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Comparison Of Jeremy Bentham And Arthur Schopenhauer

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Pleasure and pain are emotions that are used in the lives of people daily. Both pleasure and pain evoke emotional and physical responses from them. Pleasure allows human beings to experience happiness, joyfulness, and laughter through their lives. Pain allows them to be exposed to sadness, remorse, and crying. Most people do not realize the philosophical importance that is placed on these emotions. Two philosophers, Jeremy Bentham and Arthur Schopenhauer, are well known for their research regarding pleasure and pain. Jeremy Bentham believed that pleasure and pain were directly related to happiness. Because of this, he developed a scale to show the relevance of pleasure and pain to man’s happiness. Arthur Schopenhauer believed like Bentham …show more content…

Schopenhauer believed that pleasure is just the absence of pain, like Bentham. The world is full of strife and frustration which produces much conflict. Schopenhauer believed that the escape of all this conflict, or pain, was to reject it. However, philosophical art held the key to a temporary release. Since his philosophy is based on sympathy, Schopenhauer expressed the idea in which feeling one’s hurt or sorrow can be an effort in relieving pain (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition). In order to lose the strife in the world, the people need to minimize their desires so there will be a tranquil frame of mind and arrangement towards the universe (Wicks, Robert). Schopenhauer explains that suffering is caused by the willing, therefore “the more intense the willing the more intense the suffering.” In every want there is a willing, and in every willing there is a suffering. Suffering is just an uncompleted willing or want, including the pain felt in the body (Kerns, Tom). Schopenhauer explains suffering as a continuous cycle, because when a want or desire is fulfilled, a new desire is replaced with old. In Schopenhauer’s eyes, suffering is completely caused by “the frustration and conflict that arises from competition between individual wills” (UK

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