English utilitarianism has met with little acceptance in Germany; among more eminent contemporary thinkers Eugen Dühring is its chief advocate; Friedrich Paulsen also sides with the Englishmen. Eduard von Hartmann has attempted to demonstrate the impossibility of simultaneously promoting culture and happiness. Nietzsche finds new difficulties in an analysis of the concept of happiness. The object of utilitarianism is to procure humanity as much pleasure and as little of the reverse as possible. But what if pleasure and pain are so intertwined that he who wants all the pleasure he can get must take a corresponding amount of suffering into the bargain? Clärchen's song contains the words: "Himmelhoch jauchzend, zum Tode betrübt" Who knows whether the latter is not the condition of the former? The Stoics believed this, and, wishing to avoid pain, asked of life the minimum of pleasure. Probably it is equally unwise in our day to promise men intense joys, if they are to be insured against great sufferings.
We see that Nietzsche transfers the question to the highest spiritual plane, without regard to the fact that the lowest and commonest misfortunes, such as hunger, physical exhaustion, excessive and unhealthy labour, yield no compensation in violent joys. Even if all pleasure be dearly bought, it does not follow that all pain is interrupted and counterbalanced by intense enjoyment.
In accordance with his aristocratic bias he then attacks Bentham's proposition: the greatest possible happiness of the greatest possible number. The ideal was, of course, to procure happiness for everybody; as this could not be done, the formula took the above shape. But why happiness for the greatest number? We might imagine it for the best, the noblest, the most gifted; and we may be permitted to ask whether moderate prosperity and moderate well-being are preferable to the inequality of lot which acts as a goad, forcing culture ever upward.