South Debate Schopenhauer

Cole Johnson Jensen

Schopenhauer 2NC Overview

We’ll always win the Link level of the kritik debate, couple of reasons.

1. Life is dominated by the need for change, by the passage from one instance to another,
this means that all attempts at change will only bring more misery and disappointment,
while any goods that accrue from action are fleeting

Schopenauer in 1904 (Arthur [philosopher] THE ESSAYS OF ARTHUR SCHOPENAUER; STUDIES IN PESSIMISM,
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10732/10732-8.txt ACCESSED 8/1/05)

Of every event in our life we can say only for one moment that it_is_; for ever after, that it _was_. Every evening we are
poorer by a day. It might, perhaps, make us mad to see how rapidly our short span of time ebbs away; if it were not that in
the furthest depths of our being we are secretly conscious of our share in the exhaustible spring of eternity, so that we can
always hope to find life in it again. Consideration of the kind, touched on above, might, indeed, lead us to embrace the belief
that the greatest _wisdom_ is to make the enjoyment of the present the supreme object of life; because that is the only
reality, all else being merely the play of thought. On the other hand, such a course might just as well be called
the greatest _folly_: for that which in the next moment exists no more, and vanishes utterly, like
a dream, can never be worth a serious effort. The whole foundation on which our existence rests
is the present--theever-fleeting present. It lies, then, in the very nature of our existence to take the form
of constant motion, and to offer no possibility of our ever attaining the rest for which we are
always striving. We are like a man running downhill, who cannot keep on his legs unless he runs
on, and will inevitably fall if he stops; or, again, like a pole balanced on the tip of one's finger; or like a planet,
which would fall into its sun the moment it ceased to hurry forward on its way. Unrest is the mark of existence. In a
world where all is unstable, and nought can endure, but is swept onwards at once in the hurrying whirlpool of change;
where a man, if he is to keep erect at all, must always be advancing and moving, like an acrobat on a rope--in
such a world, happiness in inconceivable. How can it dwell where, as Plato says, _continual Becoming and never
Being_ is the sole form of existence? In the first place, a man never is happy, but spends his whole life in
striving after something which he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when
he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbor with masts and
rigging gone. And then, it is all one whether he has been happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a
present moment always vanishing; and now it is over.

Second, the AFF’s claim that nuclear war will occur absent the plan prove that they place a
value on life. This assumption is the second level of link that we will isolate.

Schopenaur in 1904 (Arthur [philosopher] THE ESSAYS OF ATHUR SCHOPENHAUR; STUDIES IN PESSIMISM,
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10732/10732-8.txt (ACCESSEED 8/1/05)

In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theater before the
curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a
blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times
when children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as
yet all unconscious of what their sentence means. Nevertheless, every man desires to reach old
age; in other words, a state of life in which it may be said: “It is bad to-day, and it will be worse to-
morrow; and so on until the worst day of all.”
If you try to imagine, as nearly as you can, what amount of misery, pain and suffering of every
kind the sun shines upon its course, you will admit that it would be much better if, on the earth
as little as on the moon, the sun were able to call forth the phenomena of life; and if, here as
there, the surface were in a crystalline state. Again, you may look upon life as an unprofitable
episode, disturbing the blessed calm of non-existence. And, in any case, even though things have
gone with you tolerably well, the longer you live the more clearly you will feel that, on the whole,
life is_a disappointment, nay, a cheat.

The AFF will say that they don’t link because their lives are valuable, but this really does not
matter, I have two arguments as to why that is true.

First, assessments of life are overly positive because of three psychological phenomena and
an evolutionary bias

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Cole Johnson Jensen

Benatar 06. David Benatar, Head of the Department of Philosophy at University of Cape Town. Better Never to have
Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, Oxford University Press, 2006, p.77.

Most people deny that their lives, all things considered, are bad (and they certainly deny that their lives are so bad as to make never existing preferable). Indeed, most people think that their lives go
quite well. Such widespread blithe self-assessments of well-being, it is often thought, constitute a refutation of the view that life is bad. How, it is asked, can life be bad if most of those who live it deny
there is very good reason to
that it is? How can it be a harm to come into existence if most of those who have come into existence are pleased that they did? In fact, however,

doubt that these self-assessments are a reliable indicator of a life’s quality. There are a number of well-known features of
human psychology that can account for the favourable assessment people usually make of their own life’s quality. It is these psychological phenomena

rather than
the actual quality of a life that explain (the extent of) the positive assessment. The first, most general and most influential of
these psychological phenomena is what some have called the Pollyanna Principle,⁷ attendency towards optimism.⁸ This

manifests in many ways. First, there is an inclination to recall positive rather than negative
experiences. For example, when asked to recall events from throughout their lives, subjects in a
number of studies listed a much great- er number of positive than negative experiences.⁹ This selective recall
distorts our judgement of how well our lives have gone
also our projections or expectations about the future. We tend to have an exaggerated
so far. It is not only assessments of our past that are biased, but

view of how good things will be.¹⁰ The Pollyannaism typical of recall and projection is also characteristic of
subjective judgements about current and overall well-being. Many studies have consistently shown
that self-assessments of well-being are markedly skewed toward the positive end of the spectrum.¹¹
Forinstance, very few people describe themselves as ‘not too happy’. Instead, the overwhelming majority claims to be either ‘pretty happy’ or ‘very happy’.¹² Indeed, most people

believe that they

are better off than most others or than the average person.¹³ Most of the factors that plausibly improve the quality
of a
person’s life do not commensurately influence self-assessments of that quality (where they influence them at all). For
example, although there is a correlation between people’s own rankings of their health and their subjective assessments of well-being, objective assessments of
people’s health, judging by physical symptoms, are not as good a predictor of peoples’ subjective evaluations of
their well-being.¹⁴ Even among those whose dissatisfaction with their health does lead to lower self-reported well-being, most report levels of satisfaction toward the positive end of the
spectrum.¹⁵ Within any given country,¹⁶ the poor are nearly (but not quite) as happy as the rich are. Nor do education and

occupation make much (even though they do makesome) difference.¹⁷ Although there is some disagreement about how much each of the above and other factors
affect subjective
assessments of well-being, it is clear that even the sorts of events that one would have thought would make
people ‘very unhappy’ have this effect on only a very small proportion of people.¹⁸ Another well-
known psychological phenomenon that makes our self-assessments of well-being unreliable and that
explains some (but not all) of the Pollyannaism just mentioned is the phenomenon of what might be called adaptation, accommodation, or habituation. When

a person’s objective well-being takes a turn for the worse, there is, at first, a significant subjective
dissatisfaction. However, there is a tendency then to adapt to the new situation and to adjust one’s
expectations accordingly.¹⁹
Although there is some dispute about how much adaptation occurs and how the extent of the adaptation varies in different domains of life, there is agreement that adaptation does occur.²⁰ As a result,

even if the subjective sense of well-being does not return to theoriginal level, it comes closer towards it than one might think, and it comes closer in some domains than in others.

Because the subjective sense of well-being tracks recent change in the level of well-being better
than it tracks a person’s actual level of well-being, it is an unreliable indicator of the latter. A third
psychological factor that affects self-assessments of well- being is an implicit comparison with the
well-being of others.²¹ It is not so much how well one’s life goes as how well it goes in comparison
with others that determines one’s judgement about how well one’s life is going. Thus self-assessments are a better
indicator of
One effect of this is that those negative features of life that are shared
the comparative rather than actual quality of one’s life.

by every- body are inert in people’s judgements about their own well-being. Since these features are
very relevant, overlooking them leads to unreliable judgements. Of these three psychological phenomena, it is only Pollyan-
naism that inclines people unequivocally towards more positive assessments of how well their life is going. We adapt not only to negative situations but also to positive ones, and we compare
given the force of Pollyannaism, both
ourselves not only with those who are worse off but also with those who are better off than we are. However,

adaptation and comparison operate both from an optimistic baseline and under the influence of
optimistic
biases. For example, people are more prone to comparing them- selves with those who are worse
off than with those who are better off.²² Thus, in the best cases, adaptation and comparison reinforce Pollyannaism. In the worst cases, they mitigate it but
do not negate
it entirely. When we do adapt to the good or compare ourselves with those who are better off than ourselves, our self-assessments are less positive than they otherwise would be, but they do
The above psychological phenomena are unsurprising from an evolutionary
not usually cause them to become negative.

perspective.²³ They militate against suicide and in favour of reproduction. If our lives are quite as bad
as I shall still suggest they are, and if people were prone to see this true quality of their lives for what it is, they might be
much more inclined to kill themselves, or at least not to produce more such lives. Pessimism, then,
tends not to be naturally selected.

Second, your statement that you want to live is not actually you speaking, it is your will to live,
screaming for its life. Allowing the will to live to take over you destroys you even further.

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Cole Johnson Jensen

Schopenauer in 1904 (Arthur [philosopher] THE ESSAYS OF ARTHUR SCHOPENAUER; STUDIES IN PESSIMISM,
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10732/10732-8.txt ACCESSED 8/1/05)

When you say _I, I, I_ want to exist, it is not you alone that says this. Everything says it, absolutely
everything that has the faintest trace of consciousness. It follows, then, that this desire of yours is just the part of you that is
_not individual_ the part that is common to all things without distinction. It is the cry, not of the individual, but of
existence itself; it is the intrinsic element in everything that exists, nay, it is the cause of anything existing at all. This
desire craves for, and so is satisfied with, nothing less than existence in general--not any
definite individual existence. No! that is not its aim. It seems to be so only because this desire--this _Will_--attains
consciousness only in the individual, and therefore looks as though it were concerned with nothing but the individual. There
lies the illusion--an illusion, it is true, in which the individual is held fast: but, if he reflects, he can break the fetters and set
himself free. It is only indirectly, I say, that the individual has this violent craving for existence. It is _the Will
to Live_ which is the real and direct aspirant--alike and identical in all things. Since, then, existence is the free work, nay, the
mere reflection of the will, where existence is, there, too, must be will; and for the moment the will finds its satisfaction in
existence itself; so far, I mean, as that which never rests, but presses forward eternally, can ever find any satisfaction at all.
The will is careless of the individual: the individual is not its business; although, as I have said, this
seems to be the case, because the individual has no direct consciousness of will except in himself. The effect of this is to
make the individual careful to maintain his own existence; and if this were not so, there would be no surety for the
preservation of the species. From all this it is clear that individuality is not a form of perfection, but rather of limitation; and so
to be freed from it is not loss but gain. Trouble yourself no more about the matter. Once thoroughly recognize what
you are, what your existence really is, namely, the universal will to live, and the whole question
will seem to you childish, and most ridiculous!

The impact level of the kritik outweighs and turns the case, even if we don’t win the alternative,
the link and impact alone will beat the AFF.

We’ll isolate three levels of impact.

First, life is meaningless, achievement of our aims can only result in a negating boredom,
which proves that life has no intrinsic meaning.

Schopenauer in 1904 (Arthur [philosopher] THE ESSAYS OF ARTHUR SCHOPENAUER; STUDIES IN PESSIMISM,
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10732/10732-8.txt ACCESSED 8/1/05)

Life presents itself chiefly as a task--the task, I mean, of subsisting at all, _gagner sa vie_. If this is accomplished, life is a
burden, and then there comes the second task of doing something with that which has been won--of warding off boredom,
which, like a bird of prey, hovers over us, ready to fall wherever it sees a life secure from need. The first task is to win
something; the second, to banish the feeling that it has been won; otherwise it is a burden. Human life must be some kind of
mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and
necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of
painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom. This is direct proof
that existence has no real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of
life? If life--the craving for which is the very essence of our being--were possessed of any positive intrinsic
value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself,
and we should want for nothing. But as it is, we take no delight in existence except when we are
struggling for something; and then distance and difficulties to be overcome make our goal look
as though it would satisfy us--an illusion which vanishes when we reach it; or else when we are
occupied with some purely intellectual interest--when in reality we have stepped forth from life to look upon it
from the outside, much after the manner of spectators at a play. And even sensual pleasure itself means nothing but a
struggle and aspiration, ceasing the moment its aim is attained. Whenever we are not occupied in one of these ways, but
cast upon existence itself, its vain and worthless nature is brought home to us; and this is what we mean by boredom. The
hankering after what gis strange and uncommon--an innate and ineradicable tendency of human nature--shows how glad
we are at any interruption of that natural course of affairs which is so very tedious. That this most perfect manifestation of
the will to live, the human organism, with the cunning and complex working of its machinery, must fall to dust and yield up
itself and all its strivings to extinction--this is the naïve way in which Nature, who is always so true and sincere in what she
says, proclaims the whole struggle of this will as in its very essence barren and unprofitable. Were it of any value in itself,
anything unconditioned and absolute, it could not thus end in mere nothing.

Second, the AFF’s identification of nuclear war as something to be avoided dooms us to hell
on Earth. The end of existence should be welcomed rather than feared.
(John Dolan, The case for Nuclear Winter, Iss. 139, April 21st , 2002 http://exiledonline.com/feature-story-the-case-for-
nuclear-winter/)

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Suicide is unpatriotic; that’s why it offends them. It deprives the vampires of a jugular to sip.
How can you not like this boneyard? This is the finest torture-chamber in the universe! How dare
you opt out of it! But since 1945, the vampire lords have had another, much stronger reason to fear the idea of suicide:
individual suicide is only Nuclear Winter writ small. Nuclear Winter is universal Nirvana. And that makes it
utterly different from individual suicide — because there will be no survivors to mourn and
grieve. There will be no mourning and grief at all, ever again. Thus nuclear winter offers a true
cure for suffering — which the sermons against suicide do not. OK; you decide not to kill
yourself because it will hurt your parents, friends, pit bull, roommates, chess club pals,
whatever. So what? You’re gonnna go anyway, and in some way much more agonizing than a
bullet to the head: cancer, car wreck, genetic glitch, rafting accident, heart valve pop. And when
you do, that suffering of the survivors will begin, the ten billionth wail of grief heard on Earth.
And the grieving die in their turn, and when they go another wail sets up….It’s not just horrible —
it’s silly. Just plain dumb. Squint at it — draw your head back just a little and squint at it — and
it’s truly “laughable, man”: these creatures whose life consists of a ride down a conveyor belt
towards a meat grinder, making a continual wail of surprise as another one goes over the edge.
Everyone a surprise. “Oh! He went in! How could this happen?” “Ah, she fell! My God!” Well
Duh. What’d you expect? That’s what suffering is: going over the edge one at a time. The
experience of individual death while the world grinds on. What would happen in the Nuclear
Winter scenario is utterly different: all jump into the meatgrinder at once. No one is left to suffer
or mourn. When some die and some live, there is suffering; when all die, blown out like a candle,
there is no suffering. There is something else, something for which we have no name. But one
thing is clear: it is not suffering. “We shall not suffer, for we shall not be.”

Third, there is an intrinsic right to not suffer in this world – and thus, there is an intrinsic right
to not exist in this world. Every birth is a breach of this right to nonexistence – the judge has
an obligation to reject people being brought into existence

Benatar, David. 2006 ((Associate Professor of Philosophy at University of Cape Town) Better Never To Have Been. Pg 190-191) 5/19/10 K.
Harris
Whether or not this is the case, there are some views that can take account of the concerns about how
harms are distributed and brought about. For example, a rights or deontological view may say that
some harms are so bad that they may not be inflicted even if failing to inflict them causes greater
harm to others. On such a view, for example, it would be wrong to remove somebody’s healthy kidney involuntarily even
though the harm to a potential recipient of not doing the transplant would be greater than the harm to the involuntary donor
of doing it. This is because either the donor has a right not to have his kidney involuntarily removed, or others have a duty
not to remove it involuntarily. If there is a right not to be brought into existence—a right that has a
bearer only when it is breached—then it might be argued that it would be wrong to create new
people even if this reduced the harm to currently existing people. Those who are worried about
attributing, to non-existent beings, a right not to be brought into existence, may think of this
matter instead in terms of duties not to bring people into existence. These would be duties not to
inflict the harm that is inflicted by bringing people into existence. On this deontological view, there is a
duty not to bring new people into existence—a duty that may not be violated even if doing so
would be less than the harm suffered by existent people in the absence of new people. The idea
here is that it would be wrong to create people, even if there are fewer of them, to suffer the final-people
fate, in order to spare ourselves (even if there are more of us) that same fate.

Our alternative is to do nothing. Our 1NC Benatar evidence indicates that allowing extinction
to engulf us is the only hope of escape from this existence.

We should accept death. It is the only gift given to us by life.

Schopenaur in 1904 (Arthur [philosopher] THE ESSAYS OF ATHUR SCHOPENHAUR; STUDIES IN PESSIMISM,
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10732/10732-8.txt (ACCESSEED 8/1/05)

The ancients, moreover, were very far from regarding the in matter in that light. Pliny says:_Life is not so desirable a thing
as to be protracted at any cost. Whoever you are, you are sure to die, even though your life has been

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full of abomination and crime. The chief of all remedies for a troubled mind is the feeling that
among the blessings which Nature gives to man, there is none greater than opportune death; and
the best of it is that every one can avail himself to it.

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