Can One Person’s Suffering Be Another Person’s Happiness Essays

Can One Person’s Suffering Be Another Person’s Happiness Essays Can One Person’s Suffering Be Another Person’s Happiness Essay Can One Person’s Suffering Be Another Person’s Happiness Essay The novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky draws two impossible scenarios that together highlight the mundane world of the possible struggles between one’s ain felicity and the felicity of others. First conceive of a universe that is a utopia except that it is built upon the agony of a individual kid. Then conceive of a individual who is willing to give the remainder of the universe in order to procure his ain wellbeing. The inquiry. one we face on a day-to-day footing whether we contemplate it or non. is how we experience and value our ain felicity in relation to the felicity of others. Dostoevsky indicates. through the tone of these transitions. that any individual willing to give others for his ain benefit must be in the wrong–be it everyone in the universe giving one individual. or one individual giving everyone else in the universe. But more significantly. Dostoevsky implies that something must be incorrect with any individual who could accept such a sacrifice- it’s non so much a affair of moral judgement against the people who could accept that a kid be tortured for their interest. or against the Underground Man for taking his ain peace of head over the public assistance of the remainder of the universe. Dostoevsky clearly disapproves of these Acts of the Apostless. but the novels from which these transitions are taken invite us to feel for these people and to seek to understand how they came to be so barbarous. and therein lies Dostoevsky’s deeper significance. How. so. could anyone accept their felicity on the undue blood of a anguished c hild and how could the Underground Man stomach his cup of tea bought at such a beloved monetary value? A critical component that would do this inhuman treatment possible for some people but impossible for others is whether one could really be happy under such fortunes. As the character Ivan admirations. holding accepted such a forfeit. how could anyone remain everlastingly happy? In order to bask the benefits. one would hold to barricade out. or someway defuse. the cognition of the agony child–her cryings must be unrequited. For if one were non asleep to it. the cognition of that enduring would interfere with one’s ain felicity. A individual who could non assist but experience the agony of others as existent and important would neer accept such blunt forfeits for his ain happiness–in fact would non be able to be happy anyhow. under such conditions. For a individual who feels the agony of others as at least partially his ain agony. there could be no simple struggle between his ain felicity and the felicity of others. But whether one condones it or non. the fact is that many of us have benefited in some important manner from the unwilling forfeits of others. See. for illustration. how a society that became affluent through developments such as bondage or the loot of war would go through on untold advantages to its posterities. These advantages include non merely material wealth. but besides less touchable goods such as instruction. or even psychological benefits such as assurance. Or see a adult male or adult female who is pressured by their partner or parents into giving up their dream occupation in order to be able to back up the household at a higher criterion of life. From single. personal Acts of the Apostless of selfishness to political unfairnesss on a societal graduated table. we may be entangled in some manner or other with below the belt gained wagess. Though these benefits may non hold been sought by us. and we may hold had no direct function in the forfeits that brought them about. still it seems incumbent on us to see Dostoevsky’s poignant question- how much should we experience the hurting of others. peculiarly those whose enduring somehow became our advantage?