Schadenfreude Schadenfreude Schadenfreude (; ; 'harm-joy') is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another. It is one of four related emotions or concepts. Schadenfreude is a complex negative emotion. Rather than feeling sympathy towards someone's misfortune, schadenfreude evokes joyful feelings that take pleasure from watching someone fail. This emotion is displayed more in children than adults, however adults also experience schadenfreude, they are just better at concealing their expressions. "Schadenfreude" is borrowed from German; it is a compound of "Schaden", "damage, harm", and "Freude", "joy". The German
Argument from desire First, whereas other desires “are felt as pleasures only if satisfaction is expected in the near future,” with Joy “the mere wanting is felt to be somehow a delight.” Joy thus “cuts across our ordinary distinctions between wanting and having. To have it is, by definition, a want: to want it, we find, is to have it”. Second, Joy differs from all other desires in the mysteriousness or elusiveness of its object(s). With Joy, it is not clear exactly what is desired, and false leads are common. Many suppose, wrongly, that Joy is a desire for some particular worldly satisfaction