13. The Value of Life (Pessimism and Optimism)

This leads to the question: What is the right method for striking the balance between these credit and debit columns? Eduard von Hartmann believes that it is reason that holds the scales. It is true that he says, “Pain and pleasure exist only in so far as they are actually felt.”[^2] It follows that there can be no yardstick for pleasure other than the subjective one of feeling. I must feel whether the sum of my disagreeable feelings together with my agreeable feelings leaves me with a balance of pleasure or of pain. But for all that, von Hartmann maintains that, “though the value of the life of every person can be set down only according to his own subjective measure, yet it by no means follows that every person is able to arrive at the correct algebraic sum from all the collected emotions in his life—or, in other words, that his total estimate of his own life, with regard to his subjective experiences, would be correct.” With this, the rational estimation of feeling is once more made the evaluator.[^3]