sacrifice Category

Topics: Change Consistency Death Eternity Happiness Independence/Dependence Injustice Loss Normality Parenting Personal Identity (True Self) Questions Sacrifice Selfishness Strangeness Suffering Virtue

Philosophers: Emily Dickinson Fyodor Dostoevsky Ralph Waldo Emerson Alexander Hamilton Heraclitus Homer Franz Kafka Friedrich Nietzsche Plato Rainer Maria Rilke William Shakespeare Socrates Henry David Thoreau Ludwig Wittgenstein

Can One Person's Suffering Be Another Person's Happiness?
Text: Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov and Notes From The Underground

The novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky draws two impossible scenarios that together highlight the everyday reality of the potential conflicts between one's own happiness and the happiness of others.   First imagine a world that is a utopia except that it is built upon the suffering of a single child.   Then imagine a person who is willing to sacrifice the rest of the world in order to secure his own well-being.  The question, one we face on a daily basis whether we contemplate it or not, is how we experience and value our own happiness in relation to the happiness of others. Full essay.