Tag: Pain

Settling accounts with the losses

Why do we get so confused while selecting the best smartphone model and end up selecting high-costing ones? Why do people still fall for easy money schemes, Ponzi schemes, Pyramid schemes even though they are well informed about similar fraud cases? Why most of the people are ready to buy a million-dollar lottery ticket costing few pennies even when they know that the chances are very low? Why do people fall in the spiral of gambling even when they have hit the rock bottom of debts? Why retail investors are continuously losing huge amount of money in stock market when they know that it is a loss-making venture? What convinces them to continue further? Why people always lookout for complete cover while selecting insurance policies even when they know that chances of those problems are really low? Prospect theory has answers to these questions.
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky’s Prospect theory shows certain behavioral effects called certainty effect, reflection effect and isolation effect while making economics related decisions. Prospect theory explains why people love certain but smaller gains and also why same people will turn into complete gamblers in a crisis situation.

Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky’s Prospect theory in economics

Prospect theory is one of the most important ideas of behavioral economics. It shows how people make choices when times are highly uncertain. Rationally, any person would go with the choices having the best probable outcomes in uncertain times but in real scenarios that is not the case. Real people are emotional and always have mindset of survival. That is exactly why in uncertain times, people choose anything that has complete surety, certainty of gain instead of gambling for higher gains however highly probable they may be. And when probable gains are very high than average gains people will choose higher gains even when they have very less probability. This irrational, non-economical behavior may make human decision seem illogical, inconsistent. This illogical behavior is an important part of our evolution as species which Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman’s Prospect theory highlights. We will throw more light on prospect theory hereon.       

Expected Utility Theory

“The agent of economic theory is rational, selfish, and his tastes do not change.”

Expected utility theory lies at the foundations of economics. It allows economists to model the scenarios to understand the dynamics between the resources, their perceived value and the risks/ uncertainties involved in any transaction.

The basic idea behind expected utility theory is that for any given set of uncertain events, a rational agent considers the weighted average of all gains based on the probabilities. The rational agent makes decision based on overall gains rather than being biased towards certain high value gains or certain highly probable gains.

For those who want more details, I have written in depth on the expected utility theory.  

Prospect Theory

Although expected utility is one of the fundamental concepts of economics, the assumptions on which it stands have their own limitations. So, expected utility theory is not a complete and absolute theory to understand and predict the behavior of agents in economics. The moment we are injecting the word “behavior” we must understand that humans are not a purely mechanical or mathematical thinkers – decision makers. Also, as per the expected utility theory, there can be different perception of the value for given same resource for different agents. What expected utility immediately does is to fully attach the perception of value of given gain only with the bulk of resource that agent already has and the value addition it would do to this already existing bunch of resource. There is no psychological element in this discussion which is a larger predictor of the behavior of the agents in economics.

So, you can call prospect theory as an augmentation of expected utility theory. Prospect theory is not meant to falsify the expected utility theory rather it helps EUT to evolve where its own assumptions fail to explain the behavioral decision of the agents.

Modern economists are making more efforts to incorporate the psychological aspects of decision making into the machine-like purely mathematical models of economics. This makes the predictions more realistic when human decision making is involved. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky published their world-famous paper called ‘Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk’ in ‘Econometrica’ in 1979. This paper is one of the most cited papers in economics. Prospect theory thus became the cornerstone of behavioral economics.

Kahneman and Tversky pointed out one “theoretical blindness” imparted due to the EUT. We will see those details in depth. They pointed out certain effects based on the decision making of the subjects under different decision-making events. Collection of these effects makes the prospect theory important. The important point to keep in mind is that everyone is risk averse in reality. Nobody wants to choose the transaction where there expected utility is reduced. So, the utility function of agents is concave. 

Certainty effect

People overweight outcomes that are considered certain, relative to outcomes which are merely probable.

According to EUT, people will weigh out the outcomes based on their probabilities, but Kahneman-Tversky found out that people love certainty of gains. People don’t want to get involved into gambles when they know that there another way to gain something “closely valuable” for sure.

Kahneman-Tversky presented an interesting observation in their paper, here are the exact scenarios:

Choose between

A:            Gain of 2500 with probability 0.33

                Gain of 2400 with probability 0.66

                Gain of 0 with probability 0.01

OR

B:            Gain of 2400 with certainty

According to the EUT the utility equivalent of A can be calculated as

U(A) = (2500 x 0.33) + (2400 x 0.66) + (0 x 0.01) = 2409

And utility equivalent of B

U(B) = (2400 x 1) =2400

So, according to EUT the utility of A is higher than B. But you already have your answer ready in your mind. Same was observed by Kahneman- Tversky; 82% of the people choose event B where the gain was certain.

Does this mean that the more probable the gain the more preferred it will be?

The answer is complicated.

Kahneman- Tversky further posed a modified event,

Choose between

C:            Gain of 2500 with probability 0.33

                Gain of 0 with probability 0.67

OR

D:            Gain of 2400 with probability 0.34

                Gain of 0 with probability 0.66

They observed that 83% of the people chose event C over event D. This was surprising because event D is mathematically more significant (probability of 0.34 in D over 0.33 in C). This shows that it’s not just about the higher certainty which drives the preferences. The moment given options are uncertain people rarely notice the extent of the uncertainty (numerical value of probability) to choose between.

Take one more example given by Kahneman-Tversky

A:            Gain of 4000 with probability 0.80

OR

B:            Gain of 3000 for sure

Here 80% of people chose B.

But when presented following:

C:            Gain of 4000 with probability 0.20

OR

D:            Gain of 3000 with probability 0.25

Here 65% people chose C.

What exactly is happening here?

People love sure gains over any uncertain gains. But when both or all of the presented gains are uncertain, people will choose to gamble with those giving higher gain, whatever may be the possibility. This goes against EUT which says rational people would consider both the gain and the probability while making a decision. In reality when people are uncertain, they choose to go with the uncertain but higher chances of gaining.

You will now start to notice that EUT creates an objectivity in the choices by mathematically connecting the gains with their probability. But Kahneman-Tversky observed that real people will not follow EUT, they will make decisions based on the prospects they are presented. People never look at the scenarios in economics as distinct events, they look at the current trade-offs, current prospects they a have at their disposal to choose. The choice is always relative to the prospects presented and not absolute like EUT asks for in a mathematical form. That is exactly why Prospect Theory becomes important. It’s neither about the certainty nor the value, its more about what type of options – prospects you are providing to the people.

This is one important idea in marketing. We will see that in detail as the discussion evolves.

There is an interesting observation by Kahneman-Tversky when we are observing relativity of the prospects:

Choose between

A:            Gain of 6000 with probability of 0.45

OR

B:            Gain of 3000 with probability of 0.90

86% of the people chose prospect B.

If you use EUT, both prospects have same utility equivalent = (6000 x 0.45) = (3000 x 0.9) = 2700.

But people refuse to be indifferent to these prospects and choose the most certain prospect.

Now, one more – same gains but totally different probabilities,

Choose between

A:            Gain of 6000 with probability of 0.001

OR

B:            Gain of 3000 with probability of 0.002

Here, 73% of the people chose prospect A.

Again, both have same utility equivalent = (6000 x 0.001) = (3000 x 0.002) = 6. According to EUT people should be indifferent to both prospects.

And interestingly they didn’t go with the one which is more certain than other. They went the one with larger gain. This is because both prospects have very slim chances of gains.

Now it should be pretty clear that people compare prospects based on what is presented to them. Even when they are risk aversive, they would prefer bigger gambles when they realize that the chances of winning are really low and there is pretty much nothing to lose.

Reflection Effect

The risk aversion in the positive domain is accompanied by risk seeking in the negative domain

Certainty increases the aversiveness of losses as well as desirability of gains.

We saw how people choose when they have information of higher certainty or higher gains. What would happen if we inform them about lower certainty or lower gains/ higher losses?

We already saw one observation from Kahneman-Tversky:

A:            Gain of 4000 with probability 0.80

OR

B:            Gain of 3000 for sure

80% of people chose B because they preferred surety of gain.

Kahneman-Tversky posed exact negative of this prospect which looks like

A:            Loss of 4000 with probability 0.80

OR

B:            Loss of 3000 for sure

Now, 92% of the people chose option A. They don’t want a prospect where loss is certain.

Kahneman-Tversky observed that when prospects are negated people switched sides. The risk aversion in positive prospects changed to risk seeking which goes against EUT. They called it the reflection effect.

See this already discussed prospect:

Choose between

A:            Gain of 6000 with probability of 0.001

OR

B:            Gain of 3000 with probability of  

73% of the people chose prospect A.

The negative of this would be:

Choose between

A:            Loss of 6000 with probability of 0.001

OR

B:            Loss of 3000 with probability of 0.002

Kahneman-Tversky observed that 70% of the people chose prospect B.

When it came to losses, people chose prospect with more certainty of lower loss.

This is very interesting observation. If you still cannot wrap your mind around this, the simplification looks like this: People rarely care about the combined effect of gains/losses with the probabilities as the expected utility theory rationally establishes. People care about what current choices they have and choose those which guarantee highly certain gains even when they are low and choose lower losses when they are highly certain.

“…it appears that certainty increases the aversiveness of losses as well as the desirability of gains”   

Isolation effect

In order to simplify the choices between alternatives, people often disregard components that the alternatives share, and focus on the components that distinguish them.

The core of this idea is that people don’t like complexity or our brain is always trying to take shortcuts. This is one important idea and observation on human nature which Kahneman-Tversky pointed out.

What they did is creating a two-stage game:

 1st Stage-

P:            Gain of 0 with probability of 0.75

OR

Q:           Move to 2nd stage of the game with probability of 0.25

2nd Stage-

R:            Gain of 4000 with probability of 0.8

OR

S:            Gain of 3000 for certainty

The condition here is that choices must be made before the game is played i.e., before the actual outcome becomes apparent.

  Before we go to what Kahneman-Tversky observed. Let us see what EUT would prefer, what a rational person would prefer:

U(R) = The equivalent utility of gaining 4000 at the end of the game = 4000 x (probability of reaching 2nd stage from 1st stage) x (probability of gain of 4000) = 4000 x 0.25 x 0.8 = 800

U(S) = The equivalent utility of gaining 3000 at the end of the game = 3000 x (probability of reaching 2nd stage from 1st stage) x (probability of gain of 3000) = 3000 x 0.25 x 1 = 750

So, U(R) > U(S). Thus, any rational person would choose prospect R in any situation as per the EUT goes.

Pay attention here,

The added complexity due to multiple stages –

When people were presented with the above mentioned two stage scenarios, 78% of the people chose the prospect giving certain gain i.e., gain of 3000 for sure. But, according to EUT you will see that this chosen prospect has lover equivalent utility. People actually ignored (or didn’t account for) the effect of the first stage of probability which would allow them to enter the actual stage 2.

Kahneman-Tversky called this an Isolation effect where people isolate or don’t care the commonalities between presented scenarios to make the decision-making process less complicated.

Now, this 2-stage game can be reduced to single stage game as follows:

Choose between

A:            Coming to current stage with 0.25 chance where there is 0.8 chance to gain 4000

                (0.25 x 0.8) chance to gain 4000

Gain of 4000 with probability of 0.20

OR

B:            Coming to current stage with 0.25 chance where there is certainty to gain 3000

                (0.25 x 1) chance to gain 3000

Gain of 3000 with probability of 0.25

This is a reduced form of the prospect.

If EUT is applied here

U(A) = 4000 x 0.20 = 800 and U(B) = 3000 x 0.25 = 750.

The 2-stage game and its reduced form obviously will have exactly same equivalent utilities because the reduced form just combines the chances of two stages into one resultant number. So, even though these two scenarios have same outcomes of equivalent utilities, Kahneman- Tversky observed that the ways in which these scenarios are presented affect the choices of the people.

Kahneman-Tversky had already observed that when there is significantly less difference in the amounts of gains or the probability of those respective gains in two prospects, people mostly prefer the one with higher gains. So, if we present this above mentioned 2-stage scenario to its reduced single stage scenario the results are interesting. 

We have already seen what Kahneman-Tversky observed for this reduced scenario. Majority of people chose higher gain prospect even though it was relatively less probable.

Conclusion

What Kahneman-Tversky did concretely in prospect theory is to formulate the value function to mathematically explain this behavior.

The value function in prospect theory is given as follows:

The simplified idea of this value function is:

The pain of losing certain amount hurts us more that the joy of gaining the same amount.   

You just like winning and dislike losing – and you almost certainly dislike losing more than you like winning.

The importance of prospect theory is that it shows what it means to be a human. Once you start collecting the pieces of certainty effect, reflection effect and isolation effect the picture that is revealed is profound insight about our tendencies to ensure survival in any case.

Certainty effect shows that people will choose certain gains even if their size is low. They just want to be at peace with increasing their existing surplus if it is sure.

This is how the coupon codes, vouchers, discount codes, discount days work in online shopping. The provider lures you into buying something you really don’t want by giving you guarantee, surety that you surely are making profit out of this deal. One smart thing that happens here is that the sense of urgency. You might have realized that these coupons are expiring immediately like virtually now. This creates an urgency to materialize the profit.

When people are in profit making environment, they will always prefer sure profit over uncertain profits and that is exactly how scammers lure people. They create this sense of surety to attract people to invest in their schemes.

No wonder why people love easy money. Once you inject the surety of gains in any venture people will literally pile up and that is how Ponzi schemes, Pyramid schemes work.     

The moment this surety of gain is lost and when people realize that it is only the losses that they will have to face then immediately this same population craves for uncertainty in the losses. When people see that they anyways have to digest the losses they avoid certain losses over uncertain ones, even if the actual effect of certain losses was pretty low. This is reflection effect.

The stock market is the best example to explain the reflection effect. In the crisis times – bearish markets, history has evidences that people have gone with insanely foolish bets where chances of gains are slim to none. People end up in the cycles of betting, gambling even when the realistic indicators of market are pointing to inevitable crisis.

The important thing to appreciate from prospect theory is to know when and where to stop in crisis situations.

“…people become risk seeking when all their options are bad”

If you have lost this game in poker or any gamble, you always feel that I will play the next game and definitely (somehow) will recover my losses (even when I know that James Bond is sitting on my table).

You will be more relaxed if you were told in advance that you will make less money of $10000 and you will be more stressed, feel pain if you make $12000 and government cuts $2000 for some taxation at the last moment. The gain is same but the “prospects” are different.

People can be confused to choose the loss-making options even when they are completely informed. When decision making is multi-stage so that there are some common things between them, people usually neglect those shared attributes even if they are significant and move on to the differences to finalize the choice even if these differences are not significant. This is isolation effect.

Many electronics companies while creating their pricing strategies intentionally create shared features and smartly just add one low-cost additional feature in the top model to sell it at foolishly, unjustifiably higher cost. People are ready to pay higher prices for that low cost (for the manufacturer/ marketeer) because it makes that model better. (You know who I am talking about.)

For me, the isolation effect has a huge philosophical implication.

Kahneman-Tversky have attributed the behaviors pointed out by Prospect theory to the tendency for survival. If you want to survive and are living in an already good situation then you would not want to disturb the current resources you have, that is why you don’t prefer uncertain gains, you are more than happy if the gains are certain even if they are small in size because they are not disturbing the already materialized gains.

In same way when conditions to survive are hostile you would take that every chance to increase your resources, however slim the chances may be. This is some kind of indication of hope. Important thing about Prospect theory is that Kahneman-Tversky pointed out that this exact risk-taking tendency in negative environment can push people into the spiral of continuous losses.    

We are naturally evolved in this way. 

The isolation effect outlines our tendency to eliminate common/ shared attributes of given resource to make a choice. The key thing to appreciate here is that while neglecting these commonalities we are never conscious of how significant they are in our life. You must appreciate that when I am writing this, sharing this, when you are reading this, we have more than enough resources to sustain a basic life. We are living better life than most of the world population but still we are not satisfied because we have already isolated that which we have with us. The isolation effect thus points out to our tendency to lose the feeling of gratitude for everything we have right now.

We rarely appreciate things which we already have or things we are sure that we would never loose. Many times, people realize the worth of things as really significant – as truly valuable when they are lost. 

Being alive and having the ability to experience – to appreciate this life is what common to all of us, this is precious than anything else in this world, rest is just the bonus. We should not let the practice of comparison isolate this preciousness.

References and further reading:

  1. Kahneman, Daniel., and Amos Tversky. “Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk.” Econometrica 47.2 (1979): 363-391
  2. Thinking fast and slow – Daniel Kahneman
  3. Risk and Rationality in Uncertainty – On Expected Utility Theory
  4. Connecting money with sentiments – Behavioral Economics

The Utility of Human Life and Morality

Why doesn’t Batman kill all his villains once for all? Why the sentence passed by judicial systems in certain heinous and extraordinary crimes feel unjust for the pain victim went through? How one can tell that given person was right or wrong when he/she had no intent of doing it? Can you just look at the end consequences of the actions and decide right or wrong for such scenes? Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism tried to answer some of these questions but it revealed certain flaws in our ways of judgement. Even though hedonism and utilitarian philosophy create an objective model of morality, they fail to address the subjective and human aspect of any moral discussion. It reveals that the purpose of living is not mere happiness but self-improvement thereby mutual and overall improvement.

How to judge morality and its impact on human life?

The Moral Dilemma

A healthy sense of good and bad makes a society livable. There are some special, rare events that happen in the society we live which challenge our idea of what is good and what is bad. There are uncountable offenses and also in varying types which create problem of who should actually be punished and what should be the punishment.

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

Mahatma Gandhi

If this is really the case, the law and order should punish the victim in such a way that it prohibits the future perpetrators to not do such crimes again. But again, as this above mentioned quote goes if the punishment given for the crime is equally dangerous then what exactly are we trying to establish through such punishment?

It’s like that scenario where murdering a murderer creates a new murderer so the net number of murderers in the society remain the same. An Italian philosopher called Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria had given a thought on this. In his book ‘Of Crimes and Punishments’ he discusses that if the punishments grow on crueler and crueler the net mindset of people also grows crueler. It’s like how water levels itself irrespective of the depths. The baseline of what is right and wrong furthermore what is more wrong and what is more right shifts up. Crueler and crueler crimes reduce the sensibility of people of that society. This could be one reason why people always argue that the judicial system does not provide equivalent punishment as a justice to the victims of certain heinous, exceptional cases of crimes. (Although there are many other factors to make such decisions.)

“In proportion as punishments become crueler, the minds of men, as a fluid rises to the same height with that which surrounds it, grow hardened and insensible; and the force of the passions still continuing, in the space of a hundred years the wheel terrifies no more than formerly the prison. That a punishment may produce the effect required, it is sufficient that the evil it occasions should exceed the good expected from the crime, including in the calculation the certainty of the punishment, and the privation of the expected advantage. All severity beyond this is superfluous, and therefore tyrannical.”

Cesare Beccaria, Of the Mildness of Punishments from ‘Of Crimes and Punishments’

In similar spirit, the relationship between Batman and Joker can be understood. Joker never cares about killing people he will try to stretch the limits of batman in every possible sense where innocent lives are at stake. Batman has one solution to stop all this – to kill the Joker. But with a high moral ground Batman would never kill Joker. What is the motivation behind such character design of Batman. Batman knows that killing Joker would solve the problem once for all. Believe me, this is not just a fictional comic book scenario. The reality that we live in has uncountable such scenarios where exactly same decision dilemmas occur.  

The famous trolley problem also points to somewhat similar moral dilemma. Where should the trolley be directed if one track has single person and another has 5 people tied to the track? Nobody wants blood on their hands.

But the same trolley problem becomes interesting if you start adding additional attributes to the people who are on track.

What if the single person tied to the track is a scientist with the cure for cancer and the track with five people are criminals? Then definitely you would kill the five criminals instead of the single scientist.

Did you notice what change made us to decide faster? The moment we understood the consequences of our actions we had the clarity of what is right and what is wrong. Our moral compass pointed to North the moment we foresaw the consequences of our actions.

The foundation of some of the principles of morality are based on similar ideas. Utilitarianism and Jeremy Bentham’s an English Philosophers ideas have contributed to the ideas of morality for humanity, especially when we are talking about the human society as a whole. The ideas put by Jeremy Bentham also faced severe criticism, we will see those in detail too. But the key intention of my exploration is to understand how we create the meaning of Morality and how subjectivity, objectivity totally change the way we perceive morality. In the end we may reach to rock bottom questioning the morality itself to be nonexistent – and if morality is non-existent then what separates human beings from animals? (I hope to enter in this territory with some optimism, I don’t know where will it end.)

Utilitarianism

As I already explained in the trolley problem that by adding one simple, short part of information shifted our moral compass in (supposedly) proper direction. What did this information add in the dilemma to make it solvable?

The answer is the foresight of consequence. Once you saw the consequence it leads to you got the hold of what is right and what is wrong. You decided one side to be right and other one to be wrong. This foresight of consequence helped you to weigh the ‘right’-ness of your decision.

Utilitarianism is based on the measurement of morals based on the consequences of the actions you take. What is the other side of taking actions? It is ‘the intent’. This is where the fun game begins.

Many philosophers are always fighting over morals based on the intent of the person and the consequences of the actions they take. For example, thinking of murder (pardon my thinking) makes me less of convict than really murdering someone. My thinking has not led to the loss of the person I hate. Utilitarianism thus calls out for the construct of morality based on the actual actions and their consequences; it’s like saying ‘what a man is more about what he does instead of what he thinks’.

Hedonism, Utilitarianism and Jeremy Bentham

Happiness is a very pretty thing to feel, but very dry to talk about.

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham an English philosopher contributed to the utilitarian ideas of morality. He was not well appreciated in his home country due to the misalignment of his ideas of socio-political reforms with the British sovereignty of those times. The French translation of his works on law, governance gave him popularity in Frenchmen. Bentham was one of the people who pushed the political reforms during French revolution.

While reading Joseph Priestly’s Essay on the First Principles of Government, Bentham came across the idea of “greatest happiness for the greatest number” which motivated him to expand the ideas of utilitarianism.

Priestly brought the idea of “Laissez-faire” (‘allow to do’ in French)- a policy of minimum governmental interference in the economic affairs of individuals and society. Joseph Priestly developed his ideas of politics, economics and government based on the ideas created by Adam Smith (Author of the Wealth of Nations – the holy grail of classical Economics).

The Greek philosopher called Epicurus was the supporter, creator of hedonism. Hedonism defines ethics to pleasure or pain. According to hedonism that which gives pleasure is morally good and that which give pain is morally wrong. The idea behind hedonism is the aversion of pain to live an undisturbed life because anyways this all won’t make sense once you are dead. According to Epicurus – fear of death, retribution is pushing people to collect more wealth, more power thereby causing more painful life. The collection of wealth, power is done thinking that they can avert the death but that is not the reality. So, worrying about the death sucks out the pleasure of living the life which itself is equivalent of death.

Non fui, fui, non-sum, non-curo
(“I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care”)

Epicurus

So, epicurean hedonistic morality tries to maximize the pleasure. The other end of this idea is that if everyone tries to maximize their own pleasure (egoistic hedonism) wouldn’t it disturb others?

If I want to listen to a song on loud speaker while bothering my neighbors, what is the moral standpoint here?

The answer is the overall good of the system. So, if you neighbor also wants to listen music loud and overall loud music is good for the group then we are morally right to play loud music. (Just pray that the group has same music interests!)

So, Jeremy Bentham is known to rejuvenate this ancient philosophy of egoistic hedonism through his philosophy of utilitarianism.

The basic idea behind Utilitarianism is to maximize the utility of anything, value of anything. The utility can be increased by doing what is right which can be done by doing what gives more pleasure or by avoiding those things which increase or give pain.

Utility is a property which tends

  1. To produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness
  2. To prevent happening of mischief, pain, evil or happiness

So, the right action is the one that produces and/ or maximizes overall happiness. Please understand that the word “overall” is important for Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism. Because from selfish point of views, what is pleasurable for one may not be pleasurable for others. (This is also where the certain philosophical problems of Utilitarianism are hiding, save this point for later.)

To solve this bottleneck of clarity, there are two types of pleasure in human life – one is happiness from senses, physical experiences and one is from intellect. The intellectual happiness is higher than the pleasure from senses. So, on personal moral dilemmas these two attributes can solve the problem.

All good on personal level but what about the moral decisions for the group, for society? Here, Bentham solved the moral dilemma by using the idea of “greater good for all”. When we don’t agree on what makes us happy together, making sacrifices in your happiness to make others happy is the solution. (Keep this idea parked in your mind.)

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters – pain and pleasure. They govern us in all we do, all we say and all we think.”  

Jeremy Bentham

Felicific Calculus – Measuring happiness

Jeremy Bentham is known as the Issac Newton of the Morality for developing the felicific calculus/ hedonistic calculus. Bentham pointed out the key factors which affect the net happiness and using this factors’ effect as a whole, one can quantify the happiness.

Following are the factors which affect the happiness:

  1. Intensity – how strong is the pleasure from the given action?
  2. Duration – how long does the happiness remain from given action?
  3. Certainty – what is the likelihood of given pleasure to occur?
  4. Propinquity – how soon/ immediate is the occurrence of the pleasure?
  5. Fecundity – what is the possibility that this pleasure will also lead to the newer pleasure(s)?
  6. Purity – what is the change that this pleasure will not bring some opposite sensation?
  7. Extent – how many people are affected?

If one considers these factors and the principle to maximize the communal happiness, most of the social moral dilemmas can be effectively solved.

So, according to this felicific calculus,

  1. Batman should kill the Joker for the greater good of the Gotham
  2. The trolley should go over the group/ person which creates more pain for the society
  3. Baby Hitler should be killed once we get the chance to travel back in time

You must appreciate the clarity which the felicific calculus brings. This clarity is very important for the policymakers, politicians while deciding the fate of the group, state, nation as a whole.

Now a simple question –

If batman keeps on killing the villains, won’t he become the greatest killer of them all? What would differentiate Batman from other villains?

What would happen if you were given false information about the nature of the people tied on track while riding that trolley? Could your wrong decision be undone? If it was the wrong decision then now ‘you’ are morally wrong, with the blood of the innocents.

You would kill baby Hitler only because you have vision that this baby will grow up to be the mass murderer tyrant. The mass murder hasn’t happened yet. So, now you are the killer of a ‘now’ innocent baby.

Maintaining same emotion, now you would appreciate why even for a strong judicial system giving capital punishment for rapists, terrorists is difficult morally. You would solve the problem for now because the act has been already done, the consequences have already happened (which is why moral judgement is effective as it relies on the consequences). Killing the perpetrators or punishing them with equal pain would definitely bring peace of mind using the principles of morality but that also degrades the morality of innocents who fell down from that morality. It is not matter of what one deserves because what bad happened to them, it is about how less human you will become once you perform that act of punishment.

Recall the quote of Beccaria in the early part of my discussion.

Killing joker will create fear among other villains but it also creates chance for the creation of even dangerous villain in future.

Killing baby Hitler doesn’t guarantee prevention of World War and mass murders, as our personalities are the result of our surroundings – another Hitler-like person would have emerged in such given circumstances. (I honestly don’t know if he/she would be worse or less harsh than the original one but you get the point – conditions anyways would have created another cruel person.)

Jumping out of the trolley seems the best way to run away from the pain of murder of other unknown people (joking). The trolley dilemma remains dilemma.

Also, the felicific calculus allows pain for small groups for the betterment/ pleasure of the bigger society. For example, according to this utilitarian idea killing few healthy convicted prisoners to save lives of many innocent people by harvesting the prisoners’ organ is justified. It is for the good in the end.

You see where this goes?

See the level to which any human or a group could go if they start justifying their moral rightness using these ideas. Using these principles any big group can overpower the minorities in morally right way. It is just a matter of time that the felicific calculus principles would get exploited for other “immoral” gains.

That is exactly why many people criticized the felicific calculus saying that a pig laying in the mud for his whole life would be happiest than a human being (Socrates to be specific) if Bentham’s calculus is used to decide morality.

In a crude way, there are two type of Utilitarianism which help to solve the problem to certain extent, but it is not a complete solution:

  1. Act Utilitarianism – to act for the greater good of all
  2. Rule Utilitarianism – to set rules in such way that no one inherently gets the pain or everyone is happy because actions and their consequences are bound by certain set rules in first place now

Happiness is not the ‘only’ and the ultimate goal – the limitations of Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarian Philosophy

What people were not ‘happy’ with Jeremy Bentham’s felicific calculus was that it made humans more like machines and very objective. People don’t always want happiness for their or the group’s greater good. Exercising daily, reducing fat-sugar maybe painful but that guarantees healthy, illness free long life. Doing drugs isolates the person from pain but it impacts the long-term physical and mental health of the person. Hardships and pain make people to reach their difficult goals which is what is the real and ultimate happiness for them.       

Happiness is not always the goal of life, if one is completely tangled in the pleasures of life and if everyone is having same mentality then in the end no one will be happy, because as a group we all would never agree on what makes us happy; different environments in which we grew, our personal experiences, our upbringing, our motivations prevent us from creating a common definition of happiness.

The subjective factor of pleasure or pain is not present in Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism. Building further upon that, the victim who has suffered from the morally wrong action will only be satisfied when he/she gets justice, not when they are made happier than their perpetrators. (This justice must again not be mechanical and objective like the felicific calculus.)

One more flaw of the Bentham’s utilitarianism is the imbalance between personal scenarios and the communal scenarios. In most cases, it demands personal sacrifice irrespective of their subjective morality for the betterment of the group. (that is exactly how many past cruel dictators have justified their moral correctness on their acts against the minorities.)

A British philosopher, Bernard Williams presented a thought experiment to highlight such flaw of the Utilitarianism.

In this thought experiment:

A botanist on his South American expedition is ordered by the cruel regime soldiers to kill one of the Indian tribe people. If the botanist fails to kill one Indian the soldiers would execute all of the tribe members.

So, if we implement utilitarian principles, then the botanist should kill one Indian to save the remaining all. That is morally right.

But on the other hand, one must also understand that the botanist has nothing to do with the cruel regime and even with the indigenous tribe members. He is under no moral obligation to do anything. The consequences are in such a way that whatever he will do he will be called morally wrong. Which in the end is wrong.

The utilitarian philosophy neglects this subjectivity and consequentialism while we are deciding morality of anything.

Maybe that is also why even when we have all the rules in place, penal code in place for all types of offenses, similar crimes – we have a judge – a subjective, consequential observer to grant the final justice.

You must understand that the discussion does not want to pose Utilitarianism as completely wrong idea. The intent of this discussion is to understand how to de-clutter a complex moral scenario and how to inject subjectivity in it so that the correct person will get the justice in the end. As we are human beings and not machines, every day brings new subjective scenarios with new subjective moral dilemmas. Direct implementation of utilitarianism may bring in the transparency in the moral puzzle but it is at the expense of oversimplification and loss of personal subjectivity, consequential personal point of view and also freedom of person to exist.

The ways in which Utilitarianism brings immediate clarity by elimination of some important subjective aspects is dangerous and limits the judgement of real morality. Friedrich Nietzsche had warned new philosophers in his book beyond good and evil about the philosophies which create such “immediate certainties” like Utilitarian philosophy creates-

“The belief in “immediate certainties” is a moral naivete which does honor to us philosophers; but – we have now to cease being “merely moral” men!”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Conclusion – If not happiness then what is the goal of being human?

Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism and the felicific calculus can help to decide the morality of what is good for all but it ignores the presence and worth of personal integrity, the well being of the minorities, subjectivity of the person in given consequences. It by default eliminates the possibility of humans remaining human beings instead it attributes them as the machine maximizing a targeted outcome (which is pleasure here).

So, the question remains – If we are not meant to maximize pleasure during our tenure in life because in the end after death there will not be anything to experience or gain happiness – if our existence and final purpose does not align with being happy then what exactly is the purpose of being a human being?

Based on my understanding on what many great people have commented about the purpose of life, I found that most of them point to remaining the human being you always were. I am not saying that the personality should remain the same, rather it should change and keep on upgrading itself till the end but the core should remain same or it should not degrade at least.

Some wrong events, injustice, oppression, cruelty will make you suffer, but that should also not vilify your human spirit. Once we let go the pursuit of happiness and chase the goal of being a better human being (or at least remain the human being you are) we can fulfill the purpose of our lives and also make other people’s lives better.

Once you will let go of such utilitarian, mechanistic setups of morality you will realize that people don’t need gods, religions, governments, judicial systems to keep in the check of right and wrong. Our inner compass is more than enough to take care of what makes us human beings, this inner compass is not about what is right and wrong, for me it is about what better version of yourself you would become if you act in that certain way. It takes care of what you are thinking and what would be the consequences of actions thereby resolving the dilemma of morality which got separated on the basis of either intent or the consequences.

I am highlighting the importance of inner personal human compass because the rules designed to keep morality in check would always need revision and the utilitarian philosophy would wait for the consequences to happen to decide the morality. The goal of human struggle to improve their current version to a better one does not need either of the metrics to decide the morality.

Imagine what the world would become if everyone started appreciating this inner human compass!

(For now, we can only imagine, but I am optimistic on this.)        

P.S. –

Even though the Utilitarian philosophy had many flaws, Jeremy Bentham contributed largely to bring in new political reforms, improve governance, establish penal codes in judicial systems, define sovereignty, reduce the influence of religious institutions on the lives of people and governments. His works were strategically maligned by some lobbies to lessen the impact of his other notable works. He was the proponent of liberty and freedom from religious influences on lives of people. The pushed for the establishment of a secular educational institute in London – now famously known as University College London. Jeremy Betham’s fully clothed wax statue containing his original skeleton remains in the entrance hall of the University main building upon his request.

Losing the ‘Grip’ on Escapism

Escapism creates a void in our perception of reality so that new ideas, creative ideas would populate this void for living life with a new perspective, new approach. The healthy escapism is the most important tool, a therapy for many successful creative people our world has ever seen. Once this escapism takes extreme side it may lead to addiction, procrastination and delusion. Freud’s ‘desire to destruction’ and René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire help us to understand escapism in better ways to face the reality head on.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one

Albert Einstein

It is very interesting when we start questioning how we understand, feel and interpret the reality. The reality in which we live in has infinitely many facets which we experience through equally diverse emotions. We as human beings are hardwired for seeking happiness, happiness creates the environment to nurture, grow and multiply. Bear in mind that only growing and multiplying is not enough to guaranty the survival of our species. Adaptation is one aspect to ensure the sustenance over the course of time. Adaptation means getting exposed to adversities, sadness, imperfections of reality to create the strong enough coping mechanisms. What would happen if are continuously in the phase of seeking pleasure and turning our faces away from the challenges of the reality? How we justify our own death (figurative) by our own hands when we submit ourselves to such dark pleasures, addictions, dark temptations in spite of knowing that they are harming us? There is just one perfect song to point us towards such emotions.  The song is called “Grip” by Seeb and Bastille.

The song was written by Espen Berg, Dan Smith, Thomas Eriksen, Mark Crew, Simen Eriksrud and Joakim Haukaas.

Album art for Grip by Seeb, Bastille

Grip – The Lyrics

As the night time leads into the day
And tomorrow spills across the sky
While the sun's a harsh reminder why
We are feeling barely human

The overall emotions this person is experiencing are the emotions of distaste and hatred towards the things which are inevitable. He knows already that it is going to be day after this night, the sun will rise up and he will have to face the day helplessly. The “harsh reminder” here highlights that the person doesn’t want to face the day, the reality, the responsibility and wants to escape to the night where he was someone better than human – someone invincible.

 ‘Tomorrow spills’ shows that the thing/s which this person was trying to postpone, avoid has finally come. The spilling action shows the unwanted eventuality. The things which the person is trying to avoid are the sufferings and problems which for this person are mocking him for his humanistic limitations.  

This rise of the day is a reminder of his humanly limitations and the sufferings which never end. The person is well aware of the sufferings and hence is cursing the Sun for reminding him about his limitations as a human being. The transition of night into a sunny day is also a metaphor for the veil falling down. The veil of enjoyment which was masking the suffering, imperfections, sorrows, problems of the reality.

I really loved the word play to show how the person hates the day which never comes – ‘tomorrow’. It kind of points towards the ‘procrastination’ to avoid the pain of imperfections and the pain, the suffering accompanying with the life itself.

We don't know what's good for us
'Cause if we did, we might not do it
Who knows where our limits lie?
We won't discover 'til we push it

These lines explain the expression “Ignorance is a bliss” in the most perfect way. The person wants to ignore the things which are good because deep down he knows that they come with hardships. That is exactly why he says that even if he knew what is really good for him, he won’t do it; he knows doing the right is always the most difficult path. It’s like running away from the reality and reject it because it is full of pain, problems, unsettling consequences and imperfect.

The next lines show that the person is not completely delusional and detached from the reality. He knows that being a human being with unlimited capacity in the world of infinite possibilities, he can do anything and succeed at it. He is aware of the fact that he just has to expand his boundary to make impossible things possible. This is the moment when you will appreciate that the person expressing his feelings here is aware of everything that is right and wrong. It’s just that he just wants to be happy and maintain that state by rejecting the painful reality.    

I should just walk away, walk away
But it grips me, it grips me
But I should call it a day
And make my way
Oh, it grips me
'Cause the devil's got my arms
And it pulls me back into the dark
But I should just walk away
Walk away, oh it grips me
Cause the devil's got my arms

The person knows that he should completely let go of the things which are deviating his life from reality but now he has found one pity excuse. The person thinks that it is difficult to lose the hold of joyous, illusive but pleasurable darkness. He is ready to ‘call it a day’ get over with this pleasurable but illusive, dreamy life but somehow his mind has found an excuse of the devil which holds him back. It shows how addictive the dreamy, pleasurable alternate reality which is far from the ‘real’ reality, the life his mind has created which is full of pleasure, happiness and he is whatever he wants to be in this dreamy world. Grip of the Devil is just an excuse for him to tell others that he is not solely responsible to stay in this ‘unreal’ illusive life, this shows his lack of accountability. He is blaming the devil for him not facing the reality and taking charge of the course of his life.   

We got drunk on this unholy wine
To deliver us from our old minds
A promise of a better time
'Til we're feeling barely human

Wine in Christianity is a symbol of abundance, enlightenment, celebration, and blessings of the God. The ‘unholiness’ of the wine shows the overuse of this abundance which points to the addiction. Addiction is the worst use of the means preferred to gain pleasure. That is why the holy wine once intended for enlightenment becomes unholy when exploited and overused unnecessarily. The promise of better time is the reflection of what a person suffering from addiction feels, he tries to repeat the act to extract the pleasure – a short lived one. This short-lived pleasure makes him feel something better than human. Once the effect starts to fade out and the person regain the consciousness of weakness of human nature, he again resorts to this short-lived pleasure to regain the better humanly experience.

These are the exact emotions an addictive person goes through – this could be any addiction.

I would rather forget
And wash my memory clean
Oh, I would rather forget
And wash my memory clean

The person knows what mess he is in and the escape is also difficult. He just wants to remove all the traces of what he really is and surrender to the world of the devil.  (‘Cause the devil’s got his arms). He is helpless and just want to reject the painful reality while remaining into dark but pleasurable devil’s night. It an intentional submission the “dark side” to avert the pain of reality brightened with the Sun.

Escapism – Sadness, pain, procrastination and addiction

Escapism lies as the core theme of this song. We humans are pleasure-seeking animals. Remaining in joyful conditions promotes safety, continuation of the species from the evolutionary point of view. That is why we are hardwired to escape from adverse, life threatening, sadness inducing, fear inducing events. Fortunately, we are rarely exposed to wild animals and life-threatening situations as our primal ancestors did. But this instinct has not left us completely. Any event which simulates sadness, fear, great challenge – our response is somewhat still primitive. But as the technology as progressed so much, our ways to escape the hardships of the real, imperfect life have evolved drastically.

Please understand that escapism is not a bad word. But once it shifts to extreme use, abuse then addiction takes over and the person starts hating reality and submits to dreamy, delusional world created by him or someone else.

Reading, writing, painting, doing some happiness inducing activities/ tasks are simple examples of a “healthy escapism”. Such escapism creates a void in our perception of reality so that new ideas, creative ideas would populate this void for living life with a new perspective, new approach. The healthy escapism is the most important tool, a therapy for many successful creative people our world has ever seen.

Now coming to the other (dark) side of escapism – it’s a highway to addiction and constant search for dopamine hits. Deep down we know how we are all addicted to something. It’s just matter of who is affected by them in worse ways. Social media, their algorithms, the culture of overconsumption, the capitalistic urge to prioritize wants for getting social approval, submission to addiction to escape the problems are the real-life challenges that we are facing today due to the technology.  Technology is meant to provide an exoskeleton, an augmentation to improve our lifestyle but this same exoskeleton is weakening our muscles thereby crippling us. (The crippling of our minds.)

Escapism is not a new phenomenon, rather is has an age-old history only the ways in which we try to escape the reality have changed over the course of the time. Creating an alternate reality was always one way to alleviate the painful effects of reality. But, the tools that we have today are more potent and can immediately lead to the state of addiction.

You will see in the lyrics of the song the that the person is well aware of what wrong choices he is making, that it is not good to submit to the devil and the night but now he is so addicted to this alternate reality that he has started hating the reality and don’t want to experience it.

Such is also the way of procrastination. We try to delay the activities knowing that the had to be done anyways but won’t yield the perfect, beautiful results that you want. Procrastination thus creates an illusion of safety until the threat becomes imminent. Procrastination is also healthy unto certain limits to create a space of new approaches but if your fear of creation, action is preventing yourself to postpone their impact on reality thereby residing yourself into your dreamy world then such alternate reality is useless.

Reality is painful – but that is not the only thing it is!

We escape from reality so that we can come back to fight the reality with better tools and ideas not to completely run away from it because in the end reality will catch up with us with far gruesome, dreadful face and consequences.

We are highly prone to our conscious submission to the alternate reality because it creates a potent illusion of safety and comfort. This is because we think that living a fulfilled life means living a life of happiness, whereas upon close inspection you will appreciate that life has never given itself to either sides of the existence – neither good nor bad. Life keeps oscillating between these two and creation, destruction, growth, adaptation happens in between those waves. Buddhism talks about the roots of suffering in attachment. We humans are highly susceptible to immediate attachment to any living or non-living things (which are the parts of reality). Our attachment to such things then leads to the fear of their loss and thereby loss of familiarity and comfort which projects the ultimate fate of the reality as imperfect, painful and hostile one. Once we let of such attachments, we can have a full control on the escapism in our lives.

Once we start to see happiness as a process instead of a stage, we will truly appreciate the beauty in the prima facie unsettling imperfection of reality – this is the same real life, the reality where we actually exist and can truly contribute to affect our and other lives in better ways. It is not that painful as we have thought in our minds.

Also, even when you have achieved that only goal in your life, that full happiness, in the end you will again be miserable because you are going to be clueless about what comes next, what to do next!

I think confrontation is the opposite of the escapism because of the same reasons. Instead of the escaping from unsettling reality for short time again and again, and it catching up with us in the end, why not face it in first place and be done with it! This requires the attitude of rejecting the ultimate purpose of life attributed to the search for happiness. The reality is neither happy nor sad.   

Sigmund Freud – Beyond Pleasure and Desire to Destruction

Sigmund Freud in his early developments of psychanalysis was the strong proponent of the ideas of human beings as the pleasure-seeking animals. Freud actively promoted his ideas of psychology based on the thought that our actions are always intended to maximize pleasure, procreation, and preservation and avoiding pain. He called this force as “Eros”

Freud’s early ideas hence are always pointing towards that continuous search for pleasure (Lustprinzip). But once the world war started Freud went under immense emotional pressure as his two sons were soldiers in war, he also saw soldiers residing to traumatic war experiences. In coming years, Freud lost his beloved daughter to Spanish flue. Here he felt really miserable, guilty and painful that he is able to survive while his daughter died.   

This is where Freud brought in the idea that humans also have a death drive, destruction (Thanatos) where doing nothing helps to cope up with the intense sadness of the reality. This idea was introduced by Sabina Nikolayevna Spielrein – one of the first female psychoanalysts. Under extreme pressure humans may chose to do nothing as doing anything will end in pain.

So, Freud evolved his idea of human psyche as an interplay between the urge to live and urge to die.

The person in the song submitting to the dark, harrowing addictive pleasures shows this same urge to destruction even though he knows that they are not good. We are ready to submit ourselves to darker illusions because of this same desire to die, to destruct ourselves because sometimes reality feels more brutal than death.

When one is exposed to unknown events in life, the urge to pleasure will seek excitement, adventure and adrenaline, dopamine, knowledge from it while for same life event the urge to destruction will resort to confusion, danger, fear and submission to familiar, warm and comfortable environments.

Freud received huge criticism for these ideas too. Freud also mentioned that this death could also be figurative – as the complete distaste towards everything in life and becoming inanimate – a living dead body.

The idea of clearing memory in the end of the song shows this side of desire to destruction to me.

Important thing to come out of these ideas is to appreciate that life never favored any side – good or bad. Life is always multifaceted. There is always something good in bad and bad in something good. Good and bad always coexist.       

Mimetic Desire – Responsibility and accountability

René Girard a French philosopher of social science pointed towards a very innate pattern in human thinking which is called as “Mimetic Desire” in philosophy of social science. He pointed out that even though we may think that our drives are totally created from inside and we are the sole, absolute creator of such desires (like calling ourselves God, the Creator) these are mere effect of our surrounding, they are not created from something absolute. We are always sorting people, things around us to create a place where we say that “we belong”. This helps us to create and justify our identity. The moment someone creates and points towards something as problematic, unsettling then rest of the people also use it as a “scapegoat” to put the blame of anything bad, wrong happening with them.   

We as human beings and social animals are always looking for something to blame which creates an object to blame for difficulties in our life. This grows faster when it happens in group.

According to the ideas of Mimetic Desire given by René Girard, people make scapegoats when the truth, the reality makes them uncomfortable – the reality they don’t want to acknowledge. They desperately lookout for things, groups, people to put blame and make this illusion their reality where they find comfort. People do this because they somehow want to release their anger, tension.

The creation of devil is the same thought. The person in this song is well aware of the truth of reality but as his desires are to always seek pleasure in any possible ways, he finds a scapegoat of “the grip of the devil” to justify his addiction and bad actions. Religious, political beliefs have many examples of such scapegoats.

Responsibility and accountability are very important aspects when we are talking of such ideas. That is why it is very important to rethink our ideas when we are trying to justify them with something delusional.

Conclusion

The key idea to tackle extreme escapism is to accept the imperfect nature of reality. The reality may be fearsome, difficult and unsettling but it is also hopeful, happy and comfortable. Your actions in reality will bring you closer to good experiences rather than submitting to unreal, delusional short acts of pleasure. It’s not the grip of the devil that is holding you in the night, it is you yourself who contain this devil inside who is holding you back. Let your angel overpower your devil to bring you back into the reality. May you grow with every pain inflicted upon you to make you even stronger than you were before. May the creation provide you the physical and especially mental adaptability to handle and appreciate the reality – the only real place where you truly exist.     

Official video shows the transitory phase of a teenage boy who is trying multiple ways to gain pleasure thereby moving away from the awkwardness of reality to become “cool”. But once the balance of pleasurable acts tips to the wrong side, he submits to the pleasurable but dark and devilish side of his personality. This is where he submits himself to the devil.

The video intricately shows the fragile nature of adolescence and the high impact of the choices made in this phase which could have lifelong effect of the personality.   

There a also one lyrical video for this song where you will see fruit butchering (I don’t know why but the producers have made it look very tempting!)

Also, the credit goes to SeeB for adding their iconic style of falsettos to make the listeners feel the grip of the devil in a fantastic way.

The creators of “Grip” Seeb and Dan Smith from Bastille

The song video

Lyrical “fruity and juicy” video

Listen on spotify

The Existence – Why? How? And What?

Logotherapy is not intended only to search for the purpose of life. It justifies and dignifies the human life for its capabilities to remain in the ebb and flow of existence which is the only real thing amongst the infinite yet unrealized possibilities in the universe.

Part 2 – Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy for Humanity

“Was du erlebst, kann dir kein Gott mehr rauben.”

(No god can rob you of what you experience.)

Robert Hamerling

Answers from Logotherapy

In the Part 1 of the post, we tried to touch some ideas like – “three schools of psychology”, Freudian “will to pleasure”, Adlerian “will to power”, Viktor Frankl’s “will to meaning” as in Logotherapy, “existential vacuum”, “Noö-dynamics”, “determinism according to Logotherapy”, “Freedom according to Logotherapy” and “the responsibility that comes with the freedom”

In summary, Viktor Frankl a holocaust survivor, psychiatrist by profession witnessed and experienced the extremes of the human psyche leading to the creation of the concrete foundations of Logotherapy. According to logotherapy, it is the meaning, the purpose – which makes a man to survive through any situations in life, especially the worst ones. When there were not chances to become powerful, when there were no means to gain pleasure even then people chose to go through the hardships/ sufferings – they chose life. Not only to survival but even upon the realization of death, people accepted that death in same way one would have accepted the life. They had something inside them which made sense out of the sufferings, pain, life and even death. This “sense” was the purpose they had identified for themselves to serve. This purpose, this meaning to their own life justified the sufferings they endured which created the hope for their survival and justification to the death for the people who accepted it with dignity.  

Noö-genic neurosis is that existential blockage rather vacuum where a person’s mind itself is unsettled because it has no justification, no sense, no meaning behind the activities, decisions to live through the life. Upon realization of the real freedom, a person (and not the conditions, the objects around him) can determine his fate even in worst conditions; the person can still have that “optimal behavior”. This realization of freedom is possible because human psyche seeks for the sense of the things, the meaning, the purpose.  This freedom also calls for the sense of responsibility because human life practically has limited span, is perishable which brings that urgency to achieve the best possible outcome, the optimal outcome out of the only life one has. Responsibility brings the best out of the freedom one has; without the sense of responsibility, freedom degenerates into arbitrariness, a diffused state where the outcomes of the event have no significant impact. In simple words, freedom with responsibility gives focused and optimal outcomes whereas freedom without responsibility (still) gives results but are diffused as there is no intent to achieve anything.  

Why? Why does the life bear “a meaning”, “a purpose”?

Upon understanding what actually lies under the human psyche and the human life (i.e., the purpose, the meaning), it becomes apparent to ask the same existential question – Why does life seek for meaning only as there can be other uncountable possibilities, uncountable factors which drive the psyche, the life, the existence? Why nothing in the world – the universe but meaning only?

Viktor Frankl has excellently given the theoretical and practical proofs for the importance of meaning in a person’s life. Theoretically proof – if a person is always driven by pleasures and power then why there are examples where people chose sacrifice, where people died for their honor, where people stood fearlessly for their morals, where people rose against something really powerful, where people accepted the hardships even when there was no guarantee for them to end? These are not the exceptional cases in a human behavior. Rather when human beings are stretched to their extremes these behaviors are more common. So, unlike the pleasure and power the awareness, the urge to find the meaning is not just a secondary drive of the human life. The urge to the meaning, the purpose will always be present even in the absence of pleasure and power.

Practically Viktor Frankl presents a study to prove his point here. 89% people from a French public opinion poll and 78% of the people in an American students’ statistical survey indicated that people want “something to live for”, “finding a purpose and meaning to the life”.

I think, it is the omnipotent nature of the infinite possibilities which the real freedom grants to every person. Out of those infinite possibilities very few become realized to reality from where the freedom loses its ideal nature. Then the superposition of realized possibilities create the “real” reality which has been brought from chaos, an inconceivable, an un-understandable situation to a familiar, slightly better predictable state. This better predictable, the one “out of which some sense can be made” state is the fundamental state required for the human life to thrive upon. This urgency for predictability, for sense, for meaning, for purpose is solely because of the limited nature of the realization of life we have.

(The word predictability is not used here to imply that man wishes for everything to happen according to his wishes, rather the predictability is used in the sense for how a person will always know how he will react to the events presented to him even when they are not predictable.)

Does that mean that if a person becomes immortal, will the urge for purpose – the will to meaning ceases to exist? That is where responsibility comes into picture which Viktor Frankl has posed while defining freedom’s role in human life. Only with responsibility can the freedom be brought to the realization to possibilities out of the infinite unrealized possibilities.

In single sentence I think, a single realized possibility is more powerful than the infinite unrealized possibilities. The extraction of this power is only possible if the there is freedom with a responsibility. That is why the life exists; it exists to create the realized possibilities out of the infinite unrealized possibilities (which the universe holds or whatever ultimate there is can generate).   

How? How one discovers the purpose

The profoundness of Frankl’s logotherapy is not just about the depth of the ideas and the practicality of the experimental results. He also explained how one gains this meaning, which are as follows:

Ways to discover Meaning of Life-

  1. Creating a work or doing a deed
  2. By experiencing something or encountering someone
  3. By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering

1. Creating a work or doing a deed

It is very similar to figuring out what you actually love doing and how you can also benefit others (obviously including you) in the process. (Some call it following your passion, answering your inner calling to create something that you and others value)

2. By experiencing something or encountering someone – Power of love

“The second way of finding a meaning in life is by experiencing something – such as goodness, truth and beauty- by experiencing nature and culture or, last but not least, by experiencing another human being in his very uniqueness- by loving him.”

Viktor Frankl

The meaning of Love itself became very “meaningful” to me when I understood what the logotherapy stands for. Before stumbling upon the ideas of Viktor Frankl on “the meaning”- for me love was a selfish idea to gain pleasure, to have that comfort for ourselves. Something which goes like this:

“We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It’s our own concept – our own selves – that we love.”

Fernando Pessoa

Love is very selfish idea if we go by this statement. For me here, Pessoa meant that love emerges from inside, hence it is very “egoic” It gives us pleasure to love someone, to do everything to make them happy which ultimately will make us happy, thereby becoming selfish in the end. But then my perspectives changed. (I haven’t studied and understood the premise and the intentions behind the Pessoa’s comment on love here, which can be reserved for discussion somewhere else.)

Upon going through the ideas on Logotherapy, we become aware that there are examples where lovers (not the romantic ones only) have crossed the limits of life for other people or other things, where (again) pleasure and power were not guaranteed.

Love thus becomes a medium to realize the possibilities of the life experiences. If we are so obsessed to find the meaning of our life, then it equally becomes very meaningful to have someone who understands the same urge for meaning in you too. This love is not just a person-to-person possibility, it can also be for things and experiences.

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value: rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” 

C S Lewis

This is the reason you will always see why almost all the events, experiences, art forms, philosophies, cultures, religions and whatnot are immediately linked to the concept of love. It’s on a whim where things not making sense are illogically explained by love, it is innate fact in everyone which logotherapy makes apparent.

3. By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering

The third way one can realize the worth of life is by going through sufferings. Sufferings stretch a person to his extremes where there are clear boundaries between the existences of life and death. The urgency to make the existence of some worth becomes eminent here. The meaning discovered in such situations pushes the person to bring even the hopeless situations to his benefit by developing an attitude of optimism. The inability to change the situations makes the person change himself to bring the best out of the situation. It the way in which the person finds the meaning to his suffering.

“Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” 

Viktor Frankl

It is also important to understand that if suffering gives the person meaning for the life that also does not mean that everyone has to suffer to find the meaning in his own life. Viktor Frankl was very clear in these terms. Hence, he clarified the earlier two ways to find the meaning in life. The ideas communicated by Viktor Frankl are very similar to the ideas in stoicism which also discusses about focusing on things which you can control.

What? What is life according to the logotherapy?

The logotherapy explains that life is all about the tragedies, in Viktor’s words the tragic triad of three things namely pain, Guilt and Death. Why tragedies are considered to represent life is important here.  It is very easy for life to exist when these three things (pain, guilt, death) are not there, but the life still remains existent rather becomes more meaningful in the presence of the same hostile aspects. Logotherapy thus discusses that even in such hostile conditions, one can find the meaning, one can have the “optimal behavior” by following ways in the words of Viktor himself as follows:   

  1. Pain – Turning suffering into a human achievement and accomplishment.
  2. Guilt – Deriving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for better.
  3. Death – deriving from life’s transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action.

1. Pain

Logotherapy made a successful attempt to justify what is the real nature of pleasure and pain. It established a fact that life is not just a set of tragic events of sadness for someone and a series full of happiness for others. Life is about how we as a person create meaning out of our sufferings, even when they are not in control. This is the real victory over those sufferings. Logotherapy actually balanced the concepts of happiness and sadness which both are the inseparable aspects of every life. One of them is always favored (happiness) but the realization of meaning makes the least favorable yet existent (sadness) a reality. This is very effective when people are sad even in their pursuits of happiness. They expect that doing one specific thing will bring them happiness, make them feel accomplished. After doing that thing, achieving that thing they again become clueless and sad that it was not what they expected.  

“Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. A human being is not in the pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.”

Viktor Frankl

When people get overwhelmed upon the realization that happiness is not consistent for their whole life the existential vacuum peaks in and again this meaninglessness becomes dominant. Frankl effectively established that this forced urge to become happy is one of the major reasons for the depression, aggression and addiction in the newer generations.

2. Guilt

Frankl here gives one of his professional experiences with the convicted criminals- the guilty people of the society.  According to his ideas from personal experiences which are really powerful- every crime cannot be traced back to single point event, single person, single cause, single behavior. If it is impossible to pinpoint and press conviction on such singular aspects, then how can a person be considered completely guilty for the crime. For such human beings rather every person feeling guilty about something life is about rising above it. Even though Viktor’s examples are based on criminal and convicted human beings, it will be an understatement that they are not applicable to everyone of us. Every one of us considers themselves guilty for at least one thing, one mistake in their life. Finding the purpose, the meaning can help us to rise above this guilt with the feeling of responsibility. What a powerful thought!

Humanness in everyone is one important aspect of logotherapy. Rising above guilt through realization of meaning reflects that. It made the psychology more humanitarian rather that a mechanistic interaction between humans and their drives.

3. Death

We have already discussed that the perishable nature of life creates the urgency to meaning. The sense of death brings in the responsibility to optimally live the only life one has is an important aspect of every human life rather every life. 

“The opportunities to act properly, the potentialities to fulfill a meaning, are affected by the irreversibility of our lives.”

Viktor Frankl

This is where I think we can understand what actually lies under the existence of life. Our existence as a conscious life is destined to create the realities from the infinite possibilities that universe has. We are the means to bring the intangible possibilities into the reality through our lives which makes every life meaningful. Every life is meaningful and hence deserves dignity. It is dignified because by its mere existence it has successfully created the realities out of the unrealized and intangible possibilities. Our existence itself makes us dignified of the life we have even if it may not be useful for others.    

“An incurably psychotic individual may lose his usefulness but yet retain the dignity of a human being.”

Viktor Frankl

This is also the moment where Viktor has highlighted on creating real possibilities in present rather than dwindling on to past and future. Past is more important because it is where the reality existed, it is where the meaning of actions from the present are justified.

The Super-meaning – why does the meaning exist?

“What is demanded of man in not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms. Logos is deeper than logic.”

Viktor Frankl

It is also very important to understand that Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy is not just about finding the sense to the life, the meaning the purpose of the life. It also makes one important argument about the limitations of human understandings. When we will go on asking “why?” to the answers of every “why?”, we will end up into some abstract idea of meaning which won’t even make sense to our existence. (And again, the same spiral of existential vacuum will start thereby rendering the question useless itself) even though there are some things which are beyond your understandings that also does not mean that your meaning should always justify unknowns, rather it is paradoxical. If the purpose of life is to create the realities from the intangible, unrealized infinite possibilities then it is very important to understand that the meaning need not to be some abstract meaning in order to justify every possibility in the universe. Logotherapy thus becomes very powerful to create a practical, real picture and purpose of human life. Logotherapy thus justifies and dignifies the human life for its capabilities to be there even in the ebb and flow of existence which is the only real thing amongst the infinite yet unrealized possibilities.

For more, read Part 1 of this blog post- Answering the questions on existence of “the existence” – Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy for Humanity – Part 1

  • Featured Image – Jewish Museum Berlin