Editing Happiness (section)

===Nietzsche===
[[Friedrich Nietzsche]] critiqued the English [[Utilitarianism|Utilitarians]]' focus on attaining the greatest happiness, stating that "Man does not strive for happiness, only the Englishman does".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |title=Twilight of the Idols |publisher=OUP Oxford |year=1889 |isbn=978-0140445145 |pages=1 |language=English}}</ref> Nietzsche meant that making happiness one's ultimate ''goal'' and the aim of one's existence, in his words "makes one contemptible." Nietzsche instead yearned for a culture that would set higher, more difficult goals than "mere happiness." He introduced the quasi-dystopic figure of the "last man" as a kind of [[thought experiment]] against the utilitarians and happiness-seekers.<ref name="plato.stanford.edu">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche-moral-political/|title=Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy|encyclopedia=stanford.edu|access-date=10 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120112064629/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche-moral-political/|archive-date=12 January 2012|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="auto2">{{cite web|title=Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)|url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/nietzsch/|website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy|access-date=10 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150815204318/http://www.iep.utm.edu/nietzsch/|archive-date=15 August 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>

These small, "last men" who seek after only their own pleasure and health, avoiding all danger, exertion, difficulty, challenge, struggle are meant to seem contemptible to Nietzsche's reader. Nietzsche instead wants us to consider the value of what is difficult, what can only be earned through struggle, difficulty, pain and thus to come to see the affirmative value suffering and ''unhappiness'' truly play in creating everything of great worth in life, including all the highest achievements of human culture, not least of all philosophy.<ref name="plato.stanford.edu"/><ref name="auto2"/>