The misfortune of others
On the axis: Relation to the past · the misfortune of others
One can consent to what one has suffered oneself; but loving one's fate also means loving a world in which others have suffered. Does consent extend to their misfortune, or does revolt become a duty there?
Justification
The slave who says no to his master refuses more than an order: by drawing the line he will no longer let be crossed, he asserts that something in him is worth defending, and worth it for all. Camus draws from this gesture a decisive argument: the rebel's no reveals a value exceeding the individual, so that carries us from the solitary acknowledgment of the absurd to a solidarity, as the cogito carried Descartes from doubt to certainty. The refusal of what humiliates, not consent to the given, thus becomes the principle of a worthy existence, and the immanent ground of a morality without God.
I rebel—therefore we exist.The Rebel (1951)
The Rebel (1951)
Justification
In The Plague, before a child's agony, Rieux refuses to love a creation in which children are tortured. No harmony, no salvation justifies this suffering: a flat refusal of all theodicy, the revolt against an order that would demand it.
The Plague, IV; The Rebel
Justification
works as a test: if a demon told you that you will relive this very life, identically, infinitely, would you curse him, or would it be your greatest joy? To say yes to every instant is : not 's resignation, but the highest affirmation, to love the necessary so much that one wills its eternal return.
My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity.Ecce Homo, "Why I Am So Clever", §10
Ecce Homo, "Why I Am So Clever", §10 · The Gay Science, §276 and §341
The philosophers positioned on the axis “Relation to the past”, over time. Hover a dot to read its name.
This problem's anchors
Anchors: Camus · Dostoevsky · Nietzsche
leads to: The problem of evil (To justify evil?)