jeopardized by the suffering
of lowly parts such as ourselves. Indeed, for Maimonides, it is
based on this understanding of the cosmos and the optimistic
worldview yielded by it that we humans gradually progress to-
ward knowledge of God, to the extent that it is available to us
at all. And, since knowledge of God is thus predicated on self-
devaluation, monotheism in its Maimonidean variety starkly
contrasts with Schopenhauer’s portrayal of Jewish monotheism
as advancing from the postulation of a perfect God toward
viewing each part of the world as perfect in turn.
In fact, it may be said, without too much anachronism, that
Maimonides’s discussion in GP III.12 works not only as a response
to Schopenhauer’s critique of optimism, but even as a direct crit-
icism of points that Schopenhauer is himself theoretically com-
mitted to. Maimonides’s reply to those who find a preponderance of
evil in the world bears repeating in this regard:
Every ignoramus imagines that all that exists exists with a view to
his individual sake; it is as if there were nothing that exists except
him. And if something happens to him that is contrary to what
he wishes, he makes the trenchant judgment that all that exists is
an evil.
Schopenhauer’s WWR begins with the proclamation that “the

world is my representation” (Die Welt ist meine Vortsellung),
which Schopenhauer proceeds to refer to as the most certain

truth (WWR I, §1: 3), and which he says he plans to supple-
ment with the additional truth “that man also can say and must
say: ‘The world is my will.’ ” (WWR I, §1: 4). It is hard to im-
agine, therefore, that Schopenhauer would object to the judg-
ment, which Maimonides in the passage just quoted attributes
to “every ignoramus,” that “there is nothing that exists except
oneself.” Nor, indeed, would Schopenhauer object to the corol-
lary that Maimonides says the “ignoramus” draws from that judg-
ment (upon experiencing an unwelcome occurrence), i.e., that
“all that exists is an evil” (as we saw in Chapter 2, Schopenhauer
likens all of human life to a pendulum wavering between suf-
fering and boredom; cf. WWR I, §57: 312). Maimonides, for his
part, vehemently rejects both the supposition and its corollary.
Schopenhauer, it will be remembered, argues that viewing one-
self as one individuated phenomenon among many, as optimistic
views generally do, is the root of egoism (§61: 332). But, from
an Aristotelian-Maimonidean perspective, it is views such as
Schopenhauer’s that are characterized by self-centeredness, which
leads them to attribute enough importance to human suffering
and imperfections to make something like the problem of evil
seem like a genuine concern. Such self-centeredness is misguided,
Maimonides charges, because, if one were to think of oneself in
relation to the world in an impartial manner, one would not iden-
tify oneself with the essence of the world, as Schopenhauer does.
Rather, one would come to view oneself as a part of the world, and
a relatively insignificant part at that.2
2 Simmel (1991, 110– 11), discussing Schopenhauer’s ethics, argues that

Schopenhauer’s theory is not egoistic, since the “I,” too, is dissolved in the absolute
unity propounded by his metaphysics. But Maimonides, I argue, would have regarded
Schopenhauer’s view as self-centered for its focus on oneself, not qua individual person,
but rather precisely qua will or, as Simmel (1991, 112) calls it, on Schopenhauer’s “ideal
formulation that human beings should become what they are.”
7.2. No Recourse to Personal Immortality
For Schopenhauer, the only conceivable solution to the problem of

evil facing a monotheistic or pantheistic optimist would have been
the postulation of some significant goods awaiting us in an after-
world and making up for the evils endured on earth as we know it.
The trouble, as Schopenhauer sees it, is that even such a solution
cannot be made consistent with monotheism or pantheism, pre-
cisely because they must take the world as is, i.e., as it is given to us
through observation and experience, to be perfect in its own right
(WWR II.XLI; FHP §13).
As we have seen, Aristotle does not subscribe to personal im-
mortality. Aristotle’s theory leaves room for the immortality of
only the human intellect (DA I.4; DA III.5; Metaph. Λ.3), whereas
personal immortality requires, in addition, the permanence of
one’s character traits, memories, etc. (see Chapter 4). Hence, on
Aristotle’s view, one in fact cannot expect to incur any posthumous
goods (with the exception of the possible temporary continuation
of one’s happiness through the virtuous activities performed by
one’s living friends). Maimonides’s views on the subject of personal
immortality are notoriously elusive. As we have seen (Chapter 6),
in a key discussion in GP III.51, he commits himself to the im-
mortality of the intellect in (some) humans, which would seem to
align his view with Aristotle’s. Indeed, it has been suggested that,
since Maimonides restricts human immortality to the persistence
of the intellect, he cannot consistently endorse personal immor-
tality, and in fact does not do so in the Guide, whereas in some
halachic works he describes such immortality as including the per-
sistence of memories of earthly life due to the intended audience
of those particular works, which includes readers not versed in or
prepared for philosophy.3 But whichever view Maimonides holds
3 See Nadler (2001b), 72–80.

with regard to immortality, the important thing to note for our pre-
sent purposes is that the arguments we have mounted on his be-
half against Schopenhauer’s challenge to optimism do not rely on
personal immortality in any way. Rather, they rely on the devalu-
ation of humanity and the compatibility of such devaluation with
the perfection of the cosmos. Both Aristotle and Maimonides can
consistently uphold an optimistic worldview without postulating
personal immortality because they both think that human beings,
qua the limited beings that they are, play a crucial role in the world’s
perfection.
7.3. Egoism and Cruelty
Lastly, Aristotle’s and Maimonides’s aversion to self-absorption,

and their focus on combating self-centeredness with a sober appre-
hension of one’s true value by comparison to greater beings, also
help to answer a further challenge posed to optimistic theory by
Schopenhauer. As we have seen, Schopenhauer charges optimism
with leading its adherents to moral depravity, precisely because, as
he thinks, optimists are bound to view themselves as perfectly val-
uable and, thus enchanted with themselves, they can be expected to
disregard, if not directly harm, their fellow creatures.
As we have seen earlier, Aristotle and Maimonides would take
Schopenhauer’s theory to be essentially egoistic, since it advances
from identifying oneself as the essence of the entire world, and on
that basis sees a grave problem with one’s own suffering that pur-
portedly can only be accounted for through a pessimistic evalua-
tion of the world at large. By contrast, and as we well know by now,
both Aristotle and Maimonides view the perfection of the world as
compatible with a hierarchy of value among its parts, with human
beings placed relatively low on the axiological ladder, so that their
limitations and suffering would not undermine the estimation of
the world as perfect. A human being aware of this hierarchy, on this
particular version of optimistic theory, would be led away from

egoism, since they would recognize that they ought not to place
themselves, or even humanity as a whole, as the focal point of either
their actions or their intellectual efforts. And indeed, for Aristotle,
the magnanimous person, who is in possession of the knowledge of
such facts as well as a matching attitude of deeming nothing great
(including herself), is also a paragon of character virtue (NE IV.3).
Having full character virtue, the magnanimous person would act
virtuously (generously, moderately, justly, etc.) toward her fellow
humans, even to the point of sacrificing her life for her friends or
homeland (NE IX.8). And they would presumably do so as a direct
result of their knowledge of their insignificance by comparison to
higher beings and their consequent self-devaluing attitude.
It may be objected at this point that, whereas Aristotle’s and
Maimonides’s optimism may promote altruism with regard to other
human beings, the hierarchy in value between mortal species that
it posits privileges humanity and places it squarely above other life
forms, with likely negative practical implications for animal welfare.
Indeed, Schopenhauer charges Jewish and pantheistic optimism
with leading to cruelty particularly toward nonhuman animals,
as we have seen (section 1.4 of Chapter 1; cf. WWR II.L: 645; FHP
§12: 73). As we have also seen, in Pol. I.8 Aristotle does commit him-
self to the view that non-rational animals exist for the sake of human
beings (1256b10–22), and in NE IV.7 (1141a33–b2) he says explic-
itly that humans are the best of all animals, with the latter text quite
clearly influencing Maimonides’s similar view that humans exceed
in nobility and perfection all other sublunary species (cf. GP III.13).
Elsewhere, moreover, Aristotle canvasses further hierarchies within
the animal kingdom, with some species, like worms and beetles,
being described as having a “base nature” (φύσις φαύλη) typical “of
dishonorable animals” (τῶν ἀτίμων ζῴων) (MM II.7).4
4 See also PA I.1, 645a15–16; DA 404b3–5; Poet. 4, 1448b10–12. Cf. Bonitz, Index
Aristotelicus, ad ἄτιμος.
As we also saw in Chapters 4 and 5, however, Aristotle conceives

of the world as a perfect structure, enabling the existence and
functioning of the best beings in existence, but depending in doing
so on its various constituent parts, including the fixed number and
kinds of mortal species eternally inhabiting it. But if the world’s
perfection depends on the proper functioning of its various
parts, then jeopardizing any of those parts, down to the smallest
and most insignificant of them, would presumably detract from
that perfection. And if so, then acting fully rationally and virtu-
ously, for Aristotle, requires actively refraining from cruelty to-
ward humans as well as nonhuman animals. In PA I.1, 645a4–26,
Aristotle famously exhorts one to study, not only divine objects,5
but also the nature of animals, including those that are “more dis-
honorable” (τῶν ἀτιμoτέρων), since in every natural thing there is
“something wonderful” (τι θαυμαστόν) and the inquiry into any
animal species would yield something beautiful (τινὸς . . . καλοῦ).
As he goes on to say, if one refuses to inquire into nonhuman an-
imals, deeming such inquiry dishonorable, one should similarly
refuse to inquire into oneself as well, since “it is impossible to look
at those things from which the human genus is constituted—e.g.,
blood, flesh, bones, veins and the parts of this sort—without much
disgust (πολλῆς δυσχερείας)” (645a28–30). Aristotle’s axiological
hierarchy and the practical lessons to be drawn from it are ap-
parent here as well. The dishonor attached to certain animal spe-
cies by comparison to humans is compatible with the wonder and
beauty that nevertheless inhere in them and that demand our at-
tention and respect. And we come to appreciate the compatibility
of these two aspects by examining the case of the human species,
which similarly integrates our body and mortal nature, making us
subordinate to the gods, with certain honorable characteristics en-
abling us to approximate divinity.
5 Taking ἐκείνων at 645a4 to refer back to τὰ θεῖα at 645a4.

Maimonides, for his part, interprets key commandments

mandated by the Torah (like the prohibition on eating a limb
of a living animal and the regulations concerning slaughtering)
as intended to avoid cruelty toward animals (GP III.48). When
Maimonides explains the particular commandment prohibiting
the slaughtering of an animal and its progeny on the same day,6
he says that this commandment is intended to spare the mother
the suffering of witnessing the slaughtering of her offspring. That
pain, Maimonides continues, is the same in nonhuman animals
as it is in humans, since the love of a mother for her offspring
depends on imagination rather than the intellect. That account,
which evidently appeals to concepts borrowed from Aristotelian
psychology, is also echoed more specifically in Aristotle, who
argues that nature seems to wish to ensure “the caring awareness
of offspring” (τὴν τῶν τέκνων αἴσθησιν ἐπιμελητικὴν) (GA III.2,
753a7–9), which he goes on to attribute, to varying degrees, to
humans, quadrupeds, and birds (753a9–16).7 Also in GP III.48,
Maimonides brings up the point, which he takes to be a medical
fact, that plants and meat constitute the food natural for human
beings (440:8–9: ‫ המזון הטבעי לבני אדם‬,‫)אלגׄדא אלטביעי ללאנסאן‬.
Bracketing the issue of the truth value of this belief, the impor-
tant point for our purposes is that, in Maimonides’s view, this
presumed fact goes hand in hand with the moral obligation on
humans to refrain from causing unnecessary harm, both phys-
ical and emotional, to animals. And there is reason to think
that, in espousing that moral obligation, Maimonides faithfully
represents Aristotle’s position, which also seems compatible with,
and indeed seems to recommend, allowing the use of nonhuman
6 See also MT, Hilchot Shchita, 12:8; cf. Leviticus 22:28: ‫ אותו ואת בנו לא‬,‫״ושור או שה‬
”.‫תשחטו ביום אחד‬
7 See also T. Lockwood, “Aristotle on Inter-and Intra-Species Philia” (unpublished),
who adduces, in addition to this text, further support from the Ethics and HA for pa-
rental care in nonhuman animals.
animals only for (presumed) necessary purposes and refraining

from causing them unnecessary suffering.8
In GP III.13, Maimonides cites Aristotle on the point that plants
exist for the sake of both animals and human beings. This is some-
times taken to indicate that Maimonides rejects Aristotle’s view
that non-rational animals exist for the sake of humans.9 It may
be thought, too, that doing so in turn allows Maimonides to sup-
port his case against cruelty toward non-rational animals on the
grounds that they should be “placed on the same level as human
beings.”10 Thus, it has been concluded that according to the Guide
8 Henry argues that, in Pol. I.8, Aristotle’s position is that “we are justified in hunting
animals and otherwise using them as we see fit . . . ,” and that Theophrastus’s position,
according to which humans have a moral obligation not to harm animals, is meant to
“argue against this position”; see D. Henry, “Aristotle on Animals,” in P. Adamson and
G. F. Edwards (eds.), Animals: A History (Oxford, 2018), 9–26, at 23–4. But, as I have
argued earlier, Pol. I.8 seems compatible with a moral obligation toward animals, and
there are other, positive reasons to attribute to Aristotle the view that we do have such
an obligation. Henry’s appeal to NE VIII.11, 1161a31–b3 to argue that Aristotle “denies
that there can be either friendship or justice between humans and nonhuman animals
because we share nothing in common with them” (ibid.) is misguided. The point that
Aristotle makes in the immediately following discussion is that we cannot have friend-
ship with a slave, qua slave, i.e., qua an “ensouled tool” (cf. Pol. I.13), although there can
be friendship between a master and a slave insofar as they are both humans (1161b4–8).
Being unable to have friendship with a horse or a cow are given as illustrative examples
during this discussion, with the implication that, insofar as these are tools, one cannot
have friendship with them. This leaves room, just as in the case of slaves, for these living
things to have enough in common with humans so as to justify, or even mandate, our
consideration toward them insofar as they are, not merely tools, but also the living beings
that they are.
M. Rowlands, “Friendship and Animals: A Reply to Fröding and Peterson,” Journal
of Animal Ethics 1 (2011), 70–9, at 71, offers a reading of NE VIII.11 that is similar to
mine. Lockwood (unpublished), also arguing against B. Fröding and M. Peterson,
“Animal Ethics Based on Friendship,” Journal of Animal Ethics 1 (2011), 58– 69,
supports Rowlands’s reading, and adds that the passage in question may only rule out
considerations of justice pertaining to nonhuman animals. Fröding and Peterson (2011),
for their part, argue that even though Aristotle does not think that friendship can exist
between humans and nonrational animals, it can, and so, following his theory of friend-
ship, one has a moral obligation to further the well-being of at least those animals that
one has (utility) friendship with.
9 Pines (1963), lxxi, n. 29.
10 H. Kasher, “Animals as Moral Patients in Maimonides’ Teachings,” American
Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 76.1 (2002), 165– 80, at 168. Kasher argues that
Maimonides changed his mind on the topic between the Commentary on the Mishnah
and the Guide.
“animals and human beings are citizens of equal rights in the

kingdom of ends.”11 However, Maimonides’s focus on Aristotle’s
view on the status of plants in III.13 is unrelated to his estima-
tion of Aristotle’s views on animals. Maimonides cites Aristotle in
the context of arguing that if X is superior to Y (e.g., the heavenly
bodies by comparison to humans, or humans by comparison to
fish), then X cannot exist for the sake of Y. Plants and their rela-
tion to their superiors, i.e., animals, are brought up as an example
for the proper relation of being-for-the-sake-of. Maimonides may
well have chosen this particular example because of the specific
texts he could adduce as support for his view. Having no access to
Aristotle’s explicit remark in Pol. I.8 that both plants and animals
exist for the sake of humans, he probably relies on the pseudo-
Aristotelian On Plants 817b25–6, in which that point is made spe-
cifically about plants.12
But there is every reason to think that Maimonides, like Aristotle
in Pol. I.8, extends his view on the subordination relation between
plants and animals to the relation between animals and humans.
For Maimonides, plants exist for animals “because [animals]
cannot do without food” (‫ אחר שאי אפשר‬,‫אדׄ לא בד לה מן אלאגחדׄ א‬
‫( )להם מבלתי מזון‬GP III.13, 327: 27–8).13 This reason should apply
to the existence of animals, too, because Maimonides says simi-
larly that meat is necessary food for humans (GP III.48). Indeed,
in GP III.17, Maimonides accepts the view, which he attributes
to Aristotle, that divine providence does not extend to individual
plants or non-rational animals (341: 18–19). He goes on to say
that “because this is so (‫ ומפני זה‬,‫)ולדׄ לך‬, the slaughtering of [an-
imals] is permitted and commanded, and it has been permitted to
11 Kasher (2002), 169.

12 See Pines (1963), 449 n. 4. Maimonides also mentions, as biblical support for this
view, Genesis 1:29–30, which also focuses on plants.
13 Kasher (2002, 176–8) recognizes and discusses this view.
use them for [our] benefit (‫ בתועלותינו‬,‫ )פי אלמנאפע‬as much as we

please” (19–20). Lastly, in GP I.13, Maimonides does argue, again
following Aristotle, that, since the ultimate end of biological spe-
cies is to perpetuate the cycle of life with a view to continued exist-
ence and the generation of beings as perfect as possible, and since
humans are more perfect than all other sublunary beings, all non-
human sublunary things exist, in this sense, for the sake of humans.
Maimonides, then, thinks both that humans have an obligation to
refrain from cruelty toward animals and that non-rational animals
exist for the sake of human beings and are naturally used for their
purposes.
Human perfection, for Maimonides, consists of knowing God
as far as is humanly possible, and this crucially requires lowering
one’s estimation of oneself, along with one’s estimation of the rest
of humanity. By contrast, Schopenhauer’s view proposes intro-
spection as the key for unraveling the true essence of the world,
which turns out to be identical to the essence of oneself. And
by recommending forgoing one’s phenomenal existence toward
complete absorption in that true essence, Schopenhauer’s view
arguably reverts to an exaltation of the world and of oneself—
the very feature he criticizes optimistic theories for exhibiting
(see Chapter 2). Similarly, Nietzsche’s view was criticized by
Camus for promoting the deification of the world and of oneself
(see Chapter 3). Aristotle’s view, which Maimonides adopts and
develops, though it remains optimistic—it refuses to compro-
mise the value inherent in the world and proposes a solution to
the problem of evil on which even immense human suffering does
not substantially detract from that value—is set up so as to fence
off such criticisms. The very starting point of that position, and a
sine qua non for its overall argument, is the rejection of the idea
that one may legitimately either deify oneself or otherwise claim
for oneself the value of anything other than the member of a rela-
tively insignificant species.
7.4. Additional Objections: Schopenhauer

and Beyond
Schopenhauer, it is true, also presents further arguments against

optimistic positions, and it would be useful to attend to those in
case they might turn out to be more effective against optimism of
the Aristotelian variety. Let us consider three further arguments
that Schopenhauer proposes, i.e., that optimism is “nefarious” in
its scorn for suffering, that optimism falsely promises happiness,
and that cosmic harmony and teleology do not make us any less
miserable.14 As we shall presently see, all three arguments are ul-
timately vulnerable to the same counterarguments that we have
raised on behalf of Aristotelian optimism. But the third of these
arguments nevertheless paves the way for an additional set of pos-
sible concerns that Aristotelian optimism must take into account.
Consider, first, Schopenhauer’s point that optimism is “nefar-
ious” (ruchlose) and submits human suffering to “bitter scorn”
(bitterer Hohn) (WWR I.59: 326; translation mine). Presumably,
Schopenhauer means to say here that optimism is nefarious because
it scorns human suffering, leading not only to refrain from helping
suffering individuals but also to actively putting such individuals
down. This is reminiscent of Schopenhauer’s charge that optimism
leads to egoism and thereby to cruelty, and the Aristotelian response
to the charge, as we have sketched it, applies here as well. Aristotle’s
optimism, resting on imbibing the radical difference in value be-
tween oneself and the divine, is envisaged as moving one away from
egoistic concerns and toward a virtuous, other-regarding attitude
14 Schopenhauer also famously argues, specifically against Leibniz’s optimism, that

ours is the worst of all possible worlds (WWR II.XLVI: 583–4). This case is less relevant
for our present purposes, since Leibniz’s doctrine of “the best of all possible worlds” is
different from optimism as I have been concerned with it in this book and is in fact com-
patible with pessimism as I have defined it (see the Introduction). For further (and crit-
ical) discussion of Schopenhauer’s argument against Leibniz, see Janaway (1999), 321–2;
Beiser (2016), 47; Migotti (2020), 286–7.
(cf. section 7.3). Far from ridiculing suffering, such a view is meant
to engender compassion and empathy toward sufferers.
Second, Schopenhauer argues that optimism suffers from
the error of supposing that the world is set up for human happi-
ness, which he in turn defines as the satisfaction of willing (WWR
II.XLIX: 634; MR, Adversaria 171, pp. 229–32 [Payne, 619–20]).
This presumed error allegedly leads one to suppose that the world,
which for Schopenhauer defies our expectation to be happy at every
turn, is “full of contradictions,” which in turn generates “disappoint-
ment” (WWR II.XLIX: 634). And this error, Schopenhauer emphat-
ically asserts, is furthermore “inborn” and inevitable insofar as we
are, in essence, “will-to-live” (WWR II.XLIX: 634).15 Now, this last
point concerning the origin of the alleged error of optimism ought
not to challenge the truth of optimism. If Schopenhauer means to
appeal to it to refute optimism, then he would be committing the
genetic fallacy (our expectation to be happy should be either met or
unmet regardless of whether we are bound to have it).
Furthermore, the content of the alleged error itself does not apply
to Aristotle’s theory. Aristotle thinks that various types of good, like
physical strength and wealth, which do play a role in a happy life
(and are sometimes equated with happiness, though not by him),
are due to luck (Pol. IV.11, 1295b13–15; NE I.8, 1099a31–b8), and
cannot be reliably expected to be achieved regularly. Indeed, the
type of virtuous activity that he equates with happiness—and es-
pecially theoretical activity, which for him is constitutive of the
most complete form of happiness—is only rarely achieved, even
under the ideal political circumstances as he describes them in
Politics VII–VIII.16 The rarity of human happiness and the depend-
ence of the satisfaction of one’s desires on fortune are consistent
with Aristotelian optimism because, as we have seen, that brand
of optimism in fact holds no expectation of human suffering being
15 Janaway (1999), 324–5, 339.
16 Cf. p. 188 in this volume; cf. Segev (2017a).

negligible or eliminable.17 Similarly to Maimonides’s Aristotelian

response to the problem of evil (cf. section 7.1), then, Aristotelian
optimism is capable of responding to Schopenhauer’s charge of the
naïve expectation of happiness by incorporating human suffering
and failure into its account of the overall perfection of the world
and the worth of our existence within it.
The third additional argument that we have mentioned attacks
arguments for optimism resting on the beauty in nature and on nat-
ural and cosmic teleology. Interestingly, Schopenhauer does not
proceed by rejecting the suppositions of such arguments. Rather,
he asks us to consider what it is that the majesty and order of the
universe, or its “wise arrangement,” entail:
. . . if we proceed to the results of the applauded work, if we con-

sider the players who act on the stage so durably constructed,
and then see how with sensibility pain makes its appearance, and
increases in proportion as that sensibility develops into intelli-
gence, and then how, keeping pace with this, desire and suffering
come out ever more strongly, and increase, till at last human life
affords no other material than that for tragedies and comedies,
then whoever is not a hypocrite will hardly be disposed to break
out into hallelujahs. (WWR II.XLVI: 581)
Schopenhauer’s argument here is that no degree of natural beauty

or cosmic order should affect one’s evaluation of human life, which
ought to be determined solely based on the suffering that is bound to
dominate it. Aristotelian optimism is again capable of dealing with
this objection, similarly to the way we have seen it might respond
17 Aristotle, of course, does think that happiness is nevertheless possible (though

even then it is temporary and conditional, incapable of withstanding, for instance,
misfortunes such as the ones confronted by King Priam toward the end of his life; cf. NE
I.11). But Schopenhauer’s point against optimism could not be that happiness is alto-
gether unachievable. In fact, Schopenhauer himself thinks that happiness is attainable as
well; see Janaway (2018).
to Schopenhauer’s other arguments based on the preponderance of

suffering in the world and in human lives. For the Aristotelian po-
sition just is that no amount of human suffering could determine
the value of human existence, which derives its value from its place
within (and contribution to) an overall valuable system.
But, although Schopenhauer’s argument grants the “optimist”
and the “teleologist” their basic assumptions concerning the pur-
posiveness inherent in the universe, philosophers today might
not be so inclined.18 Nagel in a recent book controversially argues
for the possibility of reintroducing “teleology as part of the nat-
ural world order” to explain the existence of consciousness and
reason in the universe.19 “Natural teleology,” as Nagel understands
it, “would mean that the universe is rationally governed in more
than one way—not only through the universal quantitative laws of
physics that underlie efficient causation but also through princi-
ples which imply that things happen because they are on a path that
leads toward certain outcomes—notably, the existence of living,
and ultimately of conscious, organisms.”20
While entertaining this idea, however, Nagel consciously states
that it “flies in the teeth of the authoritative form of explanation
that has defined science since the revolution of the seventeenth
century,” and cautiously concludes that he is “not confident that
this Aristotelian idea of teleology without intention makes sense,”
though he (Nagel) does “not at the moment see why it doesn’t” (in
any event, even if one were to grant Aristotle the truth of some ge-
neral teleological principles, many of the particular details of his
natural teleology, espousing, e.g., the eternity of all animal species
18 In fact, Schopenhauer closes WWR II.XXVI, a chapter dedicated in its entirety to a

discussion of teleology, by praising Aristotle for “set[ting] them [sc. final causes] up as
the true principle of the investigation of nature. Indeed, every good and normal mind,
when considering organic nature, must hit upon teleology” (ibid.: 341).
19 T. Nagel, Mind and Cosmos (Oxford, 2012), 92. While identifying such teleological
principles with Aristotle’s view, Nagel (2012, 66 n. 19) also acknowledges that “of course
Aristotle did not have our conception of the world’s historical evolution over time.”
20 Nagel (2012), 67.
and of the heavenly bodies and their movement and souls, would
still have to be rejected; see the further discussion in this section).21
But it is not obvious that teleology is absolutely required for
upholding the gist of Aristotelian optimism. That gist, following
our interpretation (see Chapters 4, 5, and 6), is the idea that the
world is perfectly ordered and valuable, and that our existence is
valuable insofar as we are parts of that valuable whole, albeit rela-
tively insignificant parts, whose suffering and imperfections there-
fore do not make a dent in the perfection of the world as a whole.
Suppose one dismisses teleological explanations but endorses the
view that the universe in all its details is exactly as it is with strict
necessity and could not have been otherwise. Ronald Dworkin
identifies this view of “inevitability,” which as he points out is
stronger than standard determinism, in the aspiration of promi-
nent physicists to arrive at a “final theory” integrating the compre-
hensibility of the universe with its objective beauty deriving from
that very idea of inevitability—the idea, that is, that “nothing could
be different without there being nothing.”22 Now, it is not entirely
clear that being inevitable is sufficient to grant the cosmos the
grandeur and sublimity such a view expects it to have, as Dworkin,
who devotes much of his book to searching for an adequate ac-
count of beauty as it pertains to the universe, is acutely aware.23
21 Nagel (2012), 93. For Nagel (2012, 67): “it is essential, if teleology is to form part of a
revised natural order, that its laws should be genuinely universal and not just the descrip-
tion of a single goal-seeking process. Since we are acquainted with only one instance
of the appearance and evolution of life, we lack a basis for bringing it under universal
teleological laws, unless teleological principles can be found operating consistently at
much lower levels.” By contrast, Lennox, discussing Aristotle’s relevance to contempo-
rary philosophy of biology, points out the “renewed interest among certain theoretical
biologists and philosophers of biology in conceiving of the organism as an irreducible
locus of explanation, and in concepts like ‘self-organization’ and ‘self-maintenance’,
and a robustly teleological concept of biological function and development associated
with these concepts”; see J. G. Lennox, “An Aristotelian Philosophy of Biology: Form,
Function and Development,” Acta Philosophica 26 (2017), 33–51, at 47.
22 R. Dworkin, Religion without God (Cambridge, MA/London, 2013), 98 et passim.
23 Thus, Dworkin (2013, 99) is careful to argue that inevitability is “an aspect or di-
mension of real beauty.” Dworkin (2013, 88) compares the role of “inevitability” in
physics to the appeal to a Creator God in theistic religions to explain the world being as
it is, and he mentions as ways of grounding God as such an ultimate explanans Aristotle’s
But as long as one already maintains the “inevitability” view while

also attributing supreme or perfect value to the world at large, on
whatever (non-teleological) basis, then one can contend, along
with Aristotle and Maimonides, that our very status as indispen-
sable (if lowly) parts of such a valuable whole supports optimism
with regard to the value of our own existence as well.
Another point that one might raise against the plausibility of
Aristotelian optimism, and one which applies to optimistic views
more broadly, is that it might be inappropriate to attribute any
value, let alone ultimate value, to the world at large. In Chapter 3, we
have confronted Nietzsche’s statement in HH I.28 that “the world is
neither good nor evil” and that “the concepts ‘good’ and ‘evil’ pos-
sess meaning only when applied to men” (an assessment that, as we
have also seen, Nietzsche ultimately arguably does not himself live
up to). Suppose that we similarly resist attributing any value (or dis-
value) to the world at large, and instead restrict all talk of value to
human affairs. One view that one could hold under such constraints
is that the realm of human endeavor as a whole contains a perfectly
valuable system, say human society or culture, and that we our-
selves are valuable insofar as we enable and contribute to the exist-
ence of such a system.24 This view would lean toward Aristotelian
optimism, as we have unpacked it. It is true that the world would on
such a view not be considered valuable, which we have indeed de-
fined as the basic proposition held by philosophical optimists. But
on the view in question the world as such is ex hypothesi devoid of
notion of a first uncaused cause and Anselm’s idea of a conceptually necessary being. But
(leaving aside the problematic association between Aristotle and creationism), perfect
value and goodness are built into Aristotle’s specification of his primary cause, which in
turn motivates his understanding of the world as a whole as being perfectly valuable as
well (see Chapters 4 and 5).
24 One prominent interpretation of Aristotle’s psychology takes intellect (nous) to be
equivalent to our notion of “culture”; see Kahn (1992), 377. Kahn (1992, n. 3) is con-
cerned with nous specifically as it occurs in human beings. But the content of noetic
awareness in both human and divine nous (the latter, for Aristotle, functions as the basic
cause of all of reality) is for Aristotle of course identical; for Kahn (1992, 375) this con-
tent is specifically the “rational structure of the universe.”
axiological relevance. Since that view proposes that the only realm
in which value could be had does indeed contain perfect value, it is
at least, one might say, optimistic in spirit.
Among the many particular features of Aristotle’s thought that
any revised version of his theory would need to reconsider is his
view that all heavenly bodies and all earthly mortal living spe-
cies are eternal. One might think that it is unreasonable to uphold
Aristotelian (or indeed any other kind of) optimism while simul-
taneously acknowledging our transitory nature. But value does not
obviously depend on the continued, let alone the eternal, existence
of its possessor. As we have seen, Aristotle has no qualms about re-
garding the existence of individual human beings as valuable while
denying them personal immortality. And whereas it is true that he
does so on the basis of the contributions of such individuals to the
continued existence of an eternal species (as well as the world at
large), there seems to be no conclusive reason for that assessment
to depend in principle on the eternity of our species, of life, or in-
deed of the cosmos (after all, it is the very same science that alerts us
to our temporariness that nevertheless also seeks, as we have seen
Dworkin point out, to capture the supreme beauty and value of the
universe in a final theory). Nagel, considering the argument for the
absurdity of human life based on human mortality, asks rhetori-
cally: “would not a life that is absurd if it lasts seventy years be in-
finitely absurd if it lasted through eternity?”25 By the same token,
we might ask, on behalf of a modified version of Aristotelian op-
timism: “would not a species and a world that are valuable if they
exist forever remain so if they lasted only up to a point?”26
25 Nagel (1979), 12. For a criticism of this argument, see Benatar (2017), 54–5.
26 One could argue, in principle, that a temporally limited cosmos could not be
perfectly valuable, as optimism maintains it must be, since a longer existence would
have increased its value. But this implication does not clearly follow either. Consider
Aristotle’s own position. For him, the separate intellects, responsible for the perfect value
that Aristotle sees the cosmos as having (as we have seen), consist in a self-contained
and non-composite intellectual activity that, unlike human intellection, does not require
temporal stages (Metaph. Λ.9, 1075a5–11). Arguably, the occurrence of such an activity
These last considerations are certainly not meant to conclu-

sively establish Aristotelian optimism, or a modified version of it,
as a viable theory usable in contemporary discussion. The cursory
reference to representative recent positions will not have been suf-
ficient toward that end.27 Ours has been a historical investigation,
comparing views on optimism and pessimism from classical antiq-
uity down to the twentieth century. What I do hope the analysis
of these views has shown, however, is that philosophical optimism,
which since Schopenhauer’s day has been frequently taken to be
childish or naïve, merits careful consideration. In its Aristotelian
variety, optimism retains a level of internal consistency lacking in
major alternative theories and withstands serious objections tra-
ditionally raised by its detractors. For some readers, this view and
our analysis of it would remain of purely historical interest. Others
might, I hope, be inclined to regard Aristotelian optimism thus un-
derstood as relevant and useful as we wade our way toward under-
standing the value of the world and of our own existence within it.
would confer perfect value on the cosmos that enables it, for Aristotle, regardless of the
length of its duration.
27 For a recent survey of and critical engagement with contemporary optimistic views,
specifically concerning the human condition, see Benatar (2017), esp. ch. 3–4.
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252 References
Whiting, J., “Human Nature and Intellectualism,” Archiv für Geschichte der
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Wicks, R. “Schopenhauer and Judaism,” in S. Shapshay (ed.), The Palgrave
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Index
Aaron, 198, 221 on pessimism, 14–15, 113–19,

Abel, 30 149–50, 154–8, 223
Abraham, 16, 195, 197–200, 213n43, on reputable opinions (endoxa),
216 123–4
afterlife. See immortality on teleology, 15, 17, 159, 163,
al-Razi, Abu Bakr, 210 173–8, 185, 186n35, 189, 191–2,
Alexander of Aphrodisias, 135–6 221n57, 236, 239–40
altruism and egoism, 171, 175, 198–200, on the unmoved mover(s), 139,
214, 215n48, 227, 229–37. See also 146, 158–63, 171, 173n17, 175–
optimism 6, 180–3, 190, 191n44, 212, 225,
anachronism, 5–6, 113–14 240–1n23, 242n26
animals, nonhuman, 19, 36–40, See also Schopenhauer
46–8, 229–35 Aspasius, 134n30, 164n4, 165–8
anthropocentrism, 38, 40–1, 176 atheism, 19, 25, 83, 96
Aristotle
on active intellect, 135–6, 143n48 Bar Kokhba, Simon, 201
on cataclysms, 186–7, 191 Beiser, Frederick C., 4n9, 58n19, 59n20
on the cycle of life, 145–7, 191, 235 Benatar, David, 147n54, 242n25,
on divinity, 15, 148, 158–63, 167–8, 243n27
173–82, 184–5, 190, 191n44, Berman, David, 39, 76n46
202, 208–9, 211–12, 215, 224n1, Betegh, Gabor, 179n23
225, 231 Bos, Abraham P., 118n7
on friendship (philia), 116, 128– Boton, Abraham de, 205–8
35, 139, 149, 158, 160–3, 173–5, Brahmanism, 19
198–9, 214, 215n48, 230, 233n8 Brann, Henry Walter, 41n41
on happiness, 116, 118–21, 124, Bruno, Giordano, 23
126–9, 131–5, 139, 140n45, Buddhism, 8, 19. See also pessimism
142–4, 149, 160, 165, 167–8, Burnyeat, Myles F., 185n34
177–8, 188, 228, 237–8
on magnanimity, 8, 15–16, 158, Calderon, Ruth, 200–201
163–74, 190, 194, 197, 203, Camus, Albert
208–9, 214–16, 225, 230 on the absurd, 83–4, 87, 90–1, 96,
his optimism, 3, 7–8, 14–17, 42, 113, 108, 111
126, 148, 157, 159–61, 178–94, on “eternal concepts,” 95
196, 217, 222–5, 229–30, 235–43 on moderation, 81, 107–12
254 Index
Camus, Albert (cont.) eternity, 31

on murder/violence, 101–6, of human intellect, 116, 133, 135,
107n22 137n39, 138–9, 142, 143n48,
on Nietzsche, 6, 8, 14, 16, 42, 77, 147n55, 149, 155
80–110, 113, 223, 225 of knowledge, 33
on nihilism, 84–6, 100n14, 105–6 of life, 47–8, 70, 72
and optimism/pessimism, 109–10 of species, 17, 145, 150, 183–6,
on rebellion, 81, 87, 90–1, 93–6, 191–2, 231, 239, 242
103–4, 107–12 of the world, 13, 159, 192, 219
on suffering, 81, 101–4 See also Camus; God; Nietzsche
Cartwright, David E., 101n15, Eudemus of Cyprus, 114
102n16 Euripides, 150
Christianity, 8, 19, 25, 31, 32n21, 44,
58n19, 75n43, 80, 83, 100n15, Francis of Assisi, 53
173n17. See also pessimism Frank, Daniel, 203–4, 205n30, 209
Chroust, Anton-Hermann, 180n25, Frauenstädt, Julius, 58n19, 59n20
187n38, 192n45 freedom of will. See determinism
Clement of Alexandria, 20 Fröding, Barbro, 233n8
Cogito. See Descartes, René
Cooper, John M., 189n42 Gauthier, René Antoine, 166n8, 167n9
Crantor, 121, 125 Gerson, Lloyd P., 135, 137n39
Crisp, Roger, 129, 164n5, Gersonides, 33–4
168–9n10 God
cycle of life. See Aristotle; benevolence/goodness/moral
Maimonides nature of, 9, 94, 100, 148, 224n1
as Creator, 11, 19–22, 24–7, 32, 38,
Dante, 110 79, 96, 109n25, 217–19, 224n1,
David (King), 16, 198, 201–2, 215 225, 240n23
death, 46–7, 56–7, 59, 67, 69, 71–2, eternity of, 25, 209
114–15, 118–29, 131–5, 139–47, existence of, 8, 32n22, 225
149, 153, 156, 158, 219–22 Nietzsche’s idea of the death of,
Descartes, René, 81, 90–3 13–14, 80n6, 81, 83–4, 86, 94
determinism, 50, 85–6, 240 omnipotence of, 9
devil, 26–7 perfection of, 8, 11, 23–4, 28–9, 40,
Dienstag, Joshua Foa, 5, 71–2, 75, 77, 78, 161, 212n41, 226
109, 110n26 See also Maimonides; optimism
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 106 Goitein, Hirsch, 221n57
dream, 47, 130n26 Golomb, Jacob, 30n15
Duvall, William E., 99n13 Gooch, Paul W., 128n20
Dworkin, Ronald, 240–2 Guthrie, W. K. C., 180n25
Guttmacher, Adolf, 21n4, 31n19,
egoism. See altruism and egoism 32nn21–22, 37n30
Elias, 136–7 Guyon, Jeanne, 54
Index 255
Halevi, Hisdai, 214n46 142–4, 147n55, 149–50, 152–3,

happiness. See Aristotle; Schopenhauer 155–6, 221n56, 228–9, 242
Hartmann, Eduard von, 4n9 Isaac, 216
Hebrew Bible Islam, 31
Chronicles, 31
Daniel, 31 Jacob, 195, 200–201, 216
Deuteronomy, 21n7, 31, 37, 209, Jaeger, Werner, 117, 118n5
212, 216, 218 Janaway, Christopher, 50–3, 56n15,
Ecclesiastes, 11, 21n7, 31–2, 41n41 57–8, 69n33, 73n39, 103n18
Elijah, 21n7 Jaspers, Karl, 100n14
Exodus, 31, 195–6, 198, 214 John Scotus Eriugena, 23, 28
Genesis, 11, 19–22, 32, 38–9, 195–9, Judaism, 12–13, 18–20, 23–7, 30–4,
214n45, 217–20, 234n12 37–41, 65, 70, 73, 200–201, 226,
Isaiah, 195–6, 200, 202, 209, 211 230. See also Schopenhauer
Jeremiah, 21n7 Justin Martyr, 30
Job, 16, 195–6, 202, 211–12
Leviticus, 37, 38n37 Kabbalah, Lurianic, 31
Numbers, 31, 214 Kahn, Charles H., 138n42, 241n24
and optimism, 6, 11, 15–16, 18–22, Katzenellenbogen, Moses ben
32–3, 40–1, 156, 194–7 Nahum, 213n43
Proverbs, 37 King, R.A.H., 145
Psalms, 16, 38, 195–6, 198, 202, Knopf, Carl S., 32–3n23
211–12 Kosman, Aryeh, 182n29, 183nn30–31
and self-devaluation, 16, 195–202,
210–16 Lasine, Stuart, 21n7
Tobias, 31 Lear, Gabriel Richardson, 164n4,
See also Maimonides; 168, 173n17
Schopenhauer Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 4, 48,
Hegel, G.W.F., 62 236n14
Hendel, Ronald, 21n5 Leibowitz, Yeshayahu, 214n45
Henry, Devin, 146n52, 233n8 Levinas, Emmanuel, 196–200,
Hesiod, 124 214n45, 215n48
Homer, 150 Lockwood, Thornton, 232n7, 233n8
Howland, Jacob, 165n7, 172n15 Loemker, Leroy E., 4n9, 5n12
Hubbard, Margaret, 117–18n5 Luck, Georg, 140n46
Hume, David, 27, 210 Lucretius, 37
humility, 172–3, 194, 197, 202–8,
214, 216 Maimonides, Moses
on bodily health, 201
identity, personal, 33, 55 his conception of the hassid
imagination, 46, 232 (righteous person), 8, 194, 203–9,
immortality, 18–19, 30–4, 40, 47, 100, 214–16, 225
114, 116–17, 119, 126, 134–9, on the cycle of life, 220, 235
256 Index
Maimonides, Moses (cont.) moral philosophy, 103

on friendship, 198–9, 214 moral principles, 85
and the hierarchy of values, 7, 157, “morality of mores” (see Nietzsche)
196–7, 209–12, 217, 219, 226, See also God; value
229–30, 235, 241 Moses, 16, 30, 195, 198, 205, 213,
on human perfection, 201, 214, 235 214n45, 216, 218, 221
his interpretation of the Hebrew mysticism. See Schopenhauer
Bible, 16, 20–1, 194–7, 200, 202,
209–21, 234 Nadler, Steven, 28–9, 33–4
on knowledge of God, 208, 212– Nagar, Eliyahu, 212n41
16, 226, 235 Nagel, Thomas, 12, 49–53, 55, 61–2,
on love of God, 215–16 239–40, 242
and negative theology, 212n41, National Socialism, 105–6
213 Nehamas, Alexander, 99n13, 103n18,
his optimism, 7–8, 14, 16–17, 20–1, 104n19
42, 113, 157, 193–7, 216–24, 226, Neiman, Susan, 103n18, 109n25
238, 241 Nietzsche, Friedrich
and pessimism, 21n3, 221n57, on affirmation, 13, 80–1, 87–106,
226–7, 229 107n22, 110
and the problem of evil, 157, 193, on amor fati, 101n15, 108n23
197, 210–12, 222, 225–7, 238 on the “ascetic ideal,” 59–63, 65–6
on prophets, 16, 204–5, 207, 212, on the “death of God” (see God)
216 on eternal recurrence, 98–100,
on teleology, 221n57 101n15
Matthews, Gareth B., 128n20, his immoralism, 104n19
142n47, 142–3n48 on the “morality of mores,” 97
meaning (of life), 45, 52, 55, 66, on nihilism, 76n46, 84–6, 100n14,
103n18, 147n54 105–6
Meir, Rabbi, 220–1 on nothingness, 59, 61, 67
metempsychosis, 30–1 and optimism, 6, 8, 13–16, 42, 63,
Midas (King), 14, 114–15, 118n5, 65, 75–80, 82, 87, 100–101, 110,
118n7, 120–2, 140n46 113, 223, 235, 241
Miriam, 221 and pessimism, 6, 8, 12–14, 42,
monotheism, 7–8, 14, 18–26, 43, 79, 62–6, 74–80, 82, 100–101, 110,
81, 96–8, 156, 224n1, 225–6, 151–2, 223, 241
228. See also optimism on Schopenhauer, 6, 12–13, 15, 42,
morality, 62, 84, 94, 97, 204, 208n36 58n19, 59–67, 74–6, 78–80, 113,
immoralism (see Nietzsche) 151–2, 223
moral action, 164n4, 177–8, 203 on suffering, 81, 101–6
moral depravity and optimism, on the Übermensch, 8, 76n46, 98–
11–12, 17, 36–42, 229 100, 101n15, 104n19
moral judgment, 95, 106 on violence, 81, 101–6, 107n22
moral obligation, 206, 232–3 See also Camus
Index 257
nihilism, 3n7, 105–6. See also Pedriali, Francesca, 179n23

Camus; Nietzsche Pellegrin, Pierre, 183n32
nothing(ness). See Schopenhauer; perfection, 179, 219
Nietzsche of divinity (see God)
of humans (see Maimonides)
O’Brien, Denis, 180n25, 181n26 of the world, 178–80, 183–4, 217–19,
optimism 225, 229, 231
and the balance of goods, 3–5, 29, pessimism
210–12, 221n57, 225 and the balance of goods,
and the best possible world, 3 (see 3–5, 29
also Leibniz) and Buddhism, 8
definition of, 1, 41, 74, 79, 101, and Christianity, 8
157, 159–60, 193–4, 217, 222–3, definition of, 1, 77, 79, 157, 223,
241 236n14
and egoism, 12, 19, 35–6, 42, 227, in Greek literature, 117, 150, 158
229–30, 236 history of the term, 5n12
and God/divinity, 8–9, 11, 19, 22– positions intermediate between it
5, 28–9, 32–3, 40–1, 78–9, 148, and optimism, 9–11
197, 217, 224n1, 225–6 possibility of, 8
history of the term, 5n12 and self-abnegation, 12 (see also
and monotheism, 7–8, 19, 24–6, Schopenhauer)
43, 79, 156, 224n1, 225–6, 228 and the worst possible world, 3–4,
and moral depravity (see 32n22, 48, 236n14
optimism) See also Aristotle; Maimonides;
as naïve/childish, 6–7, 238, 243 Nietzsche; optimism;
and pantheism, 8, 11, 16, 18–19, Schopenhauer
23, 25, 28–9, 40–1, 43, 70, 73, Peterson, Martin, 233n8
79, 156, 224n1, 228 Pfeiffer, Christian, 179n23
positions intermediate between it Plato, 15, 117–19, 137n39, 138–43,
and pessimism, 9–11 144n49, 150, 152–6, 158, 166,
as progress, 3–4, 187 183–5
See also Aristotle; Camus; Hebrew Plutarch, 114–15, 121–5, 150–1
Bible; Maimonides; morality; politics, 63–5, 145, 160, 178, 188–90,
Nietzsche; pessimism 204, 237
polytheism, 25, 96
Pakaluk, Michael, 164n4, 172n16 Prescott, Paul, 3n7, 4n8
pantheism, 7–9, 11–12, 18–19, 23, Priam (King), 238n17
25, 27–9, 35, 36, 39–41, 43, 45, Pritzl, Kurt, 127–8n20
70, 73, 79, 156, 224n1, 225, 228, problem of evil, 8–9, 11, 16–17,
230. See also God; optimism; 19, 26–9, 34, 40, 44, 156–7,
Spinoza 193–4, 210–12, 222, 224–8,
Parmenides, 23 235, 238. See also Maimonides;
Payne, E. F. J., 2n3 Schopenhauer
258 Index
Putnam, Hilary, 199n14, 200n15 Seth, 30

Pythia at Delphi, 124 Shakespeare, William, 151
Sharples, Robert W., 125n17
Rappaport, Samuel, 40n40, 70n34 Sherman, David, 106n21, 107n22,
Rashi, 196, 200 110n29
religion, 8–9, 19–20, 25–6, 31–4, 49, Silenus, 14–15, 113–19, 121–6,
80, 87, 103, 160 137n39, 140–1, 144–54, 157
Rowlands, Mark, 233n8 Simmel, Georg, 52n9, 58n19, 59n20,
Rudavsky, Tamar, 203n24, 204n27, 100–101n15, 104–5n19, 227n2
205n31 Sneed, Mark, 32–3n23
Socrates, 83, 139–42, 154, 166n8,
Schacht, Richard, 79–80n4, 80n6 172n15
Scharle, Margaret, 185n34, 191n44 Solon, 132
Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 33 Sophocles, 3–4, 117, 150, 152
Schopenhauer, Arthur Spinoza, Baruch, 6, 11, 18–19, 22–4,
his arguments for pessimism, 48 26, 28–30, 32–35, 37, 39–41,
on Aristotle, 155, 224n1 44–5, 54, 65, 70n34, 79, 156,
on art, 59n20, 63–5 223–4. See also Schopenhauer
his attitude toward Judaism, 18, Stern, Thomas, 151n58
30, 37, 39–40 suffering. See Nietzsche; Schopenhauer
on happiness, 37, 48, 59n20, 71, suicide, 12, 48, 56n15, 62, 83, 140,
237–8 142n48, 154
on mysticism, 65n28, 69
on nothingness, 67–9 Talmud, 16, 30–1, 198, 200–201,
on self-abnegation/self-denial/ 213n43
resignation, 12, 34, 43–77, 152–3 teleology, 239–40. See also Aristotle;
on Spinoza, 6, 11, 18–19, 22–4, 26, Maimonides; Schopenhauer
28–30, 32–5, 37, 39–41, 44–5, Tertullian, 30
54, 65, 70n34, 79, 156, 223–4 Thales of Miletus, 166n8, 186
on suffering, 36, 44–5, 47–8, 53–4, Thein, Karel, 180n25, 181n27, 182n28
58, 64, 69, 72, 74 theocentrism, 174–8, 209
on teleology, 74n40, 238–9 Theognis, 150, 152
on will as thing-in-itself and theology, 8–9, 20, 79, 100
common essence, 13, 35–6, negative (see Maimonides)
45–6, 48, 51, 61, 63–4, 66–9, tragedy, 44
72–3, 74n40
See also Nietzsche Ure, Michael, 108n23
Schütrumpf, Eckart, 164n4
science, modern, 239, 242 value
Scott, Dominic, 128–9 absolute, 13, 80, 87, 100n15
Sedley, David, 148, 176, 215 moral, 83–4, 91, 94
self-abnegation. See pessimism; objective, 28–9
Schopenhauer See also Maimonides
Index 259
Verdenius, Willem Jacob, 187n38, Wagner, Richard, 60,

191–2n44 79n4
virtue, 65n28, 128, 142–4 , 147, Weiss, Raymond L., 208n36,
149, 159, 162–6 , 168–7 3, 178, 214n46
189n42, 190, 194, 203–8 , Wicks, Robert, 38n37
215–1 6, 225, 230, 236–7 will. See Schopenhauer
Voltaire, 27 Williams, Bernard, 47

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The Value of the World and of Oneself

The Value of the

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

1. Schopenhauer’s Critique of the Optimism of the

2. Self-​Abnegation and Its Reversion to

3. Nihilism and Self-​Deification: Camus’s Critical

4. Aristotle’s Critique of Ancient Pessimism  113

5. Optimism and Self-​Devaluation #1: Aristotle  158

6. Optimism and Self-​Devaluation #2: Maimonides on

7. An Aristotelian Response to Schopenhauer’s

This book is a product of years of thinking about and comparing

Nandhini Thanga Alugu and Dorothy Bauhoff for their assistance

O1: The world is optimally arranged and is accordingly valuable.

Philosophical pessimists, by contrast, maintain the following:

P1: The world is in a woeful condition and is ultimately valueless.1

The commitment to either of these two corresponding pairs of

1 Throughout, by “x is valueless” I mean, not that x cannot be evaluated, but rather

as a view countenancing that “the world is what is best” (WWR

“complete nonexistence would be decidedly preferable to” human

good in its current condition. By the same token, a pessimist may

dictum. And, conversely, one may think that evil predominates in

13 Dienstag (2006), 8–​9; cf. ibid., 166.

Greece to twentieth-​century France. It would not be feasible, and

14 On the usefulness of anachronism for such purposes, see D. Graham, “Anachronism

by those who have. Discussing ancient Hebrew optimism, one

Unclouded skies and perfect happiness are conditions of inno-

Similarly, as we shall see in Chapter 1, Schopenhauer criticizes op-

their nonexistence (O2). This version of optimism presents a viable

evil,” challenging the existence of a benevolent and omnipotent deity

16 I am thankful to Anna Schriefl for a helpful discussion concerning this point.

and call those rejecting enough such value to support P2 quasi-​

Human nonexistence Human existence

Value in the world

One challenge facing positions falling in between optimism and

could function as limiting cases, and their shortcomings may point

share an important element in common with the Jewish and pan-

and existence. I shall argue that Aristotle presents Silenus’s words

and of Nietzsche’s inadvertent optimism as analyzed by Camus.

view, especially as developed by Maimonides, is capable of dealing

Schopenhauer frequently assimilates Spinoza’s pantheism with

Spinoza’s philosophy and Judaism, is nevertheless a testament to

1.1 Monotheistic and Pantheistic Optimism

Schopenhauer regards Judaism as “the only purely monothe-

undergo evils, including their eventual death, but “all of that is

3 Maimonides, in this respect, alludes to the emendation in Genesis Rabbah 9:5 of

comprising the Hebrew Bible, it is reasonable, assuming that such

8 R. B. Robinson, “Primeval History: Genesis 1–​11,” in E. Fahlbusch, J. M. Lochman, J.

most readily available for one to experience and examine), one

9 S. Rappaport, Spinoza und Schopenhauer (Halle a/​S, 1899), 117–​42; H. W. Brann,

to this “optimism” are significantly challenged by certain unfavor-

10 Contra Rappaport (1899), 55–​8.

I cannot, as is generally done, put the fundamental difference of

On the most crucial issue, then, Judaism and Spinozism are

identical views on the problem of evil, the possibility of an afterlife,

1.2. The “Problem of Evil”

Any view or system of thought upholding optimism must con-

But, given such a commitment on the part of Judaism, it must

. . . the melancholy constitution of a world whose living beings

Alluding to the classical problem of evil, Schopenhauer says here

1. Schopenhauer’s Critique of the Optimism of the

2. Self-Abnegation and Its Reversion to

3. Nihilism and Self-Deification: Camus’s Critical

4. Aristotle’s Critique of Ancient Pessimism 113

5. Optimism and Self-Devaluation #1: Aristotle 158

6. Optimism and Self-Devaluation #2: Maimonides on

7. An Aristotelian Response to Schopenhauer’s

13 Dienstag (2006), 8–9; cf. ibid., 166.

Greece to twentieth-century France. It would not be feasible, and

and call those rejecting enough such value to support P2 quasi-

8 R. B. Robinson, “Primeval History: Genesis 1–11,” in E. Fahlbusch, J. M. Lochman, J.

9 S. Rappaport, Spinoza und Schopenhauer (Halle a/S, 1899), 117–42; H. W. Brann,

10 Contra Rappaport (1899), 55–8.

phenomenon is also that of others, namely that will-to-live which

29 Rappaport (1899), 47–8.

living things (1:26–30), as does God’s pact with Noah (9:2–3). He

It is not entirely clear that a view that takes self-abnegation to be

. . . insofar as . . . self-etiolation is the result of effort, will-power,

4 T. Nagel, Mortal Questions (Cambridge, 1979), 21–2.

6 C. Janaway, Self and World in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy (Oxford, 1989), 292–4.

notes, “since denial [i.e., the denial of the will- to-

Schopenhauer indeed speaks of the denial of the will-to-live as

genuine self-abnegation, which is supposedly characterized by the

between two types of will—the will-to-live and the will to will-

16 Janaway (2016), 663–4; C. Janaway, “Schopenhauer on the Aimlessness of the Will,”

25 See Cartwright (1998), 137–8.