This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
Ben-Ze’ev, Aaron [1], The Subtlety of Emotions. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 2000, p. 355.
Rhetoric, Bk. II, Ch. 9, 1386b.
Throughout the paper I will be using and referring to schadenfreude in its capacity as a loanword. This means, for instance, that the term does not need to be capitalized in the middle of sentences. It is not unconventional to capitalize “schadenfreude” everywhere it appears in English in deference to the use of German nouns which are always capitalized. However, I am not writing about the German origins of the word or referring primarily to the German concept of the word. I believe the term should not be capitalized, since in the context of my paper it has been anglicized (cf. kindergarten).
See Ben-Ze’ev, op. cit.; Portmann, John [11], When Bad Things Happen to Other People, New York, NY: Routledge; Smith, Richard H [14], The Joy of Pain: Schadenfreude and the Dark Side of Human Nature. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; and Spurgin, Earl [15], “An Emotional-Freedom Defense of Schadenfreude.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Vol. 18, pp.767-84. Each describes and analyzes some, but not all, of the types of schadenfreude I identify.
For a detailed discussion of this see Ben-Ze’ev, op. cit., Chapter 12.
I suspect that the boundary between sadism and schadenfreude lies somewhere between an emperor at the Coliseum witnessing an execution he has ordered (and enjoying it because of pain he thinks himself responsible for) and a Roman citizen who simply bought a ticket to enjoy the spectacle.
It is somewhat controversial on this view whether a movie goer or a reader of fiction can experience schadenfreude. I believe that they can, insofar as they have lost themselves in the story and divorced themselves from thinking about what they are witnessing or reading as fiction. Other emotions must account for the same difficulty. For instance, the actors on the stage do not actually love one another and they are not actually parting forever. Yet scenes in movies or descriptions in books of sad occurrences can elicit ‘sadness’ in a reader. The point is that whatever one believes about these feelings (e.g. sadness, empathy) and fiction will hold true for schadenfreude as well.
It is perhaps worth noting that only imagining the pain of another (and being pleased by it) does not necessarily put one on the same moral ground (subject to the same moral judgment) as one who actually experiences schadenfreude. I think this is so because, as is potentially the case with emotions or attitudes associated with many imagined situation, those emotions or attitudes could change in the cold experience of reality. Just as confidence might turn to fear when imagining as opposed to actually delivering a speech in front of hundreds of people, joy may turn to horror when faced with the actual as opposed to imagined misfortune of another. On the other hand, one might be happier with the actual suffering of another than merely imagining it. But it does not seem to me as though enjoying imagined suffering is necessarily equivalent, normatively, to enjoying real suffering.
Several papers address the metaphysics and natural kind status of emotions. For a broader view of the debate see, Charland, Louis C. [2], “The Natural Kind Status of Emotion.” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Dec., [2], pp. 511-37; Griffiths, Paul E. [6], “Emotions as Natural and Normative Kinds.” Philosophy of Science, Vol. 71, No. 5, 901-911; and Scarantino, Andrea [13], “Core Affect and Natural Affective Kinds” Philosophy of Science, Vol. 76, No. 5 (December [13], pp. 940-57.
De Waal, Frans [4], Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and other Animals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 85.
Cikara, Mina; Emile G. Bruneau; and Rebecca Saxe [3], “Us and Them: Intergroup Failures of Empathy.” Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp.149-53. See also Takahashi, Hidehiko; Motoichiro Kato; Masato Matsuura; Dean Mobbs; Tetsuya Suhara; Yoshiro Okubo [16], “When Your Gain Is My Pain and Your Pain Is My Gain: Neural Correlates of Envy and Schadenfreude.” Science, Vol. 323 No. 5916, pp. 937-39. Takahasi et al., found that they could activate parts of the brain associated with reward when misfortune befalls an envied person.
Ibid, p. 149.
De Waal, op. cit., refers to sympathy and Cikara, et al, op. cit., use empathy as the contrastive of the feeling associated with schadenfreude. This shows some divergence in the definitions. When we empathize we identify with and can feel to some degree (or believe we are feel) what the sufferer is feeling. When we have sympathy we feel bad for the suffering of another but cannot identify with it. It is important to note that understanding schadenfreude depends on whether it is a contrastive with just one or both of these concepts.
This may not be Aristotle’s normative position, but that does not matter. His observation is enough to make my case, which is a descriptive (not normatively prescriptive) one about schadenfreude.
Rhetoric, Bk. II, Ch. 9, 1386b.
Smith, op. cit., believes schadenfreude is especially prevalent when we believe one who has wronged us is suffering some sort of misfortune.
Ben’zev, op. cit., p. 356. The emphasis is mine and not the author’s.
Ibid., p. 364.
See Portmann, op. cit.
Ibid, p. 200.
[15, p. 171]
Kristjansson, [9], p. 114. Mike McNamee also addresses this issue, and pushes for an expanded notion of schadenfreude. Interestingly, he argues that schadenfreude is not an apt description of the emotion experienced when justice is served, claiming instead for the appropriate description of the emotion to be “satisfaction”. See, McNamee, Mike [10], “Schadenfreude in Sport: Envy, Justice, and Self-Esteem.” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 30, pp. 1-16.
Hobbes, Human Nature, Chapter 9.13.
Let me note, and bracket, a small problem here. I claim that schadenfreude involves actual misfortune. Yet the mere appearance of misfortune (in a staged event) might make us laugh. I noted earlier that in such cases my analysis of schadenfreude would parallel analyses of compassion, anger, or other emotions that can be elicited by fictional books or movies. I am, however, not entirely sure what analysis to give these particular cases. My intuition is that there is a distinction that can be made, but that is separate discussion.
See fn.16 for the passage from Aristotle.
McNamee, op. cit., p. 13.
See Spurgin, op. cit. Spurgin disagrees and thinks that pleasure may be an appropriate reaction to carrying out justice. Given my claim about just desert I think I can avoid this controversy.
I will leave it an open question whether or Usama Bin Laden could only have received just desert by going to trial or received his just desert at the hands of the U.S. commando who killed him.
See Feather, N.T., and Rebecca Sherman [5], “Envy, Resentment, Schadenfreude, and Sympathy: Reactions to Deserved and Undeserved Achievement and Subsequent Failure.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28: pp. 953-61. Spurgin, op. cit., makes similar use of their research to make this point.
Nicomachean Ethics, 2.7.1108b.
I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer from The Journal of Value Inquiry for pointing out this distinction to me.
Someone with a big ego, easily angered, and generally unfriendly would probably have the ideal background psychological dispositions to feel the schadenfreude of envy.
References
Ben-Ze’ev, Aaron. 2000. The Subtlety of Emotions. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Charland, Louis C. 2002. “The Natural Kind Status of Emotion.” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Dec., 2002), pp. 511-37.
Cikara, Mina, Emile G. Bruneau, and Rebecca Saxe. 2011. Us and Them: Intergroup Failures of Empathy. Current Directions in Psychological Science 20 (3): 149–153.
De Waal, Frans. 1996. Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and other Animals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Feather, N.T., and Rebecca Sherman. 2002. Envy, Resentment, Schadenfreude, and Sympathy: Reactions to Deserved and Undeserved Achievement and Subsequent Failure. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28: 953–961.
Griffiths, Paul E. 2002. Emotions as Natural and Normative Kinds. Philosophy of Science 71 (5): 901–911.
Gaskins, J.C.A. (ed.). 1994. Human Nature and De Corpore Politico by Thomas Hobbes. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Irwin, Terrance (Trans.). 1999. Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.
Kristjánsson, Kristján. 2003. Fortunes-of-Others: Emotions and Justice. Journal of Philosophical Research 28: 105–128.
McNamee, Mike. 2003. Schadenfreude in Sport: Envy, Justice, and Self-Esteem. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 30: 1–16.
Portmann, John. 2000. When Bad Things Happen to Other People. New York, NY: Routledge.
Roberts, W. Rhys. (Trans.). 2004. Rhetoric by Aristotle, 2nd ed. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications Inc.
Scarantino, Andrea. 2009. “Core Affect and Natural Affective Kinds” Philosophy of Science, Vol. 76, No. 5 (December 2009), pp. 940-57.
Smith, Richard H. 2013. The Joy of Pain: Schadenfreude and the Dark Side of Human Nature. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Spurgin, Earl. 2015. An Emotional-Freedom Defense of Schadenfreude. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18: 767–784.
Takahashi, Hidehiko, Motoichiro Kato, Masato Matsuura, Dean Mobbs, Tetsuya Suhara, and Yoshiro Okubo. 2009. When Your Gain Is My Pain and Your Pain Is My Gain: Neural Correlates of Envy and Schadenfreude. Science 323 (5916): 937–939.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer from The Journal of Value Inquiry, Aaron Cobb, Kevin McCain, and David Gray for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gray, J.D. Pleasure in Others’ Misfortune: Three Distinct Types of Schadenfreude Found in Ancient, Modern, and Contemporary Philosophy. J Value Inquiry 55, 175–188 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-020-09745-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-020-09745-2