{"id":2228,"date":"2025-03-17T10:00:23","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T10:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/?p=2228"},"modified":"2025-03-17T10:53:55","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T10:53:55","slug":"being-pluralistic-about-philosophical-pessimism-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/being-pluralistic-about-philosophical-pessimism-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Being pluralistic about philosophical pessimism (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many vernacular senses of pessimism<\/em>. Familiar images of half-empty glasses go with elaborate talk of ours as \u2018the worst possible world\u2019. Pessimistic people might be praised as resolute truth-tellers or condemned as downbeat \u2018doom-mongers\u2019. Politicians often condemn pessimism as a call to apathy, a counsel of despair, or a spectacularly ill-timed valorisation of passivity in a world desperately in need of action. Champions of pessimism flag its corrective, balancing role and surprising status as a font of moral hope<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Others revile pessimism as un-American, un-Christian and an abandonment of Enlightenment values. Roger Scruton<\/a> emphasises the \u2018uses of pessimism\u2019, while Raymond Tallis<\/a> associates it with \u2018poverty of spirit and meanness of mind\u2019.<\/p>\n

What should we make of these competing concepts and images? The term \u2018pessimism\u2019 suffers from being overused and underdefined. Is there an \u2018essence\u2019 of pessimism? Can we identify common features \u2013 and, if so, are they beliefs, arguments, or certain practical implications?<\/p>\n

I think there is a \u2018core\u2019 to pessimism and that around it one can build different doctrines of pessimism<\/em>. This means we should be pluralistic about philosophical pessimism. In practice, pessimists share a common core but vary on their characterisations of human life and their proposals for how to cope with it. If this is right, there can be no \u2018knockdown\u2019 arguments against pessimism<\/em>: for there is no single target. We should assay its varieties, then assess them one by one, without prejudgment or pathologisation.<\/p>\n

The conceptual core.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think pessimism<\/em> is a judgment on, or appraisal of, human life. It is sustained and modulated by experiences, thought, emotions and moods and habits of deliberation. It is not to be defined in terms of specific emotions, like despair since this prejudges which affective responses \u2018go with\u2019 various pessimistic judgments. Some pessimists despair, but others experience sadness, disquiet, or sombre resignation. It also connects, as a matter of possibility rather than necessity, to attitudes such as fatalism and cynicism. Certain definitions of pessimism build too much into it. Other definitions tend to prejudge the combinatorial possibilities, for instance, by regarding \u2018hopeful pessimism<\/a>\u2019 as a contradiction in terms, despite the complexity of hope<\/a> as a concept.<\/p>\n

Pessimism is a judgment \u2013 or, better, two closely related judgments. First, the human condition, at least as we know it, is a bad one. More fully: it has one or more entrenched features necessarily destructive of, or antagonistic to, our efforts to achieve and to sustain deep human goods. While no serious pessimist thinks our condition is all bad, they all think it is significantly<\/em> bad. Much work is needed to spell out these qualitative and quantitative claims: the slogan of some pessimists \u2013 \u2018bad things are worse than good things are good\u2019 \u2013 conceals messy psychological and axiological issues. The bad-making features can include pains, sadness, \u2018absurdity\u2019, stubborn habits of discontent, anomie<\/em> and varieties of alienation, and the species of \u2018suffering\u2019 or \u2018dis-ease\u2019 encompassed by the Buddha\u2019s talk of dukkha<\/em>. Such features are not superficial, minor, or contingent: they are integral to the structures and dynamics of human life.<\/p>\n

An emphasis on the badness of human life does not get one to pessimism, of course. All but the most delusionally \u2018bright-siding<\/a>\u2019 optimists concede the pains, struggles, and sundry sorrows of human life.<\/p>\n

A second judgment is needed: there is little to no serious prospect of the human condition being improved for the better, at least not by human agency. A pessimist thinks the badness of our condition is incapable of substantive, permanent improvement. Most allow a possibility of local, limited, and transient improvements in certain aspects of our condition. (Cioran thought the only clear improvement was in hygiene). Others recognise kinds of non-human moral agency at work in the world \u2013 divine grace, maybe, confirming the later Heidegger\u2019s cryptic pronouncement that \u2018only a god can save us<\/a>\u2019. Still, this is nothing we<\/em> can bring about. The crucial point is that the pessimist must endorse these two judgments: our condition is \u2013 and as far as we are able to tell \u2013 will remain a bad one.<\/p>\n

In fact, certain pessimists want to add a third judgment: the anticipation of deterioration. For them, our condition is bad, will not improve, and in fact will worsen over time, as a result of, for instance, the increasing complexification of social life or the accumulation of increasingly catastrophic decisions and developments. Anticipations of deterioration can be justified by appeals to human nature, induction from our historical track record, or attempts to model possible futures. (Others, like the Buddha, appeal to their alleged psychical abilities<\/a>). We are \u2018f*cked\u2019, argues one author<\/a>, for the simple reason that we never learn<\/em>, repeating the same mistakes, even as their consequences increase.<\/p>\n

For two reasons, the anticipation of deterioration is not necessary to being a pessimist. First, to be a pessimist, it is enough to think that our condition is bad and likely to remain so. We need not add a further claim about it getting worse. The second strategic reason is that it is very difficult to justify confident claims about the future development of humankind. If a claim is unnecessary and contentious, then it is best to leave it out. It is enough to think our condition is bad and enduringly so. Eco-pessimists<\/a> are often tempted by deteriorationism \u2013 expressed in talk of \u2018missed targets\u2019, \u2018tipping points\u2019, and spiralling \u2018polycrises\u2019. But pessimism can take more than enough force from our current state. I elaborate on this point in part two.<\/p>\n

There is also the objection that anticipations of this kind are self-confirming. Other anticipations may be publicly denied by those who endorse them privately.<\/p>\n

My suggestion that the core of pessimism are these twin judgments of enduring badness is, of course, too sparse, as it stands. More is needed to elevate pessimistic convictions into something substantive\u2014into doctrines of pessimism<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Photo by ALEXANDRE DINAUT<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are many vernacular senses of pessimism. Familiar images of half-empty glasses go with elaborate talk of ours as \u2018the worst possible world\u2019. Pessimistic people might be praised as resolute […]","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":2232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[444,489],"custom_author":[81],"class_list":["post-2228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-for-debate","tag-hope","tag-pessimism","custom_author-kidd-ian-james"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8KPlM-zW","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2233,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/being-pluralistic-about-philosophical-pessimism-part-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2228,"position":0},"title":"Being pluralistic about philosophical pessimism (Part 2)","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"March 31, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"In part one, I argued that the conceptual core of pessimism is the twin judgments that the human condition is very bad and likely to remain so. However, this does not deliver a full philosophical doctrine of pessimism. Content and context. 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He also wanted to repurpose the entirety of the UK\u2019s foreign aid budget to fix potholes on Britain\u2019s apparently neglected roads.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Puddle on the ground reflecting a plane in the sky","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/09\/mirror.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/09\/mirror.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/09\/mirror.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/09\/mirror.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1005,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/why-are-we-so-polarized-and-how-can-we-move-forward-a-perspective-from-social-epistemology\/","url_meta":{"origin":2228,"position":2},"title":"Why are we so polarized, and how can we move forward? A perspective from social epistemology.","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"September 7, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Contemporary academic philosophy has recently taken a \u201csocial turn\u201d regarding the way it thinks about knowledge and related issues.\u00a0 Put differently, philosophy has turned away from the traditional ideal of a self-sufficient inquirer, doing his or her best to figure out what is reasonable to believe, in favor of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/09\/canstockphoto48175967-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/09\/canstockphoto48175967-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/09\/canstockphoto48175967-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/09\/canstockphoto48175967-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/09\/canstockphoto48175967-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/09\/canstockphoto48175967-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2006,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/on-hope-and-despair-part-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":2228,"position":3},"title":"On Hope and Despair (Part II)","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"May 13, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"In the previous post, I raised the possibility that people can hope without hope, that is, hope for things that they simultaneously despair or feel unhopeful about. 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