Cicero’s On Moral Ends (De Finibus) is an important source for Epicurean ethics, despite the fact that Cicero views our school quite unsympathetically. The work is in dialogue form, with the first of its five books largely dedicated to a speech by the Epicurean spokesman Torquatus. This passage is arguably the most extended, continuous exposition of Epicurean ethics that we have, and is generally accurate and well-informed. Book 2 of On Moral Ends, however, is where Cicero offers his own criticisms of Epicurean ethics. He has a lot to say.

I think it’s helpful to read both one’s philosophical allies and critics, so today I’ll be diving into all the things Cicero thinks are deficient in the Epicurean ethical system. Cicero is famously a man who loved to hear himself talk, so I won’t be able to address every one of his complaints. (They come pretty flying out at a pretty furious pace for about 40 pages, in response to Torquatus’ 12 pages of exposition.) What I’ve done instead is to pick out ten of his arguments that seem to be both significant to Cicero and routinely encountered among Epicurean critics down to the present day. If people have found the same things objectionable for 2000 years, then those points should probably be carefully considered and addressed.

At the end of Book 2, Torquatus says that he would like to consult Philodemus and Siro before responding to Cicero. Unfortunately, we don’t get to hear how contemporary Epicurean teachers would have answered these charges. We’ll have to make do with me.

1. Pleasure and absence of pain are different.

I would concede that in normal, casual use, “pleasure” and “absence of pain” typically refer to different things. However, it is very common for philosophers to use words in more precise and specific ways than we customarily do. Even Cicero acknowledges this when it suits him: “Philosophy is the art of life, and it cannot take ordinary language as the basis for its discussions,” he writes in the introduction to his account of Stoicism (3.4). To be a meaningful objection, then, I think one would have to argue that Epicurus’ deemphasizing of this distinction (he certainly still uses both the words “pleasure” and “removal of pain” when differentiation is useful) is pointless, confused, or unhelpful.

Personally, I think Epicurus’ point is a good one, and far from totally divorced from common sense. People enjoy receiving “agreeable stimulus,” certainly. But they also enjoy the alleviation of pain. The two phenomena often are joined in a single decision-making context, from the most simple (we stop putting pleasant-tasting food in our mouths if the discomfort of overeating becomes apparent) to the more long-term (we do unpleasant diet and exercise in order to access the pleasures of health, fitness, or feeling more attractive). It would be very strange to say that people should only consider one side or the other of such equations, and so putting pain down as a negative quantity of pleasure has become a standard philosophical practice running through the entire Utilitarian tradition.

2. Psychological hedonism is a bunch of hooey. Contrary to Epicurus, infants and animals don’t always seek pleasure, and neither do mature humans.

Epicurus liked to demonstrate that pleasure (and the avoidance of pain) were universal and innate objects of pursuit by pointing to infants and animals. Cicero doesn’t buy it, but instead asserts that infants are motivated by a distinguishable phenomenon of self-preservation, while numerous animals demonstrate supposedly altruistic behavior. As with the previous criticism, such arguments reflect Cicero’s desire to reduce “pleasure” down to the most narrow usage of common language. Here, however, he portrays this as an objection to the substance of Epicurus’ doctrines, rather than just a quibble over his use of words. In reality, it’s still the latter.

One could say that “self-preservation” is a goal of evolution. Epicurus wouldn’t argue with that. But he would argue that sensations of pleasure and pain are the mechanism by which we are steered to self-preserving behaviors. If an infant feels pain, it cries. This brings assistance, which aids self-preservation, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t responding to pain. An infant drinks milk because it’s pleasurable. This is undoubtedly good for its self-preservation, but again pleasure was the signal. Animals protect their young. This is good for ensuring their genetic survival, but they aren’t calculating that benefit—they feel a shock of painful fear when a predator threatens their offspring and feel an urge to alleviate that emotion.

Cicero’s citation of a Roman soldier facing certain death is responding to an earlier exchange with Torquatus, the Epicurean spokesman of the dialogue. Torquatus explicitly addressed such scenarios, arguing that instances of risky military valor must have offered counterbalancing pleasures such as the prospect of glory or avoiding the shame of not doing one’s duty (1.35). Cicero the writer is therefore aware of the basic structure of the Epicurean response, but insists that glory and shame are inherently non-hedonistic motives. He prefers to view such behaviors as the product of self-evident, intrinsic virtue. I think this introduces far more questionable premises compared to an evenhanded comparison of psychological urges.

More on the virtues below. More on psychological hedonism here.

3. Epicurus gets even basic, obvious things about pleasure wrong. Everyone knows that longer periods of pleasure are better and that more expensive things give more pleasure.

For some reason, Cicero is happy to grant (in the same passage) the Stoic contention that once complete virtue is achieved, it gains nothing from temporal extension. I don’t know why he is unable to grasp Epicurus making a similar distinction between the magnitude of pleasure and the duration of pleasure. We consider it an inevitable part of human nature that we will always want to increase our current level of pleasure; we are constantly motivated by the prospect of alleviating a pain or obtaining a pleasure relative to our state right now. The comparatively abstract concept of wanting to live for 90 years instead of 89 we hold to be substantially less central to human psychology and largely a learned habit, one that is unhelpful if it becomes an excessive point of focus. I’ve written more about this distinction here.

As for the hedonistic preferability of expensive things, this is one of the main points of Epicurus’ insistence on the centrality of pain alleviation. Compared to any of the major pains of life, the majority of them mental, the difference in pleasure between a fancy meal and a normal meal is trivial. I’ve written about the proper perspective on such “natural but not necessary desires” here.

4. The senses are not a valid judge for the desirability of pleasure.

Apparently, if you ask “reason,” “wisdom,” and “the virtues” to judge what is best in life, they will say themselves. If you ask “the senses,” they will say pleasure. Obviously, the first are to be believed and the second are not, according to Cicero. Personally, I think this position is almost entirely a product of positive connotations being attached to “virtue” and the like in public discourse, while negative connotations attach to “pleasure.” This was perhaps especially true in elite Roman circles, but the same basic prejudice persists today. Pleasure feels dubious as an avowable life goal. This is a largely vibes-based argument.

In reality, I would reverse Cicero’s instinctual favoritism. To me, the senses seem to say that “pleasure is good” and “pain is bad” very consistently, while human reason comes to a great variety of conclusions as to the nature of wisdom and the virtues, and the degree to which they should be sought, so I would incline towards having more trust in the first of these judges.

For the full argument on why pleasure is the most sensible and conservative candidate for a final end, see John Stuart Mill is smarter than his critics.

5. After all, pleasure is obviously bad and unworthy of the noble human soul.

Speaking of Johnny Mill, I’ll let him respond to this old chestnut:

When thus attacked, the Epicureans have always answered, that it is not they, but their accusers, who represent human nature in a degrading light; since the accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable. If this supposition were true, the charge could not be gainsaid, but would then be no longer an imputation; for if the sources of pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to swine, the rule of life which is good enough for the one would be good enough for the other. The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely because a beast’s pleasures do not satisfy a human being’s conceptions of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification. (Utilitarianism, Chapter 2)

Epicureans do more than eat and have sex. We are just as capable as any virtue ethicists of, say, engaging in civilized conversation, appreciating the arts, and writing philosophy.

6. Everyone admits the pleasures are bad. We all admire those who don’t choose pleasure. Those who choose pleasure are ashamed to admit that they do.

Pleasure does still have a bad reputation, though perhaps not quite as much as in Cicero’s day (especially when discussed under related terms such as “happiness” or “security”). If if I were entering political office like Torquatus, it’s true that I would not make a big speech about how my only goal in life is pleasure, in part because most people wouldn’t understand that, and in part because it wouldn’t be accurate in the way that Cicero is suggesting—Epicureans, like anyone else, do their jobs to the best of their ability, because the faithful and reliable discharging of our duties will lead to better personal results than if everyone is mad at us and we get fired.

This explains part of the Epicurean attitude towards “selfless benefactors” of humanity: when people accept a role of public responsibility, they should fulfill that responsibility. This is very similar to the Epicurean insistence on faithful friendship, even to the point of death if needed. To enjoy the trust and support of others requires that we stand by our own commitments and consistently demonstrate ourselves to be faithful and reliable.

That being said, it is true that we are less enthusiastic about “public-spirited” people than Cicero is. Often, such people just seem to be aiming at their own personal glory, which is no more admirable than any other way of pursuing one’s own happiness, and probably less effective. Dramatic self-sacrifice on behalf of the public is too exacting to serve as a standard for mass emulation, and so the elevation of such uncommon heroes as an ideal tends to exaggerate societal feelings of both self-importance and inadequacy, while unjustifiably denigrating more mundane ways of contributing to those around us. As I’ve argued before, Epicureans do help other people, in ways that I think are more substantial than most.

7. Friendship based on hedonistic advantage is no friendship at all.

Epicurus says that friendship originates in mutual advantage, and he often emphasizes the practical benefits of friendship—it’s good to have someone you can call on when facing difficulties! Cicero, like many others, dislikes even mentioning utility in the context of friendship, which he prefers to think of as a purely noble and selfless endeavor. In the process of advocating for this position, he either misunderstands or mischaracterizes the Epicurean idea of friendship, which clearly is “genuine” and not quick to desert a friend in need. Remember: the wise Epicurean will die for a friend if needed.

I describe the solution to this seeming paradox in my discussion of Tim O’Keefe’s comprehensive article, “Is Epicurean friendship altruistic?”

8. Virtue, in contrast to pleasure, is self-evidently choiceworthy to nearly everyone, especially to all of the best people.

First, as described above, Epicureans don’t think people act this way. While the virtues are names for socially-approved and generally socially-beneficial behaviors, the way individuals actually make their decisions is based on a complex psychological web of motivations that varies from person to person. Some people fear legal punishment if they behave “wrongly.” Some people fear social disapproval. Other people hope for praise, either from society at large or from particular peers. Some people have internalized these standards very strongly, such that they continue to feel the motivating fears of punishment or disapproval even when observation is unlikely.

These psychological phenomena definitely exist. People acknowledge that we have legal punishments at least in part for their deterrent effect. People acknowledge that teachers and parents, for example, should use praise and blame to foster good behavioral patterns in children. Disentangling any “pure” motivation that is some kind of non-socially-mediated intuition of the true nature of virtuous action seems like a much more tenuous claim.

Second, despite Cicero’s insinuations, Epicurus strongly endorses following the conventional standards of virtue. Essentially all of his teachings work to underline, not undermine, the social sanctions that encourage “good” behavior. For more on that, see Principal Doctrines 5 and 17.

9. Humans are made for virtue.

This kind of simplistic teleology (“Rationality is what makes humans uniquely human, therefore reasoning is our highest purpose. Unlike stupid, dirty animals”) is mostly out of fashion among modern people, but it continues to have a strong afterlife in the high regard granted to Aristotle and the Stoics. Epicurus thinks this is silly: we are basically animals like any others, just more clever. We should therefore use our greater intelligence to pursue the normal animal desire for pleasure in a more thoughtful and effective manner. Humans are smarter than other animals, but that doesn’t make us exempt from being animals.

10. Epicurus’ claim that virtue is good because it leads to pleasure is false. It doesn’t. Only seeming virtuous does.

I alluded to these Epicurean teachings in my answer to #8. Some of the most concise encapsulations of the relevant ideas are Principal Doctrine 34 and 35:

As is widely acknowledged, legal punishment and social disapproval shape behavior. As is sometimes recognized, fears of these downsides (and hope for praise or reward) can become sufficiently habitual so as to retain a large part of their effectiveness even when enforcement is unlikely. Cicero claims, however, that the fact these external motivating forces are not 100% effective at generating good behavior undermines the Epicurean argument that the virtues can be regarded as instrumental tools, rather than things we need to insist are self-evident moral truths.

I don’t think this follows. Cicero’s preferred teaching is that the virtues simply exist and that following them often involves going against our own pleasure. Is this position really strengthened by the existence of conscienceless moral reprobates? Such people have evidently not been heretofore convinced by moralists extolling the importance of intrinsic virtue. Another sermon probably isn’t going to do it. But increasing the severity, likelihood, or salience of punishment might. Harsher legal classifications for certain misdeeds, or increasing cops on the street or cameras in the shops, leads to a decrease in undesirable behavior. Epicureans are practical, and favor practical enforcement over wishful pontificating. (Policy advice is not our main focus, but we recognize why cities have laws and think they make sense.)

It’s like crime boss Susie Glass said in The Gentlemen when explaining why she had to have the cheating bookie Sticky Pete beaten black and blue:

There’s a dog in a man that the man can’t control. So, we had to control it for him. D’you know what the fundamental challenge with the human condition is? … Too much untrained dog.

And we are in the dog training business.

If you’re particularly worried about people like Lucius Tubulus, Quintus Pompeius, and Sticky Pete, then you should probably advocate for more vigorous and consistent punishment, rather than spend your time lecturing the leading spokespeople of “crime doesn’t pay.” Since Epicurus isn’t in charge of law enforcement, but is giving individual advice, he does what he can to promote good behavior by highlighting the likelihood of bad consequences and emphasizing that socially-beneficial conduct will lead to outcomes that are clearly preferable on average. Cicero’s contrasting insistence that one has to choose either virtue or pleasure seems more likely to be counterproductive as crime-prevention rhetoric. “The consequence of law-breaking is pleasure” is a terrible slogan for a tough-on-crime politician.

Conclusion

To be fair to Cicero, he is not alone in most of his criticisms. Many of them are based on Epicurus’ redefinition of pleasure, a much-maligned word with quite different connotations in the vast majority of non-Epicurean moralism, and in popular use. A charitable reader could argue that while he has heard many Epicurean arguments (as evidenced by Book 1), he has not actually fully understood all of them. If this were a real dialogue, rather than an imaginary one, perhaps an intelligent Epicurean interlocutor could clarify various positions and nudge Cicero to give a less prejudicial consideration of our arguments. Personally, I think he often intentionally distorts Epicurean doctrine, but the borders are not always clear.

What does seem clear to me is that his arguments are not good. He quibbles over differences between the standard use of words and Epicurus’ preferred terminology, as if adopting particular formal definitions of common words were not standard philosophical practice. He often speaks reflexively against pleasure, simple spouting the common prejudices of his class against anything suggesting sensual indulgence, rather than engaging with the actually fairly austere lifestyle that Epicurus advocates. And where he does offer substantive challenges, I think the Epicureans have good responses to his objections.

Cicero pursued fame and ambition, faced political defeat and personal sorrows, and met a violent end due to personal enmity during the death throes of the Roman Republic. Throughout his life, he argued that he followed the path of virtue, and that that path would lead to greater happiness than a quiet life of tranquility and simple pleasures. Much could be said on behalf of his triumphs and accomplishments. But ultimately, neither his life nor his writings offer convincing testimony that he achieved the happiness he sought.

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Principal Doctrine 26:

Principal Doctrine 29:

Scholion (ancient marginal note) on PD 29:

Principal Doctrine 30:

Commentary

I have discussed all of these texts previously in the first part of my article on The Classification of Desires. Although I’ve fine-tuned my translations a little here, that two-part essay offers a deeper dive into the overall topic, bringing in some additional texts and addressing various nuances of the relevant doctrines. Today, then, I will confine myself to relatively briefer remarks on each saying: think of this as either a quick refresher, or as an abbreviated intro—for a fuller understanding, read the longer essay.

Although the Principal Doctrines often have clearly meaningful groupings, the order is often not as straightforward as one would like. Some speculate that some errors in transcription may have occurred, including here, such that the original order may have been lost. In today’s case, Principal Doctrine 26 discusses a part of the famous three-part classification of desires, PD 27 and 28 discuss friendship (I’ll return to them in the next installment), PD 29 provides the most natural introductory statement on the classification of desires, and PD 30 continues the discussion. Accordingly, the most straightforward order to take these in today is PD 29 (with its accompanying ancient commentary), then PD 26 and 30.

This maxim sets out the three categories in a very simple and straightforward way. A slightly more elaborate version has also been preserved in the Letter to Menoeceus:

In both cases, however, the categories are presented as generalities—some examples would be very helpful! Fortunately, the manuscripts contain a marginal note (scholion) that seems to be of ancient origin, by a commentator who had knowledge of other Epicurean texts.

This is one of the most straightforward pieces of evidence for what kinds of things Epicurus would have placed in each category. “Natural and necessary” is easily understood in the cases of bodily necessities: we need food, we need hydration, and we need basic clothing and shelter (if we lack these, we will experience pain from exposure to the elements. Such items would also seem to correspond to two of the sub-categories mentioned in the Letter to Menoeceus passage: food and water are things “necessary for life itself,” while clothing and shelter may fall sometimes into that sub-category and sometimes into that of things needed to “pacify the body’s demands”—i.e. while a certain level of cold will not kill us, it will be unavoidably uncomfortable. Epicurus would still consider that a “natural and necessary” desire, since it is not one we can train ourselves out of. The third sub-category from the Menoeceus passage is about desires needed “for happiness.” This is the least clear. A highly likely candidate for this designation is the desire for friendship; others also propose the desire for wisdom or for sex (for my thoughts on the latter, see here).

For the second category of “natural but not necessary” desires, the scholion suggests “expensive food.” It also notes that such desires serve only to “vary” pleasure, and do not take away suffering. The word translated as “vary” is poikillo (ποικίλλω), of which the literal meaning is “embroider,” “ornament,” or “adorn.” In many context, “vary” is a perfectly good translation, but I think it’s reasonable to see some flavor of “adornment” here as well: some people might say that if pleasure is “ornamented” further, then something has indeed been added to it. Technically speaking, this is defensible. But ornamentation is still inherently minor and non-essential, with only a trivial addition of value and no improvement of function (to a garment, for instance). So, while it is often written in commentaries that things like expensive food only “vary” but do not increase pleasure in the Epicurean sense, those who find this phrasing technically objectionable (“isn’t tastier food a little more pleasurable than less tasty food?”) could instead think of the Epicurean distinction in terms of “ornamentation.” Items in this category might “ornament,” might add some little frills and fancy edges to the pleasures of life. Such frills, however, are comparatively unimportant. The difference between the pain of real hunger and a satiated state is immeasurably larger than the difference between a $10 meal and a $100 meal.

To clarify these non-necessary desires further, we should look at our other texts:

To continue with the scholion’s “expensive food” example, you will not experience any suffering if you eat inexpensive food rather than expensive food. Your body will be just as satisfied. If someone walks into a sandwich shop with a hankering for a meatball sandwich, but is told that it will cost $500, while the chicken sandwich is available for $10, most people will drop the desire for the meatball sandwich, eat the chicken sandwich, and feel just as much physical contentment afterwards. We would likewise change our order if the meatball sandwich came with a warning that it will likely cause painful indigestion and vomiting after a few hours.

Similar scenarios could be written up for other such desires: more expensive drinks, more expensive clothing, more expensive houses. All such desires are “natural” in that we unavoidably desire to eat, drink, be clothed, and be sheltered. If the meatball sandwich is easy to acquire, then enjoy it! If you find some nice shirts on the clearance rack, then pick the one you like! But the desire for any one specific way of satisfying an underlying bodily demand is not itself necessary. Why then, you might ask, do some people get so attached to pursuing such desires? Epicurus has more:

Apparently, desires are not categorized only according to their external objects, but also according to the internal state they evoke: the desire for expensive food can be more aptly placed in the third category of “neither natural nor necessary” if it is held with an excessively “intense passion.” That strength of feeling, that neurotic obsessiveness, is a clear sign that this is not simply the natural and relatively unobjectionable desire for pleasant variety, but the product of some kind of “empty opinion” (kenai doxai).

Maybe you want expensive clothes because you think they will win you the admiration of the world at large as you walk down the street. Maybe you want to eat at the expensive restaurant because that’s where the rich people eat, and you want to earn their esteem. Maybe you want a new $100,000 car because driving a used Chevy is for poor people and you want potential mates to know that you are not a poor person. None of these desires are necessary. None of them are even “natural,” in the sense of “a universal attribute of human nature”—plenty of humans have lived through life without ever feeling such desires. Instead, they are the result of interacting with a particular society in a particular way, adopting the habits and beliefs of a particular subset of its members.

Now at last we can come full circle, to the main body of those desires which are “neither natural nor necessary.” The scholion mentioned “crowns and the erection of statues,” which are the physical manifestations of the desires for political power and fame. Other desires that belong in this category according to Epicurus are those for great wealth or eternal life. None of these are innate to humans; all of them are created through ungrounded opinion.

Evolutionary biologists might point out that the desires for, say, social status and material resources, are perfectly natural. Epicurus’ point is that the pursuit of these specific, particularly complex, hard-to-achieve manifestations of such desires is not. There is nothing in the human genetic inheritance to say that a person needs to be admired by thousands of online strangers or have five million dollars to be happy. There is nothing in our biology that says when our desires for status or resources have achieved “enough.” When it comes to such mental, rather than physical desires, it is therefore up to our minds to determine that point of pleasurable satiety. We should do so based on the careful evaluation of our own experience along with the rational application of science—not based on the hearsay of the least thoughtful.

Return, therefore, to the natural desires. It is easy to slake your thirst, satisfy your hunger, and wrap your body up in comfort on a cold night. Friendship and knowledge have very modest price tags. Fame and fortune have no limits except those we set ourselves, so be sure to set them wisely, at levels that are within easy reach. No matter where you draw the line, our nature will declare it sufficient for what is after all a really quite modest project—the making of a single happy human.

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Read more on the Classification of Desires here, or explore the complete series on the Principal Doctrines on this page.

Original Text

26: τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν ὅσαι μὴ ἐπʼ ἀλγοῦν ἐπανάγουσιν ἐὰν μὴ συμπληρῶσιν, οὐκ εἰσιν ἀναγκαῖαι, ἀλλʼ εὐδιάχυτον τὴν ὄρεξιν ἔχουσιν, ὅταν δυσπορίστοι2 ἤ βλάβης ἀπεργαστικαὶ δόξωσιν εἶναι.

29: τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν αἱ μέν εἰσι φυσικαὶ καὶ <ἀναγκαῖαι, αἱ δὲ φυσικαὶ καὶ>3 οὐκ ἀναγκαῖαι, αἱ δὲ οὔτε φυσικαὶ οὔτε ἀναγκαῖαι, ἀλλὰ παρὰ κενὴν δόξαν γινόμεναι.

Scholion to 29: φυσικὰς καὶ ἀναγκαίας ἡγεῖται ὁ Ἐπίκουρος τὰς ἀλγηδόνος ἀπολυούσας, ὡς ποτὸν ἐπὶ δίψους: φυσικὰς δὲ οὐκ ἀναγκαίας δὲ τὰς ποικιλλούσας μόνον τὴν ἡδονήν, μὴ ὑπεξαιρουμένας δὲ τὸ ἄλγημα, ὡς πολυτελῆ σιτία: οὔτε δὲ φυσικὰς οὔτ᾽ ἀναγκαίας, ὡς στεφάνους καὶ ἀνδριάντων ἀναθέσεις.

30: ἐν αἷς τῶν φυσικῶν ἐπιθμιῶν μὴ ἐπʼ ἀλγοῦν δὲ ἐπαναγουσῶν ἐὰν μὴ συντελεσθῶσιν, ὑπάρχει ἡ σπουδὴ σύντονος, παρὰ κενὴν δόξαν αὗται γίνονται, καὶ οὐ παρὰ τὴν ἑαυτῶν φύσιν οὐ διαχέονται ἀλλὰ παρὰ τὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κενοδοξίαν.

One of the more popular articles on Untroubled is my invitation to modern Stoics to reconsider their allegiance, Most Modern Stoics Aren’t Stoics. Today, I’d like to do something similar for the ancient Skeptical school of Pyrrhonism, which has also (on a smaller scale) been finding some modern adherents. I believe that much of what might draw someone to Pyrrhonism is also present in Epicureanism, while I consider us to offer a broader scope of counsel that I think makes our school more compelling as an overall philosophy of life.

For those who are not familiar with Pyrrhonism, it is one of the two major Skeptical schools of antiquity (along with Academic Skepticism), both of which were concerned with undermining the claims of the other “dogmatic” schools. According to the Pyrrhonists, letting go of all dogmatic beliefs is the key to attaining ataraxia, the untroubled state also prioritized by the Epicureans. Importantly, suspending belief in dogmatic claims does not prevent one from living more or less normally: Pyrrhonists accept “evident” phenomena and the usefulness of subjective appearances, and have a practical set of criteria for action that they maintain as separate from appropriate criteria for belief. If you would like to know more, I recommend the work of Doug Bates, author of the book Pyrrho’s Way and of the Substack Ataraxia or Bust! I’ve always found Doug to be a willing participant in good-faith discussion and draw heavily on his work in today’s essay.

For my part, I would like to invite all Pyrrhonist sympathizers to consider the merits of Epicureanism in three steps. First, I’ll note some significant points of overlap between Pyrrhonism and Epicureanism: overall, both philosophies are intensely concerned with dispelling ungrounded opinions that lead to distress. Second, I’ll address perhaps the central Pyrrhonist concern with Epicureanism—the idea that we dogmatically assert the goodness and centrality of pleasure in an unjustifiable way—and lay out some factors that I think make our position significantly different than the dogmatic beliefs the Pyrrhonists rightly criticize in other schools. Finally, I’ll lay out my main dissatisfaction with Pyrrhonism: while the philosophy’s destructive project is quite effective, I think their constructive project is significantly incomplete, often briefly acknowledging practical concerns while consistently underrating their importance in achieving ataraxia.

Where we agree

I recently read and enjoyed Bates’ book Pyrrho’s Way. As far as I know, it is the foremost contemporary book that aims to take the doctrines of ancient Pyrrhonism, primarily documented in Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism, and actually advocate for their practical value. Based on the emphases of Bates’ book, there are a number of core Pyrrhonist claims with which Epicureans would be highly sympathetic:

1. Ataraxia is a good goal for philosophic practice.

Like the Pyrrhonists, the Epicureans consider this to be essentially self-evident. Almost everyone will agree, based on their own experience, that tranquility is preferable to distress.

2. Adhering to ungrounded beliefs causes distress; it is good to identify arguments against those beliefs and discard them.

The Epicurean term for “empty” or “groundless” opinions is kenai doxai. A great deal of Epicurean therapy is aimed at dissecting and dispelling counterproductive beliefs that dominate people’s thoughts, but which are not conducive to tranquility. For example, some Epicurean targets include the beliefs that death is bad, that the gods should be feared, that wealth, power, and fame will make one happy, or that the traditional virtues are inherently good.

3. Ordinary (“evident”) perceptions should be accepted. Useful criteria for guiding our practical decisions include the information of our senses, our internal drives such as hunger and thirst, and the laws and customs of our society.

All sound principles to the Epicurean mind! “Internal drives such as hunger and thirst” are a particular emphasis with us and I’m glad to see their usefulness is not disputed. We would likewise approve of the prudential consideration of local laws and customs:

4. Many of the dogmatic beliefs that are most troublesome are related to ethical matters, such as religion, laws, and customs. There is so much disagreement here that we should be very skeptical whether simplistic moral claims are straightforwardly and objectively true.

Yes, moral claims and talk of “virtue” are rife with kenai doxai. We never assert particular moral rules or virtues as justification for our choices. We think you can only evaluate such things in terms of more concrete results, such as their impact on those “internal drives” we were talking about, like hunger, thirst, and other forms of physical pain. Different formulations of what is approved by law or society will be adopted in different times and places.

5. Science is a largely inductive endeavor, and so scientific theories are generally not “true” in an absolute sense, although they may be very useful for predictive purposes. We should recognize the history of changing scientific paradigms and be aware that a better theory may well come along in the future. As Bates says, however, “Well-tested, no-longer-disputed scientific theories can also be seen as just more complex examples of things the ancient Pyrrhonists explicitly accepted.”1

Epicureans were famous for a practice sometimes known as the “principle of multiple explanations.” We recognize that our senses and tools of scientific observation are limited, and so, as a practice of epistemic humility, we recommend formulating multiple plausible explanations for phenomena without asserting any one of them as true. In ancient times, for instance, Epicureans were unsure whether the earth orbited the sun—it was one viable hypothesis among others. Today, based on a large basis of detailed observation and human space exploration, we would feel confident in accepting such a claim.

Of course, Pyrrhonists and Epicureans still have their differences. But it is important to recognize our many areas of agreement. My impression is that many modern Pyrrhonists find ancient Skepticism appealing because they either have experienced distress themselves from previous adherence to dogmatic claims, or because they see how others cause themselves such distress. Maybe they argued about politics. Maybe they found dogmatic philosophers to be blindly self-confident. Maybe they thought the Stoics were spouting nonsense.

I would invite all such people to investigate Epicureanism. We are the most famous advocates of not getting upset by politics. We are the most famous practitioners of refraining from unjustified certainty, because having multiple plausible explanations of the way things are is more conducive to tranquility than pinning one’s hopes on an unjustifiably singular theory.2 We are the most famous opponents of the Stoics—for every good Pyrrhonist argument against the Stoics, we are right there with you.

So what’s holding you back from joining the Garden?

The main Pyrrhonist critique of Epicureanism

Ethically, most significant differences between the two schools are downstream of one big claim: the Epicureans assert that pleasure is good and pain is bad, while the Pyrrhonists argue that this is a dogmatic position which is counterproductive to ataraxia and should be abandoned. I think this is wrong, for three reasons:

1. Most critiques of Epicurean hedonism (including Bates’ in Pyrrho’s Way) are based on simple misunderstandings of what we mean by pleasure and pain.

2. If you correctly understand what we mean by pleasure, the core Epicurean principles need not even be read as espousing dogmatic beliefs. Our advocacy for pleasure as the good is closer to an action-guiding principle than a metaphysical claim.

3. I don’t think the Pyrrhonists actually oppose the real-world advice we derive from our hedonistic principles.

1. Misunderstandings of Epicurean pleasure

The Epicurean idea of pleasure is constantly misunderstood. To briefly recap what I’ve elaborated on elsewhere, we are:

• Prudential hedonists: We do not grasp impulsively at near-term pleasures, but advocate for the careful calculation of total, long-term, net pleasure over pain.

• Largely “negative” hedonists: We consider the positive physical pleasures of caricatural hedonists (food, sex, etc.) to be very minor elements compared to the reduction of pain, particularly mental pains like fear, distress, and unsatisfiable desires.

• Psychological hedonists: We consider all human actions to be motivated by the desire for pleasure or the avoidance of pain. We prefer to consider motivations that are commonly considered to be opposed to pleasure (following duty or virtue, for instance) simply as alternative sources of psychological satisfaction that should not be categorically separated from more conventionally-understood sources of “pleasure.” This is a more neutral framework for comparing competing psychological impulses.

Once you understand this properly, much criticism of Epicurean hedonism is shown to be simply erroneous. For example, here is the complete response to Epicurean hedonism offered by Bates in Pyrrho’s Way:

The Epicureans think they have shown that pleasure is inherently choiceworthy. They point out that animals right from birth, and when still untrained, are inclined to pleasure and averse to pain. Against this position one can argue that what produces something bad cannot be inherently good. Pleasure, however, produces bad things, as pain is bound up with pleasure. For example, the drunkard feels pleasure filling himself up with wine, the lecher feels pleasure in risky and inappropriate sexual intercourse. But these activities lead to poverty and disease. Therefore pleasure is not inherently good.

Similarly, things which produce good things cannot be said to be inherently bad. But pains produce pleasures. For example, hard work is painful, but we gain things through hard work, such as knowledge and wealth. Exercise produces health. Therefore hard work is not inherently bad. Medical procedures are often painful, but people submit to them because the procedures so often make people feel better. If pleasure were inherently good and pain inherently bad, everyone would make the same decisions about them, but we see many people choosing hard work and temperance while disdaining pleasure. Therefore pleasure must not be inherently good nor pain inherently bad.3

Fully accounting for total hedonic outcomes is not a refutation of Epicureanism—it is Epicureanism! We don’t advocate in favor of drunken lechery, or against exercise and medical procedures. The only argument Bates gives against pleasure here is that sometimes pleasure will lead to negative outcomes like “poverty and disease”—such courses of action are simply not net sources of pleasure. His only argument against avoiding pain is that pains can “produce pleasures”—this likewise means they are not, on net, pains at all. The strategic mistakes that people make in their pursuit of pleasure have no bearing on whether people do or should pursue pleasure. This argument is so inadequate that I suspect Bates would probably revise it now, as I haven’t seen such clumsy anti-Epicurean arguments in his more recent work.

So, first of all: if you want to dismiss Epicurean hedonism, make sure you know what it is.

2. Our claim that “pleasure is the good” is not a dogmatic claim as commonly understood

Still, some might think that the Epicurean position remains unjustifiably dogmatic. Epicurus asserts unambiguously that “pleasure is the goal (telos) of a blessed life,” while other thinkers claim that we have, for example, an independent obligation to virtue, or moral responsibilities to others. I think the crucial point that needs to be emphasized here is our psychological hedonism, as mentioned above: we are not simply asserting that, out of various possible goals, humans should pursue pleasure. Instead, we prefer to view human motivation through a psychological framework in which we consider that people inevitably or even definitionally pursue their own pleasure, and that doing this well therefore constitutes success.4

Some people consider psychological hedonism to be itself an untenable theory. I simply consider it a useful framework, a practical redefinition of “pleasure” to enable consideration of all human motivations on an equal footing. Many don’t like this non-standard use of the word, but to criticize our choice of vocabulary is a much narrower argument against Epicureanism than a real dispute with the substance of our claims. And if our terminology is all you dislike, I am happy to reformulate! I understand that Skeptics often find the phrase “pleasure is the end” to be uncongenial and smacking of dogmatism. But I think one can find all kinds of wordings that are essentially synonymous with the Epicurean position, but which hopefully won’t trigger the same visceral reaction. For instance, just to rattle a few off:

Animals, including humans, are happier when they avoid pain. Avoiding pain is therefore good for producing happiness.

People prefer being happy over being unhappy. For humans, then, we can call happiness “good.”

It is reasonable to expect people to choose courses of action that appear conducive to their own happiness. Making those choices based on careful inductive prediction will probably achieve better results on average than making those choices without thoughtfulness about their conduciveness to happiness.

In all of these impromptu reformulations, I think the initial premises are ones that Pyrrhonists would largely agree are “evident.” While you can find a few philosophers willing to dispute anything, the opening sentences of these formulas are not controversial among normal people. (Modern skeptics might dispute the existence of the self or of physical objects, for instance, but Pyrrhonists don’t.) The second sentences are either modest, practical, clarifying definitions of “good” (the first and second) or a restrained, inductive claim (the third).

Our main “dogmatic” claim, then, is quite different than the typical targets of Pyrrhonist critique. For example, Pyrrhonists love to point out widely-abandoned moral beliefs (embracing the will of Zeus is good, race-based slavery is good) as evidence that dogmas don’t age well. But what Epicurean ethical advice seems obviously wrong? Mostly it seems like common sense, because that’s what it is—probabilistically prudent extrapolations from the essentially universal tendency to prefer happiness over unhappiness, shorn of extraneous dogmas.

I have very few “moral” beliefs. I recognize all the temporal and cultural counterevidence for traditional assertions—ask me if it is universally and inherently wrong to steal, to kill, or to eat dogs, and I will say “no.” I can easily imagine particular circumstances in particular societies in which such actions would reasonably not be considered wrong. However, I do believe that humans seek pleasure and avoid pain as an intrinsic aspect of our biological nature, that we will be unhappy if we fail at this goal, and that a philosophy that clears away illusory priorities and advises real-world prudence will improve our average level of success.

For more on why Epicurean advocacy for pleasure should be understood more as the basic, default position left over when dogmatism is stripped away, rather than itself an unjustifiably dogmatic position, see my recent article on Why Pleasure Should Be Our Goal.

3. Epicurean hedonic advice has no outright conflict with Pyrrhonist practice

To me, what makes it seem like Epicurean advice should be particularly congenial to Pyrrhonists is that the Pyrrhonists seem to accept it as well. They just classify its premises as part of “the criterion of action.”

In Pyrrho’s Way, Bates pushes back against the misconception that Pyrrhonists will not be able to function in daily life without beliefs. Instead of guiding one’s actions according to beliefs, the Pyrrhonist can respond to appearances. As mentioned above, physical sensations like hunger or a disinclination to go to jail would provide actionable reasons to eat and follow the law. Per Bates, then, this necessarily involves some amount of inference about foreseeable consequences.5 Pyrrhonists wouldn’t say that violating a local custom would be “inherently wrong,” but they think it’s perfectly reasonable for an individual to follow their aversion to social opprobrium. It seems fair to say that such subjective appearances of pain and pleasure are at least among the most widespread factors that guide human action.

Epicureans also think it reasonable to respond to the pain of hunger by eating. Epicureans also think it reasonable to respond to the appearance of potential pain from violating social norms by respecting social norms. So what’s the difference? It seems to me there are three possible reasons why a Pyrrhonist might still decline to endorse Epicurean ethics:

First, it might be largely a dispute of terminology. Epicureans like to call pleasure “good” and pain “bad.” These seem to me like reasonable and convenient labels, but if you want to replace every time we say “pleasure is good” with “pleasure typically appears good to people,” knock yourself out. The ensuing advice is unaffected.

Second, a Pyrrhonist might accept that “pleasure is good” is reasonable as a practical, everyday claim, but still dispute the Epicurean idea that “pleasure is the good.” Maybe something else should be considered. However, Pyrrhonists seem quite consistent in dismissing the claims of virtue, religious commandments, or other moral intuitions. As far as I can tell from the Pyrrhonists’ own writings, their remaining acceptable motives do boil down to hedonistic considerations, when considered in the broad Epicurean sense. So—unless they would like to reverse course and claim that there is some other value worth taking seriously as a guiding principle in life—perhaps this dispute can also be easily resolved by mild rephrasing. “Pleasure is the least problematic candidate for a human good that I am aware of” or “pleasure is the good which most consistently seems salient to me” would also lead one to Epicurean practices, while perhaps being less offensive to Pyrrhonist epistemological hygiene.

Third, perhaps the Pyrrhonists just haven’t thought through the actual Epicurean advice. As noted above, misunderstandings are rife. Perhaps if they evaluated Epicurean advice more closely, they would see that there is little to no substantive disagreement. Pyrrhonists generally prefer pleasure and decline unnecessary pain, but they simply spend less time talking about what courses of action tend to be correlated with more or less pain and pleasure.

This omission is what I consider to be Pyrrhonism’s biggest weakness as a philosophy of life.

An Epicurean criticism of Pyrrhonism

Pyrrhonists accept the existence of a criterion of action. They accept that internal impulses, such as pursuing the alleviation of pain, are valid for this purpose. They note that this includes prudential, forward-looking estimates of pain, such as the choice to follow laws and customs.

But that’s roughly all they say about such prudential matters. Instead, they spend most of their time asserting that the suspension of belief will itself lead to ataraxia. “The ancient Pyrrhonists do not give much advice about how to make decisions,” acknowledges Bates.6 As a side note, they propose that discarding unnecessary beliefs in the inherent goodness or badness of things can partially alleviate distressing reactions: “With regard to unavoidable experiences, the goal is moderation of feeling,” says Bates accordingly.7

I think this is a big hole. Is suspension of belief really enough to produce ataraxia? I would say it alleviates certain kinds of disturbance that stem from false beliefs, but it does not prevent more concrete sources of distress: hunger, physical security, or isolation, for instance. I assume that these kinds of biologically-mandated sources of discontent are what Bates means by “unavoidable” experiences, but it is very important to note that many unavoidably painful experiences are not themselves unavoidable. Pyrrhonism may be therapeutically sufficient for those who have achieved complete security when it comes to all their material needs in life—health, safety, financial stability, and so on. But if any of those unavoidably apparent sources of distress factor into one’s level of disturbance, then merely avoiding dogmatic thinking will not be sufficient to bring about ataraxia.

What Epicurus does is to propose—alongside the clearing away of empty opinions—a constant practice of prudential calculus, often employing various pragmatic guidelines for reducing sources of distress. He recommends frugality and simple living, to make financial security easier to obtain. He recommends avoiding the impulse to pursue great wealth, political power, or fame, because all of these desires seem empirically difficult to achieve, stressful to maintain, and highly competitive, leading to conflict with others. Importantly, he does not say these things are bad in themselves. If people are able to attain fame or power successfully, without an overall negative impact on their tranquility, then he has no problem with them. He recommends cultivating friendship, because friends are an enormous boost to our sense of security; they are both the preeminent form of ancient “insurance” and a direct source of pleasure.

The Pyrrhonists seem to abstain from all such advice. They seem to imply that decisions can be made “as one goes” with equal success and that careful inductive forecasting of outcomes is a fool’s errand. They assert that they would advocate for “living like normal people,” just with less mental distress from beliefs. But some of the distress of “normal people” is neither based in false beliefs, nor unavoidable—with a little planning. Epicurus would therefore revise the formula from “live like a normal person” to “pursue the normal ends of life in a more thoughtfully planned way.” This advice introduces no additional assumptions or criteria than those involved in Pyrrhonist “normal living”—it just extends the admitted utility of inductive reasoning beyond immediate results to the forecasting of longer-term probabilities. Strategies can be revised as new data comes in. But approaching life with no strategy is likely to produce less desirable outcomes.

Do modern Pyrrhonists even live like that, without long-term prudence regarding pleasure and pain? I would guess that many of them save money for retirement, purchase medical insurance, and care for their long-term health. Why do they do such things? Most normal people would say that they “believe” such actions are more likely than not to improve their long-term hedonistic outcome—old age poverty, medical bankruptcy, or physical incapacity would all be sources of pain and distress. Pyrrhonists don’t like the word “believe,” but they must have some degree of parallel faith in such inductive forecasting. I don’t insist that they abandon their vocabulary; if the Pyrrhonists would like to file all the factors that lead them to adopt these prudent decisions under the “criterion of action,” rather than the “criterion of truth,” that is fine with me.

But I don’t think they should ignore the utility of such actions in the exposition of their philosophy, if they actually consider such planning to be useful in how they lead their lives. And they shouldn’t dismiss the advice of the Epicureans, who construct their whole ethical system on the basis of fundamentally similar prudential counsel. Skepticism and argument are powerful tools against erroneous opinions. But they do not prevent the pains of poverty or hunger, or all the parallel fears that plague the unplanned lives of the imprudent. Epicurus takes a broader view, and treats all sources of unhappiness.

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Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, X.119–121

Commentary

Two weeks ago, I presented the first section of a summary of Epicurean views on “the wise man” found in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Today, I’ll conclude this particular section, while a third installment to come will cover some additional summary of Epicurean ethical views also included in Diogenes Laertius. As noted previously, there is very little structure to this account, with a hodgepodge of semi-random topics thrown together in rapid succession. I don’t think there’s really any more systematic way of reviewing this than to simply proceed through the whole of the above excerpt, giving additional commentary as appropriate.

These comments, particularly the second, seem to have an underlying intention of contrast with the Stoics. While I won’t get into a full discussion of the nuances of the Stoic positions here, I think it is fair to say that the Stoics look more favorably on suicide and less favorably on the expression of grief than do the Epicureans. In Epicurus’ view, most suicide is simply stupid: as he says in the Letter to Menoeceus, people to whom death seems like the least painful path are probably ignoring the real pleasures of life and overrating the importance of unimportant things. While I can imagine Epicurus making some exceptions for truly constant and debilitating pain (suicide is not sinful), the fact that blinding injury does not qualify as a justification of suicide underlines Epicurus’ insistence that the good things of life truly are quite realistically attainable, even in circumstances most would consider very difficult.

As for the emotions, there is nothing in Epicurus to invalidate grief over, say, the loss of a friend. While wisdom will presumably help us to recover equanimity more quickly, this is indeed a case for sorrow. Events in the real world cause us real pain—they are not simply “indifferent.”

Most of this can go down in the books as examples of “Epicureans will act like normal people.” Some people think our advocacy of “living unnoticed” means we will withdraw entirely from society—no, we are fine participating in the legal system, leaving writings behind, maintaining a basically respectable reputation in our community, and participating in civic festivals. (This includes ones with a nominal religious basis—I celebrate Christmas, even though I am not a Christian.) “Behave like normal people” also means “adhere to normal virtues”—although we are technically egoists, we believe strongly in friendship. For more on how a resolute principle of “never desert a friend” is compatible with consistently pursuing one’s own happiness, see Tim O’Keefe on “Is Epicurean Friendship Altruistic?”

I find one particular line here rather humane and charming: the Epicurean wise man “will love the country.” I don’t know if this was intended to point out a contrast with any particular school or philosopher, but the one that comes to mind now is Plato, who has Socrates say, “I am a lover of learning; landscapes and trees have nothing to teach me” (Phaedrus 230d). Personally, I love trees, so I am fully prepared to take Socrates’ disinterest in country rambles as a clear indicator of the inferior wisdom of the whole Platonic tradition. Simple pleasures are good!

The ancient Epicureans were quite fond of statues. Images of Epicurus and other leaders of the school helped students to keep their spiritual guides in mind and remind themselves of their fellowship in a community of wisdom. But, as the scholion to Principal Doctrine 29 notes, a desire for there to be statues of oneself is a good example of the unnatural desire for fame.

On music and poetry, the reasoning is presumably similar to that given by Philodemus centuries later (in regards to music, specifically): it is good to enjoy whatever harmless pleasures are accessible to us, and the wise man will judge them well and without illusions, but to invest significant energy in high-skill aesthetic creation will usually not pay off. Of course, Philodemus himself, and Lucretius in a bigger way, did write poetry, so there does seem to have been some relaxing of this doctrine over time. Accordingly, I don’t hold to this dogmatically, but I do think it contains a good point: ultimately, wise people are the best judges of artistic value. Technically expert practitioners often lack perspective. Highly paid professionals write highly unwise film scripts. Extremely skilled visual artists may be quite foolish people. One shouldn’t mistake skill (or accompanying prestige) for wisdom.

“One wise man is not more wise than another” is sometimes interpreted as alluding to the completeness of Epicurean doctrine, with a sentiment along the lines of “once you attain wisdom according to these rules, there is no further gain in wisdom to be had.” According to this interpretation, then, this reflects an important Epicurean message: since there can be numerous people who achieve wisdom, wisdom is indeed achievable. This is another contrast with the Stoics, whose vision of sagehood was largely regarded as unattainable.

Four of these five statements emphasize the importance of practical flexibility in Epicureanism. Rather than simplistic, one-size-fits-all rules, we favor general guidelines that acknowledge exceptions and qualifications. (We saw this in several Principal Doctrines as well.) Note the recurrent pattern:

[The wise man] will make money… when he is in need… but only from his wisdom.

He will pay court to a king… when circumstances require it.

He will set up a school… but not so as to court the masses.

He will read in public… but not eagerly.

We don’t want to accumulate great wealth or engage in unscrupulous business practices, but it is sometimes necessary to earn money. Rigid refusal to acknowledge the power of kings is not always prudent. Seeking mass approval is generally unwise, but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t teach willing students. Similarly, the prestige of public readings is not something to be eagerly sought, but if one is invited there isn’t a firm requirement to refuse the invitation. Context matters.

The other statement from this section (“He will rejoice alongside one who is corrected.”) has a somewhat disputed translation.3 My reading follows that of Long & Sedley and of Graziano Arrighetti: I think it is referring to the Epicurean practice of encouraging “frank speech” and accepting personal correction. The wise man doesn’t try to gloat over others or prove them wrong, but is warmly and earnestly supportive of their growth.

About half of the manuscripts read ἐπιχαρίσεσθαι (feel grateful for) instead of ἐπιχαρήσεσθαί (rejoice alongside someone). In that case, it could plausibly mean “he will be grateful to someone who corrects him.” This seems to be the reading of Inwood and Gerson, which does mirror the sentiment of Vatican Saying 74:

Overall, however, ἐπιχαρήσεσθαί (rejoice alongside someone) seems to be the slightly more likely manuscript reading, and the exemplary wise man probably doesn’t need correction very much, so I lean towards the first interpretation.

This first sentence is clearly a response to Skeptics (most likely early Pyrrhonists). “Dogmatize” is here meant here in the relatively technical sense that is opposed to skepticism; more colloquially, we could say “declare clear principles” or “profess certain things to be true.” To not “be inconclusive” is a rendering of ἀπορήσειν (aporesein, which some snobby philosophers mind render as “to be aporetic” or “remain in aporia”). Aporia is a state of argumentative impasse that precedes the Skeptical goal of epoche, or suspension of judgment. While Skeptics consider it to be wiser to reserve judgment regarding non-evident matters and avoid dogmatism, Epicurus decidedly does not: he thinks a wise man will be able to correctly perceive the truth and will not hesitate to declare it as such.

The idea that “not all failings are equally serious “ is thought to be a response to the opposite claim by the Stoics. The most famous iteration of their position is attributed to Chrysippus, who described the process of attaining wisdom by saying that it made no difference whether one drowned deep in the ocean or a few inches from the surface. This kind of firm line between the (unattainable) sage and everyone else was not one that the Epicureans echoed. Real, incremental progress is open to everyone.

The Epicureans considered practical advantage to be the origin of friendship, a claim which was a bone of contention with other moralists who didn’t like attributing such low motives to a putatively virtuous activity. But I think evolutionary biologists would fundamentally agree: presumably human sociability evolved because it provided us with practical, fitness-enhancing benefits, with the long-term result that we derive positive psychological feelings directly from associating with friends. Such an account is quite similar to the Epicurean one: we acknowledge (and embrace) the fact that friends are helpful, but frequently, as here, note that association is itself enjoyable.

Here we have a preliminary mention of the Epicurean doctrines on pleasure, which will be elaborated upon in the final segment. Contra Cyril Bailey, I think the two kinds of happiness here are both considered “real” by the Epicureans. While the godlike maximum of happiness is only attained by a sage, even those who have not achieved full Epicurean wisdom can still experience varying levels of a more human happiness based on “the addition and subtraction of pleasures.” If you add pleasure and remove pain from your life, that really does increase your happiness and is worth doing.

After this, Diogenes Laertius presents the Letter to Menoeceus, which I have previously translated. Next Tuesday we’ll alternate back to the ongoing tour through the Principal Doctrines, but in two weeks we’ll return once more to Diogenes, because he has a few more things to tell us. That concluding installment has one overriding topic: the nature of pleasure. What kinds of pleasure are there? Which pleasures are best? How do we know pleasure is the end?

These are all important questions. To learn the important answers, make sure you’ve signed up for a free subscription to Untroubled.

Original Text

ἀλλὰ καὶ πηρωθέντα τὰς ὄψεις μεθέξειν αὑτὸν τοῦ βίου, [120] ὡς ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ φησι. καὶ λυπηθήσεσθαι δὲ τὸν σοφόν, ὡς ὁ Διογένης ἐν τῇ πέμπτῃ τῶν Ἐπιλέκτων: καὶ δικάσεσθαι: καὶ συγγράμματα καταλείψειν: οὐ πανηγυριεῖν δέ: καὶ κτήσεως προνοήσεσθαι καὶ τοῦ μέλλοντος. φιλαγρήσειν. τύχῃ τ᾽ ἀντιτάξεσθαι, φίλον τε οὐδένα προήσεσθαι. εὐδοξίας ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον προνοήσεσθαι, ἐφ᾽ ὅσον μὴ καταφρονήσεσθαι: μᾶλλόν τε εὐφρανθήσεσθαι τῶν ἄλλων ἐν ταῖς θεωρίαις.

Εἰκόνας τε ἀναθήσειν. εἰ ἔχοι, ἀδιαφόρως ἂν σχοίη. μόνον τε τὸν σοφὸν ὀρθῶς ἂν περί τε μουσικῆς καὶ ποιητικῆς διαλέξεσθαι: ποιήματά τε ἐνεργείᾳ οὐκ ἂν ποιῆσαι. οὐκ εῖναι τε ἕτερον ἑτέρου σοφώτερον. χρηματιεῖσθαί τε, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπὸ μόνης σοφίας, ἀπορήσαντα. καὶ μόναρχον ἐν καιρῷ θεραπεύσειν. καὶ ἐπιχαρήσεσθαί τινι ἐπὶ τῷ διορθώματι: καὶ σχολὴν κατασκευάσειν, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὥστ᾽ ὀχλαγωγῆσαι: καὶ ἀναγνώσεσθαι ἐν πλήθει, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ἑκόντα:

δογματιεῖν τε καὶ οὐκ ἀπορήσειν: καὶ καθ᾽ ὕπνους δὲ ὅμοιον ἔσεσθαι, καὶ ὑπὲρ φίλου ποτὲ τεθνήξεσθαι. Δοκεῖ δ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἁμαρτήματα ἄνισα εἶναι. καὶ τὴν ὑγίειαν τισὶ μὲν ἀγαθόν, τισὶ δ᾽ ἀδιάφορον. τὴν δὲ ἀνδρείαν φύσει μὴ γίνεσθαι, λογισμῷ δὲ τοῦ συμφέροντος: καὶ τὴν φιλίαν διὰ τὰς χρείας: δεῖν μέντοι προκατάρχεσθαι ῾καὶ γὰρ τὴν γῆν σπείρομεν̓, συνίστασθαι δὲ αὐτὴν κατὰ κοινωνίαν τοῖς ταῖς ἡδοναῖς ἐκπεπληρωμ<ένοις>.

[121] Τὴν εὐδαιμονίαν διχῆ νοεῖσθαι, τήν τε ἀκροτάτην, οἵα ἐστὶ περὶ τὸν θεόν, ἐπίτασιν οὐκ ἔχουσαν: καὶ τὴν <κατὰ τὴν> προσθήκην καὶ ἀφαίρεσιν ἡδονῶν. Μετιτέον δ᾽ ἐπὶ τὴν ἐπιστολήν.

I recently decided to read through Jane Austen’s five major novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion.1 In large part, reading old books is simply something I enjoy. Such reading is an eminently Epicurean hobby, since it is practically free and doesn’t generally do you any harm. In my case, it also gave me a good opportunity for rich family time, since my wife and I both read the books, talked about them, then watched various film adaptations and talked some more. But as I read through these novels, I couldn’t help noticing how particularly Epicurean the Austenian virtues seemed to be.

I haven’t read much Austen criticism, but I get a general impression that this is sometimes a theme of complaint: the characters have highly domestic preoccupations, concerning themselves with practical questions of financial prudence, managing their various social relationships, and above all getting married. Austen’s protagonists are not very concerned with big political questions, historically important events, or even particularly dramatic personal events (there are some peripheral elopements and adultery and so on, but it is never the sensible heroines themselves getting mixed up in such scandals). Much of our culture, in contrast, celebrates what appears sensational and important—the noble cause, the passionate feeling—at the expense of prudence and other virtues of stability that are the normal constituents of a happy life.

As with my recent piece on Ralph Waldo Emerson as an Epicurean ally, I think it is hugely valuable to recognize the degree to which the Epicurean insistence on individual tranquility and practical decision-making—while being routinely undervalued by philosophers—was integral to the basic background fabric of accepted wisdom until quite recently. The denigration of prudence, along with the advocacy of emotional instability on behalf of self-important aspirations, political causes, or valorized angst, begins to feel like a strange quirk of modernity when you immerse yourself in the world of Austen’s wiser women.

In this essay, I’ll share my brief reflections on each of these five novels, with two overarching aims. First, to encourage you to read these books, if you’d like to get a taste of extremely well-written characters who embody a largely Epicurean perspective on the good life. Second, to come at the Epicurean virtues from a different angle, one that might persuade Austen sympathizers to recognize what they actually value—these have long been traditional virtues, and while some of them have been de-emphasized in our modern world, Austen had greater insight and granted them appropriate centrality. If you admire her wisdom, then I suggest that Epicureanism might be the philosophical school for you.

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Sense and Sensibility

The title of this book refers to two sisters, Elinor and Marianne. Elinor exemplifies “sense”: she is frequently singled out as the most financially prudent of her family, she always controls her emotions, and she behaves generally in a mature, practical, reliable way. Marianne exemplifies “sensibility,” which means something like “sensitivity to emotions”—she is passionate about music, literature, nature, and romance. She has very strong opinions, which lead her to a great deal of grief and their eventual recantation, before ending up realizing that Elinor’s path is wiser.

The title, then, could be rendered in explicitly Epicurean terms: Phronesis and Kenai Doxai, or Prudence and Empty Opinions. I find this extremely refreshing. In so many stories, the dramatic, passionate characters take center stage, no matter how foolish, unwise, unreasonable, or self-destructive their passions may be, while the level-headed, practical people are relegated to minor supporting roles. Here, Elinor is clearly Austen’s preferred model of a good person, a preference which is then reflected in all the other characters. People who are financially extravagant, excessively occupied by social appearances, excessively prone to romantic enthusiasm, excessively prone to anger, or unfaithful to their friends and family are not admirable. People who can live on a modest income, don’t care about social pretensions, have slow and steady feelings, are slow to anger and quick to forgive, and who are loyal and trustworthy are.

Pride and Prejudice

In Austen’s second published novel, she again landed on a two-trait alliterative title. Here, though, we are not given a simple contrast of a wise and a less wise characteristic, but two different flaws, both of which will be alleviated by the book’s end. Pride is the fault of Mr. Darcy, who overvalues social position and propriety. Prejudice is the fault of Lizzie Bennett, who judges people too quickly and harshly based on insufficient information. Both of those faults certainly fall within the realm of Epicurean criticism, though they are not particularly unique to the philosophy.

This book gives a good opportunity—since this is probably the most well-known of the stories through the various film adaptations2—to note the most obvious preoccupation of the typical Austen heroine: securing a good marriage. For them, this absolutely requires personal affection, but it also requires a significant degree of social appropriateness—good partners belong to a similar class and educational level, are financially stable, and should generally earn your family’s approval (unless your family are terrible empty-headed snobs). It does not require extreme, immediate passion. In fact, that is often a warning sign. In Pride and Prejudice, Lizzie’s younger sister Lydia is misled by such passion into a very unsatisfactory match. In Sense and Sensibility, multiple characters (Marianne and Edward) are temporarily misled by such passions. In contrast, the wiser heroines do not fall in love quickly and impulsively, but instead develop their attachments gradually, as their knowledge of the value and worthiness of their prospective partners become clear. They do not rush into relationships, but once they commit to one through a formal process of engagement and marriage, their bond is inviolable. This seems quite compatible with Epicurean romantic preferences. Consuetudo concinnat amorem, says Lucretius—habit produces love worth having, while overwhelming passion results in frustration and illusion.

As with the other novels, the generally ambient virtues are highly Epicurean: safety and stability, faith and trustworthiness, family and friends, honesty and wisdom. Imprudence is bad, dramatic passions are bad, frivolous pleasure-seeking is bad, snobbery based on birth and wealth is bad, and the ornaments of an elite education are highly overrated. Not enough of our stories these days have these kinds of ethical priors!

Mansfield Park

The heroine of Mansfield Park, Fanny Price, is famously passive and so not very much to contemporary tastes. Austen is not blind to her heroine’s limitations (perfect heroines would be boring), but clearly prefers her over the various rich, spoiled, underoccupied young people who surround her. Many of Austen’s character preferences can easily be rendered through an Epicurean lens:

• Fanny is not too rich (which spoils a person), but is not improvident like her very imprudent family (who cause themselves daily discomfort and unpleasantness). That’s the Epicurean sweet spot too.

• Fanny is meek and self-deprecating, but this is better than being vain and performative. Epicurus always teaches the futility of seeking popularity.

• Fanny has a strong sense of propriety, which is much preferable to the dismissiveness of societal rules exhibited by the other young people. Sometimes that has small consequences (angry father stops their amateur theatricals), sometimes it has big ones (adultery leads to loss of all resources and social standing). Fanny and Epicurus think it is very important to avoid incurring social animosity.

• Fanny’s preferred pastimes are reading for pleasure, spending time in nature, and helping people. The other young women pride themselves on their accomplishments in music, art, and learning. Epicurus criticizes the traditional education (paideia), thinking it produces mostly vanity.

• Fanny’s romantic preferences develop slowly, based primarily on admirability and compatibility of character. Other characters follow momentary passions (which lead to bad outcomes, as warned against in Lucretius) or chase wealth (also bad, according to all Epicureans).

I think Jane Austen is correct in all of these preferences. The novelist’s myriad fans should know that Epicurus is the appropriate philosopher for them.

Emma

Emma Woodhouse begins her eponymous novel with a few flaws. She has an excessive interest in steering her friend’s matrimonial interests in ways that she deems proper (a process in which she neglects authentic worth and feelings in favor of social standing). More generally, she gets too caught up in her “schemes” for others and is consequently led to misread their behaviors. Most generally, she is too sure of herself—a result, we are told, of being excessively spoiled and admired throughout her life.

While the exact manifestations of these flaws are, of course, quite different than those familiar to Epicurus, the underlying essence of Emma’s bad habits is timeless. Overrating social standing? Basing your happiness on things outside of your control and which have no real bearing on your personally-felt pleasure? Thinking poorly because you have never submitted to a wiser teacher or frank-speaking friends? All of these are regular topics of Epicurean advice.

Of course, Emma amends her ways by the end of the book. After spending some time with shallower men, such as Mr. Elton (status-obsessed, generally empty-headed) and Frank Churchill (too interested in superficial things, lacking in frankness, impetuous), she comes to realize that the better influence is that of Mr. Knightley, who is one of the worthier Austen leading men. He is marked in particular by his penchant for what the Epicureans call “frank speech”—he is willing to tell Emma when she is acting wrongly, while maintaining complete goodwill towards her. The rest of his portrait is the usual catalog of Epicurean-Austenian virtues: financial prudence, distaste for ostentation, unconcern with social prestige, relative disinterest in frivolous entertainments, and a mature lack of romantic hurry.

Persuasion

The heroine of Austen’s last novel is Anne Elliot. As usual, the plot revolves around the protagonist’s successful overcoming of interpersonal misunderstandings in her own romantic arc, periodically contrasted with the varying fortunes of friends and family in their own matrimonial endeavors. We have the typical array of admirable and unadmirable side characters, whose conduct is gently but unmistakably judged by Austen. Anne’s elder sister and father are obsessed with vanity and social prestige, while being incapable of truly warm friendship or financial prudence—not good! One suitor is revealed to be highly mercenary and unfaithful to his friends—very bad! In contrast, this novel finds its more admirable characters in an array of naval officers and their families, who have known hardships and obligations (unlike the idle aristocrats), and who continue to live responsibly within their means on land, bound together by warm, enduring bonds of fellowship.

The particularly unique element of Persuasion is the greater maturity of its heroine and romantic perspective: Anne’s romance is the story of a resumed relationship, thought to have ended eight years in the past (she is 27 as the novel opens). As I have noted throughout all the novels, the Austen heroine in general is noted for her more measured approach to romance, one in which she is not overly swayed by impetuous passion. Persuasion takes this to a new extreme, with the success of its central relationship not truly evidenced until an approximate decade after the couple’s initial meeting. This entails no loss of interest, no diminishment of their intense affection—their love is no less real. But, just as in Lucretius, it is built on well-founded knowledge of each other’s character and constancy. The perfect Austenian marriage, like the perfect Epicurean marriage, is not one of maximum, lightning-bolt suddenness. It is one that lasts, constantly reinforced by unwavering friendship and mutual support.

Some modern readers find the scope of Austen’s heroines’ ambition dissatisfying. Is all they hope for marriage? We have various ideologies that preach the inadequacy of such mindsets: maybe everyone should strive for worldly success (careerism), maybe women need to “catch up” with such aspirations (feminism), and maybe we should embrace feelings of guilt as a spur to our moral betterment (Christianity) or welcome difficulty and hardship as part and parcel of virtuous action (Stoicism). This is not Austen’s way.

She appreciates money, but only instrumentally, as it serves security and happiness. She thinks women are at least men’s equals, emotionally and intellectually, but doesn’t see that as necessitating careerist ambition. She is nominally a Christian, but religious doctrine is essentially absent from the novels. And her attitude towards suffering and difficulty is distinctly more Epicurean than Stoic. Consider the case of a minor character in Persuasion, a friend of Anne’s who has fallen on hard times. Her husband has died, she is broke, and she is an invalid who cannot move without assistance. Nonetheless, she lives fairly happily:

[Anne] determined that this was not a case of fortitude or of resignation only. A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good… (Volume 2, Chapter 5)

To cultivate an “elasticity of mind” which “turns readily from evil to good” is arguably the center of the Epicurean project. It is not Christian submission or Stoic fortitude that is most effective at securing our happiness in any circumstances. It is the ability to let go of what is inessential and focus on what brings us joy.

Do Austen’s heroines lack worldly ambition? They have this greater virtue.

Conclusion

In reading these selective summaries, you might still be underwhelmed by the supposed Epicurean undertones I am asserting. Are these virtues really particularly Epicurean? Surely everyone thinks that prudence, faithfulness, and a preference for friendship over social ostentation are good things? In part I agree, and this is in fact one of the underappreciated motifs I like to reiterate about Epicureanism: our virtues are the familiar, conventional virtues. We do not advocate for some radical discarding of everything the world recognizes as good, nor for the kind of impulsive, sensual hedonism which we are often caricatured as endorsing. If you think these “normal” virtues are admirable, then Epicureanism will seem sensible and familiar compared to a lot of philosophy, which travels far away from such practical matters.

At the same time, I think it is true that the particular virtues that Austen highlights, although “traditionally” recognized in significant swathes of our cultural history, are not the dominant virtues in our contemporary culture, in our contemporary romantic narratives, or in contemporary philosophy. Consider a few examples. Technological modernity has amplified the fetishization of celebrity and invented new ways to quantify and trivialize social standing (every form of online “like”). How many modern romance films portray financial prudence as a key quality in a good suitor? (Sometimes they advocate for career ambition, but very rarely for career contentment.) If you were to poll university students about the content of their philosophy courses, how many lectures do you think are dedicated to the value of reining in our expenses, making ourselves useful to our families, treating those we dislike with politeness, restraining our emotions, choosing our romantic partners wisely, or considering stable marriage as a high-priority life goal?

Almost none. Popular culture is often stupid, broadly speaking, and its visions of romance are typically shallow and unhelpful. This is unsurprising. Unfortunately, the academic field that is theoretically dedicated to the love of wisdom also has very little to say to those who actually want useful guidance on the crucial decisions of life, neglecting the practical in favor of esoteric abstraction. Jane Austen, in contrast, does address the real qualities that separate the wise from the unwise, the happy from the unhappy. Her answers may seem distant from philosophy as one encounters it today. But they are not at all distant from the teachings of Epicurus.

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Principal Doctrine 23:

Principal Doctrine 24:

Commentary

Today’s two Principal Doctrines focus on a core topic in epistemology: the appropriate attitude to take towards “sensation,” or the evidence of our physical senses. The Epicurean theory of knowledge is a large subject in itself, and not a main focus of this site, so I will not treat these two maxims as a springboard to launch into a comprehensive account of Epicurean epistemological theory. Instead, I think it is important to keep in mind their status as two entries in a series of forty otherwise entirely ethical maxims—they are not intended to present the full picture of Epicurean epistemology, but instead to make an essentially ethical point, one about how a person should choose to live. That advice boils down to this: don’t be a Skeptic.

(This is not to say that we should not be skeptical of bad arguments and unfounded beliefs. Epicurus puts a great deal of emphasis on rooting out “empty opinion” (kenai doxai) and so there is, in practice, a significant amount of agreement between ancient Skeptics and Epicureans, which I will explore further next week. But to elevate the withholding of belief to be the central tenet of one’s philosophy of life is unwarranted.)

The first of these maxims is quite straightforward:

The basic idea addressed here, not necessarily specific to one particular brand of Skepticism, is the contention that our senses can be deceptive. The go-to ancient examples included the observations that a partially submerged oar can appear to be bent, rather than straight, or that a square tower can appear to be round when viewed from a distance. Different philosophical schools could then take such claims in different directions: Academic Skeptics maintained that we should only treat our knowledge as “probable,” Pyrrhonists stressed that “appearances” were not the same as objective reality, and other thinkers generally downplayed the importance and validity of empirical observation compared to pure reasoning and dialectic.

In this maxim, Epicurus issues a fairly commonsense response to such Skepticism: if you want to claim that our senses are deceptive, then on what basis are you claiming their deceptiveness, if not through appeal to other senses? If you are asserting that the oar is in fact straight, presumably you are looking at it when not submerged, or perhaps you are touching it and evaluating it by feel. If you are asserting that the tower is square and not round, presumably you are looking at it from a closer distance. The conclusion “our senses are deceptive,” then, doesn’t seem quite right. The light waves are not “cheating” in one case, but then behaving “honestly” in another—the light waves are doing what they always do in similar circumstances, and we misinterpret them.

In Epicurean terminology, all sensations (aesthesis) are said to be “true” or “real” (alethes). Whether they unfailingly convey the right idea of reality to us depends on our interpretation and judgment, but the evidence of the senses themselves should not be thought of as “false.” To one who knows how light refraction in water works, the appearance of a bend in the half-submerged oar is normal and expected.

Still, if it is admitted that certain observations may lead our interpretations astray, how should we pursue the truth? Idealist philosophers use that “failing” of empirical observation as an excuse for denigrating all empirical research in favor of pure logic, dialectic, or metaphysical speculation. Skeptics use it as an excuse for questioning the possibility of true knowledge. Epicurus’ conclusion is more obvious, straightforward, and compatible with modern scientific method: if our observations are insufficient for reaching a clear understanding of something, we need to get better observations. The main way we can confirm or disconfirm the initial impressions from our sensory evidence is by collecting more evidence from our senses. If our initial observation is distorted or distant, we need to obtain sensory evidence that is clear (enarges) and close-up (paron, literally “present”). Pull the oar out of the water. Get closer to the tower. That’s what people living in the real world do.

Initial life advice, then, from this epistemological stance? Don’t abandon the gathering of empirical evidence as a means of pursuing the truth. Don’t abandon the concept of knowable truth just because you notice a mistaken judgment.

The second maxim elaborates and expands on this point:

Given the increase in technical jargon1, let’s start with a paraphrase of the main points of these two sentences:

1. If you reject a sensation (rather than distinguishing opinion as the source of error), you will be logically compelled to distrust all of the evidence of your senses, which would undermine any livable basis for knowledge and judgment about the world. Don’t reject sensation.

2. If you accept all of your opinions, both those which have been confirmed by careful, painstaking observation and those which are “awaiting confirmation”—i.e. those derived from distant, unclear, or haphazard observation—that would also be a mistake. Humans do make mistakes in interpreting sense-perceptions—you should still try to avoid interpretive errors.

The practical conclusion of what one should do when pursuing an accurate knowledge of the world is not explicitly spelled out here, but is pretty clearly implied by the two branches of this maxim: accept the truth and value of your sensations themselves, but seek confirmation when their initial reports are vague or incomplete.

I suspect a lot of philosophers will find this a pretty weak response to Skepticism. When a Skeptical philosopher says, “But look! our senses can deceive us!” they are rarely quieted by a pragmatic response of “Try to get a better look. Maybe get a little closer.” But for practical people interested in living effectively, Epicurus’ position is far more sensible than an across-the-board withholding of belief.

This greater practicality is obvious—whatever the Skeptics say, they all actually use the evidence of their senses to navigate the material world. And they will typically admit this, arguing that they are nonetheless making an important technical distinction about the reliability of knowledge. I’m not really convinced about this importance: at the end of the day, I think effectiveness in daily life is the most pertinent gauge of reliable knowledge. I’ve never personally found any supposed untrustworthiness of the senses to impinge upon my functioning in the world. To spend time denying the certainty of our clear perceptions (Academic Skeptics), or drawing distinctions between “appearances” and objective reality (Pyrrhonists), does not seem to me like a particularly fruitful form of philosophy.

Emerson said something similar about unhelpful occupation with the philosophical and theological conundrums of his day.

Epicurean philosophy is therapeutic. It promotes healthy thinking. The thinking of most non-philosophers has gone astray in one way or another, filled up with empty ideas that are often too distant from the real life of the senses, clear and simple concepts, and accurate comparison of the pleasures and pains of life. Many people think, for example, that pursuing fame is a high-probability path to happiness, or that death is a terrible thing.

Sometimes, however, the teachings of venerable religions or famous philosophers are also counterproductive when it comes to intellectual health and spiritual well-being. Idealists who teach the existence of vindictive gods or immaterial Forms are layering unnecessary and unhelpful fictions onto your understanding of the world. Similarly, Skeptics who inflate the proper puncturing of groundless beliefs into an all-encompassing outlook on life, in which our senses, pains, and pleasures are no longer to be believed, are similarly importing unnecessary difficulties and perplexity into the project of living well.

Read the complete series on the Principal Doctrines here.

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Original Text

23. εἰ μαχῇ πάσαις ταῖς αἰσθήσεσιν, οὐχ ἕξεις οὐδʼ ἃς ἂν φῇς αὐτῶν διεψεῦσθαι πρὸς τί ποιούμενος τὴν ἀγωγὴν κρίνῃς.

24. εἰ τινʼ ἐκβαλεῖς ἁπλῶς αἴσθησιν καὶ μὴ διαιρήσεις τὸ δοξαζόμενον κατὰ τὸ προσμένον καὶ τὸ παρὸν ἤδη κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν καὶ τὰ πάθη καὶ πᾶσαν φανταστικὴν ἐπιβολὴν τῆς διανοίας, συνταράξεις καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς αἰσθήσεις τῇ ματαίῳ δόξῃ, ὥστε τὸ κριτήριον ἅπαν ἐκβαλεῖς·

εἰ δὲ βεβαιώσεις καὶ τὸ προσμένον ἅπαν ἐν ταῖς δοξαστικαῖς ἐννοίαις καὶ τὸ μὴ τὴν ἐπιμαρτύρησιν, οὐκ ἐκλείψεις τὸ διεψευσμένον, ὡς τετηρηκὼς ἔσει πᾶσαν ἀμφισβήτησιν κατὰ πᾶσαν κρίσιν τοῦ ὀρθῶς ἢ μὴ ὀρθῶς.

It is well known that Epicureans believe that pleasure is the human telos, the goal towards which all of our choices should most rationally be oriented. Epicurus doesn’t (in our extant texts) really argue for this position. He seems to think that pleasure and happiness are self-evidently our goal:

To many, this is indeed self-evident: of course people want to be happy. In everyday life, an appeal to what one thinks will bring about one’s own happiness is generally admitted to be a sufficient reason for choosing a particular course of action. To claim that preferring happiness to unhappiness is an inherently invalid goal is definitely a minority position.

Still, when it comes to philosophical circles, where no claim will go undisputed, it is easy to find people willing to argue that happiness should not be our goal, or should not be our only goal, or should only be our goal if we define it as something clearly distinct from pleasure. Today, I’d like to explain the Epicurean argument for why pleasure is indeed the most reasonable ultimate goal by which we should guide our conduct, and respond to some possible critiques of this position.

Fortunately, one of the more incisive philosophical minds to ever write in English—John Stuart Mill—has already done the job. Unfortunately, his argument for hedonism is one of the most heavily criticized passages he ever wrote. Fortunately, I think those criticisms are wrong. I’m sure I won’t convince everyone that Mill’s position represents the one and only accurate way of understanding human psychology, but I do hope to demonstrate that his arguments are internally consistent, not fallacious in the commonly purported ways, and a perfectly reasonably way of looking at the world, one that needs to be seriously answered if one wishes to dismiss the case for hedonism.

What Mill Says and Why He’s Not Wrong

If you haven’t read John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism, you should. It is an approachable philosophical classic that strongly lays out the case for hedonism and makes dozens of penetrating observations in generally lucid prose. Of particular interest (and notoriety) is the opening of Chapter 4, which is worth quoting at length:

This is frequently criticized, but, I think, frequently misunderstood.1 The most common accusation is that Mill is committing the “naturalistic fallacy,” slipping in a conclusion that happiness ought to be desired (one definition of “desirable”), when all his argument entitles him to claim is that happiness can be desired (the definition of “desirable” more correctly analogous to “visible” and “audible”). For all his intelligence and reputation, it is asserted, Mill is committing a rudimentary error of deriving an “ought” from an “is.”

A more careful reading, however, shows this to be false. Mill is quite explicit that he is not offering a formal, deductive proof. He says that he is providing something different—“evidence.” As a first step towards deciding what we “should desire,” it is extremely pertinent to note that any possible candidates must be something “capable of being desired.” What could “worth desiring” or “ought to be desired” mean, if we attempted to debate such a question without reference to what humans actually do desire? Mill therefore offers the claim that everyone desires their own happiness as a premise, not as his conclusion. If humans are incapable of seeing something, it would be nonsensical to propose it as something that we “ought to see.” Likewise with desire: the fact that happiness is generally desired by humans is the only relevant criterion for its initial inclusion in our list of candidates for things that “ought to be desired.”

When we start to assemble such a list of candidate desires, happiness is perhaps the most obvious starting point. In Mill’s view, essentially everyone would agree that they desire their own happiness. In further arguments which I don’t have space to quote here, Mill goes on to argue that all other proposed ends are desired as either means to happiness, or as components of happiness. Virtue, for instance, may be valued instrumentally, as a means to happiness (the Epicurean emphasis). Through education and habit, many people also come to find virtuous behavior intrinsically pleasurable, with non-virtuous behavior producing an immediately painful psychological sensation. If nothing can be proposed that is desired independently of happiness, and accepting that the desire for happiness is indeed universal, then happiness by default can be identified as the most fitting end of human conduct.

According to Mill, then, happiness is the only thing that humans ultimately desire. As another point of terminological clarification with which I agree, it is important to note that both Mill and the Epicureans consider “happiness” and “pleasure” to be essentially synonymous:

Here, in short, are Mill’s claims:

1. Everyone desires their own happiness.

2. Everything else we think we desire is valued only as a means to happiness or as a component of happiness. The things we label as “virtuous” or “right” ultimately derive their value because of their tendency to produce happiness for ourselves or others. (This was the conclusion of Sidgwick, Mill’s Utilitarian successor who exhaustively investigated all of the “commonsense” virtues of his day in search of non-hedonistic values.)

3. Everything we desire is by definition pleasant to us. It is impossible to desire something while thinking it (on net) painful. We may be mistaken as to that ultimate net pleasurability, but it is the prospect of pleasure that motivates our desires.

This is, of course, a very bare sketch. I’m not aiming to rewrite Mill’s whole chapter. But since “why should we consider pleasure the only good?” is a common question, and one which has been explicitly argued for by one of the great minds of English philosophy in a way that I find fundamentally convincing, it seems most efficient to say: here is what we think—for the full arguments, see chapter four of Mill’s Utilitarianism.

Some Objections

If you’d like to engage seriously with these ideas, therefore, you really should read Utilitarianism for yourself. Most of the objections one could make have crossed Mill’s mind; he was a very smart guy. But as a preview, we can run through some of the common complaints here.

Misunderstanding what we mean by “pleasure”

First, some will quibble over the word “pleasure,” thinking it implies advocacy for impulsive sensuality, or perhaps for hyper-refined aesthetic tastes. Some will quibble over the word “happiness,” thinking it refers to fleeting short-term mental states. For these people: use whichever word you prefer. Pleasure, happiness, eudaimonia, advantage, utility—Epicurus and Mill use these words essentially interchangeably and in the broadest possible sense.

Second, some will say that they sometimes choose a course of action even though it is not their most pleasurable option, and that therefore they aim at other things than pleasure. The Epicurean and Millsian perspective is that the pleasure of your ultimate choice may have been less obvious or immediate, but that in the end you inevitably chose the option that seemed on net more pleasurable to you. You cleaned the kitchen instead of watching TV? You must have felt the inconvenience, guilt, or shame of the dirty kitchen to be psychologically painful, such that alleviating that pain was a greater net pleasure than you would have derived from watching TV.

This way of framing things is called psychological hedonism. A lot of people don’t like it, because it applies “pleasure” to lots of activities that we don’t—in natural language—refer to as pleasurable. Epicurus and Mill like it, because describing your gratification upon cleaning your kitchen in terms of non-hedonistic ethical obligation towards what was “right” or “virtuous” would be to unjustifiably put a heavy finger on the scales towards viewing that action favorably. We shouldn’t. There is no intrinsic virtue to cleaning the kitchen. If it actually does produce less total pleasure than another course of action, then you shouldn’t do it.

Third, some people point out that different people find different things pleasurable. Are some things good for some people, but bad for others? What if someone says murdering strangers gives them pleasure? Should we call that good?

We would say that there are minor differences between different people and that is fine. Some people prefer chocolate ice cream, while others prefer mint chip. Each are free to pursue their preference. We Epicureans don’t aim to micromanage such preferences, or put precise pleasure scores on different activities.

As for the case of the serial killer, we have two responses. First, extreme skepticism that this applies to most people, especially once you consider the legal and social sanctions. Even if we grant an unusual psychological proclivity towards harming others, any such “pleasure” would have to be weighed against the costs of likely incarceration and ostracism. We would enjoin the normal people of the world to honestly ask themselves whether following some “abnormal” impulse would really bring them pleasure on net. It rarely will.

For the very rare cases where intense psychological abnormality means that an individual derives unsurpassable pleasure from a highly anti-social behavior, any pleasure that they may derive from the activity is presumably less than that of their victims or otherwise affected parties. From the perspective of the community or state, this activity is clearly a hedonistic negative and should be prevented. Nothing in the Epicurean or Millsian endorsement of psychological hedonism prevents the operation of legal and social sanctions that promote the overall happiness.

Wait, so how did you get to universalistic hedonism? Aren’t Epicureans egoists?

In the common, simplified narrative, Epicureans are “egoistic hedonists” concerned only with individual happiness while Utilitarians are “universalistic hedonists” who say we should maximize total happiness of all involved people (or sentient beings). This flattens the diversity within the world of Utilitarians and is consequently another frequent area of misunderstanding Mill.

Psychologically, Mill believes, with Epicurus, that we all inevitably desire our own happiness. We do not, by default, desire the happiness of the whole of humanity. Yes—basically, I’m saying Mill is more of an Epicurean than he is a Utilitarian, as the word is often tossed around. People read him saying this:

Then they assume that he is asserting that because each individual inevitably views his own happiness as a good, each individual is therefore obligated to feel that the good of all humanity is an equally compelling motive to himself personally—i.e. people assume that Mill is committing another obvious fallacy, one of composition. He clarified this sentence, however, in a letter:

Mill’s initial claim in Utilitarianism, then, is a simpler one: if we all feel that our own happiness is good for ourselves, we will tend to believe that Sara’s happiness is good for Sara and that Henry’s happiness is good for Henry. If we all share this way of looking at the world, then we will agree that it will be good generally if we can construct “society and education” in such a way that prosocial behavior becomes a source of pleasure to each individual (due to legal sanctions, social sanctions, and psychological habit).

There is nothing in this form of “Utilitarianism” that actually conflicts with Epicureanism, and so in my view there is an underrated amount of common ground between Mill and Epicurus. Generally speaking, Mill focuses more on policy and population-level well-being, while Epicurus addresses himself primarily to individuals, but their psychological theory is very similar.

What about virtue or moral rightness?

It is frequently proposed that objectives other than hedonistic ones have intrinsic worth. Aristotelians and Stoics, for instance, propose that our objective should be to live virtuously. (Conveniently, they say that this will produce eudaimonia as a side effect.) Christians propose something similar, with somewhat different virtues in mind. (Conveniently, they say that the virtuous will receive eternal eudaimonia in the afterlife.) A lot of modern philosophy, broadly speaking, focuses on distinguishing between “right” and “wrong” actions.

The hedonistic response is ultimately fairly simple: everything that is asserted as “virtuous” or “right” derives that status from its hedonistic consequences. If generosity and justice spread pain, we wouldn’t admire them. When a simple rule of right conduct (say, “tell the truth”) seems to have clearly negative hedonic consequences (informing Gestapo agents about hidden Jews), most people’s assurance in the preferability of following the rule is severely shaken.

This is, of course, the most cursory possible treatment of a longstanding issue. Mill discusses the question in Utilitarianism, and Sidgwick spends a few hundred pages of The Methods of Ethics trying to dispassionately consider whether any of the traditional virtues have an intrinsic value apart from their hedonistic consequences. He decides they don’t. The Epicureans agree.

Is “pleasure is the end” unjustifiable moral realism?

Those of a more skeptical or nihilistic bent respond with instinctive aversion to anything smacking of an absolute ethical claim. “Pleasure should be the goal of all human conduct” sounds like such a claim. However, it will hopefully be clear from the above that this Epicurean and Utilitarian formulation is not intended as an appeal to a real “moral truth” floating around in the ideal world. Instead, it is our practical conclusion based on what seems to us to be a widely-held understanding of human psychology.

Skeptical schools, such as the ancient Pyrrhonists, maintain that moral statements are not subject to certain human knowledge. Some say pleasure is the end, while others say virtue is the end—there is no agreement. Pyrrhonists would accordingly argue that all such statements must belong to the unverifiable world of beliefs, rather than that of evident and non-controversial facts. And yet, pragmatically (i.e. in terms of guiding our actions), I think there is little to set the Pyrrhonists strongly apart from the Epicureans.

While Pyrrhonists emphasize ridding our mind of unjustified dogmatic beliefs, they also admit the basic reasonableness of alleviating pain and practicing normal prudent behavior. Hunger and thirst are evident, and it makes perfect sense that individuals are motivated to alleviate such discomforts. Pyrrhonists “live in general conformity with the guidance of our society… seeing that going against the laws and customs produces difficulties,” writes contemporary Pyrrhonist Doug Bates (Pyrrho’s Way, 93). Epicurus makes very similar claims.

I have recently been having some fruitful exchanges with the Pyrrhonist community and look forward to going into more detail on our commonalities and differences soon, but for now I think it is roughly accurate to say this: insofar as Epicurean advice to pursue pleasure and avoid pain is interpreted as being based upon what the Pyrrhonists call “criteria of action” (i.e. appearances that are sufficiently useful guides for our conduct, even if not sufficiently evident to be endorsed as objectively true), rather than upon a “criterion of truth,” they would not generally disagree with the drift of our recommendations. Avoid pain and troublesome disturbance, while enjoying the common pleasures of life—Pyrrhonists do not dispute this as a reasonable set of priorities to guide our actions. While Epicurus does present his claims more absolutely than the Pyrrhonists do, he is concerned most of all with action. If we agree about how to live, then I think the Pyrrhonists will also have good odds of obtaining happiness.

The non-necessity of moral realism for practical hedonism is also the fundamental conclusion of some who take one step beyond moral skepticism to moral nihilism. “I have been a utilitarian since my undergraduate days… But I’ve also been a moral nihilist.” says Walter Veit, for a recent example from Substack. “Of all the ethical theories one might endorse, utilitarianism still offered the metaphysically least objectionable move, simply identifying the subjective values of creatures to the objective values of the universe.” Such a view is perfectly compatible with Epicureanism. To insist upon applying contemporary metaethical labels to Epicurus is ultimately an anachronistic exercise that is just as likely to distort as to illuminate. In practice, you can have the most conservative set of metaethical beliefs possible (i.e. none), and still find that hedonistic criteria are the most reasonable ones for the guidance of our individual conduct and our social arrangements.

In sum, although Epicureanism is often dismissed as offering a shallow and incomplete vision of human life, such critiques are poorly substantiated and usually stem from cursory and uncharitable interpretations of our claims. In reality, we share much of our underlying hedonistic theory with modern schools of thought that—while certainly not universally agreed with—are usually accorded widespread and serious consideration. Contemporary English-speakers who are tempted to casually dismiss hedonistic philosophies should give careful thought to the detailed arguments of foundational modern hedonists like Mill and Sidgwick before making any hasty pronouncements as to the insufficiency of a philosophy oriented around pleasure and happiness.

Hedonistic philosophies continue to be debated, but they continue to find plenty of advocates: Epicureanism should be part of that conversation.

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Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, X.117–119

Regarding the principles of life and how it is necessary for us to choose things on the one hand and avoid things on the other, [Epicurus] writes in this way. But first let us go through the characteristics of the wise man that seem true to him and to his followers.

[It seems to the Epicureans that] men bring us harm because of hatred, envy, or contempt, which the wise man overcomes through reasoned calculation. But once he has become wise he no longer admits any disposition contrary to wisdom nor willingly feigns any. He will be affected more by feelings, but this will not hinder him from wisdom. One can become wise neither from every bodily condition nor in every nation.

Even if he is tortured, the wise man will be happy. Only the wise man will have gratitude and will speak well of his friends, equally with them being present or absent. When he is tortured, however, he will both moan and wail.

The wise man will not have intercourse with a woman for whom the laws forbid it, as says Diogenes [of Tarsus] in his summary of Epicurus’ ethical teachings. Nor will he punish his servants, but will show mercy and forgive those who are of good character. It does not seem to them that the wise man will be overcome by passionate desire. Nor will he care about his burial. Neither do they think that Eros is sent by the gods, as Diogenes says in his twelfth book, nor will he make elegant speeches in public. They say that sex never helps anyone, and that one must be content if it does no harm. The wise man will also both marry and have children, as Epicurus says in the Problems, and in On Nature. But he will marry according to the circumstances of his life.

He will be conscious of shame before certain people and will not act foolishly in drunkenness, says Epicurus in the Symposium. Nor will he meddle in politics, as he says in the first book of On Lives. Nor will he be a tyrant or a Cynic, as he writes in the second book of On Lives. Nor will he beg.

Commentary

Diogenes Laertius (c. 230 AD) is our main source for Epicurus (died 270 BC), since it is within his Lives of the Eminent Philosophers that are preserved our most significant and extended texts from Epicurus himself (the letters to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus, as well as the Principal Doctrines). Along with a biography of Epicurus and a discussion of the various insults and accusations the different philosophical schools liked to throw his way, Diogenes also offers a useful compendium of Epicurus’ ethical advice. I’ll be covering this section in three installments of Tuesday Translations, alternating with my ongoing coverage of the Principal Doctrines.

As a rational and orderly summary, Diogenes’ account makes no sense. It is arranged seemingly at random, with occasionally dubious understanding. But Diogenes Laertius clearly had access to more Epicurean texts than us, and so his report conveys a lot of useful information that we otherwise would not have. Some of these tidbits are fairly self-explanatory, but some are worth pausing on briefly, either to offer further elucidation or simply to highlight sometimes overlooked elements. I will therefore proceed through the whole of today’s section with some hopefully useful notes as we go.

We begin the description of the wise man by describing how he deals with external sources of harm: through reasoned calculation (logismo), a process also discussed in Principal Doctrine 16. Then we turn inwards, from dealing with the hatred and envy of others to handling one’s own emotional dispositions. This whole excerpt is highly disjointed, but I assume at least some rough thematic continuity here, such that “disposition contrary to wisdom” includes emotions similar to those just mentioned (hatred, envy, and contempt). As I interpret it, such feelings are themselves sources of harm and contrary to wisdom. Many people will attempt to justify these emotions. Some (I hear this from some Stoics) will argue for feigning negative emotions if we judge that the behaviors are beneficial. Epicurus basically says no: hatred and envy are never choiceworthy, and the wise man will not pretend to have such emotions either. Perhaps he thinks that such pretending would result in generating at least some level of psychological disturbance; perhaps he thinks the benefits of such behavior are overrated.

Next, however, is the intriguing note that the wise man will be “more affected by feelings” than other men. Some think that “feelings” is being used here in a relatively narrow and technical way, suggesting something like “the wise man is very attuned to evaluating his own pleasure and pain, and so perceives these things more clearly.” Some think it is a more general statement refuting the idea (which some might jump to prematurely from the previous sentence) that the wise Epicurean will be an unfeeling block of stone. (If you ever run into this contention, say in the Substack of a prominent modern Stoic, know that it is simply false, and based on erroneous reporting of the evidence and instinctive opposition.) In this case, “affected more” might refer to the way the Epicurean wise man would relish pleasurable emotions such as those associated with security, comfort, or friendship, even while he reduces the salience of negative emotions in his life. Both positions are authentic Epicurean ones and I couldn’t rule out either as an interpretation of this sentence.

“Nation” is enthos, which can also mean race or class. The translators and commentors are divided; I can’t really say with certainty which one Epicurus had in mind, nor exactly what he was thinking with “bodily condition.” Overall, I suspect we should probably be wary of interpreting this as some broad-brush prejudice: the Epicureans were famously the most inviting school for the lower classes, scorning elitist education and its traditional paideia while welcoming foreigners, women, and slaves to the ranks of philosophy. Instead, I would guess that this is a statement of missionary realism: many people are resistant to philosophy due to some aspect or other of their nature, and so we have to calmly accept that some are unlikely to be convinced by Epicurean arguments.

If you read Cicero’s On Moral Ends, he misreports this in a very petty way, claiming that the Epicurean wise man will feel delight and pleasure on the rack. That isn’t what he says. Epicurus readily admits that a person being tortured will “moan and wail.” What he does maintain is that the most perfectly wise individual will nonetheless be “happy” (eudaimon). Being happy in such circumstances is not an easily obtainable achievement, but an asymptotic, aspirational one: to grow in wisdom is to increasingly build up your reserves of pleasure and perspective so that increasingly large discomforts can be counterbalanced and overcome.

A highly unwise person will be easily disturbed from happiness by a minor financial setback or minor physical injury. A comparatively wiser person will be able to maintain happiness even under significant losses or illness. A perfectly wise person will be able to maintain happiness under even the worst conditions. Fortunately (as Epicurus’ overall teachings make clear), there is plenty of room for rational planning to ensure that almost no one has to face those worst conditions.

This passage seemingly sets out a number of both “anti-love” and “pro-love” positions, in common oversimplifying summaries. In truth, there is no contradiction here. Sex that is against the law is bad. Obsessive erotic passion is also bad. What I translate as “overcome by passionate desire” is the verb eramai (ἔραμαι, the verbal form of eros). Many translators render this as “fall in love,” but this is potentially misleading in English. Phileo (φιλέω, the verbal form of philia, commonly rendered “friendship”) is a verb that, applied to a man’s wife, for example, we would render as “love” in English—and that kind of stable affection is encouraged by Epicureans. This can be inferred from their clear pro-marriage position, and is explicit in Lucretius.

Sex in itself should not be mistaken as a significant target of our actions (the “one must be content if it does no harm” line seems to be based on a letter of Metrodorus which we know from other sources—it is good to remember that these assorted positions are not always drawn from Epicurus himself, but from “the Epicureans). Marriage, however, is approved of and encouraged. (Some early editors unjustifiably amended this to read “will not marry”—I believe this is still in the old Loeb edition, for instance—but that is not what the text says.)

I disentangle the Epicurean distinctions about good and bad love further in The Classification of the Desires.

This first clause is a confusing one, with three different translations proposed for kai diatrapesesthai tinas (καὶ διατραπήσεσθαί τινας):

1. Usener, followed by Arrighetti and Inwood and Gerson, think it means “some turn aside” from marriage, referring to the previous sentence. This doesn’t seem to add much to the already qualified assertion, however, nor does it seem to be the most common use of the verb.

2. Translators Strodach and Mensch opt for understanding “turn aside” as meaning to “avoid” or “avert” certain people. This is good Epicureanism (I understand Principal Doctrine 39 as recommending something similar), but also seems like a relatively less common use of the word. It also has a weaker tie with the rest of the sentence.

3. Bailey opts for a sense of “turn aside” equivalent to “turn aside in shame” or simply “feel shame.”

My impression is that Bailey is right in thinking this the most common use of the word in Greek at this period, and such a reading also fits most naturally with the rest of the sentence as advice appropriate to a book on symposia. To “feel shame” in this context should therefore be understood as something like “the wise man will be aware of appropriate behavior and will not act in a socially shameful way.”

Epicurus’ advice regarding political involvement is a natural extension of this egoistic prudence: engaging in politics is highly likely to incur pains and inconveniences for the individual in exchange for very dubious benefits. (For more, see my Don’t Worry About Politics.) Being a tyrant would represent one extreme of concern with other people, seeing one’s good as consisting in maximizing one’s control over others. Being a Cynic would represent the opposite extreme, ignoring all prudence and propriety and thinking that our social reception is completely irrelevant to our well-being. Begging is both a behavior of the Cynics specifically, and a generally shameful action in the eyes of society.

In reality, our social position does matter to some degree, and we should tailor our actions accordingly. Friendship is best, when possible. In general, maintaining a modicum of social approval is prudent. With certain individuals, strategic avoidance is often reasonable. But neither seeking control over others nor ignoring all of our community’s social standards is an efficient way to pursue a pleasant life.

So far, this advice all seems quite good to me. Next time, we’ll cover another ecletic selection of topics: injury, grief, statues, poetry, public philosophizing, friendship, and more. I wish we had the cited books, but until we pluck them out from the ashes of Herculaneum, we will milk Diogenes Laertius for everything he’s got!

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Original Text

The textual disputes in this passage are pretty minor and inconsequential, and so I mostly adopt the text of Bailey without comment. My only variation is that I slightly prefer Hermann’s ληρήσειν (talk nonsense, act foolishly) in 119 rather than Bailey’s ἐπηρεάσειν (insult) as a correction of the MS τηρήσειν. No one really knows the exact word though.

[117] Περὶ δὲ τῶν βιωτικῶν καὶ ὅπως χρὴ τὰ μὲν ἡμᾶς αἱρεῖσθαι, τὰ δ᾽ ἐκφεύγειν, οὑτωσὶ γράφει. πρότερον δὲ διέλθωμεν ἅ τε αὐτῷ δοκεῖ περὶ τοῦ σοφοῦ καὶ τοῖς ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ.

Βλάβας ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἢ διὰ μῖσος ἢ διὰ φθόνον ἢ διὰ καταφρόνησιν γίνεσθαι, ὧν τὸν σοφὸν λογισμῷ περιγίνiεσθαι. ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸν ἅπαξ γενόμενον σοφὸν μηκέτι τὴν ἐναντίαν λαμβάνειν διάθεσιν μηδὲ πλάττειν ἑκόντα. πάθεσι μᾶλλον συσχεθήσεσθαι <ὁ> οὐκ ἂν ἐμποδίσαι πρὸς τὴν σοφίαν. οὐδὲ μὴν ἐκ πάσης σώματος ἕξεως σοφὸν γενέσθαι ἂν οὐδ᾽ ἐν παντὶ ἔθνει.

[118] κἂν στρεβλωθῇ δ᾽ ὁ σοφός, εἶναι αὐτὸν εὐδαίμονα, μόνον τε χάριν ἕξειν τὸν σοφόν, καὶ ἐπὶ φίλοις καὶ παροῦσι καὶ ἀποῦσιν ὁμοίως διατε<λειν> εὐλογοῦντα. ὅτε μέντοι στρεβλοῦται, ἔνθα καὶ μύζει καὶ οἰμώζει.

γυναικί τ᾽ οὐ μιγήσεσθαι τὸν σοφὸν ᾗ οἱ νόμοι ἀπαγορεύουσιν, ὥς φησι Διογένης ἐν τῇ ἐπιτομῇ τῶν Ἐπικούρου ἠθικῶν δογμάτων. οὐδὲ κολάσειν οἰκέτας, ἐλεήσειν μέντοι καὶ συγγνώμην τινὶ ἕξειν τῶν σπουδαίων. ἐρασθήσεσθαι τὸν σοφὸν οὐ δοκεῖ αὐτοῖς: οὐδὲ ταφῆς φροντιεῖν: οὐδὲ θεόπεμπτον εἶναι τὸν ἔρωτα, ὡς Διογένης ἐν τῷ δωδεκάτῳ φησίν. οὐδὲ ῥητορεύσειν καλῶς. συνουσίν δέ, φασιν, ὤνησε μὲν οὐδέποτε, ἀγαπητὸν δὲ εἰ μὴ καὶ ἔβλαψε. [119] Καὶ μὴν καὶ γαμήσειν καὶ τεκνοποιήσειν τὸν σοφόν, ὡς Ἐπίκουρος ἐν ταῖς Διαπορίαις καὶ ἐν τοῖς Περὶ φύσεως. κατὰ περίστασιν δέ ποτε βίου γαμήσειν.

καὶ διατραπήσεσθαί τινας, οὐδὲ μὴν [ληρήσειν] ἐν μέθῃ φησὶν ὁ Ἐπίκουρος ἐν τῷ Συμποσίῳ. οὐδὲ πολιτεύσεσθαι, ὡς ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ Περὶ βίων: οὐδὲ τυραννεύσειν: οὐδὲ κυνιεῖν, ὡς ἐν τῇ δευτέρᾳ Περὶ βίων: οὐδὲ πτωχεύσειν.

Last week, I introduced the work of Michel Onfray, one of the most vigorous contemporary voices for a revival of materialist, hedonistic philosophies. In his book Les Sagesses Antiques (Ancient Wisdoms, unpublished in English) and lecture series Une Contre-Histoire de la Philosophie (A Counter History of Philosophy), Onfray focuses specifically on ancient Epicureanism as one of the first and most successful iterations of these evergreen ideas. In Part One, I covered Onfray’s discussion of Epicurus himself. Today, I’ll present the highlights from his presentation of the later Epicureans (Philodemus, Lucretius, and Diogenes of Oenoanda), and then offer some overarching thoughts on Onfray’s approach and primary theses.

Structurally, my discussion will simply trace the next six lectures from the Counter History series, enhanced occasionally by relevant elements from Ancient Wisdoms, which closely parallels the lectures.1 If you missed last week’s installment, you may want to start there for an introduction to Onfray and these works.

7. Under the Ash, Philodemus (Sous la cendre, Philodème)

With this lecture, Onfray turns from the original philosophy of Epicurus to its Roman incarnation. Often, these are treated as largely synonymous, with the testimonies of Cicero, Lucretius, and Philodemus assumed to be essentially entirely compatible with the original teachings of the Garden, despite their geographic and temporal remove (all three of those sources wrote some 200 years after the death of Epicurus). Onfray is not so sure, suspecting that the version of Epicureanism popular among the Roman upper classes was distinctly more luxurious in material terms than the initial incarnation of Epicureanism.

Here, Onfray opens his discussion of Philodemus, whose philosophic works are known to us only from what has been recovered from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. He describes the opulent villa, its location, and its suspected owner Lucius Calpurnius Piso, leading to a discussion of how we might square such riches with what Epicurus had presented as a philosophy characterized by habits of material simplicity. It is certainly arguable that the asceticism of “original” Epicureanism is sometimes overstated, while the riches of Piso are presumably not reflective of the average Epicurean philosopher of the late Republic, but I think Onfray has a point: if you accept, as I do, the general thesis that philosophic affiliation in the ancient world had strong implications for one’s way of life, then it seems that anyone working out of the Villa of the Papyri would likely have a relatively looser interpretation of “reasonable” luxury. (The original villa is still mostly underground, but you can look at its recreation at the Getty Villa in LA for an idea of its extravagance.)

Another distinct trend we can perceive from an initial glance at Philodemus’ recovered writings is a tendency towards the practical (as is the general prejudice about Roman thinking compared to Greek): his subjects include property management, anger, death, frank speech, and rhetoric. While we still do not know the full extent of his works, there seems to be a general trend away from physics and epistemology, towards what we might today call applied ethics. What those writings teach is the subject of the next lecture.

8. Epicureanism in Campania (L’épicurisme campanien)

Turning to Philodemus’ writings themselves (which are highly fragmentary and difficult to study), Onfray proposes four areas in which he thinks this “second Epicureanism” distinguishes itself from that of the founders. Each of these constitutes a difference of emphasis, rather than an outright abandonment or contradiction of any of the original teachings. Philodemus and his contemporaries may well have seen themselves as essentially faithful to Epicurus, but the themes of their writings and their way of life reflect, according to Onfray, a “less heroic,” more relaxed and pragmatic kind of philosophy, one relatively more interested in the pursuit of acceptable pleasures than in the systematic elimination of pains and fears.

First, in the ethical domain, Onfray considers Philodemus to reflect a less austere conception of Epicurean simplicity. Notably, for instance, both Philodemus’ poetic epigrams and the work of other Epicurean-adjacent poets of the time, such as Horace, seem to depict a significantly more enthusiastic attitude towards casual romances than can be found in Epicurus himself. Epicurus emphasizes the avoidance of pain; the Romans emphasize carpe diem. Likewise, Epicurus’ Garden seemed quasi-monastic, while Philodemus’ base was distinctly more opulent.

Second, Onfray notes that Philodemus’ descriptions of the gods offer several features that are absent from our surviving texts of Epicurus: Philodemus says that the gods “love philosophers” and are therefore seemingly more interested in human affairs, have male and female sexes, are physically beautiful, and have social interactions analogous to those of humans. (I have not studied these texts myself.) Third, Philodemus gives distinctly more attention to the arts than Epicurus: he writes poetry himself, discusses Homer without disapproval, and recognizes the pleasures of music. Onfray is sympathetic towards this view, as many moderns might be—it is entirely possible to think that for those in search of wisdom, culture could reasonably be seen “less as a trap and more as an ally” (Les Sagesses Antiques 12.9). More generally, Philodemus’ interests seem to extend to topics that were not of great importance for Epicurus: he also wrote on the history of philosophy, rhetoric, and logic.

Fourth and lastly, Onfray thinks we can find a kind of “rehabilitation of the political” in Philodemus. While Epicurus himself was famous for his skepticism towards politics, founding a school that was widely recognized as setting itself apart from Athens’ political life, Philodemus worked out of the famous “Villa of the Papyri” at Herculaneum, one of the most sumptuous and extravagant of all Roman villas, under the patronage of Piso, the father-in-law of Julius Caesar. It is unknown to what degree, if any, Philodemus influenced the political priorities of Piso or his peers, but from his writings it appears that he did not reject the possibility that Epicurean philosophers could have a beneficial impact on the governance of the state.

9. Divine Lucretius! (Divin Lucrèce!)

As with Epicurus and Philodemus, Onfray dedicates multiple lectures to Lucretius, beginning with an entry of biography and context before diving into the writings proper. Since we know essentially nothing about Lucretius’ life, Onfray turns to a consideration of the dubious testimonies and ungrounded speculation that makes up the corpus of Lucretian biography, starting with the account of Saint Jerome, which was penned some 400 years after the life of Lucretius. In that influential narrative, whose core elements have often been repeated with varying amounts of historical awareness, Lucretius was the victim of a love potion which destroyed his mind, wrote his poem in the intervals of lucidity, and then killed himself at the age of 44.

We have no reason to believe that any of that is true. Onfray brings it up, however, because the history of Lucretian biography and commentary reveals the same kind of antagonism which Epicurus has often faced. Idealist thinkers (i.e. Christians) had an unshakeable antagonism to Lucretius, whose poem was a manifesto of materialism that denied divine providence, benevolent creation, mind-body dualism, and all the rest of the “Christian intellectual baggage.” Onfray considers this early calumny of Lucretius to have then influenced modern reactions: he discusses feminist writer Agnès Lagache who considers Lucretius a misogynist (an accusation which Onfray thinks is completely off-base) and an obscure mid-20^th century psychiatrist who claims that Lucretius was a depressive, repressed mystic who was predestined to suicide (likewise totally unfounded in our historical knowledge or the text of the poem). Such narratives make more sense, Onfray argues, when seen as the modern inheritance of the ancient slander.

What, in broad strokes, does Onfray think is the reality? To the Idealists, who thought all materialist accounts were reductive and incomplete, he would argue for Lucretius’ “vitalist materialism,” which is full of life and energy. To the feminists, he would note Lucretius’ positive portrayal of an “ataraxic couple” and eminently modern recognition of female sexual pleasure. To the psychiatrist, he would argue that Lucretius was not depressive, but an impassioned advocate for life, not someone suffering from pessimism, but rather a poet characterized above all by a kind of hyper-lucidity, that values above all else seeing things as they truly are.

10. Caprices of Atoms (Caprices d’atomes)

Following his introductory contextual lecture on Lucretius, and preceding his lecture on Lucretian hedonism and ethical advice, is an entry on the implications of Lucretian physics (the “caprice” in question is the famous “swerve”). The workings of the natural world are, after all, the main subject of the poem. For my largely ethical purposes here at Untroubled, the topics covered in this lecture are somewhat less central, but Onfray still has a few interesting observations worth noting for general readers. One of the most valuable is his summation of the Lucretian mission, which applies equally well to his ethical advice as to his cosmology:

We have invented so many things that are illusory, fictions that enable us not to look reality in the face. We are going to die, we are going to grow old, we are going to suffer, we are going to disappear—we are filled with negativity. And Lucretius says, “Well, we’re going to look at things very carefully, we’re going to dissect everything with a scalpel, we’re going to employ a method of reasoning that will spare nothing.” Rarely, I think, has anyone pushed farther towards the deconstruction of fictions than Lucretius.

In the book, Onfray finds even more pungent formulae for this mission:

Lucrèce assassine les fictions. (Les Sagesses Antiques 13.3)

The poem recounts a martial odyssey against everything that prevents enjoyment and therefore living: fears, dread, illusions, fictions, fables. In its crosshairs are all mythologies both secular and religious. (13.8)

Lucretius argued for empirical observation, the testing of hypotheses, and the withholding of certainty when the evidence is insufficient. Do all this, and the result is not some dry, inert materialism, robbed of all order and majesty. The result is a greater perception of the true laws of nature, and a sense of wonder that is not based on groundless fears and fictions.

11. Tragic Hedonism (L’hédonisme tragique)

In Onfray’s sense, the tragic perspective is an alternative to both optimism and pessimism, which are both ways of distorting reality. As mentioned in the previous lectures, he views Lucretius’ most distinguishing feature as being a kind of hyper-lucidity that is concerned above all with the way things really are. Importantly, however, that does not mean that Lucretius is joyless, austere, or cruel (Onfray joins me in considering those who take the famous “struggling ship” proem of Book II to be evidence of sadistic pleasure to be severely misreading the actual text).

On the contrary, Lucretius is clearly still a hedonist: his descriptions of the pleasures of social intercourse, shared meals, music, nature, and so on are direct evidence of this. His account of the development of human society (which anticipated many aspects of later social contract theorists) is based around the central impetus to reduce dangers and pains while increasing our opportunities for pleasure. A topic to which Onfray gives particular attention is that of sexual relationships, on which Lucretius has again often been misinterpreted.

In shallow misreadings, Lucretius is represented as being “against love.” In reality, he warns against “l’amour-passion,” or passionate love. Erotic obsession leads to a loss of self-control, psychological weakening, imprudent neglect of our affairs, and—most seriously of all—a loss of touch with reality. Under the influence of such passion, the ugly appear beautiful, the bitter appear sweet, and the foolish appear wise. This has its ridiculous side (Onfray compares it to Moliere’s The Misanthrope), but the consequences are ultimately painful, even if one attains the object of one’s desire: these are illusions and will not last.

Lucretius proposes two counter-visions (in addition to his surgical dissection of romantic passion). The first is the more notorious: men could visit prostitutes. I think Onfray is right, however, in seeing this as a part of a very modern perspective, in which sexual pleasure is divorced from the economic needs of marriage (Lucretius acknowledges the existence of female sexual pleasure, which of course has often not been the case in western cultural history). The second is the “ataraxic couple.” In a few often-overlooked lines at the end of Book IV, Lucretius describes a different vision of romantic partnership, one which seems perfectly compatible with the friendship that Epicureanism so often praises. A happy marriage is not produced by extraordinary beauty or an intense and immiserating passion, but instead is built from pleasant habituation, which arises factis morigerisque modis—through one’s actions and obliging behavior. Such a partnership is a prudence-enhancing alliance amidst the challenges of the world, rather than a reality-distorting imprudence. It is a source of pleasure that strengthens, rather than weakens.

12. Upon the stone, Diogenes of Oenoanda (Sur la pierre, Diogène d’Œnanda)

There is less one can easily say about Diogenes of Oenoanda, the author of a later Epicurean inscription (c. 130 AD) found in very fragmentary condition in modern-day Turkey. The majority of the text has not been recovered, and much of what survives either reproduces Epicurus verbatim or is otherwise very faithful to the known doctrines. (The most up-to-date English translation of the inscription is that of Martin Ferguson Smith, available for free online.) Still, Onfray notes a few unique points before rounding out this lecture cycle with some comments on the transition to the Christian age and its destruction of Epicurean and other materialist texts.

Among other things, Diogenes makes a positive case for old age as the time when our desires are on the wane, so that tranquility is more easily attainable. Another interesting fragment contains his contention that statues of the gods should show them “genial and smiling,” rather than impassioned or frightening. Most interesting to Onfray is Diogenes’ hint of utopian aspirations, imagining a world in which Epicurean wisdom becomes universal:

To Onfray, this is one more entry in the evidence against simplistic accounts of Epicureanism as entirely disinterested in political questions, particularly when it comes to the later manifestations of the school: Philodemus and Lucretius were both in contact with the world of power, and seemingly hoped to influence it. To cultivate an Epicurean disregard for personal aggrandizement does not necessarily imply an apathy towards the well-being of the world.

Conclusion

The history of this great adventure was written by the conquerors—that is to say, it was the destroyers of these works who wrote the history, it was the enemies of the corporeal ideal, the sensual ideal, and the Epicurean ideal who constructed the story, including that of philosophy. We live under the written regime of this history of philosophy. This seminar proposes and will propose a history of the conquered. (Lecture on Diogenes of Oenoanda)

Onfray has a philosophical ambition and passion which I cannot help but admire. The experience of actually listening to an opinionated individual, well-rehearsed but unscripted, speak about Epicureanism for twelve enthusiastic hours is a unique one that is seldom granted to modern philosophy students. This is true first in simple volume of coverage: the median holder of an undergraduate philosophy degree probably discussed Epicureanism over one or two class sessions, embedded in a larger survey of ancient philosophy in which clear preference was given to Plato and Aristotle.

But even beyond this, there is something unique about listening to Onfray. One can, of course, find specialist books about Epicureanism that equal his page count. But his partisan passion is very rare in such books. (The closest English-language analogue would be Norman DeWitt’s Epicurus and His Philosophy—imagine getting to hear DeWitt lay into the Platonists, and Stoics for twelve hours! That would be a treat.) This isn’t to say that the lectures are angry harangues. They are substantive and positive, periodically leavened with French sex jokes. But they give listeners a hint of the experience of philosophical like-mindedness which must have been a part of ancient Epicureanism, a hint of the immersiveness that continues to draw people together through commonality of political or religious beliefs. While listening to these lectures, a modern Epicurean can feel at home.

There are plenty of more specific insights that even those already familiar with the texts can gather from Onfray’s discussion. I have catalogued many of them above and in the first installment of this essay, and so won’t bother repeating them. Overall, however, their cumulative force boils down to this: a revitalized conviction that hedonism and materialism need not be marginal philosophical positions, but could in fact constitute a widespread, common basis for human interaction. There are many people in the world who are ready to leave idealist fictions behind, who are ready to discard the intellectual baggage of guilt, sin, and shame over the corporeal. And when such people come to this perspective in the living of their modern life, they will likewise be glad to turn to the ancient teachings and learn that these wisdoms were discovered long ago, and have adherents still.

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Principal Doctrine 22:

Principal Doctrine 25:

Commentary

The football club Olympique de Marseille has had a classic motto since its founding in the 1890s: droit au but, or “straight to goal.” They’ve stuck with it because it captures an insistence on directness that is appealing both as a tactical outlook (control and conservatism are not as exciting to watch as an emphasis on constant attack) and as an expression of character (the city’s reputation is one of bluntness and straightforwardness compared to their hoity-toity Parisian rivals). Epicurus has a similar reputation, disdaining the elitism, sophistry, and abstruse language that has often characterized philosophy. His is a philosophy of focus and directness, nowhere more so than in today’s selection from the Principal Doctrines, in which he insists that we remain focused at all times on our ultimate goal: a life of pleasure.

In these particular maxims, Epicurus merely refers to our telos, the overarching goal or end of human nature, without explicitly defining it. He did that back in the Letter to Menoeceus:

The telos of the human animal is to pursue pleasure, which is composed of a pain-free bodily state (aponia) and an untroubled mental state (ataraxia). At some point, I will write more about this claim, but broadly speaking, Epicurus’ use of the word telos should not be mistaken as implying any actual teleological claim. Unlike Plato or Aristotle, his project is not to determine our “purpose” or “function” in the same way as one might inquire into the function of an intentionally designed tool. A good hammer “should” drive nails well. Humans, however, were not specially designed in some unique way that sets us apart from other animals. There is no ideal blueprint to consult.

What Epicurus means by telos is a little different. His approach is to look to our underlying nature, as reflected in the behavior not just of adult humans, but also of infants and animals, to determine what the inevitable goals of our species are, once you peel back the complication and confusion of learned ideologies. His conclusion from this empirical research is that humans necessarily seek pleasure and avoid pain, and that a good philosophy of life should therefore be oriented towards effectively fulfilling that goal. (If you are concerned that this definition of the telos leaves important things out, take a look at my explainer of Epicurean hedonism—our conception of pleasure is significantly different than that used by non-philosophers.)

With that background established, we can take a closer look at these two maxims on the importance of keeping that fundamental goal constantly in mind during our decision-making process.

PD 22 advises us to consider two things: our fundamental goal and pasan ten enargeian (literally, something like “every clear perception”). This second item is often taken to refer to sensory perception (Cyril Bailey takes it this way, for instance), or to the combination of sensory perception and our corresponding feelings of pleasure and pain (Norman DeWitt). In either case, the general drift is a materialist and empirical one: Epicurus thinks the two elements of an effective belief-forming process are 1) our fundamental goal of a pleasurable life, and 2) the granular and specific conditions of our situation.

I will discuss the epistemological implications of this saying a little more in my next installment from the Principal Doctrines, when I cover PD 23 and PD 24, which are all about epistemology and refuting skepticism. For now, we’ll focus on the ethical and practical dimensions of this advice, which are substantial: if we turn aside from our underlying goal due to distraction, or overlook our direct sensations due to prioritizing more abstract values, our lives will be filled with confusion and disturbance. (“Disturbance” is tarakhes, a word familiar as the condition we seek to avoid when we achieve ataraxia and become untroubled.)

The first one: neglecting the telos. If you lose sight of our fundamental, underlying, and indeed inescapable goal of pleasure, you will not succeed in avoiding confusion. As discussed previously, people seek wealth, fame, political power or other such attributes, mistakenly thinking they are either instrumentally infallible or intrinsically worth seeking, rather than being good only insofar as they increase our pleasure or diminish our pain. Sometimes people attain the objects of their desire, and sometimes they don’t, but in neither case do they satisfy and resolve their underlying dissatisfactions. More on this below.

The second one: neglecting our “clear perceptions” (enargeian). If we disregard the basic evidence of our senses and associated pleasures and pains, we are likewise certain to pursue the wrong things. As Epicurus loves to point out, the needs of our body are very simple: not to be hungry, not to be thirsty, not to be cold. Many things we fear or desire have no impact on this fundamental well-being. Sometimes these negative impressions occupy our minds for a limited time: the cat throws up and we have to spend a few minutes cleaning, or we run over a nail and need to get a tire patched. Sometimes these concerns grip us for years: we harness ourselves to a careerist grindstone in pursuit of some distant financial goal, or to enable the acquisition of expensive cars or houses. But focus on what you can see with your eyes and feel with your hands. How much do any of these change your underlying sources of pleasure and pain? Are you able to alleviate pain and secure the comfort of your human organism in a simple way, without unnecessary complication and difficulty? Then do that.

The dangers of losing sight of our true goal are discussed further in Principal Doctrine 25.

When read in conjunction with PD 20, and the broader ethical advice of the Principal Doctrines, this maxim should not fundamentally be too confusing, although the scholars have made a great hash of it by plucking it out of context to serve in their dispute du jour.1 As in PD 20, what we are being advised is essentially clear: it is vital to keep the overarching goal of pleasure in mind if you want to have an effective decision-making process.

Here, the problem is framed as the creation of a situation in which “your actions will not be consistent with your principles.” The word that Bailey and I translate as “principles” is logois; Long & Sedley’s “theories” or Strodach’s “creed” are also reasonable renderings. In all of these readings, the understanding is therefore that the addressee is an avowed adherent of Epicurean philosophy (presumably the case for most readers of the Principal Doctrines). As such, the addressee officially recognizes that pleasure is the goal of human life, but takes actions that do not successfully attain that end.

What kind of actions? Here there is some genuine ambiguity as to Epicurus’ intended emphasis, although the two plausible interpretations are not mutually exclusive. In their commentaries, Bailey and Strodach think that Epicurus is talking about generally positive but intermediate virtues such as prudence, honor, justice, duty, or moderation, for instance. In favor of this emphasis is the somewhat unique word prokatastrepseis, for which I have adopted Long & Sedley’s suggestion of “stop short at” (Bailey renders it as “turn to some nearer standard”). Combined with the interpretation of logois as referring formally to the principles or creed of an avowed Epicurean, this suggests a warning against focusing on objects which are not inherently bad, but which should not be mistaken as the true and ultimate telos.

Tim O’Keefe (in “Is Epicurean Friendship Altruistic?”) suggests that Epicurus is warning against different kinds of mistaken goals, such as the pursuit of wealth or fame. This would fit in with the advice of several other Principal Doctrines, which point out that such objects do not deliver their hoped-for benefits. In this reading, logois need not necessarily be confined to the explicit creed of a declared Epicurean; it could simply be the “words” appealed to when justifying a course of action. People might often say they want wealth and power because such things offer the promise of safety, pleasure, and happiness. But—Epicurus would point out—these actions do not actually lead to the fulfillment of these stated objectives.

Overall, I don’t think there’s a clear reason to rule out either of these “something elses” at which one might stop short—both subsidiary virtues or more concrete aspirations can mislead and distract us. These are both authentically Epicurean warnings. One should fixate neither on a particular nameable virtue nor on the world’s ideas of success, but instead measure every plan of action against something more real: does it increase your pleasure or your pain?

An example of the first: I know someone who values comfort and avoiding pain. He doesn’t chase after goals of wealth or ambition. In general, these are not un-Epicurean priorities. However, for him, “live comfortably” has manifested in a lifestyle spent mostly at home, alone with the TV. I think Epicurus would advise him to check in directly with his feelings of pain and pleasure: if someone frequently feels lonely, experiencing mostly small and temporary pleasures that fail to alleviate a larger malaise, then one needs to recalibrate one’s actions in response to that. Comfort and security are good, but activity and positive social interaction are probably necessary for a happy human too!

An example of the second: I can think of someone else who is relatively disdainful of comfort and willing to undertake a great deal of pain and labor in pursuit of larger goals. For her, these energies get channeled into earning a high income and the ownership and renovation of a second home out-of-state. Being able to temporarily endure discomfort can be a very useful capability when it secures greater pleasure in the future, but I think Epicurus would question the tactical efficiency of her approach. She loves spending time with her children, but her stylish new house is far away from all of them. She loves pursuing her hobbies and creative projects, but her inflated housing costs are the only thing keeping her from retirement. This disconnect points to the importance of checking in with the actual pleasures of our life and not overrating what is hypothetical, far-off, and ideal. In practice, maximizing income and expenditure often has very little correlation to actually increased pleasure, especially if it comes at the expense of more valuable leisure or treasured human connections.

Instead, keep the end in mind. Evaluate your pleasure and pain according to the firmest and most direct realities of life, not according to words and their reputations. Do not merely assume the goodness of things as you pursue long-established habits or long-aspired-to dreams. Remember what your body needs for comfort and what your mind needs for tranquility. And if you are tempted by some other end, whether one of seeming-solid virtue or of widely known allure, then stop and check again: does it help you with what matters?

Read the complete series on the Principal Doctrines here.

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Original Text

22. τὸ ὑφεστηκὸς δεῖ τέλος ἐπιλογίζεσθαι καὶ πᾶσαν τὴν ἐνάργειαν, ἐφʼ ἣν τὰ δοξαζόμενα ἀνάγομεν· εἰ δὲ μὴ πάντα ἀκρισίας καὶ ταραχῆς ἔσται μεστά.

25. εἰ μὴ παρὰ πάντα καιρὸν ἐπανοίσεις ἕκαστον τῶν πραττομένων ἐπὶ τὸ τέλος τῆς φύσεως, ἀλλὰ προκαταστρέψεις εἴτε φυγὴν εἴτε δίωξιν ποιούμενος εἰς ἄλλο τι, οὐκ ἔσονταί σοι τοῖς λόγοις αἱ πράξεις ἀκόλουθοι.

Back in Epicurus’ day, philosophy felt like a battleground. Read Diogenes Laertius’ biography of Epicurus and you will be impressed by the amount of vitriol flung back and forth by the rival schools. Epicurus insulted the Platonists (and most of his own philosophic precursors); the Platonists (and most later philosophers) insulted the Epicureans. These days, most of our scholars of ancient philosophy decline to announce a firm affiliation and conduct tamely non-partisan research. But there is one contemporary writer who is very happy to wade into the ancient fray again, waging verbal battle against Christianity, Stoicism, Platonism, and all other idealist and anti-hedonist philosophies. His name is Michel Onfray.

Unfortunately, the majority of Onfray’s work has not been translated from French into English. A few of his most popular polemics have been (Atheist Manifesto is the most notorious), but his works specifically on Epicureanism and ancient philosophy have not been published in English. Which is a shame—he takes the teachings of the Garden far more seriously than most of the modern anglophone world, radically reshaping the standard story of western philosophy to recenter on the materialist and hedonist thinkers that he argues have been suppressed by ideological opponents for millenia. Today, in the first of a two-part series, I’ll introduce Onfray and his most directly relevant work—his history of ancient philosophy Les Sagesses Antiques (Ancient Wisdoms) and the parallel installments of his lecture series, Une Contre-Histoire de la Philosophie (A Counter History of Philosophy)—while next week I’ll conclude my review of these works and offer some overarching thoughts.1

Since Onfray’s presentation of these ideas is probably unfamiliar to most of my audience, I’m going to take a fairly straightforward approach, proceeding through his twelve lectures on Epicureanism, supplemented by a few relevant passages from Les Sagesses Antiques, to convey the scope of his thinking and highlight some of his most penetrating arguments. If you are comfortable in French, I encourage you to check out the source materials yourself.2 If you aren’t, I hope this piece will, at the least, let you know that these ideas are out there and have their champions—Epicurus may seem like a comparatively minor thinker if you come from the standard academic approach to ancient philosophy, dominated by Plato and Aristotle, but that characterization is not an objective reflection of his importance in the history of thought, or of the value of his ideas.

Whether you read French or not, Onfray’s central message is a compelling one that I am happy to amplify: the hedonists have always been right, the pleasure-hating idealists have always been wrong, our philosophic curriculum has been overly influenced by the historical success of Christian fabulists, and it’s long past time that the world corrected this.

The Counter History of Philosophy

From 2002 to 2015, Onfray recorded a long series of lectures on his version of the history of philosophy through the Popular University of Caen, an alternative educational institution of his own co-founding that charged no fees, gave no grades, and recentered neglected ideas. This project, entitled Counter History of Philosophy, was a massive undertaking, totaling over three hundred lectures running in parallel with a twelve-volume book series that covers the history of western philosophy from its origins to the 20^th century.

Twelve lectures focus specifically on Epicurus and his direct philosophical successors. (Though there is a great deal of other material that would also be of interest to Epicureans: pre-Epicurean atomists and hedonists, Pierre Gassendi, the Utilitarians, Jean-Marie Guyau, and Pierre Hadot all merit dedicated lectures as well.) Today, I’ll cover the first six lectures, dealing with Epicurus himself. Next week, I’ll discuss the subsequent six on the later Epicureans (Philodemus, Lucretius, and Diogenes of Oenoanda), as well as offer some concluding thoughts on Onfray’s contributions to Epicurean study.

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1. What’s at Stake in Epicurus (Les enjeux d’Épicure)

In his opening lecture on Epicurus, Onfray lays out one of the central conflicts in the history of ideas, the dramatic “stakes” over which many historical philosophers have wrestled: Idealism vs. Materialism. In ancient philosophy, the emblematic contrast was between Plato (and his Neoplatonist and Stoic descendants) and Epicurus. The main purpose of this lecture, then, is to take Epicurus out of a dry, merely historical chronology of figures (as he is often treated in introductory ancient philosophy classes) and mark him out as the great anti-idealist of Greek philosophy, which is to say both the great opponent of Platonism in his day, and the still vivid opponent of much wrongheadedness that continues in the present.

Onfray thinks the Idealist claims of Plato and his heirs were clearly wrong: there are no transcendent Forms, there is no immortal soul, reasonable explanations of the cosmos require empirical data, and moral claims cannot be derived through a priori reasoning rather than through reference to hedonistic outcomes. Of course, such ideas still have their defenders. Across the general population, however, the intense Idealism of Plato has clearly been losing ground—no one thinks there is a “true form” of a horse of which all material horses are imperfect reflections—so why does Plato continue to be accorded so much prestige in the history of philosophy in comparison to Epicurus? Onfray will touch on this throughout the whole series, but his main historical villain is Christianity, whose idealist sympathies led to the preservation of much Plato and the loss of most Epicurus.

Also in this introductory lecture is a helpful synthesizing analogy: while previous sessions discussed the many “islands” of Pre-Socratic philosophy, Epicurus is the unifying figure in whose light we can see those predecessors as making up a larger archipelago—the “Epicurean archipelago.” From Leucippus and Democritus came Epicurus’ physical materialism. From Aristippus and the Cyrenaics came a hedonistic ethics. From Antiphon came the emphasis on philosophy as therapy. From Diogenes and the Cynics came a certain degree of ascetism, rejecting the heedless hedonism of the Cyrenaics in favor of material simplicity. From the Sophists came a distinction between nature and law, recognizing the mutability of human law and custom and preferring to refer to nature as a better guide. And against Plato came Epicurus’ rejection of a self divided between a “bad” body and a “good” soul, instead favoring a unitary conception of human existence in which the corporeal was no longer something to despise.

2. The Physiology of Epicurus (Physiologie d’Épicure)

In this lecture, Onfray introduces Epicurus biographically and argues that such biographical details have significant relevance for understanding his philosophy. For example, Epicurus’ poor family background and provenance from the cultural backwater of Samos presumably influenced his philosophical direction towards egalitarianism, anti-elitism, and a skepticism of the grandeur and importance of the state, all aspects in which he differed strikingly from the philosophy of the aristocratic Athenian Plato. As Onfray puts it in the book:

Poor, exiled, provincial… Epicurus would pay no homage, we may be sure, to the Platonic fantasies: the superiority of Athens, a visceral sense of the aristocratic, reactionary elitism, political conservatism, pedagogic esoterism, dualist spiritualism, architectonic theism, a closed and fixed political society, the advising of princes, the philosopher-king and other such trinkets of a Plato he nicknamed “The Golden” and constantly objected to, as the contents of his philosophy bear witness. (Les Sagesses Antiques 10.1)

More broadly, there are aspects of the ancient Greek cultural and technological context that we shouldn’t forget: their concept of free will and choice were very different than that of the Christian era (there was no such thing as “guilt,” Onfray contends), while the near total absence of medical remedies for pain can’t help but have influenced Epicurus’ version of hedonism.

Rather uniquely, Onfray places a large emphasis on the physical body of Epicurus himself—thematically suitable for the arch-materialist of his day! He notes a record we have that Metrodorus wrote a book On the Poor Health of Epicurus. This fact, combined with some other scattered testimonies to Epicurus’ weak constitution, seems to Onfray to constitute a crucial insight into the development of his philosophy. In Onfray’s words, Epicurus was “incapable of excess”—and so all the slanders of sensual indulgence are false and the truth was as it is seen in the texts of Epicurus himself: Epicurean hedonism was “an art of not suffering.” I largely agree with Onfray that this huge emphasis on avoiding suffering is easy to neglect from our historical position and needs to be remembered.

3. A Pig’s Philosophy? (Une philosophie cochonne?)

Epicureanism was often accused of being a “piggish” philosophy, with critics of hedonism (falsely) asserting that Epicurus encouraged some kind of low sensualism that denied the existence of more elevated feelings and ideas. In this lecture, Onfray first summarizes the ancient instances of this pig motif, including its willing adoption by the Epicureans themselves, then turns to consider the broader realm of ancient criticism of Epicureanism.

Diogenes Laertius, our principal biographer, reports an impressive array of ad hominum accusations: that Epicurus led a life of constant sexual debauchery, ate and drank excessively, was arrogant towards his philosophic predecessors, was a foreigner, and was a political opportunist. Onfray goes through them all, denying the factual truth of most and undermining the critical substance of the remainder (for instance, it’s true he was from the colonies, rather than being a blue-blooded Athenian, but this has little invalidating force today).

While it might seem like Onfray spends a lot of time introducing Epicurus’ historical context before getting to his actual writings, this is important for his overarching polemical thesis: the anti-materialist, anti-hedonist, body-hating schools of philosophic and religious thought have always hated, attacked, and suppressed Epicureanism. Egoistic hedonism’s low contemporary reputation is not a sign that its ideas are less worthwhile, but a result of this historical opposition and Idealists’ ongoing psychological legacy of “self-hatred, concentrated, transformed, displaced, reversed, and directed onto a fantastical object able to take on all of that internally-accumulated negativity: pleasure” (Les Sagesses 10.10).

4. Tranquil Atheism (L’athéisme tranquille)

Onfray frames this lecture as dealing with the first two subjects of the tetrapharmakos: the gods and death. For readers of this site, most of his discussion will be familiar, explaining how Epicurean materialism denies that either of these traditional sources of fear and worry deserve to be the subject of such negative emotions.

The part that might raise some eyebrows is his choice of title, drawing on a phrase from Gilles Deleuze. Onfray recognizes that Epicurus is not, formally and officially, an atheist. Nonetheless, he points out, with some justice, that he in many ways falls outside of the traditional categories: Epicurus does not believe in the pantheism of early societies, the mythological polytheism of his culture, or the all-powerful monotheism that would become dominant in the future. Instead, he believes in “lazy gods” who have no influence on our world, who do not have the flaws and pettiness of the traditional Greek gods, and who do not merit either our prayers or our fears. Epicurus’ worldview is one of “gods without religion,” one that postulates an ethics based on philosophy rather than divine law, and so in this sense approaches something that is in practice more like a “tranquil atheism” than it is similar to the standard polytheism of his day.

5. Ascetic Hedonism (L’hédonisme ascétique)

Here, Onfray turns to the second half of the tetrapharmakos: the good is easy to obtain and the bad is easy to endure. Much of this lecture is occupied with the classification of the desires, a topic which Onfray cover with some insight, albeit also with some oversimplification. (His description of the necessary desires omits any discussion of the desires “necessary for happiness” that Epicurus mentions as distinct from the simple physical desires which Onfray discusses.)

Correctly, however, Onfray emphasizes the Epicurean focus on the reduction of pain, rousingly summarized in Les Sagesses:

Epicurus takes up arms against everything that generates fear, pain, suffering. The whole of his work proceeds from this sole concern: to eradicate the negative and define the positive as the realization of that peace of the soul and the body. Nothing else. (10.4)

Two universes oppose each other on the question of suffering: [the Platonists and Stoics] grant it a positive value, for it renders possible the triumph of the sage’s will, while [the Epicureans] place it clearly on the negative side, make it in fact the absolute negative. Here, hedonism presents its most beautiful certificate of nobility: do not compromise with that which harms the body and the soul, never compromise… (10.10)

While Onfray may perhaps somewhat overrate Epicurean ascetism, his broader point remains valid: Epicureanism is clearly “more ascetic” than the image usually summoned up by the word “hedonism,” giving the bulk of its attention to the reduction of pain rather than the accumulation of positive pleasures. He does a better job than many at clarifying that while Epicureanism is not limited to “katastematic” (static) pleasures, the “kinetic” (active) pleasures Epicureans do endorse are not really contrary to “asceticism,” if that term is taken to mean “materially restrained” or “lacking in luxury.” Instead, Epicurean kinetic pleasures are things like the pursuit of philosophy and friendship, with perhaps a little light enjoyment of the arts on the side (this is increasingly prominent in the Roman period). All of these can be pursued under material conditions that many might consider austere.

Onfray’s extended comparison of the Garden to early Christian monastic communities has significant truth: being a member of an Epicurean community did involve the voluntary limitation of many common desires, material simplicity, the cultivation of social virtues like kindness and cooperation, egalitarianism, shared spiritual exercises, and a renouncement of many worldly goals and pleasures. Many people read Pierre Hadot and theoretically understand the concept of “philosophy as a way of life,” but Onfray’s portrait makes this rather more vivid: Epicureans live differently than the world at large.

6. The Philosophy of the Garden (La philosophie du jardin)

For his final lecture on Epicurus (as opposed to his later followers in Italy and beyond), Onfray takes one more opportunity to crystalize what he sees as the extreme contrast between Epicureanism and Platonism. Metaphorically, at least, he considers that the Garden of Epicurus can be considered to be an almost point-by-point “anti-Republic,” denying the preferences and positions embodied in that Platonic dialogue and in the practices of the Academy writ large. For example, he notes how the Republic’s Kallipolis promotes a society of fixed classes and suppressed individuality, while the Garden seems to have operated on a principle of equality and with no direct control over private life. The Academy was largely closed to women; the Garden was open to all. The Garden—and Epicureanism overall—endorsed a contractual view of justice, in which mutual hedonistic benefit was the only basis for law, rather than an ideal form of justice implemented by force, as emphasized in the Republic.

While more subtle analyses of the Republic might dispute Plato’s degree of endorsement for some of the practices of Kallipolis, I would agree with Onfray’s overall argument: Epicureanism is more open, more egalitarian, and less enthusiastic about grand political projects than Platonism, all of which are reasons to prefer the school of the Garden.

Next week, I’ll return to Onfray, discussing his six lectures on later Epicureanism in Italy and beyond. We’ll cover his interpretations of the Epicurean circle of Philodemus in Campania, Lucretius, and Diogenes of Oenoanda. While many of Onfray’s central themes should already be becoming evident, I’ll wait until I’ve discussed those lectures and book chapters to offer my full evaluation of his approach. When reading Onfray, there may be certain ideas that call for an asterisk. You can perhaps expect some exaggeration. But you can also expect fireworks.

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There is a pleasure to be found in the midst of storms,
When ships struggle in the wind and the waves,
But you are safe on land. Not that trouble
Is a source of joy—but freedom from trouble is.
Likewise, it is pleasant to watch great armies
Positioned for battle, while you are in safety. 
But sweetest of all is the high, serene dwelling,
Fortified only by the doctrines of the wise.
From there you can see the wandering of the many,
See them roaming, seeking a pathway through life,
Competing in talents, contending for fame,
Day and night striving with unceasing labor
To reach the peak of wealth and of power.

The distress of men’s minds! The blindness of their hearts!
Amid what darkness and dangers is passed
The short span of their lives! They fail to see
How little it is that nature requires:
That the body be free from pain, and the mind
May rejoice in the absence of worry and fear.

Few things are needed for our bodily nature—
A few things suffice to take away pain,
And also provide us abundant delight—
Nature asks for nothing more pleasing.
It has no need of golden statues of youths,
Spread through the house with lit torches in hand,
That light may not be lacking for feasts into the night.
It cares not for silver, nor for glittering gold,
Nor for gilded panels resounding to the lyre.
Our nature is happy if we stretch out on the soft grass,
By the banks of a river, beneath a tall tree,
Refreshing our bodies at no great expense—
Even more so when the weather is smiling,
And spring sprinkles the grass with its living flowers.

The fever will leave a sick body no sooner
Covered with purple and surrounded by tapestries,
Than if one lies ill beneath a poor, common blanket.
Wealth does our body not the least bit of good.
Noble birth does no better, nor the glory of kings.
And all are equally futile at curing the ills of our mind.

Unless the sight of your legions on the Campus,
Seething to and fro in their imitation battle,
Fitted out with weapons, acting in unison,
Supported by auxiliaries and a strong force of cavalry,
Can frighten your fears, drive away superstition,
Cause the terrors of death to depart from your mind,
And leave your heart unburdened, liberated from worries.

But if we can see how foolish are such efforts,
Can see that the fears and dogging cares of men
Are not frightened off by the sound of clashing weapons
And the savagery of spears, but traffic most boldly
Among the high and the mighty, with no respect given
To the glimmer of gold or the rich splendor of purple,
Then why have any doubt that the power that dispels fear
Belongs only to reason? All life struggles in darkness—
And just as children tremble and fear
Everything lurking in the blindness of night,
So do we sometimes fear things in the brightness of day,
Things no more worth fearing than the nightmares of children.
The shadows and terrors that lurk in our minds,
Must be dispersed, not by the bright shafts of the sun,
But by the understanding of nature’s true working.

Commentary

Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things is an epic poem with an unusual subject: Epicurean natural science. Throughout its tour of physics, meteorology, biology, and anthropology, the poem periodically acknowledges the ethical implications of its teachings, tying the whole project of understanding the world to the underlying Epicurean mission of achieving peace of mind and a pleasurable life. This is especially the case in the “proems,” the introductory passages that begin each of the poem’s six books. I have previously shared the proem to Book III. Today’s translation, the proem to Book II, is one of the poem’s most famous (and somewhat controversial) passages.

The most-discussed moment arrives immediately, as Lucretius discusses the pleasure found in contrasting one’s own safety with the discomforts and dangers of others. To many, this seems like a rather harsh and cold attitude. If it were actually presented as baldly as some people hastily take it to be, with the whole statement being “it is pleasant to watch ships sink and people drown,” then Lucretius’ attitude would indeed seem to be quite lacking in sympathy. That wouldn’t, however, be a very accurate summary of the passage, which is a substantively important one for understanding the Epicurean attitude towards the world of struggle. Keep in mind a number of points:

1. First, don’t exaggerate the actual harshness of the analogical vehicles. Even in his first two analogies (ships at sea, a battlefield), Lucretius is not yet actually witnessing any human death or injury. He is instead witnessing situations of distant and still impending difficulty, of relatively abstract ships yet to founder and armies yet to clash. He is too far off to see individuals and their vivid physical suffering has not yet commenced. Lucretius is not claiming to take pleasure in watching a woman drown or a soldier bleed to death.

Furthermore, these are preliminary, weaker versions of the real situation of relief: seeing people struggle in the rat race of everyday life, while you stay fortunately clear of it. This is the scenario that gives the “sweetest” pleasure—the pleasure is greater when the contrasting pain is more diffuse and more obviously self-inflicted than in the cases of direct physical danger.

2. Second, we should note precise differences in Lucretius’ terms for this pleasant feeling. What I have rendered as “there is a pleasure” and “it is pleasant” is in Latin suave est, which is I think a little tricky. The most common and obvious way to translate this is “it is sweet.” Latin, however, has another word for “sweet” as well (dulce). This is what is used for the third situation (my “sweetest of all,” nihil dulcius est).

Prose translations which focus on conveying Lucretius’ meaning most precisely therefore try to soften suave relative to dulce. Rouse chooses “pleasant”; Smith chooses “comforting.” “Sweet” has too much active relish in English, as is made clear by Lucretius’ immediate disclaimer: the struggles of others are not a source of joy (my compact rendering of iucunda voluptas, “joyful pleasure”).

The feeling Lucretius is claiming therefore is not one of relish, delight, or jubilation in the misfortunes of others. Seeing struggling ships at sea or armies about to clash gives us a comparable but more attenuated form (suave est) of the sweeter (dulcius), thankful relief that we feel when wisdom takes us out of the pointless struggles of the world. Neither of these feelings constitutes active joy or delight (iucunda voluptas).

3. Third, keep in mind the larger project. The (misplaced) criticism of this moment is often cited as evidence of the “selfish” orientation of Epicureans. As with all such accusations, we need to remember the overarching diagnosis and efforts of both Epicurus and Lucretius: they think the greatest sources of pain and suffering are incorrect opinions (kenai doxai) and put enormous effort into teaching and writings that they hope will alleviate those struggles. The message of this passage, as with the poem as a whole, is clearly not “ignore the people in pain.” The message is “people are suffering—but there is a way out.”

4. Fourth, focus on the real object of the analogy. People get hung up on the idea of watching an impending shipwreck. But analogy is not a one-way street: we should remember the thing to which the struggling ships (not “drowning people,” remember!) are being compared, and make sure we are interpreting the significance of the analogy in a plausible way, given the real-world situation which is being evoked. That situation is this: people are painfully struggling for fame, wealth, and power, while we—who perhaps in the past once felt the lure of such things—can see the futility of such efforts, and feel the relief of no longer suffering from such illusions.

There is certainly a kind of pleasure or mild sweetness in this—we can imagine that if we were immersed in those delusional struggles, our lives would be more painful, and so our present state is by definition comparatively more pleasurable. But seeing people struggle endlessly to secure pointless wealth or vain applause evokes commiseration and sympathy, not some kind of cruel delight. I don’t see any reason to attribute the latter sentiment to Lucretius or Epicurus, and plenty of evidence for the former.

Such are my sentiments on the notorious “sweet” emotions Lucretius felt when watching struggling ships. Let me turn more briefly to a few other notes on the rest of the passage.

The main topic under discussion throughout is the futility of wealth (all those fancy statues) and power (the well-equipped troops). What we actually need to focus on, Lucretius explains, are the simple things that nature requires: that which alleviates pain in the body and fear and worry in the mind. This passage is a particularly good example of what that means. When in the past I have noted that Epicureans emphasize the reduction of pain, some people have insisted that such a claim implies a strict, ascetic minimalism. The reduction of pain is clearly Lucretius’ own choice of framing and emphasis (as it was for Epicurus), but here he makes clear what “pain reduction” means. It doesn’t have anything to do with eliminating or even reducing the easy-to-obtain pleasures. Picnics are encouraged!

Our nature is happy if we stretch out on the soft grass,
By the banks of a river, beneath a tall tree,
Refreshing our bodies at no great expense—
Even more so when the weather is smiling,
And spring sprinkles the grass with its living flowers.

The main goal entailed by “reducing pain” is to drive out fear and worry through a correct understanding of the world, attaining that which actually

Can frighten your fears, drive away superstition,
Cause the terrors of death to depart from your mind,
And leave your heart unburdened, liberated from worries.

The closing of this proem is one of the most powerful illustrations of this Epicurean liberation. Today, we are the inheritors of much Epicurean scientific innovation, but we still have farther to go. Ungrounded fears of the afterlife and of divine displeasure are on the wane. But misunderstandings about human nature and what truly brings happiness continue to abound. Does clearing away superstition and error seem like a meager goal, an unambitious aspiration? Lucretius doesn’t see it that way.

And just as children tremble and fear
Everything lurking in the blindness of night,
So do we sometimes fear things in the brightness of day,
Things no more worth fearing than the nightmares of children.
The shadows and terrors that lurk in our minds,
Must be dispersed, not by the bright shafts of the sun,
But by the understanding of nature’s true working.

People are haunted by nightmares, are scared of ghosts in the shadows. These phantoms cause them to struggle, like ships laboring against the wind. They cause them to suffer, like armies assembled to die for the pointless whims of tyrants. But wisdom is like a bright shaft of sunlight, that illuminates the night and disperses all darkness.

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Original Text

De Rerum Natura, Book II, Lines 1–61

Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis
e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;
non quia vexari quemquamst iucunda voluptas,
sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est.
suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri
per campos instructa tua sine parte pericli;
sed nihil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere
edita doctrina sapientum templa serena,
despicere unde queas alios passimque videre
errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae,
certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,
noctes atque dies niti praestante labore
ad summas emergere opes rerumque potiri.

o miseras hominum mentes, o pectora caeca!
qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque periclis
degitur hoc aevi quod cumquest! nonne videre
nihil aliud sibi naturam latrare, nisi ut qui
corpore seiunctus dolor absit, mente fruatur
iucundo sensu cura semota metuque?

ergo corpoream ad naturam pauca videmus
esse opus omnino: quae demant cumque dolorem,
delicias quoque uti multas substernere possint;
gratius inter dum neque natura ipsa requirit,
si non aurea sunt iuvenum simulacra per aedes
lampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris,
lumina nocturnis epulis ut suppeditentur,
nec domus argento fulget auroque renidet
nec citharae reboant laqueata aurataque templa,
cum tamen inter se prostrati in gramine molli
propter aquae rivum sub ramis arboris altae
non magnis opibus iucunde corpora curant,
praesertim cum tempestas adridet et anni
tempora conspergunt viridantis floribus herbas.

nec calidae citius decedunt corpore febres,
textilibus si in picturis ostroque rubenti
iacteris, quam si in plebeia veste cubandum est.
quapropter quoniam nihil nostro in corpore gazae
proficiunt neque nobilitas nec gloria regni,
quod super est, animo 

si non forte tuas legiones per loca campi
fervere cum videas belli simulacra cientis,
ornatas armis statuas pariterque animatas,
subsidiis magnis et equum vi constabilitas,
his tibi tum rebus timefactae religiones
effugiunt animo pavidae mortisque timores
tum vacuum pectus lincunt curaque solutum.

quod si ridicula haec ludibriaque esse videmus,
re veraque metus hominum curaeque sequaces
nec metuunt sonitus armorum nec fera tela
audacterque inter reges rerumque potentis
versantur neque fulgorem reverentur ab auro
nec clarum vestis splendorem purpureai,
quid dubitas quin omnis sit haec rationis potestas,
omnis cum in tenebris praesertim vita laboret?
nam vel uti pueri trepidant atque omnia caecis
in tenebris metuunt, sic nos in luce timemus
inter dum, nihilo quae sunt metuenda magis quam
quae pueri in tenebris pavitant finguntque futura.
hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest
non radii solis neque lucida tela diei
discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque.

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Here is today’s argument in a nutshell:

1. Educated modern people generally undervalue prudence.

2. Such people don’t particularly know about or respect Epicureanism—a philosophy which would correct this misvaluation—but they do respect literary icons and beautiful, eloquent writing.

3. Therefore, if I can show that prudence is highly valued not merely by Epicureanism, but by an array of widely respected, wise and intelligent writers with no explicit philosophical affiliation, some literarily-inclined people may find the underlying message more convincing.

On this basis, I am today inaugurating a different kind of post, the first in an ongoing but intermittent series in which I draw attention to unexpected Epicurean allies from the world of letters. My strong sentiment is that Epicurean values are not particularly obscure or sectarian values, but are in many respects widely shared among the wise people of the world. To bolster this claim, I’d like to highlight some entirely unaffiliated thinkers who endorse some key Epicurean claims or virtues. The virtue in question today is prudence. The thinker in the spotlight is Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Let me say a few more words of preface. What do I mean by prudence, and in what way is it undervalued? In Greek, the word used is phronesis, sometimes also translated as “practical wisdom” to avoid the either somewhat stiff tone or narrowly financial connotations of “prudence” in modern English. In the Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus states that phronesis is “the greatest good”—even above philosophy itself. While theoretical wisdom is often extremely valuable, nothing actually matches the importance of accurately weighing advantage and disadvantage when it comes to influencing the happiness of your life. It’s a very good thing if you understand the true nature of your postmortem fate, but if bad decision-making leaves you unhealthy, indebted, and unhappily married, you will still have a lot of trouble achieving eudaimonia.

Despite this importance, however, prudent decision-making gets relatively little love in modern philosophy, literature, or popular culture. I think a lot of people can go through, say, an elite university education without ever getting much sign that prudence is key to their happiness in life. Intense passions and commitment to abstract ideals are granted far more cachet, credentials and prestige are valued disproportionately to their worth, and when it comes to financial matters, the lion’s share of attention is given to boosting income rather than restraining spending. This is echoed in culture. Songwriters don’t write rousing anthems to prudence. Most heroes of novels and films are not marked for this quality.

I think this is somewhat of a modern quirk. If you rewind the clock by a mere century or two, you can find plenty of extremely eloquent and prestigious writers who did place an appropriately high value on this highest of all Epicurean virtues. This leads to the second natural question for this preamble: why Emerson? First, simply because he’s always been my favorite prose stylist in American literature. Second, because he’s a bit of an extreme case of seeming unlikeliness for an Epicurean ally: the leader of American Transcendentalism, Emerson falls quite strongly to the “Idealist” side of the Idealist-to-Materialist spectrum, seemingly far distant from Epicurus. Emerson loves Plato. Popularizations refer to him as “an American Stoic.” Overall, his essays are famous for their flights of grand, soaring rhetoric about the unbounded potentialities of the human soul.

However! He was still a 19^th century New Englander, which meant both that he lived in an era of generally limited material abundance compared to modern times (while not being so distant as to be unrelatable), and that he contains a vein of Puritan intellectual heritage that is inclined towards suspicion of the same kind of low, impulsive hedonism which Epicurus was also generally disdainful of. As such, he did still maintain a distinctly higher opinion of the virtue of prudence than is commonly encountered today.

So there you have it: I think that prudence—financial frugality, careful cost-benefit analysis, the suppression of short-term impulses in favor of long-term satisfaction—is routinely undervalued in the culture of modern, educated persons. Since this demographic is preferentially inclined to listen to eloquent idealists, I wanted an idealist who would praise prudence with all the eloquence the virtue deserves. Emerson is that man.

Emerson’s “Prudence”

In his celebrated first volume of Essays—containing such Transcendentalist greatest hits as “Self-Reliance,” “Spiritual Laws,” and “The Over-Soul”—is a relatively neglected essay on “Prudence.” Here, as he would do increasingly in his later books The Conduct of Life and Society and Solitude, Emerson sings the praises of conducting one’s private life with skill.

The domestic man, who loves no music so well as his kitchen clock, and the airs which the logs sing to him as they burn on the hearth, has solaces which others never dream of. The application of means to ends insures victory and the songs of victory, not less in a farm or a shop than in the tactics of party or of war. The good husband finds method as efficient in the packing of fire-wood in a shed, or in the harvesting of fruits in the cellar, as in Peninsular campaigns or the files of the Department of State.

In highbrow settings, people are more often praised for their elevated aspirations, intelligent taste, or commitment to abstract ideals. But Emerson, comparing what we value in good people with the realistic groundedness a great artist is attentive to in painting human figures, thinks that our more honest esteem is granted to people to have their feet on the ground:

This perpendicularity we demand of all the figures in this picture of life. Let them stand on their feet, and not float and swing. Let us know where to find them. Let them discriminate between what they remember and what they dreamed, call a spade a spade, give us facts, and honor their own senses with trust.

The arts are generally inclined to worship the “artistic,” granting most respect to those who “feel deeply,” but when such people lack basic prudence, then such admiration is mistaken. Emerson, a man of deeper thought and artistry than any modern songwriter or other performative bohemian, knew this:

We have found out fine names to cover our sensuality withal, but no gifts can raise intemperance. The man of talent affects to call his transgressions of the laws of the senses trivial, and to count them nothing considered with his devotion to his art. His art never taught him lewdness, nor the love of wine, nor the wish to reap where he had not sowed. His art is less for every deduction from his holiness, and less for every defect of common sense.

Artists are not the only ones who disappoint us by such a lack. Academics are often the same, getting lost in the minutiae of their theories and losing popular respect by their shortcomings in things that the less well-credentialed understand far better.

The scholar shames us by his bifold life. Whilst something higher than prudence is active, he is admirable; when common sense is wanted, he is an encumbrance.

Rather than disdain the practical, as some artists and scholars do, Emerson praises the most mundane forms of prudence—frugal living, careful investment of idle capital, efficiency and industriousness with the tools of one’s trade. And from this he expands from those elements of prudence as commonly conceived to praise of the “minor virtues,” such as punctuality and dependability. As with Epicurus, he points out that even the virtues and duties which are often held up as being of independent worth will be to our long-term advantage, are in truth a part of prudence too. Consider true-telling, for instance:

On the most profitable lie the course of events presently lays a destructive tax; whilst frankness invites frankness, puts the parties on a convenient footing and makes their business a friendship. Trust men and they will be true to you.

So often the claim of the “noble” disparagers of prudence is that overemphasizing the practical will lead to the neglect of the higher virtues. Emerson doesn’t make this mistake. He gets it. As with honesty, so with courage—prudence is not the antithesis of bravery, but the enabler of it:

So, in regard to disagreeable and formidable things, prudence does not consist in evasion, or in flight, but in courage. He who wishes to walk in the most peaceful parts of life with any serenity must screw himself up to resolution.

Likewise, friendship, goodwill, and affection should properly be seen as advancing our prudential goals, not conflicting with them.

It is a proverb, that ‘courtesy costs nothing’; but calculation might come to value love for its profit. Love is fabled to be blind; but kindness is necessary to perception; love is not a hood, but an eye-water. If you meet a sectary, or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines; but meet on what common ground remains, — if only that the sun shines, and the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it the boundary mountains, on which the eye had fastened, have melted into air.

In antiquity, rival schools constantly criticized Epicurus for an ostensible willingness to set aside the virtues in preference to one’s hedonistic goals. People still constantly make this mistake today, thinking that Epicureanism is an invitation to discard honesty, courage, and faithfulness whenever it is temporarily inconvenient. That is very far from the truth. Epicurus’ point is that we should value the traditional virtues because their cultivation is necessary for our long-term benefit. Once you bring your mind to awareness of this harmony, acting rightly is no longer a struggle, but becomes self-evidently advantageous and consequently easy. Emerson—a man no one could accuse of meanness, sensuality, or ignorance of the life of the mind—understood this coincidence of virtuous character and our own well-being too:

Thus truth, frankness, courage, love, humility, and all the virtues, range themselves on the side of prudence, or the art of securing a present well-being.

And so, if you ever feel that to align yourself with Epicureanism would be to lower yourself, to debase the elevation of your thoughts, to abandon the arts and noble thinking in favor of mean and petty calculation, reconsider. The great American bard of self-reliance, the man who inspired Thoreau and set Whitman to a boil, did not think prudence beneath our notice. He recognized that common sense was indispensable to every artistic or scholarly soul. He celebrated those who planted and harvested, built and marketed, saved and invested with skill and forethought. He recognized that to be a person of prudence, in the true sense of the word, was to be someone who could be relied upon for fidelity, courage, and goodwill. Emerson understood the Epicurean truth that prudence is not an abandonment of higher thinking; it is the crucial grounding for any thought worthy of respect.

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Principal Doctrine 18:

Principal Doctrine 19:

Principal Doctrine 20:

Commentary

Today we’re hitting the halfway mark in our progress through Epicurus’ forty Principal Doctrines (you can see previous entries in the series here). All three of today’s maxims are occupied with describing the limits to pleasure. This is a very important notion for properly grasping the Epicurean version of hedonism, which is very prone to misunderstanding, since the school’s ideas about pleasure are much more precise and thoughtful than the loose and casual ways in which pleasure is normally discussed.

PD 18 opens the subject by first distinguishing two different categories of pleasure: physical and mental. This is not inherently a strange concept, but one which can easily be elided when people start thinking about the idea of maximizing pleasure—how does one weigh physical and mental pleasures against each other when deciding preferences? Epicurus doesn’t necessarily think there is a direct tradeoff. Instead, he advises us to maximize both: he believes that if we properly understand the respective limits of physical and mental pleasures, it is entirely possible for us to pursue and attain the highest degree of both.

In regards to physical pleasure, Epicurus’ position is idiosyncratic compared to the common understanding, but I think essentially convincing in its practical implications. According to him, physical pleasure reaches its peak when all pain is removed—any stimulus in addition to that point is mere “variation” or “embellishment,” rather than an actual augmentation of pleasure. We’ve encountered this idea before in the first half of PD 3:

Now, it is true that this isn’t how most people think of pleasure. In normal life, we might imagine ourselves to be in a perfectly pain-free state, and then to receive additional physical pleasure through some stimulus—maybe we eat a tasty treat or receive a massage. I think, however, that Epicurus would hesitate to endorse that description of our experience.

In general, he seems to think that many of our “pleasures” should actually be conceived of as alleviation of pain. We eat to relieve the pain of hunger—eating food will only be pleasurable if we have some hunger, while if we are entirely satiated, the food will no longer be a source of physical pleasure to us. Perhaps all physical pleasures are like this: the shoulder rub feels good because we were experiencing some degree of painful tension—this also has a point of satiation. Food, drink, massage, sex—all could be seen as relieving some form of pain or tension. To actually have all those painful appetites and desires fully satisfied would be to reach a point where further physical stimulus adds no further pleasure. If that eating and massage-receiving is pleasurable, then we must not be in a pain-free state.

Perhaps, however, you are unwilling to abandon all distinctions between different physical pleasures. You could alleviate your hunger by eating a bowl of plain rice, or by eating a delicious meal of varied tastes and textures. Isn’t the second one more pleasurable? I think a few routes of defense are possible here. First, one could argue that the more varied meal is more pleasing to us because our hunger is in fact more sophisticated than “present” or “absent”—our bodies require different nutrients, and so eating a more diverse diet than unvarying plain rice will probably be beneficial to the health of our body, avoiding more pain in the long run. First then, I think a properly fleshed-out modern Epicureanism will admit that we do have some legitimate need for variety.

A second defense is to make some concession to natural language, while maintaining the spirit of the Epicurean argument: if you want to call your gourmet meal more pleasurable than the bowl of plain rice, I don’t really mind, as long as you are willing to concede that the additional pleasure of that fancier meal is relatively miniscule compared to the hedonic difference between “satiated” and “actually starving.” In fact, it is arguable that even this is not actually a contradiction of the Epicurean terminology: some, notably Norman DeWitt, prefer to translate poikilletai as “is embellished” rather than “is varied.” If Epicurus calls such things “embellishments,” then perhaps “pleasure is not increased” really means something like “pleasure is not increased to any significant degree,” since I think “embellishments” as a concept could be fairly understood as “tiny additions.”

That was a long commentary on just the first sentence (I’ll get faster). The second half of the maxim describes the limit of mental pleasures. Here, Epicurus makes a similar argument: pleasure in our mind is maximized when all of our fears and distressing thoughts have been resolved. (The words used elsewhere for this pairing are aponia for the lack of physical pain and ataraxia for the freedom from mental distress, i.e. untroubledness). Epicurus does not go into detail here, but simply summarizes the largest sources of mental pains as stemming from a misunderstanding of “these matters” (i.e. the true limits of physical pleasure as just described) and “things like them” (i.e. any other false beliefs that might cause us pain).

According to Epicurus, those are the big sources of mental distress, and their resolution is consequently the biggest source of mental pleasure. As for the more everyday mental pleasures we might think of, I think they can be conceived of analogously to physical pleasures. What we might think of as positive pleasures—the happiness of seeing a friend again, the relief of knowing some danger has been averted, excitement about an upcoming experience—can all be understood as reliefs from pain. We missed our friend, we were afraid of something, we wanted distraction from more boring or otherwise painful objects of our attention. Such day-to-day gratifications are legitimate pleasures, but Epicurus seems to consider them to be quite small compared to the great sources of mental grief. This seems fair to me.

Again, I am not too much of a stickler over the language here. If you find this reframing to be an imperfect fit for some pleasures you can think of, then I am not too bothered if you prefer to continue speaking of purely positive pleasures, such that do not consist in the relief of pain. But I would still encourage you to take seriously the idea that such pleasures are very small compared to the great pains of life. Just as obtaining your preferred condiments is inconsequential if you are starving, the mental stimulus of your preferred genre of video entertainment is inconsequential if your life is dominated by fear, anxiety, and unsatisfiable longings.

Now that we’ve established the limits of pleasure according to reason, we’re already halfway to understanding PD 19. The things that truly enhance pleasure, in the Epicurean conception, are those that alleviate pain. Experiencing varied additional stimuli can be an agreeable embellishment to life, but it does not significantly increase your pleasure if you obtain a first-rate croissant, a $500 pair of shoes, and a luxury car. Collecting things and experiences is unimportant. Therefore, a greater period of time does not contain greater pleasure—it simply extends a given level of pleasure over a longer duration.

I won’t take up more space on this here, since this topic has already been discussed in Death Is Nothing To Us: Part One.

Principal Doctrine 20 summarizes the preceding two maxims and adds a little extra nuance. The first sentence is an acknowledgment that to our bodies, it feels like additional pleasure is possible. The claims of PD 18 and PD 19 are not asserted to be intuitively obvious: as a matter of simple sensory experience, our bodies feel like they would like to have their tastebuds stimulated by pleasant flavors over and over again. It is our minds that can perceive that such stimulation does not help the body to achieve a truly higher level of pleasure.

The other thing needed in order to discard the desire for infinite time is to resolve our “fears about eternity.” I agree with Cyril Bailey that this is probably referring to traditional notions of an afterlife, the “eternity” that we would experience after the dissolution of our temporary bodies. As Epicureanism teaches, such fears are groundless, since we will have no consciousness after death. This unjustified fear has also been discussed in Death Is Nothing To Us: Part One, as well as way back in Principal Doctrine 2.

The final sentence clarifies the proper orientation of our mind towards pleasure, given all that we have said in the previous maxims. We have no reason to flee pleasure: both bodily and mental pleasure are naturally appealing and intrinsically choiceworthy. But we should understand that increasing the duration of our life does not increase our pleasure. That is achieved through resolving our bodily pains and dispelling all the false beliefs that disturb our peace of mind.

A life can be complete, today. Your life can be “the best life” that any life can be, today. There is no need to wait.

Read the complete series on the Principal Doctrines here.

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Original Text

18. οὐκ ἐπαύξεται ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ ἡ ἡδονή, ἐπειδὰν ἅπαξ τὸ κατʼ ἔνδειαν ἀλγοῦν ἐξαιρεθῇ, ἀλλὰ μόνον ποικίλλεται. τῆς δὲ διανοίας τὸ πέρας τὸ κατὰ τὴν ἡδονὴν ἀπεγέννησεν ἥ τε τούτων αὐτῶν ἐκλόγισις καὶ τῶν ὁμογενῶν τούτοις, ὅσα τοὺς μεγίστους φόβους παρεσκεύαζε τῇ διανοίᾳ.

19. ὁ ἄπειρος χρόνος ἴσην ἔχει τὴν ἡδονὴν καὶ ὁ πεπερασμένος, ἐάν τις αὐτῆς τὰ πέρατα καταμετρήσῃ τῷ λογισμῷ.

20. ἡ μὲν σὰρξ ἀπέλαβε τὰ πέρατα τῆς ἡδονῆς ἄπειρα καὶ ἄπειρος αὐτὴν χρόνος παρεσκεύασεν· ἡ δὲ διάνοια, τοῦ τῆς σαρκὸς τέλους καὶ πέρατος λαβοῦσα τὸν ἐπιλογισμὸν, καὶ τοὺς ὑπὲρ τοῦ αἰῶνος φόβους ἐκλύσασα, τὸν παντελῆ βίον παρεσκεύασεν, καὶ οὐθὲν ἔτι τοῦ ἀπείρου χρόνου προσεδεήθημεν· ἀλλʼ οὔτε ἔφυγε τὴν ἡδονὴν οὐδʼ ἡνίκα τὴν ἐξαγωγὴν ἐκ τοῦ ζῆν τὰ πράγματα παρεσκεύαζεν, ὡς ἐλλείπουσά τι τοῦ ἀρίστου βίου κατέστρεφεν.

Two recent posts have mentioned the great value Epicureanism places on gratitude. Epicurean Spiritual Exercises described how actively practicing gratitude was one of the key practices used by Epicurean students to form one’s mind and move towards eudaimonia, while this week’s Translation Tuesday explained how gratitude for what we have is our chief remedy for the mistaken enthusiasm for unnecessary desires. These articles suggested the importance that gratitude has in Epicurean practice, but didn’t really cover the topic in its full scope. It deserves that level of attention.

Today, I’ll proceed through three sections outlining the Epicurean case for cultivating gratitude. First, I’ll review some of the central passages so we can see what Epicurus & Co. had in mind, followed by a summary of their recommendations and rationale in the most straightforward sense. Second, I’ll discuss how that advice is supported by contemporary work in positive psychology. Third, I’ll share the argument of Benjamin Rider that the Epicureans conceived of gratitude not merely as a transient mental state, but as a virtue—a dispositional tendency we can cultivate that has a wide-reaching influence on our well-being.

1. An introduction to Epicurean gratitude

The Greek word for gratitude is charis (χάρις). In a sense, this is the very first word that many Greek students learn, as the related verb chairo (χαίρω, to rejoice or be glad) is, in the imperative, the standard greeting (chaire! Hi!). While that literal verbal meaning is quite submerged in the salutation, I think it is still quite visible in the case of the noun: it’s worth remembering that Greek “gratitude” is fundamentally and specifically “a being glad about something.” In Latin, gratia is the unproblematic equivalent, and the ancestor of our modern English word.

What do the Epicureans say about gratitude? First and most simply, to consciously direct our minds to “being glad about things” is a pleasurable experience. It would be foolish to spend our attentional energy engaged in elective unhappiness:

While “growing old” is here used as an isolated metaphor for someone who has lost their zest and enthusiasm, Epicurus’ actual advice for the elderly is that gratitude is particularly beneficial for the latter stages of life. As in the Cicero passage above, gratitude can be conceptualized as giving attention to the past and present, in contrast to expectation, which looks forward. Since older people have lived through more, they therefore have a larger reservoir of positive memories to pleasurably remember, while (if they are good Epicureans) experiencing a continually more stable life in the present.

We therefore have two possible subjects of gratitude: past pleasures and present blessings. If we are facing difficulties in the present, we can always draw on the past, which cannot be taken from us. Famously, when Epicurus was dying in extreme pain from untreatable urinary calculus, he declared himself to be happy on the basis of remembering past joys:

In part three below, I will discuss a few more passages that suggest an additional, wider scope for Epicurean gratefulness as a virtue, a relatively stable dispositional state that can be intentionally cultivated. For now, however, we can see the claimed benefit of feeling gratitude in any given moment: it immediately increases our pleasure and happiness. We have this recourse not only when everything is going swimmingly, but also—in some sense especially—when things are not. Pain and loss are bad. Old age will eventually limit our activity. But we can always find things to be grateful for.

Focus less on problems and more on the good things that abide: the connections you have, the necessities that are now safe and secure, the wisdom you have gained. When times are particularly challenging, you can choose to immerse your mind not in the most negative forecasts for the future, but in the most positive memories from your past. The objects of your thoughts are up to you to choose. Preferring thoughts that make you unhappy is the course of fools. Preferring thoughts that bring you joy is a longer name for gratitude.

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2. Support from positive psychology

The modern field of happiness studies is admittedly full of fluff, hype, and overblown claims. Massimo Pigliucci recently highlighted a useful review of the habits and behaviors that actually boost happiness from researchers Dunigan Folk and Elizabeth Dunn.1 This review was uniquely stringent in its criteria for included studies, intentionally aiming to combat the “replicability crisis” that has afflicted a large amount of previous work in the field. While a great majority of published studies were found to suffer from methodological flaws, often basing conclusions on insufficient sample sizes and hunting for any results of marginal statistical significance, the authors found that a few popular interventions for increasing well-being did have some solid evidence of effectiveness. The benefits of exercise, spending time in nature, and mindfulness were mostly unevidenced (which is not to say that they were proven to be ineffective), while positive social interactions provided a more reliable boost to well-being (this also fits quite well with Epicureanism). The single best-supported “tactic” for improving well-being, however, was gratitude.

In the majority of the stronger studies, the strategy under consideration involved some form of listing objects of gratitude. For example, participants might be instructed to briefly write down three people, events, or life circumstances for which they were grateful at the end of each day, or to write a mini essay in which they dwelt on their gratitude at slightly more length at wider intervals. Some studies tested a single “gratitude session,” while others evaluated daily or weekly repetition. Some studies measured emotional well-being and life satisfaction immediately after the intervention, while others conducted follow-up surveys after various intervals from a day to several weeks later.

First of all, I would note that such interventions sound perfectly in alignment with Epicurean practice. While we don’t have a specific document stating the recommended format for ancient gratitude practices, the extant passages suggest that an exercise of intentionally summoning up one’s reasons for gratitude, even when faced with difficult present circumstances, was indeed advocated for by the Epicureans. As Pierre Hadot has elaborated, ancient schools of philosophy emphasized such spiritual exercises as recurrent, formal practices that would be emphasized in verbal instruction of which we have only slight remaining traces—our modern notions of philosophy as a mostly written field, rather than a lived one, systematically underrates the ancient emphasis on shaping one’s mind through specific formal exercises.

Given that the techniques evaluated in the research seem broadly relevant to the likely Epicurean practice, how did they fare? Quite well! In their stringent review, Folk and Dunn found 15 sufficiently powered studies involving some form of gratitude-listing exercise, of which only one failed to find a positive effect. While almost all of these evaluated more temporary aspects of subjective well-being, i.e. the emotional components of positive affect (the intensity of positive emotions such as enthusiasm, determination, excitement, etc.) and negative affect (the intensity of negative emotions such as fear, guilt, irritation, and so on), a large number also found boosts to more big picture questions of happiness (“Taking all things together, how happy would you say you are?” or “Compared to your peers, do you consider yourself happy?”) or life satisfaction (measuring agreement with such claims as “In most ways my life is close to my ideal,” “The conditions of my life are excellent,” or “I am satisfied with my life”).

There are a few critiques of this line of work that I think are easily overblown and which don’t personally cause me to hesitate about the overall value of such exercises. First, among many philosophically-minded persons (including myself, before I looked at several of these studies), I think there is a tendency to be dismissive of reductive “happiness” measures, suspecting that what is primarily being measured is merely some shallow temporary state of mind, while many things that are far more important for a good life are not captured. There is some truth to this, but 1) in my opinion, being routinely happier, even as a momentary state, is still an important element of well-being, and 2) a large share of these studies do include broader life satisfaction measures, which seem to show positive results from gratitude interventions with a similar reliability to the more short-term metrics of positive and negative affect.

A second common vein of critique is that the most sizeable effects are seen when comparing gratitude interventions to interventions that trigger a negative response. For example, one group of participants will list three positive recent events, while another group will list three recent sources of hassle or frustration. (Some studies compare gratitude interventions to “hassle” interventions, some with more neutral controls, and some with both.) I don’t think, however, that the supposedly more neutral control tasks (“Think about the shape of a large black umbrella” in one study, for example) are really representative of normal human behavior—in many cases where we might recommend such an intervention, people do have an unhelpful habit of reviewing their annoyances and causes for complaint. While explicit comparisons between gratitude interventions and hassle interventions may therefore overstate the average effect size, this doesn’t mean that those results are entirely invalid. In some cases, they may be more representative than are the theoretically neutral controls.

Overall, then, my non-expert conclusion from reviewing what the more skeptical specialists are willing to endorse is that there does appear to be solid evidence that simple gratitude practices such as listing things one is grateful for or reflecting on positive circumstances and persons of one’s life, reliably boost both immediate emotional well-being and overall life satisfaction. There are still plenty of reasonable caveats one should make—the effects are not huge, such techniques are no panacea for serious depression or anxiety, and short-term interventions have only short-term effects—but it is still a noteworthy observation that one of the prime emphases of Epicurean spiritual practice replicates the single best-supported happiness exercise known to modern psychology.

3. Gratitude as a virtue

We have, then, a modest but well-evidenced finding: think of some things you are grateful for, write them down or otherwise concentrate on them for several minutes, and you will feel better for hours or days with a decent degree of reliability. This matches the most obvious function of the Epicurean recommendation, that of making your immediate experience of life more pleasant. A deeper dive into the ancient texts, however, reveal an additional, more ambitious hypothesis: that the deliberate cultivation of gratitude can durably shift one’s temperament in a way that has broad, ongoing benefits. In other words: that gratitude is a virtue.

The evidence for this position is helpfully assembled in Benjamin Rider’s excellent paper, “The Ethical Significance of Gratitude in Epicureanism.”2 In his view, gratitude was essentially parallel to the other virtues as conceived in the ancient world, not simply something we feel for a moment, but “an enduring character trait, developed through repeated practice and reinforcement… which plays an important role in a person’s development and flourishing.” The ancient Greeks had a wide degree of agreement that being a brave, generous, temperate, and just person would be good for oneself. The Epicureans seem to conceive of gratitude in a similar way. (While an emphasis on cultivating the virtues is most famously associated with Aristotle, it should be remembered that Epicurus also endorsed the traditional virtues.)

Since the Epicureans view the virtues as advantageous only insofar as they contribute to our pleasure, what are the deeper advantages of not simply experiencing gratitude, but of becoming a more grateful person? They put forth a few plausible channels of benefit. The first is that the routinely grateful person will not be a victim of insatiability, the intense and unsatisfiable desire for more. Unsatisfied desires are intrinsically painful. This floats in the background of numerous texts, but one of the most explicit is Vatican Saying 69, covered in the last Translation Tuesday:

The desire for variety is considered “natural, but not necessary” in the Epicurean classification. Nothing is wrong with enjoying variety. Most people enjoy not eating the same food every day. But to be “endlessly greedy” for variety, to be unable to be satisfied if the desired novelty is not forthcoming, is destructive to happiness. According to Epicurus, a rational person will recognize this, will recognize that eating chicken for three dinners in a row, or drinking only water every day, or not buying a new article of clothing all year does not lead to the pain of hunger, thirst, or cold. To persist in such greed, then, is to persist in a form of unhappiness that has no real substantive relation to what our nature requires for happiness. Instead, the source of that unhappiness is ingratitude—a failure to appreciate what we have. If we accustom ourselves to grateful appreciation, therefore, we will no longer suffer from that insatiable greed and will be able to easily give up the desire for any novelty when it turns out to be hard to acquire or to have injurious consequences.

The second danger of an ungrateful character is intimately related to this dissatisfaction: the fear of death. As I have discussed in Death Is Nothing to Us, the perceived need for additional experiences is the most pernicious form of ungrateful insatiability.

There can be other aspects to the fear of death (such as fear of a painful afterlife), but many seem to think the badness of death consists in how it deprives us of various pleasures or other positive experiences we could have added to the sum total of our lives. Epicureanism rejects any such additive model. One’s life can be made more pleasant (or less painful), but we should not mistake mere extension in duration as equivalent to an increase in amplitude of pleasure, which is our real objective. An 81-year life is not intrinsically better than an 80-year life. If we feel it is, this too is the product of ingratitude: the 80 year-old will not secure happiness if he is given one more year. He will be happy when he casts aside the greed for more, and instead turns to grateful reflection on what the past and present give him.

A third benefit of a durably grateful character, in Rider’s interpretation, is that such a quality is an essential prerequisite to generosity. People often hear that Epicureanism is an egoistic philosophy and so struggle to grasp its endorsement of that traditional virtue. If one is an egoist, why would one give things away when faced with hard times? Part of the Epicurean answer is that gratitude leads to contentment with what is easy to obtain, contentment with what is easy to obtain constitutes self-sufficiency (autarkeia), and self-sufficiency makes generosity effortless.

Given the limited material benefits of miserliness, and the more substantial benefits of social harmony, generosity usually is the more prudent course in the long run. A grateful character is what makes choosing that long-term prudence easy. The same considerations apply in cases of friendship. The misunderstanding might ask: “If one is an egoist, shouldn’t friendship only be engaged in when it is clearly advantageous to oneself and abandoned when it is not? Expressing ‘gratitude’ might make sense as a bargaining chip if it yields some concrete benefit, but we shouldn’t feel obligated to feel such emotions when there’s no payoff, right?” That isn’t Epicureanism either:

For Rider, the key to understanding such passages correctly is a proper understanding of the centrality of gratitude. For Epicureans, generosity need not be the enemy of self-interest. Instead, generosity is the natural consequence of a deeply grateful character. If one has developed a constant orientation towards gratitude for the simplest of things, then sharing of excess is effortless. For shallow misunderstanders of Epicureanism, the ideal friendship would seem to consist of copious material aid which need be repaid only with costless expressions of “gratitude.” But that isn’t real friendship—that is a merely mercantile relationship which can never have the depth and solidity which would actually improve our lives the most. Gratitude worthy of the name is intrinsically non-calculative: we are grateful for our friends’ assistance, and so we recognize their goodwill, properly recognize them as friends, and reciprocate with generosity that is dismissive of narrow disadvantage. Gratitude leads to something far more valuable: the fidelity and trust of true friendship.

Epicurean gratitude, therefore, is not merely a psychological hack, a shortcut to positive emotions. We will practice it daily, happy to enjoy its immediate pleasure, but also so as to develop a more grateful character. The grateful person does not crave superfluous variety, no longer reacts to the idea of death with an instinctive fear of an incomplete life, and is happier to give than to receive—a virtuous trait by all conventional standards and a key to dependable friendship.

I accept all of these claims. Some are well-evidenced in the literature. Some I’ve found supported by the smallest, but most important sample of humanity: myself. It is pleasant to note how little cause for complaint I have, and how full my life is with pleasures. My family is all hale and hearty. The world beyond is relatively peaceful, safe, and prosperous. I have been victim to no great blows of distress recently, whether physical, financial, or emotional.

Recently, it is true, circumstances required that I move. In my last home, an old house in the country, I was grateful to wake up and hear birds, see the forest, feel the chill, unheated air. Now I live in town, in an apartment, and am grateful to have air conditioning, ice cubes that come right out of the refrigerator door, and a single tree outside my window. Each morning, I hold a mug of fresh-brewed tea and find the sky has grown no smaller. Each evening, I turn the lamps down low and rest my eyes, smiling with amusement at the small voice of my cat, with tenderness at the soft voice of my wife. Each day I hear music.

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Recognize the necessary desires:

Limit the unnecessary desires through gratitude:

Let go of the unnatural desires:

Commentary

Last week’s translation featured a selection of aphorisms from the Principal Doctrines extolling the virtues of the simple life. And my last two Friday essays have dealt with the Epicurean Classification of Desires, a central doctrine that helps us to distinguish between what is necessary for happiness and what is not—and shape our lives accordingly. Before leaving the topic, it seems appropriate to note that Epicurus had a good deal more to say about appreciating the simple pleasures of life while avoiding the lure of the “unnatural” desires. Today I’ll cover seven more aphorisms on the subject from the collection known as the Vatican Sayings.

A brief word on this collection before we begin. Unlike the Principal Doctrines, the Vatican Sayings are not an original and intentional collection, published as a deliberate whole during the lifetime of Epicurus. Instead, they are the assemblage of an anonymous scribe from many centuries later who collated a variety of somewhat random ethical aphorisms from Epicurus and his followers. Of the 81 included maxims, 13 are essentially repeated from the Principal Doctrines and so are usually excluded from printed editions. Some are known from other sources to be from Metrodorus (Epicurus’ closest philosophical associate and friend) and at least one other is clearly post-Epicurus-himself (describing in the third person “the life of Epicurus”), but many have no independent testimony and so are attributed to Epicurus, rather than to his followers, purely as a necessary convenience. This singular manuscript was discovered in the Vatican library in the late 1800s (you can view the digitized version here, starting on page 401), earning it the English name of the Vatican Sayings (VS) or the Latin title of Sententiae Vaticanae (SV).

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On the natural and necessary

For convenience of commentary, it’s probably useful to group these thematically, as shown above (unlike the Principal Doctrines, the numbered order is not particularly meaningful anyways). Let’s start with three sayings that are all closely tied to the recently much-discussed-by-me topic of the necessary desires.

The first of these is particularly sympathetic with Principal Doctrine 15, which I discussed last week, sharing that maxim’s concern with wealth “according to nature.” Today’s saying makes, however, a slightly more dramatic claim, at least rhetorically. (While Epicurus’ reputation as a stylist is not great, he certainly has a taste for this kind of sharp contrast or paradox.) According to VS 25, not only is the state of “wealth according to nature” limited and easy to attain, it is also synonymous with “poverty,” in the common usage of the term. The first half of VS 25 is a challenge to anyone who accepts this standard conception of “poverty”: People who the many call poor are not poor, in the true sense of being unable to fulfill their necessary desires. If you call yourself poor, you are probably wrong.

The second half of this paradox (“wealth without limits is great poverty”) is likewise a challenge to the language of the many. There are numerous people who are wealthy in the eyes of the world, but if they have no sense of limits and sufficiency, they will always be poor relative to their desires. According to Epicurus, a millionaire who is hungry to be a billionaire, or anyone who lives in a state of perpetually unsatisfied desire, is the one who is more aptly described as “poor.”

Here the physically necessary desires are listed in their starkly minimal essence: the actual requirements of our bodies are very limited. Now, it is true that Epicurus elsewhere describes us as having desires that are necessary “for happiness” in addition to those that are necessary “for life itself” and “to pacify the body’s demands,” so he should not be taken as maintaining that the demands of the flesh are everything we need as humans. But we should not mistake the desire for, say, sushi, fine wine, and cashmere blankets as being necessary for our contentment. All of the body’s discontents can be satisfied very simply.

(Occasionally, Epicurus—like Lucretius after him—will refer to the traditional gods as a rhetorical or literary device.1^[1] That doesn’t mean he believes in the traditional stories about them.)

Another classic Epicurean paradox. If a person considers what is truly “enough” (that which satisfies all the necessary desires) to be “little” in his mind, then for that person, there is nothing that he will consider to be “enough.” If sufficient food, water, clothing, shelter, and friendship are dismissed as minor things, unimportant compared to the bigger projects of one’s life, then where will the line of sufficiency be drawn?

Perhaps this is a little hyperbolic for rhetorical purposes—one could technically imagine someone whose threshold for “enough” is just a little inflated—but I think it’s usually correct. The most reliable way of ensuring that someone possesses some mental threshold for “enough” is if they calibrate that word to the truly necessary desires, as Epicurus recommends. Typically, people never make a deliberate effort to define “enough,” and so they just unconsciously add more and more desires, lured on by the appeal of the next objective in their sights.

On the natural but unnecessary desires

The next two maxims are united by their tacit endorsement of one of the key Epicurean spiritual exercises: practicing gratitude as a remedy for the desire for novelty. Enjoying variety is not in itself bad—such pleasures, in themselves, belong to the category of the “natural but not necessary” desires, rather than to that of the “unnatural desires”—but letting such desires grow into urgent, driving passions in your life is not conducive to happiness.

Simple, but potent. So much consumption and novelty-seeking is relentlessly forward-looking: we are always thinking of the things and experiences we could get. Epicureanism recommends looking back, and thinking of the things we already have. This has two positive consequences. First, it may undermine the seeming urgency of those desires “for things we don’t have”—how plausible is the feeling that a stylish new sweater will bring someone happiness, if she already have five similarly stylish sweaters for which she once held out similar hopes? Second, it will enhance the pleasure of our current lives to reflect on all the good things they already contain.

Translators differ on whether ἐν διαίτῃ should be understood as referring narrowly to one’s “diet” of food (Bailey, DeWitt, Arrighetti) or more broadly to one’s “way of life” (Inwood and Gerson, Morel). In the Letter to Menoeceus, the same word is used once in clear reference to food, and then a second time with similar ambiguity to this case. Without the original context of this sentence, it is impossible to know which meaning is intended.

In truth, both are legitimate Epicurean positions. People are often greedy for variety in both their diet and in their lives more broadly. The word ποίκιλμα is standardly and correctly rendered as “variety,” but can also refer to a more literal “ornament” or “embellishment,” as in embroidery—this word for “variety” therefore suggests something that is inherently “extra” and beyond-what-is-necessary, a kind of superfluousness.

As discussed in the Classification of Desires essay, embellishments to one’s diet and lifestyle are perfectly benign in themselves. It is when one becomes “endlessly greedy” for such variety, when the hunger for novelty becomes overly intense, that there is a problem. According to Epicurus, the fundamental remedy for neophilia is gratitude.

On the unnatural desires

Finally, our last two sayings consider not the “natural and necessary,” nor the “natural and unnecessary” desires, but the unnatural ones, those founded on empty, groundless opinion. Two of the most prominent of such desires are those for wealth and admiration: while it may be natural to want adequate resources for your needs and the goodwill of your peers, there is no natural need for this to balloon into the superfluous accumulation of goods and chasing after the admiration of strangers.

This saying adds a few interesting reflections beyond the now familiar baseline observation that great wealth is not necessary for happiness. Some people might theoretically concede that wealth is not necessary, but still pursue it, perhaps claiming that they enjoy the process of gaining wealth, or that the costs of that process are smaller than the pleasure they get from the extra resources. Here, Epicurus adds a caution about the process of wealth accumulation: it often requires “servitude to either the mob or to the mighty.” Arguably, the exceptions to this have grown since Epicurus’ time: many “normal” jobs now deliver paychecks far in excess of what the necessary desires require. Still, I think the caution is worth bearing in mind: even if your livelihood is not derived from explicit service to a dictator, for example, work often requires unpleasant compromises of your preferences and beliefs. If your current employment requires subservience of any kind to people you do not admire, or labor in service to a project which you think is bad, then changing your employment—even at some financial cost—may well make your life more pleasurable on balance.

The second interesting suggestion here concerns what the wise man would do if he happened to acquire great wealth. The basic idea is that he would give it away, though it should be noted that this encouragement has neither the urgency nor the mandate of cost-effectiveness that you would encounter from modern effective altruists. Instead, the “donation” is entirely framed as an alternative, more effective egoistic action: since wealth gives negligible benefit, and may even be socially harmful to oneself (i.e. by attracting envy, theft, or sycophancy), it is better to convert it into social goodwill by giving it away.

I basically agree. The trickier question is to determine the threshold for when one’s resources become superfluous. Wealth operates differently today than it did in Epicurus’ time: we have investment options that are safe from theft, non-ostentatious, and that provide ongoing income. How to decide exactly what amount of wealth moves a person into the “time to give it away” category is therefore a fairly complex question that probably deserves its own essay at some point. For now, I will leave it at this: generally speaking, Epicurus is not particularly interested in advising people of normal means to give away their money. The necessary corollary to his ideas about the necessary desires, however, is that the accumulation of resources has steeply declining marginal utility and will at some point turn negative.

Let’s end with a fairly straightforward, but endlessly important encapsulation of the nature of the unnatural desires. Wealth and fame do not do the things that would benefit us most: they do not resolve our troubles nor produce real joy. Thoreau famously picked up this idea a few millennia later:

We are often reminded that if there were bestowed on us the wealth of Crœsus, our aims must still be the same, and our means essentially the same. Moreover, if you are restricted in your range by poverty, if you cannot buy books and newspapers, for instance, you are but confined to the most significant and vital experiences; you are compelled to deal with the material which yields the most sugar and the most starch. It is life near the bone where it is sweetest. You are defended from being a trifler. No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul. (Walden, “Conclusion”)

Epicurus is often interpreted in a partial and uncharitable manner, with all of his prudential counsel and advocacy for the simple life assumed to imply a life of reduced vibrancy and joy. That’s not how it works. “Joy worthy of the name” does not come from wealth, which buys superfluities only. People will often protest that they enjoy their shopping, that they get pleasure from the things they buy—if they are not causing themselves great financial stress or other outright harm, then what’s the problem?

The problem is the missed opportunity. To spend your life collecting things is to miss “life near the bone,” life where it is sweetest. It is to voluntarily enlist yourself among the triflers, who spend their precious hours chasing shadows.

Look at your life. What are the great troubles that diminish your happiness each day? Are you stressed by your job, by your relationships, by the state of the world? Wealth and fame don’t make these better. (The desire for wealth is what keeps many people in their job—if you don’t care about wealth, and manage your money prudently, then you will have more latitude to find a an agreeable livelihood.) When in your life have you encountered “joy worthy of the name”? I would guess that that emotion did not rise up in you upon the acquisition of one more dollar, one more online follower, one more package in the mail, but from moments in which all thoughts of accumulation disappeared from your consciousness and you relaxed into peace and security, love and friendship, proximity to noble feelings or great beauty.

Recognize what you truly need. Let yourself be filled with gratitude for all that you already have. And let go of all the borrowed thoughts that distract you from what matters.

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Original Text

[On the natural and necessary desires]

25. ἡ πενία μετρουμένη τῷ τῆς φύσεως τέλει μέγας ἐστὶ πλοῦτος· πλοῦτος δὲ μὴ ὁριζόμενος μεγάλη ἐστὶ πενία.

33. σαρκὸς φωνὴ τὸ μὴ πεινῆν, τὸ μὴ διψῆν, τὸ μὴ ῥιγοῦν· ταῦτα γὰρ ἔχων τις καὶ ἐλπίζων ἕξειν κἂν <διὶ> ὑπὲρ εὐδαιμονίας μαχέσαιτο.

[On the natural but not necessary desires]

35. οὐ δεῖ λυμαίνεσθαι τὰ παρόντα τῶν ἀπόντων ἐπιθυμίᾳ, ἀλλʼ ἐπιλογίζεσθαι ὅτι καὶ ταῦτα τῶν εὐκταίων ἦν.

69. τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ἀχάριστον λίχνον ἐποίησε τὸ ζῷον εἰς ἄπειρον τῶν ἐν διαίτῃ ποικιλμάτων.

68. οὐδὲν ἱκανὸν ᾧ ὀλίγον τὸ ἱκανόν.

[On the desires which are neither natural nor necessary]

67. ἐλεύθερος βίος οὐ δύναται κτήσασθαι χρήματα πολλὰ διὰ τὸ τὸ πρᾶγμα <μὴ> ῥᾴδιον εἶναι χωρὶς θητείας ὄχλων ἢ δυναστῶv, ἀλλὰ <συν> συνεχεῖ δαψιλείᾳ πάντα κέκτηται· ἄν δέ που καὶ τύχῃ χρημάτων πολλῶv, καὶ ταῦτα ῥᾳδίως ἃν εἰς τὴν τοῦ πλησίον εὔνοιαν διαμετρήσαι.

81. οὐ λύει τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς ταραχὴν οὐδὲ τὴν ἀξιόλογον ἀπογεννᾷ χαρὰν οὔτε πλοῦτος ὑπάρχων ὁ μέγιστος οὔθʼ ἡ παρὰ τοῖς πολλοῖς τιμὴ καὶ περίβλεψις οὔτʼ ἄλλο τι τῶν παρὰ τὰς ἀδιορίστους αίτίας.

In the first part of this essay, I introduced Epicurus’ classification of human desires into three types: those which are natural and necessary, natural but not necessary, and neither natural nor necessary. We reviewed what exactly Epicurus said, and clarified both what specific desires he placed in each category and how he recommended approaching each of the different classes. If you haven’t read that part, I recommend starting there. Today I’ll cover one further nuance that is sometimes debated—Epicurus’ attitude towards sex and romantic relationships and where he placed them within the trichotomy of desires—before turning to a broader discussion of how we can use the Epicurean classification of desires to guide our lives today.

As a form of brief recap before we get started, I’d also like to acknowledge Emily Austin’s suggestion for a catchier retitling or paraphrasing of Epicurus’ admittedly clunky titles. In her excellent introduction to Epicurean ethics, Living for Pleasure, she refers to the three categories as the necessary desires, the extravagant desires, and the corrosive desires. This is a reasonable and convenient shorthand. “Extravagant” desires are those which are decidedly not necessary—a particularly tasty sandwich and a decent beer, rather than bread and water—but which are not in themselves harmful. We broadly understand the concept of a “harmless extravagance.” “Corrosive” desires, on the other hand, are those which we should seek to minimize or eliminate: feeding the desire for great wealth, fame, power, or eternal life will only make it worse, as such desires have no natural point of satiation.

For a more complete review of the necessary, extravagant, and corrosive desires, head back to Part 1 of this essay. To see how we can use these categories to lead happier lives, read on.

In which category do sex and romantic relationships belong?

Last time out, I covered the debate over Epicurus’ general attitude towards the natural but not necessary desires (I think he is quite permissive of gratifying them, albeit with certain guidelines). Another subject of less than perfect agreement among scholars is the Epicurean attitude towards sex and romantic relationships. Some think Epicurus would classify sex as clearly unnecessary, and perhaps generally harmful. There is something to this, but I think such warnings are easily overstated. Along with some passages in Lucretius where the poet speaks quite harshly of romantic obsession (4.1058–1191) and some seeming advice from Epicurus on how to manage such emotions (Vatican Saying 18), the main passage read as discouraging sexual relationships is probably this one from Metrodorus:

On the one hand, it is true that Metrodorus1 says that “the pleasures of sex never profit us” and lists several possible downsides of their pursuit. On the other, this passage is not an outright rejection of sexual pleasure. “You may indulge this inclination as you like,” he formally concedes, as long as certain problems are avoided. One obvious case that would seem to satisfy his requirements is sex within a marriage (as long as your spouse doesn’t spend all your money). Metrodorus was married himself! Or at least had a long-term, stable, children-producing partnership with Leontion, an Epicurean philosopher in her own right. In general, Epicureans seem to me to be pro-marriage: other members of the Garden were married, Lucretius actually says quite nice things about long-wedded couples (IV.1277-1287), and Epicurus is said to have explicitly recommended marriage:

Strictly speaking, I would admit that Epicurus probably placed sex itself in the “natural but unnecessary category” for most people. As with other unnecessary desires, the cautions given by Metrodorus can be understood as warning of the potential prudential consequences (as in Principal Doctrine 26’s “hard to attain or likely to cause harm”). Likewise, the danger of excessive erotic obsession with a particular person (hinted at in VS 18 and the more precise topic of Lucretius’ diatribe) would constitute the addition of unwarranted opinions to the originally natural desire, converting it to a desire of the third, ill-advised category (à la PD 30).

Some might argue for putting sex and relationships in the “natural and necessary for happiness category.” I think it is even possible to read the advice in VS 51 as compatible with a partial acceptance of this position—it acknowledges the strong urge that Pythocles feels and doesn’t simply say “root out this terrible feeling,” but rather presents a list of prudential cautions, while acknowledging that if they are avoided, sex can be safely pursued. Perhaps Epicurus and Metrodorus might concede that it is necessary for happiness for at least some people, and so perhaps “the pleasures of sex do not profit us” should be understood more along the lines of “being a sex-chasing profligate does not profit us.” Perhaps if Pythocles had written with a complaint of his excessive interest in food, Metrodorus would have written back that “the pleasures of the table do not profit us,” while of course admitting the necessity of eating. I couldn’t rule this out.

What seems clear is that Epicurus would not consider all sexual relationships to be the product of ungrounded opinion, and therefore to be avoided. Instead, sex can reasonably be placed anywhere around the borderline of “natural and necessary” and “natural and unnecessary.” Either seems defensible as an interpretation of Epicurus and as a philosophical stance, as does a hybrid position of “necessary for some people.” Overall, however, the bulk of our surviving texts seem to treat sexual relationships most similarly to the natural and unnecessary desires, advising that one weigh the costs of their pursuit, avoid excessive obsession, and choose the most prudent way to satisfy such desires. For most people, this is probably marriage.

Actionable takeaways for modern life

It should now be basically clear what Epicurus puts in each category of his tripartite division. The corresponding general advice for each category should also be fairly apparent: prioritize and prudently pursue the first, pursue the second with some extra caution, and avoid the third. Let’s wrap up this essay by fleshing out those overarching themes with some more specific details. What does this look like in practice?

Natural and necessary

This is one of Epicurus’ most crucial and radical insistences: we must frequently remind ourselves how simple our true necessities are. If you think you need more, groundless opinion is creeping in: maybe you are comparing yourself with others, are being misled by advertisements, or have simply been habituated to think of extravagances as essentials.

To “remind ourselves” does not mean that we will always live in a minimal way (see the Letter to Menoeceus and Seneca, Letters 18.9). It means that we will practice spiritual exercises aimed at internalizing the proper categorization of desires: read and reread the core doctrines, periodically experiment with a highly restrained lifestyle, and practice both gratitude for the simplest pleasures and the letting go of unnecessary desires. Remember what is necessary.

In terms of our overall lifestyle, correctly recognizing the necessary desires has a few implications. One of the most impactful is a recalibration of our true financial needs. Many people come to think of actually unnecessary desires as necessary for their happiness—a big house in an expensive area, multiple cars, frequent long-distance vacations, whatever—and therefore commit to longer, more stressful, or less enjoyable careers. If you trim back the unnecessary desires, your working life could be shorter in years, less demanding in hours, or chosen more for compatibility rather than income-maximization. Work accordingly.

Prioritizing the necessary desires also has implications for how we spend our time outside of making a living. Emily Austin likes to include the development of a correct understanding of the world, skill in prudent decision-making, and virtuous habits as among the necessary desires. While I’m not sure that these constitute independent objects of desire, I do agree that Epicurus would say these are essential tools for satisfying our necessary desires. (Friendship is more plausibly both an aid to material security and a direct object of desire.) Cultivating all of these therefore will occupy a larger share of the Epicurean’s time, in preference to the pursuit of wealth, reputation, or variety of pleasure. Such a life is not boring, as “a life focused on the essentials” might sound—it is one of constantly increasing tranquility. Make wisdom and prudence your hobbies.

Natural but not necessary

As previously discussed, the specific ancient example we were given for this category was “expensive food.” Modern variations on that theme are easily multiplied: expensive drinks, expensive clothing, expensive homes and home furnishings are all aimed at fulfilling natural needs for sustenance and protection from the elements, but add additional variety that is not actually necessary to remove the pain of true deprivation.

“Expensive,” of course, can mean very different things to different people. I think it is perfectly reasonable to admit that a great deal more consumer variety is affordably available to modern, financially-stable Americans like myself than was available in the ancient world. I can purchase an astounding variety of yogurts and pillows with negligible differences in cost, so there is very little need for outright monotony in the way we satisfy such desires. But along with this proliferation of affordable options has come a proliferation of expensive options, wherever you personally draw that line in relation to your financial resources. The first step in Epicurean prudence in regards to such desires, therefore, is simply to be aware of this differences in how “easy to attain” different options are, and generally choose the ones that are cheaper in total lifetime cost. Make the hard to obtain extravagances a negligible element in your life.

The more nefarious phenomenon to watch out for here is the transformation of natural desires by groundless opinion. The telltale symptom is “intense zeal” in your desire, as described in Principal Doctrine 30:

Fancy food, fancy drink, fancy clothes—so many things other than actual necessity creep in here. Repeat to yourself: kenai doxai, kenai doxai, kenai doxai. Even when you can identify some putative improvement in function, that function is usually irrelevant to the alleviation of the pain in question. “High fiber,” “convenient,” “cerulean blue.” “Keto-friendly,” “all natural,” “better quality stitching.” None of these qualities is necessary. Don’t empty your wallet, neuroticize your mind, and dilute the irreplaceable hours of your life fixating on such inconsequential details. Beware obsession.

More controversially, Epicurus would probably apply a similar logic to the choice of romantic partner: avoid obsession. That coat might seem perfect to you now, but it probably doesn’t seem perfect to other people, and probably won’t seem perfect to you either in a decade, because it probably isn’t perfect, in any objective sense. The same is true of our objects of erotic desire. Be content with good enough. A trustworthy companion is far more valuable than sexual novelty. If your partner treats you well, then consuetudo concinnat amorem—familiarity produces love.3 Don’t compare, don’t seek novelty—practice gratitude.

Unnatural and groundless

There is fairly general agreement that Epicurus felt that the desires for wealth, fame, power, and eternal life were all unnatural and unnecessary. (Numerous quotes could be lined up; for brevity, you can refer to past articles on the shortcomings of the first three for the pursuit of peace of mind, the futility of political competition, and the error of fearing death.) To be clear, all of these desires have a presumably natural evolutionary origin—it’s just that they have taken on distorted forms that are no longer beneficial for their original function, whether in the most dramatic extremes of billionaires, Hollywood stars, and dictators, or in the more modest versions of normal modern people.

For instance, when Epicurus says that the desires for wealth and fame are groundless and should be avoided—

—You might be tempted to say that he is referring to business tycoons and global celebrities, while it is perfectly natural for a person to wish to accumulate sufficient resources to comfortably meet her basic needs and to acquire enough social standing to ensure the cooperation and assistance of others. The latter is certainly true, and I don’t think Epicurus would dispute it. But I do think that he would consider the great majority of developed-world modern people to exceed the bounds of what is natural, falling victim to “unbounded desires” with no prudential calculus for when their success is sufficient.

In other words, try to be honest with yourself when evaluating whether you fall prey to any unnatural desires. You might think that you aren’t pursuing wealth, fame, power, and eternal life. But I think Epicurus would consider desires such as these to be roughly as “groundless” as the obvious cases of international tycoons and dictators:

• If you want more wealth because it makes you feel important, or to enable any appearance-oriented consumption, or to purchase lots of little extravagances that you “must” have in order to be happy.

• If you work to be admired by passers-by, vague acquaintances, or strangers on the internet.

• If you want to have a prestigious title, whether in government, business, academia, or any organization.

• If you want to live longer because you think death is terrible.

All of these have their natural origin, but all of them have exceeded that origin in a way that makes them counterproductive for contentment. People have been happy without any of these things. It is empirically trivial to find unhappy people who are rich, unhappy people who are famous, unhappy people with powerful positions, and unhappy people with highly optimized health regimens. Set limits. Relax your desires. Always remember this central dictum:

Fulfilling unnatural desires never brings stable happiness. Letting them go never causes disaster. Such desires often feel pressing, urgent, all-important. They aren’t. The particular manifestations of our unnecessary desires are highly contingent on our education, our peers, and our cultural environment. All of these things can be changed, even if that change is not easy or immediate. Mindsets that are the product of what you were told in school, what was modeled by friends and parents, what you saw on TV and on the internet can all be reformed by finding different teachers, different role models, a different culture. To read a philosophic essay is not the end of retraining your desires. It is the first, preliminary exercise in relearning what you want.

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Principal Doctrine 15:

Principal Doctrine 16:

Principal Doctrine 21:

Commentary

In our next stop along our tour of Epicurus’ Principal Doctrines, we have three maxims revolving around one central idea: the good is easy to obtain. This is one of those concise, memorable sayings so much valued in ancient philosophy for its use in mental retraining: ταγαθόν εὐπόριστον (t’agathon euporiston), one might frequently remind oneself, when momentarily tempted into the pursuit of some difficult-to-obtain object under the mistaken impression that it constituted something that was truly essential to happiness.

Last week’s essay on the Classification of Desires discussed the basis for this claim that what we truly need for happiness is simple, limited, and easy to obtain. And our next installment of Principal Doctrines 18–20 will dive more deeply into one element of this fundamental justification, the idea that pleasure has a limit and is infinitely additive neither in magnitude nor in time. But today we will take a basic agreement about the easy attainability of the necessary desires for granted, and explore some more practical corollaries to these philosophic underpinnings. How much wealth do we need? How important is luck? Is success in life dependent on coming out ahead in competitive fields? If you truly internalize the belief that t’agathon euporiston, the good is easy to obtain, then the answers to these questions will be clear—and radically different than the way many people live their lives.

“The wealth of nature” is here contrasted with the wealth “of empty opinion.” The contrast between the natural and the unnatural—synonymous with that which is founded on “empty” or “groundless” opinion—should be familiar from our discussion of the Classification of the Desires. As discussed there, our natural and necessary desires are those which are innate and non-removable, such as our desires for food, hydration, and basic shelter. To be “wealthy” according to our natural needs means being able to satisfy those limited desires securely: it is not hard to obtain enough food, water, clothing, and shelter to meet our actual physical demands. In contrast, to be “wealthy” relative to the uncapped desires for consumerist variety, fame, or financial accumulation itself requires an amount of resources that has no intrinsic limit—there is no point of satiety for such desires in the way that there is for hunger or thirst.

Some might protest that it is not that easy to secure our basic needs. Our lives are not as simple as those of animals. What if we are opposed by unfavorable political or societal conditions, oppressed by prejudice or world events, or simply the victims of bad luck in the lottery of life? Epicurus has an opinion:

Epicurus does not deny that “chance” (or “fortune” or “luck”) exists. Unlike the Stoics, if you suffer a misfortune—if you are struck by a rare, painful illness, if you lose a friend in a car accident, if your house burns down—Epicurus would readily acknowledge that something bad has happened. Pain has been imposed upon you. Your confidence in securing the necessary desires has been diminished.

What he says, however, is that chance intrudes little in the life of the wise. Our primary defense against misfortune is not some extreme level of unshakeable virtue, but “reasoned calculation” (λογισμὸς, logismos). Some translations simply render this as “reason,” which has, I think, an excessively abstract air. The LSJ suggests “calculation” as one possibility, or Norman DeWitt is also on the right track when he translates logismos as “rational planning”—this is a word that refers to prudential calculation, rather than to some kind of insight into the nature of the universe. DeWitt goes on to comment:

Those who bewail the influence of bad luck and external circumstances on their happiness are usually mistaken. When viewed over the whole of one’s life, Epicurus is confident that the rigorous application of practical wisdom is essentially always sufficient to meet our natural needs.

In the rich countries of the modern world, relative poverty still exists. But if all the currently poor were to instantly adapt all the financial habits and other prudent behaviors of the most “successful” people, Epicurus does not think that the misfortune of their starting point would be an insurmountable obstacle to their happiness. He believes in individual agency, in one’s ability to craft a good life for oneself.

Of course, this is not easily done. If one’s environment has devalued the prudential virtues for all of one’s life, dismissed the importance of thrift, saving, weighing of long-term consequences, diligence, responsibility, restraint, financial literacy, or whatever else you might consider valuable for economic security, then it will be hard for anyone to instantly adopt all of those values and habits. But this is the point of practical intervention for Epicurus, and ancient philosophy more broadly: if someone comes to the Garden, and wants to achieve happiness, he will be told how to change his way of thinking—not told that he is unlucky and that his situation is hopeless.

Developing a correct understanding of big philosophic issues is part of this training. Contentment requires freedom from ungrounded fears of death or of the gods, for instance. But developing the ability to effectively calculate the advantages and disadvantages of different courses of action is just as important.

I’ve temporarily skipped a bundle of maxims (PD 18–20) that have some significant relevance to this one, detailing further some of the “limits” of life. But I think we already know enough to understand the main premise of this saying and consider the truth and implications of its conclusion. “The things that remove the suffering of want” are the objects of our old friends, the necessary desires. Food, water, clothing, shelter. Some might add friendship and a correct understanding of the world. None of these are in themselves expensive, or subject to some high bar of requisite luck. None of them require competition.

You don’t need to climb some high careerist ladder to obtain the food you need to live in health. You don’t need to become famous to have all the water you could ever want. You don’t need to win any political battle to secure clothing and shelter. You don’t need to be the best at anything to have faithful friends and family.

None of the most important things require such struggle. Many who dedicate their lives to whatever form of competition—from professional athletes to highly paid executives, political activists to online influencers—remain unhappy and unfulfilled. It isn’t because they don’t have enough. It’s because they don’t truly recognize what makes a life complete.

Read the complete series on the Principal Doctrines here.

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Original Text

15. ὁ τῆς φύσεως πλοῦτος καὶ ὥρισται καὶ εὐπόριστός ἐστιν, ὁ δὲ τῶν κενῶν δοξῶν εἰς ἄπειρον ἐκπίπτει.

16. βραχέα σοφῷ τύχη παρεμπίπτει, τὰ δὲ μέγιστα καὶ κυριώτατα ὁ λογισμὸς διῴκηκε καὶ κατὰ τὸν συνεχῆ χρόνον τοῦ βίου διοικεῖ καὶ διοικήσει.

21. ὁ τὰ πέρατα τοῦ βίου κατειδὼς οἶδεν ὡς εὐπόριστόν ἐστι τὸ <τὸ> ἀλγοῦν κατʼ ἔνδειαν ἐξαιροῦν καὶ τὸ τὸν ὅλον βίον παντελῆ καθιστάν· ὥστε οὐδὲν προσδεῖται πραγμάτων ἀγῶνας κεκτημένων.

Epicurus famously thought that human desires could be usefully put into three categories: the natural and necessary, the natural but unnecessary, and those which are neither natural nor necessary. Once we learn how to correctly place our desires into these mental buckets, we will know how we should approach them: either pursuing them strongly, gratifying them when reasonably convenient, or training ourselves out of them. As with my recent essays on the Epicurean approach to death, this is one of the major doctrines and will require two parts. Today I will introduce what exactly our ancient texts say and clear up one common area of confusion—how strongly does Epicurus discourage us from pursuing the natural but unnecessary desires? Next week I will address another common query—where do romantic relationships fit into this framework?—and conclude by considering how we should apply the categorization of desires to modern life.

Let’s start by defining the three classes of desires more precisely. Our surviving texts provide us with two direct statements of this doctrine from Epicurus himself:

Our next most important text is a scholion to PD 29, a brief commentary written on our manuscripts which is fairly universally regarded as being of ancient origin and a trustworthy report of Epicurus’ now lost elaborations:

Some other texts provide good supporting evidence, which I will touch on below. But let’s pause to recap what we can say about these three categories now, and how we might start to fill in each bucket with illustrative examples.

Natural and necessary: Most obviously, this includes physical necessities of the body. Without food and water, we will die. Without basic clothing and shelter, we will feel pain in harsh weather. Anything, therefore, that is required for the healthy and pain-free functioning of the body belongs here. Notably, this category also includes things necessary “for happiness.” It is less obvious what would qualify for this sub-category in Epicurus’ mind. One of the more plausible suggestions is the desire for friendship, based on separate statements of the indispensability of friendship for peace of mind.

Natural but not necessary: The vaguest and most debated category. From these initial texts, the only example that we have in an essentially direct form is that of “expensive foods,” which “vary pleasure but do not remove pain.” Based on this, most scholars think this category primarily refers to the desire for particular ways of fulfilling our natural desires—certain kinds of food and drink, certain kinds of clothing, and so on. The original desire is natural (hunger), but the particular manifestation is not necessary to avoid pain (a tomahawk ribeye steak). Scholars are divided as to whether sexual desire also fits in this category, or whether Epicurus would be more likely to put a parallel “desire for sex with particular people” here. We’ll get more into that question next week.

Neither natural nor necessary: These are the desires that originate in “empty” or “groundless” opinion (kenai doxai), a common Epicurean target. The examples given by the scholion are for “crowns and erections of statues.” Based on both that narrow example and other examples of kenai doxai discussed elsewhere by Epicurus, the big three desires usually placed in this category are those for wealth, fame, and power. The desire for eternal life is another unnatural desire belonging to this category.

Are the natural but unnecessary desires discouraged?

If you read the secondary literature, the experts are not in complete agreement about the degree to which Epicurus approves of satisfying the natural but unnecessary desires: some think he is quite permissive, while others think he is highly restrictive. I am generally in the “permissive” camp, and think that Epicurus allows the fulfillment of a great many unnecessary desires—as long as certain conditions are met.

A careful reading of the texts supports this. First off, there are two more Principal Doctrines that discuss these desires directly.

This one is straightforward enough: it sets forth the same criterion we are already familiar with to define the category (such desires do not cause pain if unfulfilled, unlike necessary desires such as hunger and thirst), and tells us how we should approach them (don’t pursue such desires if they are difficult to satisfy or if they bring other harms). The next maxim adds further specificity, although the exact nature of this specificity has been the subject of some debate:

Here, Epicurus adds a nuance within one of his three larger categories: when observing people pursuing the natural but unnecessary desires—which, if we remember PD 26, are supposed to be “easily relinquished”—we will often encounter individuals who become intensely impassioned and obsessive in their pursuit. According to Epicurus, desires of such intensity must have ceased to be merely natural, and have now been distorted by groundless opinion: to accurately categorize desires, we therefore need to look not only at the material object of desire, but also at the thought process of the person involved. If you see people getting distressed over not being able to get their favorite sushi or a piece of clothing they had their eyes on, for instance, then you can attribute that distress to mistaken human opinion—there is nothing in the natural desire for food or clothing that mandates that intense discontent.

This maxim has sometimes been misunderstood. Some translations imply that all of the natural but not necessary desires evoke intense feelings or require intense effort, that all of them are produced by groundless opinion, and that all such desires should therefore be stringently avoided.1 The Greek is admittedly a little tricky, but I don’t think this is a tenable interpretation: most simply because it would collapse the three categories into two, making the whole trichotomy pointless. Furthermore, while Epicurus often recommends relatively simple living, he also often acknowledges that unnecessary desires can be enjoyably fulfilled under the right circumstances. Consider Letter to Menoeceus 131, for instance, or Vatican Saying 21:

We do not need to “sharply deny” the natural but unnecessary desires. Instead, it is perfectly reasonable to fulfill them, except when they involve certain specific conditions. From PD 26 and 30, we can now identify those three situations when we should forgo their pursuit:

1. If they are hard to obtain.

2. If they are likely to cause harm.

3. If the zeal and urgency of our desire become too intense when not gratified. (We should then recognize that the originally natural desire is being distorted by groundless opinion, which we should always strive to free ourselves from.)

The first two are relatively easy to understand and fit well with a wide range of Epicurean advice. If we encounter easy opportunities to enjoy fancier food or drink, we should enjoy it. But if it is expensive or unhealthy, then we should realize that pursuing this pleasure will be on net negative for our well-being. Epicurus says that such desires should be “easily relinquished” and in fact I think they often are, when viewed solely in their original natural capacity, before the addition of any “groundless opinions.” Most people of modest income, if presented with the menu of a very fancy restaurant and offered the opportunity to purchase a $300 entrée, would feel very little desire for that purely gustatory experience. (Some people might want to be the kind of wealthy person who dines at such places, or to have sufficiently enormous wealth that the $300 meal was a meaningless expense, but very few would say that the pure pleasure of tasting such food was worth $300 more than a home-cooked meal of negligible cost.)

It is the third principle that suggests the more difficult case: when groundless opinions are attached by habit, education, or peer influence to our originally natural but unnecessary desires, they can become quite deeply ingrained. Then our intrinsically simple desires to be fed, hydrated, clothed, and sheltered become addictive, obsessive, and painfully difficult to satisfy. If you find yourself compulsively shopping for new clothes or trying to justify increasing your house-shopping budget by another $100,000 for “a little more space,” “a nicer neighborhood,” or various beautiful bits and bobs of interior design, then such desires are no longer those simple, natural desires they masquerade as. Groundless opinion has taken hold.

So, to answer our original question: No, I would not say that Epicurus discourages the satisfaction of natural but unnecessary desires. He encourages us to recognize when particular desires impose higher costs than their satisfaction is worth. And he encourages us to recognize when our originally natural desires have become distorted by unnatural, groundless opinion. But there is no call to eliminate admittedly unnecessary variety from the pleasures of one’s life.

Conclusion, and what lies ahead

Our three categories have now been introduced, as Epicurus delineated them. We know roughly what desires he placed in each group, and what his general stance was towards each: fulfill the natural and necessary, pursue the natural and unnecessary if they do no harm, and deny those which are neither natural nor necessary. Despite some misreadings to the contrary, Epicurus did not advocate for stringent restrictions on the natural but unnecessary desires, but rather for targeted guidelines that still allow for significant variety beyond the bare minimum of the truly necessary.

Next week, I’ll conclude this essay, first with a consideration of another related topic of debate—in which category do sex and romantic relationships belong?—and then with a broader application of the Epicurean framework to contemporary life. We’ve laid the groundwork. Next week we’ll see it in action—and begin to reap the benefits.

Continue to Part 2 on the Classification of Desires.

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Peace and quiet are what sailors pray for,
When they are caught out on the open Aegean,
With a black cloud hiding the moon
And smothering the stars.

They pray for peace in war-torn Thrace,
As do the famous archers of Parthia,
But it can’t be bought, Grosphus—not with gems,
Not with purple, not with gold.

A consul is wealthy, protected by lictors,
But no wealth or lictors can clear the mobs
In his mind, or disperse all the worries beneath
His fine, paneled ceiling.

Live well with little—as does the good man
Whose father’s salt cellar is his only heirloom,
His table offers little, but he sleeps without nightmares,
Free from fear and from greed.

Our strength is short. Why do we aim
At so much? Why do we sail across the sea?
Does the man who flees his country in truth
Just flee himself?

Worry haunts everyone. That anxious vice
Boards armored ships, chases down
The horseman, outrunning all deer,
Outrunning the wind.

Find contentment in this moment. Decline obsession
With the future. And when hard times come to you,
Temper bitter things with laughter, knowing
Life is imperfect.

Life is imperfect—Achilles died,
Immortal Tithonus was crushed by age,
And while I do not have your wealth,
I have other things.

The sounds of your sheep and your cattle surround you;
Your team of mares strain at the chariot;
You are draped in twice-dyed wool of Africa,
The richest of all colors.

But Fate has not deceived me. I have
A small estate, the gift to write
My slender songs, and freedom to spurn 
The envious crowd.

Commentary

I have previously introduced Horace, a not-officially-Epicurean poet of Augustan Rome. To recap: he definitely studied Epicurean philosophy, had Epicurean friends, and was largely sympathetic to the philosophy, but occasionally strikes notes that are not in complete agreement with the school’s formal doctrines. Overall, he is still often quoted as an eloquent articulator of central Epicurean themes such as the value of simple living, the dangers of ambition, the importance of friendship, and the appreciation of the present moment’s pleasures. Today’s poem touches on all of these.

The basic structure of this ode is to alternate between portraits of various kinds of stressed, unhappy people, and alternative portraits of more contented ways of being. In the course of that alternation, we are given a virtual tour of the different ways the seemingly prosperous go wrong in their search for happiness, contrasted with affecting, highly Epicurean visions of what it would look like for that search to go right. Let’s take the whole poem in order.

[Unhappy people #1]

Peace and quiet are what sailors pray for,
When they are caught out on the open Aegean,
With a black cloud hiding the moon
And smothering the stars.

They pray for peace in war-torn Thrace,
As do the famous archers of Parthia,
But it can’t be bought, Grosphus—not with gems,
Not with purple, not with gold.

A consul is wealthy, protected by lictors,
But no wealth or lictors can clear the mobs
In his mind, or disperse all the worries beneath
His fine, paneled ceiling.

The first three stanzas introduce three different kinds of people: sailors, soldiers, and politicians. All are worried; none are happy. First up, we have the sailor (which in Roman poetry often means “wealth-seeking merchant”—see Odes 1.31 or 3.29, for example). But wealth won’t help you when you face the dark and dangerous sea. Second, educated young men (as Horace was) might join up with a military campaign (as Horace did, fighting against the future Augustus at Philippi) in order to pursue glory, political ideals, or eastern wealth, but the military life also guarantees a lack of tranquility. Third, consul was the highest political office in the Roman state. Being consul guarantees wealth, influence, and a personal crew of “lictors,” bodyguards/street-rabble-clearers armed with staffs. But, as we can see today as well, politicians do not lead peaceful lives.

[Happy man #1]

Live well with little—as does the good man
Whose father’s salt cellar is his only heirloom,
His table offers little, but he sleeps without nightmares,
Free from fear and from greed.

In contrast, a life that is not oriented around securing wealth, glory, or power does offer the possibility of peace. Even in his sleep, the good man is free from fear and greed—this is a good indicator of progress towards ataraxia. The opening line of this stanza, incidentally, is one of those felicitous, compact phrases for which Horace is famous (carpe diem, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, the golden mean, etc.). Here he says vivitur parvo bene: “life is well lived with little,” or for greater concision and directness, “live well with little.” Ancient Epicureans loved repeating memorable maxims as a form of philosophical practice, and this is an excellent one. Recall it regularly to your mind and the frugal mindset will become ever more natural and instinctive. I say vivitur parvo bene all the time, even if my wife often completes the words before I can finish, followed by “yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.”

[Unhappy people #2]

Our strength is short. Why do we aim
At so much? Why do we sail across the sea?
Does the man who flees his country in truth
Just flee himself?

Worry haunts everyone. That anxious vice
Boards armored ships, chases down
The horseman, outrunning all deer,
Outrunning the wind.

Next, Horace turns back to consider a few more versions of the worried life. Here, the emphasis is not so much on acquisition (of wealth, power, etc.), but on movement. Those who are discontented cannot stand still, just as in the passage from Lucretius that I shared earlier this month. “Travelling is a fool’s paradise.” Fast ships and fast horses give us the distraction of speed, but vicious worry (vitiosa Cura) always walks us down.

[Happy man #2]

Find contentment in this moment. Decline obsession
With the future. And when hard times come to you,
Temper bitter things with laughter, knowing
Life is imperfect.

The remedies to such insatiability for stuff and movement are primarily mental. As Pierre Hadot argues, perhaps the central spiritual exercise of all Epicureanism is one of relaxation, of letting go of worries in favor of contentment in the present. This doesn’t deny that painful moments sometimes occur, but those also we can soften by adopting the right perspective. As Epicurus says in Principal Doctrine 4, pain is temporary. It will pass. And so Horace issues yet another of his rolling phrases: amara lento temperet risu—may the happy man “temper bitter things with calm, easy laughter.”

[Unhappy people #3]

Life is imperfect—Achilles died,
Immortal Tithonus was crushed by age,
And while I do not have your wealth,
I have other things.

The sounds of your sheep and your cattle surround you;
Your team of mares strain at the chariot;
You are draped in twice-dyed wool of Africa,
The richest of all colors.

Our last turn to the world of unhappiness contains two ends of the spectrum. First, Horace offers us a more distant, zoomed-out perspective from the world of mythology. Achilles obtained more glory than anyone in the world—but he died, and his glory became worthless. Tithonous asked for and received eternal life, but neglected to request eternal youth, with the result that he became very miserable and decrepit before ultimately being turned into a cicada. Then Horace zooms in, at last directly addressing his friend Grosphus, who was briefly invoked at the beginning of the poem. From the mythological past to the immediate and contemporary, people do the same futile thing in their desire for happiness: they always search for more.

[Happy man #3—Horace!]

But Fate has not deceived me. I have
A small estate, the gift to write
My slender songs, and freedom to spurn 
The envious crowd.

Horace, in contrast, has what he needs. Not an ascetic lifestyle, but a modest one: his farm is parva (little) and the breath of his poetic muse is tenuem (slight, delicate—a reference to Horace’s specialization in short lyric poems about friendship and living well and so on, rather than some weightier genre like epic—rendered loosely here as “my slender songs”). The closing scorn for the general populace might strike some modern readers as jarringly elitist, given Horace’s criticisms of the rich: malignum spernere volgus could arguably be rendered even more strongly as “to despise the spiteful masses” or the like. But I think that Horace’s sentiment here is also ultimately compatible with an Epicurean perspective and suggests an important position that is not very prominent today: philosophers are not on the side of the rich (they are ignorant about what matters), but that does not necessarily mean they are on the side of the poor (they are ignorant too, often desiring the same things as the more unrefined and unreflective of the upper classes).

Live well with little. Be content with the present. Temper bitter things with gentle laughter. Do all of these and you will achieve some portion of that peace that so many seek without finding—at sea or in war, abroad or at home, in the midst of the crowd or surrounded by wealth. We have what we need.

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Original Text

Horace, Ode 2.16

Otium divos rogat in patenti
prensus Aegaeo, simul atra nubes
condidit lunam neque certa fulgent
sidera nautis,

otium bello furiosa Thrace,
otium Medi pharetra decori,
Grosphe, non gemmis neque purpura ve-
nale nec auro.

non enim gazae neque consularis
submovet lictor miseros tumultus
mentis et curas laqueata circum
tecta volantis.

vivitur parvo bene cui paternum
splendet in mensa tenui salinum
nec levis somnos timor aut cupido
sordidus aufert.

quid brevi fortes iaculamur aevo
multa? quid terras alio calentis
sole mutamus? patriae quis exsul
se quoque fugit?

scandit aeratas vitiosa navis
Cura nec turmas equitum relinquit
ocior cervis et agente nimbos
ocior Euro.

laetus in praesens animus quod ultra est
oderit curare et amara lento
temperet risu: nihil est ab omni
parte beatum.

abstulit clarum cita mors Achillem,
longa Tithonum minuit senectus
et mihi forsan tibi quod negarit
porriget hora.

te greges centum Siculaeque circum
mugiunt vaccae, tibi tollit hinnitum
apta quadrigis equa, te bis Afro
murice tinctae

vestiunt lanae: mihi parva rura et
spiritum Graiae tenuem Camenae
Parca non mendax dedit et malignum
spernere volgus.