The Value of Life 221out of us what we want and then must imposefrom with-
out the content we are to give to what we want.
We value the fulfillment of a desire because it springs
from our own being. What we have attained has value be-
cause it is wanted. If we deny any value to the goal of hu-
man willing as such, then we must find valued goals that
have value in something that human beings do not want.
The ethics built upon pessimism springs from a neglect
of moral imagination. Only those who consider the indi-
vidual human spirit incapable of providing itself with the
content of its striving can see the totality of what we want
in the yearning for pleasure. The person without imagina-
tion creates no ethical ideas. Such a person must receive
these ideas from without. Our physical nature ensures that
we strive after satisfaction of our lower desires. But de-
velopment of the whole human being also includes desire
originating in the spirit. Only if we believe that human be-
ings have no such desires can we claim that they must be
received from without. We would then be justified in say-
ing that we are duty bound to do something that we do not
want. Every ethics that requires us to repress what we
want in order to fulfill tasks that we do not want, fails to
reckon with thewhole human being and reckons instead
with a human being devoid of the capacity for spiritual
desire. For harmoniously developed human beings, so-
called ideas of the Good lie notwithout butwithin the cir-
cle of their being. Ethical conduct lies not in the elimina-
tion of a one-sided self-will but infulldevelopment of
human nature. Anyone who considers ethical ideals at-
tainable only if we kill off our self-will is unaware that