Diogenes Laertius tells us that the writings of Epicurus numbered over three hundred volumes. Unfortunately, most of those writings have been lost: we have three short letters, the Principal Doctrines, a later collection of aphorisms known as the Vatican Sayings, and assorted fragments and testimonials. Due to the fragmentary nature of our primary sources, the work of scholars who can reconstruct our scattered evidence to form more coherent and comprehensive accounts of Epicurean views takes on increasing importance. One contemporary scholar who has done a great deal of work in this vein is Tim O’Keefe of Georgia State University.

Today, I’d like to give you a brief tour of five of his Epicurean papers that are both publicly available and distinctly helpful. There is a lot of scholarly work that is far more interesting to specialists than to general readers, but O’Keefe is somewhat exceptional, I feel, in choosing subjects that are of actual ethical importance rather than mere narrow topics of historical or textual dispute. In particular, several of his papers serve as sympathetic synthesizing efforts that help make the Epicurean perspective on a given issue clear, rather than assuming specialist knowledge and then focusing on some narrow claim that is of minimal interest to anyone other than specialists (not that he won’t take on other scholars when he thinks they are misinterpreting the ancient texts). Finally, O’Keefe possesses one more quality rare in published academic writing—humor. I’ll highlight a few examples below as we peruse some of his greatest Epicurean hits.

Paper #1: Is Epicurean Friendship Altruistic? (2001)

Available on Phil Archive

Epicurus is generally classed as both a psychological and ethical egoist—he believes that we both necessarily act in our own self-interest and that it is always right for us to do so. However, he also is famous for his praise of friendship, which may seem at first glance to be a preeminently other-regarding activity. Isn’t the point of sincere friendship that one does care about the interests of others? This seeming incompatibility has on the one hand led a lot of unsympathetic listeners to dismiss or downplay Epicurus’ enthusiasm for friendship, while on the other leading some scholars who are highly aware of Epicurus’ documented enthusiasm for friendship to an awkward position of asserting that Epicurus is not a consistent egoist, whatever he says to the contrary.

In this paper, O’Keefe responds to those scholars, addressing nearly all of Epicurus’ texts on friendship (as well as ancient testimonials as to the Epicurean position, most notably Cicero in On Moral Ends) in order to construct a framework for Epicurean friendship that is both consistently egoistic and sincerely committed to friendship. The short version of this framework, which I find convincing, is that Epicurus has a two-level system, analogous to what is sometimes called “rule-utilitarianism” as opposed to “act-utilitarianism” in that non-egoistic system. In this understanding, while Epicurus views the ultimate goal of friendship to be our own self-interest (through material assistance, reduction of fear, and potentially—though this is disputed to some degree by O’Keefe—through the direct pleasure we receive from conversation and so on), we nonetheless will often weigh the interests of our friends equally to our own in any given situation.

I believe O’Keefe is correct in outlining Epicurus’ position like this:

1. Friendship is extremely valuable for our sense of security.

2. Reliable friendship requires that you act in a trustworthy way towards your friends, looking out for their interests equally with your own.

3. Therefore, the best way to secure your own long-term self-interest is to practice sincere friendship, even if that means prioritizing your friend’s interests over your own in a given situation.

Even some scholars get this wrong, but O’Keefe doesn’t—Epicurus is definitely an egoist, but he is still a better friend than most putative altruists.

Paper #2: The Epicureans on happiness, wealth, and the deviant craft of property management (2016)

Draft available on Phil Archive

Here, O’Keefe is primarily discussing Philodemus’ On Property Management. Philodemus was a later Epicurean, active around the Bay of Naples in the first century BCE (Cicero mentions him as a prominent Epicurean of the time). We have recovered fragments from several otherwise unknown philosophical treatises by Philodemus from the so-called Villa of the Papyri, which was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. Many of these works have been published in some form (this one in translation by Voula Tsouna in 2012), but all are far from complete and require a great deal of painstaking reconstruction to understand. For most casual readers, therefore, the original texts of Philodemus are not easy or inviting reading.

That’s where papers like this are useful: here, O’Keefe extracts some of Philodemus’ core points, summarizes the philosophical precursors with whom he is arguing (Plato, Xenophon, and Theophrastus), and sets his argument in its larger Epicurean context. In short, Philodemus believes that wisdom will exclude maximizing one’s financial acumen: attempting to make as much money as possible will induce stress and require an investment of time and attention that is incompatible with Epicurean tranquility. The wise man will not be foolhardy with his money, but will often settle for “good enough” rather than getting overly invested in financial optimization. Sound advice.

From around this point on in his career, O’Keefe also lets his personal humor peer through in his writings. In his summary, pleasurable activities with bad long-term consequences include “shooting up heroin or punching out people who annoy you,” while Plato’s character Gorgias argues that crafts are morally neutral, such that “boxers can use their skill either to defend the innocent or to pummel small children for fun” without any implication for their aptitude as boxers. I always find it preferable when scholars don’t force themselves to be boring in their examples.

Subscribe now

Paper #3: Epicurean Advice for the Modern Consumer, 2020

Draft available on Phil Archive

In this paper, O’Keefe draws on a variety of Epicurean sources to summarize the school’s views on money, consumption, and happiness, then compares their advice with that of modern empirical psychology. On the surface, this is simple—he isn’t making any particularly tenuous, controversial, or groundbreaking new interpretation of our source texts. But it is something that is all too rarely done in formal academic writing: evaluating the actual content of that ancient advice and seeing how it holds up for modern use. (This is also the one where he talks about Tom Yum soup and angry, kicking students wearing Doc Martens.)

So what is the advice? Understand what is actually needed to satisfy our necessary desires. Recognize which unnecessary desires should be reined in, rather than encouraged. Put yourself in an environment that encourages good habits, i.e. by associating with philosophically like-minded companions. Consider what truly enhances your security—friends do, but excessive wealth doesn’t.

As O’Keefe summarizes, these positions are generally supported by modern empirical research on happiness: materialism is negatively correlated with well-being, while gratitude is positively correlated with it. Increased wealth doesn’t seem to lead clearly to increased happiness at higher income levels. Our desires can be negatively impacted by our environment—such as through exposure to advertising and social media—but can also be positively modified through conscious reflection, as shown through studies on the effectiveness of cognitive-behavior therapy.

Epicurean ethical advice should not be confined to textbooks on the history of philosophy. It was good advice in 300 BCE and it’s good advice now.

Paper #4: The Normativity of Nature in Epicurean Ethics and Politics, 2021

Draft available on Phil Archive

Epicurus often makes appeals to “nature”—we should pursue natural desires rather than groundless ones, look to “uncorrupted” infants for a true picture of natural human desires, and always keep in mind the “natural good” aimed at in the acquisition of wealth and the definition of justice. Many a philosophy class, however, has found such arguments vexing rather than straightforwardly convincing: does being “natural” mean that something is ethically preferable?

Here, O’Keefe goes through essentially all of the different Epicurean appeals to nature to determine what exactly is meant by “natural” in each case and how that naturalness contributes to Epicurus’ ethical arguments. This closer analysis reveals a strategy that is usually best described as pragmatic, rather than dismissed as fallacious. For instance, “natural” desires for food or sex are biologically determined and probably can’t be eliminated. To argue for their elimination would be foolish, so instead we should try to manage those desires prudently. In contrast, unnatural desires (which are culturally learned, rather than innate) are more likely candidates for elimination: the desires to be portrayed in public statues or to have a billion dollars, for instance, are clearly not innate, and so it seems plausible to remove those desires through the cognitive training of philosophy.

I think a lot of normal people automatically incline towards the idea that what is natural is good (consider the successful marketing of “natural sweeteners” or “natural remedies,” for instance). Epicurus can be read simply and easily from this unreflective normie perspective: of course following our nature will generally work out better. O’Keefe’s work, however, demonstrates that Epicurus’ appeals to nature are not merely sloppy thinking or naïve sloganeering, but do in fact constitute a coherent basis for prudent ethical judgment.

Paper #5: Achieving Tranquility: Epicurus on Living without Fear, 2025

Draft available on Phil Archive

O’Keefe’s latest piece on Epicurean ethics is another work of helpful synthesis. While many correctly note that Epicurean “hedonism” is primarily about the reduction of pain, that bald summary can overlook the next layer of analysis: Epicurus believes that avoiding bodily pain is pretty simple, and that therefore most of our therapeutic attention should go to avoiding mental pain. The largest component of mental pain is fear. (Epicurus does also discuss other disturbing emotions such as regret and envy.)

In this paper, O’Keefe provides a tour of the types of fear identified by the Epicureans, and how they propose to ameliorate each one. Some fears are founded on false beliefs: hence the Epicurean focus on the use of science for dispelling superstition about the gods and about death. Correcting those false beliefs spares us from unnecessary fear. As O’Keefe helpfully points out, however, other fears do have a foundation in real concerns. If we think we won’t have enough food to eat or that we won’t have a safe shelter to sleep in tomorrow, it is normal and healthy that we would fear those outcomes. To reduce and manage those fears, we want to develop our practical wisdom (another translation for phronesis, also rendered as “prudence”) so that we can skillfully use our available tools to secure what we truly need. For instance, frugal living and dependable friends will greatly enhance our sense of security, while an extravagant lifestyle and celebrity probably won’t.

All in all, O’Keefe is probably my favorite scholar working on Epicurean ethics today. In the future, I’ll highlight other researchers who are making valuable contributions to the field as well, but few have O’Keefe’s track record of consistently covering topics that are truly important, accurately interpreting the Epicurean position, and rendering it into a form that is both readable and applicable to modern life. If you like the articles listed here, I encourage you to seek out more of his work, particularly his 2010 book Epicureanism, which is one of the best one-volume overviews of the philosophy if you’d like to go beyond ethics and learn more about Epicurean physics, anthropology, epistemology, and more.

And so we hold self-sufficiency to be a great good, not for the purpose of always living with little, but so that we will be satisfied with little when we do not have much, and because we are fully convinced that those who need extravagance the least enjoy it the most and that every natural desire is easy to satisfy, while those that are empty and groundless are hard to fulfill. When they remove the pains of hunger and thirst, simple flavors bring us pleasure equal to that of an extravagant diet. Even barley cake and water produce the highest pleasure when they are eaten by someone in need. Accustom yourself, then, to a plain rather than an extravagant way of life: this is integral to health, makes a man resolute before the necessary duties of life, enables us to better enjoy occasional luxuries, and renders us fearless of misfortune.

When we say therefore that pleasure is the goal of life, we do not mean the pleasures of sensualists or those that depend on acts of enjoyment, as some maintain in ignorance, or because they disagree with us or willfully misrepresent our teaching. What we mean by pleasure is the absence of pain in the body and trouble in the mind. For not a long chain of parties and drunken nights, nor the enjoyment of boys and women, nor a table laden with fish and other extravagances, produces a pleasant life, but rather sober reasoning, which examines the roots of our every choice and avoidance, and drives out those opinions that so greatly disturb our lives.

Prudence is the foundation of all of this and our greatest good. Because of this, prudence is more valuable than philosophy, and all the other virtues are produced from it. Prudence teaches that it is not possible to live pleasurably without living prudently, honorably, and justly, nor to live prudently, honorably, and justly without living pleasurably. For the virtues are necessarily intertwined with the pleasurable life, and the pleasurable life is inseparable from them.

Share

Commentary

Today we come to the fourth entry in our five-part series on the Letter to Menoeceus, our longest continuous summary of ethical teachings from Epicurus himself. Previous installments have covered the true nature of the gods, why death is not an evil, and the argument for hedonism. In today’s segment, Epicurus puts his general teaching on pain and pleasure into more practical terms.

And so we hold self-sufficiency to be a great good, not for the purpose of always living with little, but so that we will be satisfied with little when we do not have much, and because we are fully convinced that those who need extravagance the least enjoy it the most and that every natural desire is easy to satisfy, while those that are empty and groundless are hard to fulfill. When they remove the pains of hunger and thirst, simple flavors bring us pleasure equal to that of an extravagant diet. Even barley cake1 and water produce the highest pleasure when they are eaten by someone in need. Accustom yourself, then, to a plain rather than an extravagant way of life: this is integral to health, makes a man resolute before the necessary duties of life, enables us to better enjoy occasional luxuries, and renders us fearless of misfortune.

There is some dispute as to how plainly and ascetically the Epicureans actually recommended we live. On the one hand, they clearly did not mandate constant extreme deprivation: Epicurus here says that he does not recommend “always living with little” and that one of the benefits of his teachings is to increase one’s enjoyment of extravagant pleasures from time to time. A testimony from Seneca (Epistles 18.9) reinforces this point:

Epicurus, the teacher of pleasure himself, used to have certain days during which he would do the bare minimum to quiet his hunger, in order to see whether his subsequent state would in fact fall short of a full and complete pleasure, and, if so, by how much it would fall short and whether that shortfall was worth the great efforts people often make to avert it. This is surely what he is describing in his letter to Polyaenus written during the archonship of Charinus. In this spirit is his boast that he is able to supply his day’s food for less than a single copper coin, while Metrodorus, who had not progressed as far, required the full coin’s value.

A key phrase here is certos habebat dies: Epicurus had “certain days” on which he would practice extreme frugality—this was not his constant habit. Still, he clearly enjoined a simple lifestyle (ἁπλαῖς καὶ οὐ πολυτελέσι διαίταις) and recommended that extravagances only come at intervals (ἐκ διαλειμμάτων), rather than being routinely sought out. There are therefore two guardrails for the Epicurean position: live plainly and simply, with only occasional luxuries, but do not be excessively ascetic or stringently avoid pleasures that are easy to obtain. (How exactly this should translate to modern standards of living is open to debate, and probably to a significant variety of reasonable positions depending on one’s financial circumstances.)

When we say therefore that pleasure is the goal of life, we do not mean the pleasures of sensualists or those that depend on acts of enjoyment, as some maintain in ignorance, or because they disagree with us or willfully misrepresent our teaching. What we mean by pleasure is the absence of pain in the body and trouble in the mind. For not a long chain of parties and drunken nights, nor the enjoyment of boys and women, nor a table laden with fish and other extravagances, produces a pleasant life, but rather sober reasoning, which examines the roots of our every choice and avoidance, and drives out those opinions that so greatly disturb our lives.

In last week’s selection, Epicurus outlined his position that the elimination of pain constituted the height of pleasure. Here, he reiterates that point along with some corollaries that should be obvious, but which are often omitted from the critiques of hedonism given by both the generally uninformed and by philosophical opponents who may or may not be engaging in good faith debate. Since Epicurean pleasure is the absence of pain, we are not talking about drinking, feasting, and having sex with boys and female slaves (i.e. the milieu of Plato’s Symposium, not too far distant from Epicurus’ life—he was born about six years after the death of Plato).

Instead, the kind of pleasure Epicurus is talking about is enhanced primarily through reasoning and the removal of false opinions. The physical training he describes above (routinely living simply and experimenting periodically with stricter austerity) is a useful precursor to philosophy. It helps us to understand what is truly needed to satisfy our necessary desires. But while chasing sensual pleasures is clearly not the path to a pleasant life, neither is material austerity per se. Relative material austerity is just one tool towards the real goal: reducing mental disturbance.

Prudence is the foundation of all of this and our greatest good. Because of this, prudence is more valuable than philosophy, and all the other virtues are produced from it. Prudence teaches that it is not possible to live pleasurably without living prudently, honorably, and justly, nor to live prudently, honorably, and justly without living pleasurably. For the virtues are necessarily intertwined with the pleasurable life, and the pleasurable life is inseparable from them.

Here we come to a few of the most radical and distinctively Epicurean positions. First, that prudence is more valuable than philosophy—a very unusual thing for most philosophers to say! Prudence is a rendering of phronesis, which is also sometimes translated as “practical wisdom” in distinction from more theoretical or abstract forms of clear thinking. “Theoretical wisdom” does include valuable teachings, such as Epicurus’ own regarding the correct understanding of the gods and of death. But practical wisdom is concerned with the proper weighing out of the pleasure and pain attendant to any possible course of action. It is prudent to recognize that continuous attendance at drunken sex parties is not an effective way to achieve a pleasant life, because that lifestyle comes with significant downsides. If you don’t get that right, all the theoretical subtlety in the world will not bring you happiness.

The second essential teaching here is that Epicurus considers all the traditional, normie virtues (“By honor is meant the unwritten law that determines the conduct of a gentleman; and by justice is meant obedience to the written laws of the country”2) to inevitably go along with the pleasurable life. Critics will often oppose such values to hedonism (improperly understood). “Living a life of pleasure,” they will say, “is opposed to honor and justice. We need to teach people to forego their own pleasure in the interest of these virtues.”

Epicurus denies this. And what squares this circle, reconciling the life of pleasure and the life of virtue, is phronesis. This teaching is elaborated more elsewhere, but the point is that a rational consideration of our advantage and disadvantage will almost always lead us to behave as the just and honorable citizens would have us do. We will not steal, lie, and cheat, because that will not bring us more pleasure. What it will bring us is some superfluous sum of money or other such insubstantial “benefit,” while also earning us legal penalties, the fear of legal penalties, mistrust, the fear of mistrust, and reduced opportunities for trustworthy friendship. The only conflict between Epicureanism and common-sense morality here is this: Epicureans act justly and honorably because they recognize it is in their own best interest, rather than forcing themselves to do so while believing they are actually harming themselves.

Next week, we’ll conclude the Letter to Menoeceus with a consideration of fate and a wrapping-up of all we’ve covered, summarizing how one who internalizes all of these precepts can live “like a god among men.”

Original Text

καὶ τὴν αὐτάρκειαν δὲ ἀγαθὸν μέγα νομίζομεν, οὐχ ἵνα πάντως τοῖς ὀλίγοις χρώμεθα, ἀλλ’ ὅπως, ἐὰν μὴ ἔχωμεν τὰ πολλά, τοῖς ὀλίγοις χρώμεθα, πεπεισμένοι γνησίως ὅτι ἥδιστα πολυτελείας ἀπολαύουσιν οἱ ἥκιστα ταύτης δεόμενοι, καὶ ὅτι τὸ μὲν φυσικὸν πᾶν εὐπόριστόν ἐστι, τὸ δὲ κενὸν δυσπόριστον, οἵ τε λιτοὶ χυλοὶ ἴσην πολυτελεῖ διαίτῃ τὴν ἡδονὴν ἐπιφέρουσιν, ὅταν ἅπαν τὸ ἀλγοῦν κατ’ ἔνδειαν ἐξαιρεθῇ, [131] καὶ μᾶζα καὶ ὕδωρ τὴν ἀκροτάτην ἀποδίδωσιν ἡδονήν, ἐπειδὰν ἐνδέων τις αὐτὰ προσενέγκηται.

τὸ συνεθίζειν οὖν ἐν ταῖς ἁπλαῖς καὶ οὐ πολυτελέσι διαίταις καὶ ὑγιείας ἐστὶ συμπληρωτικὸν καὶ πρὸς τὰς ἀναγκαίας τοῦ βίου χρήσεις ἄοκνον ποιεῖ τὸν ἄνθρωπον καὶ τοῖς πολυτελέσιν ἐκ διαλειμμάτων προσερχομένους κρεῖττον ἡμᾶς διατίθησι καὶ πρὸς τὴν τύχην ἀφόβους παρασκευάζει.

ὅταν οὖν λέγωμεν ἡδονὴν τέλος ὑπάρχειν, οὐ τὰς τῶν ἀσώτων ἡδονὰς καὶ τὰς ἐν ἀπολαύσει κειμένας λέγομεν, ὥς τινες ἀγνοοῦντες καὶ οὐχ ὁμολογοῦντες ἤ κακῶς ἐκδεχόμενοι νομίζουσιν, ἀλλὰ τὸ μήτε ἀλγεῖν κατὰ σῶμα μήτε ταράττεσθαι κατὰ ψυχήν.

[132] οὐ γὰρ πότοι καὶ κῶμοι συνείροντες οὐδ’ ἀπολαύσεις παίδων καὶ γυναικῶν οὐδ’ ἰχθύων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων, ὅσα φέρει πολυτελὴς τράπεζα, τὸν ἡδὺν γεννᾷ βίον, ἀλλὰ νήφων λογισμὸς καὶ τὰς αἰτίας ἐξερευνῶν πάσης αἱρέσεως καὶ φυγῆς, καὶ τὰς δόξας ἐξελαύνων, ἐξ ὧν πλεῖστος τὰς ψυχὰς καταλαμβάνει θόρυβος.

τούτων δὲ πάντων ἀρχὴ καὶ τὸ μέγιστον ἀγαθὸν φρόνησις. διὸ καὶ φιλοσοφίας τιμιώτερον ὑπάρχει φρόνησις, ἐξ ἧς αἱ λοιπαὶ πᾶσαι πεφύκασιν ἀρεταί, διδάσκουσα ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν ἡδέως ζῆν ἄνευ τοῦ φρονίμως καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως <οὐδὲ φρονίμως καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως> ἄνευ τοῦ ἡδέως. συμπεφύκασι γὰρ αἱ ἀρεταὶ τῷ ζῆν ἡδέως, καὶ τὸ ζῆν ἡδέως τούτων ἐστὶν ἀχώριστον.

This post contains affiliate links to Bookshop.org. Purchasing books through these links supports this newsletter and independent bookstores.

While there are several hundred pages worth of intact Plato, Aristotle, and ancient Stoics, the Epicurean texts that have come down to us from antiquity are relatively few in number. But it can still be a little confusing knowing how to approach the primary sources. The major texts have multiple translators and varying editions: which should you read? The minor texts are often fragmentary or embedded in non-Epicurean works: where can you even find them? Today, I’ll present an overview of what we have, together with my recommendations of the best English translations currently available.

Epicurus

The main texts we have from Epicurus himself consist of three short letters and a collection of maxims, all contained within the biography of Epicurus in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. While Diogenes Laertius was writing hundreds of years after the death of Epicurus and can sometimes be more interested in gossipy stories about his subjects than about the details of their philosophical doctrines, it is generally accepted that his text offers a faithful transmission of the Epicurean originals.

• Letter to Herodotus (on physics, also called “The Small Epitome”)

• Letter to Pythocles (on celestial phenomena, sometimes speculated to be the work of followers rather than Epicurus himself)

• Letter to Menoeceus (on ethics)

• The Principal Doctrines (or Kyriai Doxai, forty mostly ethical maxims)

Diogenes Laertius also includes a brief biography of Epicurus, a rather scattered summary of some of his teachings, and a discussion of the often-personal critiques that went back and forth between Epicurus and his philosophical rivals.

You could simply get an edition of Diogenes Laertius to read all of this core material in one continuous piece, as it has come down to us. The Loeb edition provides a facing Greek test and an old translation by Hicks (this is also available on Perseus). Pamela Mensch has written a more modern, easier to read translation of the whole work.

Most people, however, will probably prefer to get a collection of Epicurean writings that includes not only the material from Diogenes Laertius, but also a few other odds and ends that have survived independently. (An Epicurean anthology may also often provide more philosophically-focused editorial notes than a general translation of Diogenes Laertius.) Of these other texts, the most important is probably another collection of aphorisms known as the Vatican Sayings. This manuscript was discovered in the late 19^th century in the Vatican library—you can see it digitized here, starting on page 401—and represents a later compilation rather than an original, ancient collection, so it has some duplication with the Principal Doctrines, as well as some fragments that we know from elsewhere to be originally authored by Metrodorus, Epicurus’ best friend and right-hand man. Modern anthologies will also include various short sayings quoted by other writers, fragments recovered from the Herculaneum papyri and the inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda, and passages describing Epicurean doctrines from Lucretius, Cicero, Porphyry, and others. I’ll say a little more about some of those texts below.

For serious, English-speaking students, the best collection remains Cyril Bailey’s 1926 Epicurus: The Extant Remains. This remains the only edition with an (old-fashioned but excellent) English translation, Greek text, full critical apparatus, and notes covering both Epicurean doctrine and translation decisions. While it has been reprinted a few times, print copies are rather rare and can be expensive; fortunately, it can be viewed for free at the Internet Archive.

Of modern, currently in-print collections, the best option is probably The Epicurus Reader by Brad Inwood and L.P. Gerson (the same material is also combined with Stoic and Cynic texts in their Hellenistic Philosophy). On the positive side, this book is cheap, frequently cited in academic papers, and contains all the core texts, as well as some fragments not found in Bailey. Some modern academics will probably prefer this translation to that of Bailey for its tendency towards greater word-for-word literalism, which can be useful when tracking the use of specific terms, although this is not a particularly eloquent translation. Be aware that this is a very bare bones edition, however, with no Greek or Latin text and very little in the way of notes or commentary.

Still, it’s probably your best choice for a currently available, hard copy anthology. Second place goes to The Art of Happiness, Penguin’s modern printing of the translation work of George Strodach from the 1960s. This translation is somewhat more eloquent than Inwood and Gerson, and the editorial commentary is much more extensive, but the volume falls short as an anthology, as its only offerings beyond the core texts from Diogenes Laertius are some of the Vatican Sayings and “parallel passages” from Lucretius, who can perfectly well be read independently. (Though if you are not going to read through all of Lucretius, reading Strodach’s selections in direct conjunction with the Epicurus texts, with accompanying commentary, is not the worst way to round out your understanding of the teachings.)

There is also The Essential Epicurus translated by Eugene O’Connor, which aims to compete in the Inwood & Gerson niche of a minimalist, quarter-inch paperback, but which contains fewer fragments, doesn’t indicate the original sources, is never cited in scholarly work, has a fine but unexceptional translation, and is printed cheaply and uncrisply. The Hellenistic Philosophy anthology of Long and Sedley is cited regularly in academic circles, but is more suited to use as a textbook for a Hellenistic philosophy class: it cuts up the source texts into tiny fragments, ranges across the schools, and is arranged thematically (“Epicurean proof of the existence of void,” “Stoic non-simple propositions,” and so on). Long and Sedley occasionally have valuable notes, but I wouldn’t really recommend either of these for general readers.

If you happen to read French, you could get the expensive but magisterial Les Épicuriens edited by Daniel Delattre for the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. If you happen to read Italian, you might seek out Arrighetti’s Epicuro: Opere (out of print since the 1970s, but the most modern and comprehensive scholarly edition with the Greek and Latin texts) or a modern reprinting of the Scritti Morali compiled by Carlo Diano (which I haven’t seen, but Diano is a major scholar and I’d love an Ethical Writings anthology in English). And if you are comfortable in Latin, you could go back to the granddaddy of Epicurus anthologies, the Epicurea of Hermann Usener.

Failing such multilinguism, stick to Bailey (if you can find a copy, or don’t mind digital) or Inwood and Gerson (if you want something cheap and on paper).

Lucretius

Epicurus has attracted a relative paucity of skillful translators: there simply aren’t many texts and they aren’t famous as literary compositions. Lucretius, however, is a different story. Writing in the 1^st century BCE, the Roman poet rendered Epicurean philosophy into an epic poem called De Rerum Natura, most commonly rendered On the Nature of Things. While much of the content is occupied by the teachings on physics and celestial phenomena, which may be less gripping to modern readers searching for ethical advice, the poem is widely acknowledged as one of the great masterpieces of Latin literature and has had no shortage of English renderings.

How to choose one? The first choice is whether you want a prose or verse translation. If you are simply using the poem as a source for Epicurean teachings, or if you simply want a supporting translation as you study the work in the original Latin, a prose translation might be appropriate. There are two prominent options here: the Loeb edition with facing Latin text and English translation by Rouse (lightly corrected by Martin Ferguson Smith, but largely that of the first 1924 edition) or the monolingual Hackett edition (Smith’s own modern translation).

Book II proem, by Rouse:

Pleasant it is, when on the great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another’s great tribulation: not because any man’s troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive what ills you are free from yourself is pleasant.

And by Smith:

It is comforting, when winds are whipping up the waters of the vast sea, to watch from land the severe trials of another person: not that anyone’s distress is a cause of agreeable pleasure; but it is comforting to see from what troubles you yourself are exempt.

While Smith is more modern, I wouldn’t say that I find him particularly easier to read or more accurate, so if you would like to have the Latin text there, you aren’t losing anything by just sticking to the Loeb. Smith does have a useful synopsis at the beginning of each book though.

The real translation competition, however, is between the many poets who have tried their hands at a verse translation. Here is a rundown of four widely available editions, in rough order of my descending preference, although reasonable people could have different priorities. I’ll illustrate their different approaches with a slightly longer selection of the opening ten lines of Book II, the famous “shipwreck” proem.

Ronald Melville, On the Nature of the Universe, Oxford World’s Classics

The introductory material notes that Sir Ronald Melville studied classics at Cambridge and that the composition process was conducted “in the evening after dinner, with a glass of port at hand in case I got stuck.” And that’s how the translation reads, like the stately, classic, rather timeless work of an old English gentleman. I find this style appealing, though some might consider it a little stuffy and old-fashioned.

As with Humphries and Copley below, Melville’s approach is basically the old English standby of unrhymed iambic pentameter, but I would say his attempt is the most successful at conveying the dignity and grandeur of the original. The old-fashioned-ness comes in part from vocabulary, in part from stylistic choices like the frequent inversion of normal syntax for the sake of more regular meter (“But nothing sweeter is than this” etc.), but if you’re at all accustomed to classic English poetry, it should still be quite readable.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

A joy it is, when the strong winds of storm
Stir up the waters of a mighty sea,
To watch from shore the troubles of another.
No pleasure this in any man’s distress,
But joy to see the ills from which you are spared,
And joy to see great armies locked in conflict
Across the plains, yourself free from the danger.
But nothing sweeter is than this: to dwell
In quiet halls and lofty sanctuaries
Well fortified by doctrines of the wise,
And look thence down on others wandering
And seeking all astray the path of life—

The Oxford World’s Classics edition is attractive and well-printed. Endnotes by Don and Peta Fowler provide assistance when needed, but don’t mark up the body of the text for an undistracted reading experience. All in all, this is my preferred verse edition.

Rolfe Humphries, The Way Things Are, Indiana University Press

Humphries, like Stallings below, is a poet first, translator second. Originally published in 1968, I imagine this rendition felt very vivid and fresh when it first came out: while he loosely keeps the blank verse form of Melville and much classic English poetry, Humphries opts for a more modern, looser diction. Sometimes it is refreshingly direct, but sometimes it feels more like a product of its time compared to the more timeless feel of Melville (which was actually written later, in the 90s).

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

How sweet it is, when whirlwinds roil great ocean,
To watch, from land, the danger of another,
Not that to see some other person suffer
Brings great enjoyment, but the sweetness lies
In watching evils you yourself are free from.
How sweet, again, to see the clash of battle
Across the plains, yourself immune to danger.
But nothing is more sweet than full possession
Of those calm heights, well built, well fortified
By wise men’s teaching, to look down from here
At others wandering below, men lost
Confused, in hectic search for the right road…

The book is a serviceable paperback from Indiana University Press; the endnotes by Strodach are relatively minimal. All that is fine, though I would say one step down from Melville/Oxford in terms of both editorial usefulness and visual appeal. Verdict: perfectly reasonable if you like Humphries’ style, which is a little more direct and modern than Melville.

A.E. Stallings, The Nature of Things, Penguin Classics

This is the most contemporary translation, adopted by Penguin Classics for their 2007 re-edition of the poem, and also the most innovative and distinct. As with Humphries, Stallings is a poet in her own right, rather than purely a classical scholar. In her translation, she to break out of the stodgy blank verse tradition in favor of rhyming fourteeners (i.e. longer, seven-beat lines instead of the typical five-beat lines of all three of her competitors described here). The longer lines make it easier to fit all of the Lucretian content into a line-for-line translation without omission (Latin is denser than English), while rhyming makes the poem feel insistently like a poem, more sprightly and forward-moving than many other attempts. Of course, the constraints of rhyme necessitate on average a little more distance from a literal translation, but Stallings generally navigates the task well.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

How sweet it is to watch from dry land when the storm-winds roil
A mighty ocean’s waters, and see another’s bitter toil—
Not because you relish someone else’s misery—
Rather, it’s sweet to know from what misfortunes you are free.
Pleasant it is even to behold contests of war
Drawn up on the battlefield, when you are in no danger.
But there is nothing sweeter than to dwell in towers that rise
On high, serene and fortified with teachings of the wise,
From which you may peer down upon the others as they stray
This way and that, seeking the path of life, losing their way…

I can see the advantages. The long lines fit the Latin better, while the rhyming fourteeners are easy to read, with a lilting feeling of forward momentum—which is quite a valuable quality when pitching a 200+ page poem on ancient physics to modern readers. However, rhyming has downsides: it requires circumlocutions that on average will be more distant from a precise rendering, requires sometimes awkward enjambments that may feel less “like a poem” than blank verse, and can have a sing-song quality that to modern ears often lacks the grandeur and dignity of the original.

The modern black Penguin classics are handsome at first, but tend to get less so as white creases get worn into the covers. Stallings provides fairly streamlined, helpful notes, supplemented by a glossary of classical references to reduce duplicative bulk in the notes (though this may mean having to look in two places to find what you are looking for). Overall, Stallings is still a skillful craftswoman and this is a fine translation, though it is less to my personal taste than Melville.

Frank O. Copley, On the Nature of Things

One more blank verse/loose iambic pentameter effort, this one authored by Frank Copley, professor emeritus of Latin at the University of Michigan, and first published by Norton in 1977.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

It’s sweet, when winds blow wild on open seas,
to watch from land your neighbor’s vast travail,
not that men’s miseries bring us dear delight
but that to see what ills we’re spared is sweet;
sweet, too, to watch the cruel contest of war
ranging the field when you need share no danger.
But nothing is sweeter than to dwell in peace
high in the well-walled temples of the wise,
whence looking down we may see other men
wavering, wandering, seeking a way of life…

Although verse, Copley’s translation does feel more like the work of a Latin professor rather than a poet. This isn’t all bad—his translation is generally accurate and straightforward. But overall, I find his version more generic and less poetically powerful than the other blank verse versions.

Norton’s cover design is a bit cheesy and dated. This edition is the only one of the verse translations with footnotes, rather than endnotes, so if you despise having to flip to the back for notes, it does have that virtue. Overall: serviceable, but other options are better.

Other Ancient Sources

An Epicurus anthology and a copy of Lucretius are the two essentials. Once you have those, some other ancient sources to look into are:

Cicero, On Moral Ends (De Finibus): This dialogue presents and discusses the ethical systems of the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the contemporary Academic Antiochus. The exposition of Epicureanism given in Book I by the character Torquatus is one of the more extensive ancient accounts we have and generally seems to be an accurate and good faith rendition of Epicurean doctrines, despite Cicero’s many criticisms in Book II. Available with the Latin text in an old Loeb edition, or a good modern translation by Raphael Woolf.

Seneca, Letters on Ethics: Although Seneca is one of the three major figures of Roman Stoicism, he also finds much to admire in Epicurus. In his Letters (or Epistles, or Moral Epistles), he shares a large number of direct quotes from Epicurus that often have not come down to us from any other source, along with some eloquent rephrasing and commentary. Epicurus and his followers are almost omnipresent through the first 29 letters (out of 124 in total) and are then occasionally cited in later entries. The best complete translation is that of Margaret Graver and Anthony Long; Loeb divides the letters into three volumes, so Epistles 1-65 is of most interest to Epicureans.

There is also some minor, scattered discussion of Epicurean doctrine in Seneca’s essays as well, primarily in On Benefits, On the Happy Life, and On Leisure.

Philodemus: Unlike the two previous sources, Philodemus actually was an Epicurean. A contemporary of Cicero, Philodemus was active around the Bay of Naples and several of his philosophical works survived the eruption of Vesuvius and have been recovered—in very fragmentary form—from the Villa of the Papyri. Unfortunately, the texts are highly damaged and cannot really be read in a casual fashion. Although attempted reconstructions have been printed of several of his treatises, the most practical entry point to these fragments is probably through Voula Tsouna’s The Ethics of Philodemus.

Diogenes of Oenoanda: This monumental Epicurean inscription has similarly come down to us only in fragmentary form. (Though there is hope that improved editions of both Philodemus and Diogenes will arrive in the years to come, as papyrus-reading technology improves and perhaps future excavations one day take place at Oenoanda.) Newly discovered fragments have been published bit by bit over the past several decades, but a full scholarly edition with Greek text has not yet been produced. Just this year (March 2026), however, the leading scholar on Diogenes, Martin Ferguson Smith, released the most up to date English translation of the whole text, available free online under the title Urbi et Orbi: The Epicurean Inscription and Prescription of Diogenes of Oinoanda. (“Oenoanda” is another common spelling.)

Porphyry: If you look through Bailey, Inwood & Gerson, or Usener, you will see many “fragments” from Epicurus that have come to us through two works by the Neoplatonist Porphyry, To Marcella and On Abstinence from Killing Animals. Each contains several continuous pages paraphrasing and sometimes quoting Epicurus or his follower Hermarchus. Neither work is particularly renowned in itself, but both To Marcella and On Abstinence have been published in English translation.

Plutarch: The famous biographer also wrote extensively on ethics, including several polemics against the Epicureans. While these works often distort Epicurus’ arguments and generally exhibit poor philosophical judgment, they are still a valuable secondary source of information. Three essays in particular fall in this category: That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible (“Non posse”), Against Colotes (“Ad. Colotem”), and Is “Live Unknown” a Wise Precept? (“De latenter vivendo”). These are relatively little read by the general public, so you will often see the abbreviated Latin names used by scholars.

Horace: One of the greatest of Latin lyric poets, with distinct leanings towards Epicureanism. Sometimes this is explicit, while often it is implicit in his celebrations of simple living, friendship, moderate drinking, and contentment. Unfortunately, my current impression is that there is no adequate translation in English, so you’ll just have to learn Latin and get the Loeb edition of the Odes. (There is Epicurean-flavored material in the Satires and Epistles as well, but these are less celebrated poems for a reason.)

None of these authors is perfectly represented in the available Epicurean anthologies. Ideally, a more comprehensive collection of ethical writings would include all of the relevant material that currently needs to be excavated from these diverse and sometimes difficult sources. But until someone gives me an opportunity to write that book, you’ll just have to tune in to Untroubled and our regular installments of Translation Tuesday, in which all of these writers will eventually claim their moment in the spotlight.

Know that some desires are natural, while others are groundless, and of the natural desires some are necessary, while others are not. Of the necessary desires, some are necessary for happiness, some to pacify the body’s demands, and some for life itself.

Keeping these facts in unwavering focus allows us to refer every choice and avoidance to the health of the body and the serenity of the soul, for to secure these is the object of a blessed life. Everything we do is for this purpose: the avoidance of pain in our body and fear in our mind.

When we achieve this state, the storm inside of us goes quiet: when pain is removed, no creature feels compelled to travel on in quest of something missing, searching for something else to complete the good of its body and soul. For it is when we feel pain from the absence of pleasure that we require pleasure; when all our pain has been relieved, we need no further pleasure. This is why we say that pleasure is the beginning and end of a blessed life.

Indeed, having judged pleasure to be our first and innate good, from this we begin our every choice and avoidance, and to this we refer as our standard of judgment, measuring every good according to this feeling.

Pleasure is our first good and natural to us, and for this very reason we do not choose every pleasure, for there are often times when we pass over opportunities for pleasure if greater difficulties will follow them. Likewise, we consider many pains to be preferable to initial pleasures, if greater pleasures will follow after we submit to them for a time. And so every pleasure is good, and is by nature fitting for us, but not every pleasure is to be chosen. In the same way, every pain is bad, but not every pain is to be avoided.

Indeed, all things should be judged through comparison, and through a consideration of their advantages and disadvantages. For sometimes we will treat a good thing as bad or a bad thing as good.

Share

Commentary

In our third installment of the Letter to Menoeceus, we move on from discussions of the gods and death and arrive at another core Epicurean teaching: the proper classification of desires and the case for hedonism. You might think the latter of these to be the more foundational and expect it to be covered first, but in fact Epicurus starts with the classification of desires. This is characteristic of the empirical or even anthropological approach of the school: it is by observing the various things that humans do desire that we can form an accurate general theory of what will conduce to happiness.

Know that some desires are natural, while others are groundless, and of the natural desires some are necessary, while others are not. Of the necessary desires, some are necessary for happiness, some to pacify the body’s demands, and some for life itself.

These short lines are extremely important to Epicurean ethics. The most fundamental scheme of categorization gives us three families of desire: the natural and necessary, the natural and unnecessary, and those which are not natural or necessary, described here as kenai, meaning groundless, empty, or pointless. (These descriptions are admittedly a mouthful: I rather like Emily Austin’s shorthand terms of “necessary,” “extravagant,” and “corrosive” desires.) Epicurus’ helpful elaboration of what he considers necessary allows us to fill out this taxonomy a little more:

1. Natural and necessary:

   1. For life itself: food, drink, basic shelter

   2. For the resolution of bodily pain: Some pains won’t kill us immediately (physical discomfort, moderate cold), but they will pester us incessantly until we resolve them.

   3. For happiness: As he will elaborate, the mental side of contentment mostly means freedom from fear. Epicurus believes tranquility requires a sense of security, achieved through things like a correct understanding of the world and friendship.

2. Natural but not necessary: Austin’s “extravagant” is correct—these are desires that are natural and fine to indulge, but which will not harm us if they are lacking. More tasty food, more comfortable clothing, and enjoyment of the arts seem to belong here according to Epicurus. He also generally puts sex in this category, although sometimes that gets more complicated: for some people the desire for sex seems to approach “necessary” in its inescapability, while for others it can get mixed up with unhealthy erotic obsession, which the Epicureans recognize as detrimental to happiness.

3. Neither natural nor necessary: The main traits of these desires are 1) that they do not actually contribute to the satisfaction of our natural desires for freedom from bodily pain and mental disturbance, and 2) that they cannot be satisfied. The desire for wealth or power would fall into this category. Austin calls them “corrosive,” because indulging them has negative effects. You could also simply call them “mistaken,” because they are based on an incorrect belief that their pursuit will lead to greater comfort or security. Epicurus believes this is simply wrong: the acquisition of wealth and power is more likely to disturb our peace of mind than add to it. Much more on this to come.

Keeping these facts in unwavering focus allows us to refer every choice and avoidance to the health of the body and the serenity of the soul, for to secure these is the object of a blessed life. Everything we do is for this purpose: the avoidance of pain in our body and fear in our mind.

Here we find some important philosophical vocabulary. The “object” of our life is a rendering of telos, a word which you will also see rendered as “goal,” “end,” or simply kept in the Greek due to its philosophical prominence. Another such word is ataraxia, translated here as “serenity.” “Tranquility” would also work. (The adjectival form, ataraktos, is our namesake condition—untroubled.)

For Epicurus, as for Aristotle, our proper telos is our own eudaimonia, or happiness. This essential egoism was the standard view in ancient Greek philosophy, reflecting the commonsense idea that it is right and natural for us to pursue our own well-being. I would say that is still the commonsense view of the majority of people, most of the time, even though many modern philosophers contest the idea that our own happiness is our only ethical imperative. Where Epicureanism differs from other ancient schools is the identification of eudaimonia with painlessness in the body and untroubledness in the mind.

When we achieve this state, the storm inside of us goes quiet: when pain is removed, no creature feels compelled to travel on in quest of something missing, searching for something else to complete the good of its body and soul. For it is when we feel pain from the absence of pleasure that we require pleasure; when all our pain has been relieved, we need no further pleasure. This is why we say that pleasure is the beginning and end of a blessed life.

Indeed, having judged pleasure to be our first and innate good, from this we begin our every choice and avoidance, and to this we refer as our standard of judgment, measuring every good according to this feeling.

Here is where Epicurus makes his controversial claim that the limit of pleasure is the removal of all pain (also seen in Principal Doctrine 3). He maintains that if all pain is truly removed, any further pleasurable sensations would at best consist only in variation, rather than true augmentation, of pleasure. If we have no hunger, we will take no pleasure in further food. If we are warm and dry, the softness of our bedsheets is immaterial. At some point, I’ll dedicate a whole essay to this doctrine, but for now it is important to recognize Epicurus’ stark refutation of the usual accusations of a low and sensual hedonism: for him, pleasure is the removal of pain.

Pleasure is our first good and natural to us, and for this very reason we do not choose every pleasure, for there are often times when we pass over opportunities for pleasure if greater difficulties will follow them. Likewise, we consider many pains to be preferable to initial pleasures, if greater pleasures will follow after we submit to them for a time. And so every pleasure is good, and is by nature fitting for us, but not every pleasure is to be chosen. In the same way, every pain is bad, but not every pain is to be avoided.

Indeed, all things should be judged through comparison, and through a consideration of their advantages and disadvantages. For sometimes we will treat a good thing as bad or a bad thing as good.

Rounding out his initial theoretical overview of pleasure, Epicurus here introduces something very similar to what will become known as the “hedonic calculus” in the Utilitarian tradition of Jeremy Bentham. The language is now familiar to any philosophy undergraduate, while the idea should be familiar to any prudent person: a thoughtful hedonist does not grasp at any seeming pleasure that presents itself, but instead considers the total net pleasure that is likely to result from a given course of action.

Eating ice cream is pleasurable, but eating a whole tub will make my stomach feel uncomfortable. I will go to the dentist and give them money to perform an uncomfortable procedure on my teeth because if I don’t I will experience more pain in the future. Restraining overall spending and increasing savings leads to greater security in old age.

Such are my examples. Next week, Epicurus will give us some of his own, diving deeper into the application of his hedonistic theory. We’ll be talking about frugality vs. fish, unrestrained lust vs. sober reasoning, and the paramount importance of phronesis, or practical wisdom. Don’t miss it.

Subscribe now

Original Text

ἀναλογιστέον δὲ ὡς τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν αἱ μέν εἰσι φυσικαί, αἱ δὲ κεναί, καὶ τῶν φυσικῶν αἱ μὲν ἀναγκαῖαι, αἱ δὲ φυσικαὶ μόνον· τῶν δὲ ἀναγκαίων αἱ μὲν πρὸς εὐδαιμονίαν εἰσὶν ἀναγκαῖαι, αἱ δὲ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ σώματος ἀοχλησίαν, αἱ δὲ πρὸς αὐτὸ τὸ ζῆν.

[128] τούτων γὰρ ἀπλανὴς θεωρία πᾶσαν αἵρεσιν καὶ φυγὴν ἐπανάγειν οἶδεν ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ σώματος ὑγίειαν καὶ τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς ἀταραξίαν, ἐπεὶ τοῦτο τοῦ μακαρίως ζῆν ἐστι τέλος. τούτου γὰρ πάντα πράττομεν, ὅπως μήτε ἀλγῶμεν μήτε ταρβῶμεν.

ὅταν δὲ ἅπαξ τοῦτο περὶ ἡμᾶς γένηται, λύεται πᾶς ὁ τῆς ψυχῆς χειμών, οὐκ ἔχοντος τοῦ ζῴου βαδίζειν ὡς πρὸς ἐνδέον τι καὶ ζητεῖν ἕτερον ᾧ τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ τὸ τοῦ σώματος ἀγαθὸν συμπληρώσεται. τότε γὰρ ἡδονῆς χρείαν ἔχομεν, ὅταν ἐκ τοῦ μὴ παρεῖναι τὴν ἡδονὴν ἀλγῶμεν· <ὅταν δὲ μὴ ἀλγῶμεν> οὐκέτι τῆς ἡδονῆς δεόμεθα. καὶ διὰ τοῦτο τὴν ἡδονὴν ἀρχὴν καὶ τέλος λέγομεν εἶναι τοῦ μακαρίως ζῆν.

[129] ταύτην γὰρ ἀγαθὸν πρῶτον καὶ συγγενικὸν ἔγνωμεν, καὶ ἀπὸ ταύτης καταρχόμεθα πάσης αἱρέσεως καὶ φυγῆς, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτην καταντῶμεν ὡς κανόνι τῷ πάθει πᾶν ἀγαθὸν κρίνοντες.

καὶ ἐπεὶ πρῶτον ἀγαθὸν τοῦτο καὶ σύμφυτον, διὰ τοῦτο καὶ οὐ πᾶσαν ἡδονὴν αἱρούμεθα, ἀλλ’ ἔστιν ὅτε πολλὰς ἡδονὰς ὑπερβαίνομεν, ὅταν πλεῖον ἡμῖν τὸ δυσχερὲς ἐκ τούτων ἕπηται· καὶ πολλὰς ἀλγηδόνας ἡδονῶν κρείττους νομίζομεν, ἐπειδὰν μείζων ἡμῖν ἡδονὴ παρακολουθῇ πολὺν χρόνον ὑπομείνασι τὰς ἀλγηδόνας. πᾶσα οὖν ἡδονὴ διὰ τὸ φύσιν ἔχειν οἰκείαν ἀγαθὸν, οὐ πᾶσα μέντοι αἱρετή· καθάπερ καὶ ἀλγηδὼν πᾶσα κακόν, οὐ πᾶσα δὲ ἀεὶ φευκτὴ πεφυκυῖα.

[130] τῇ μέντοι συμμετρήσει καὶ συμφερόντων καὶ ἀσυμφόρων βλέψει ταῦτα πάντα κρίνειν καθήκει. χρώμεθα γὰρ τῷ ἀγαθῷ κατά τινας χρόνους ὡς κακῷ, τῷ δὲ κακῷ τοὔμπαλιν ὡς ἀγαθῷ.

Share

Last week, I took on the first half of the philosophically-accurate but colloquially-confusing label “hedonistic egoism.” Epicureans are hedonists, I explained, but in practice that mainly means that we try to avoid mental pain. Today I’ll be discussing the equally disreputable word of “egoism.”

In the technical terminology of philosophy, Epicureans are ethical egoists, believing that self-interest should be the guiding principle of our behavior and that there are no external moral codes that define right and wrong, or that obligate us to consider the interests of others as equal to or of higher priority than our own. This is true. But in imprecise colloquial usage of the word “egoist,” or in the more correct usage of the related “egotist,” speakers usually mean something distinctly negative, imagining some kind of self-centered, selfish jerk.

Epicureans are egoists, but we are not self-centered, selfish jerks. How can we reconcile these two descriptions? What kind of egoists are Epicureans?

1. Psychological egoists: Just as with psychological hedonism, we think this is just descriptively true—people are inevitably motivated by self-interested impulses, a broad category in which we include impulses that may have prosocial results, or that might not pass a test of reasoned calculation of maximum benefit to ourselves. Just as with psychological hedonism, however, you don’t have to accept this entirely to find value in the central consequence: working with our predominant instincts is more likely to be successful than working against them.

2. Prudential egoists: This isn’t a standard term, but it’s important to keep in mind the consequences of our prudential hedonism—we don’t think maximizing our monetary wealth really helps us, for instance, but staying on friendly terms with our neighbors does add to our peace of mind. We do look for our own advantage—but only in things that actually matter. Importantly, living cooperatively with others falls into that category.

3. Prosocial egoists: We can go further. Not only is our understanding of “self-interest” quite different than the selfish egotism of the caricatures and therefore relatively benign, we believe that our philosophy is actively beneficial to others and to the world at large. Some things we value highly are friendship, conflict avoidance, and spreading our philosophy of thoughtful and cooperative anti-greediness to those who want to hear it. We avoid the commonly detrimental behaviors of greed, anger, ambition, and being moralizing busybodies.

1. Psychological Egoism

Let’s explore each of these in a little more depth, starting with psychological egoism. This is the term ethics textbooks use to describe a descriptive rather than normative belief: we believe that humans simply and inevitably do act based on their own self-interest, even before we get to consideration of what we should do.

In this perspective, even the most seemingly altruistic actions are ultimately motivated by our own self-interest—not necessarily in a rational and calculated sense, but as a matter of impulse. If you rush into a burning building in order to rescue someone at the risk of your life, that means that you are obtaining some psychological reward for doing so: if you do it, you will feel gratified, proud, or contented with yourself, while if you stand by while listening to the child screaming for help you will experience pain, guilt, shame, or remorse. Psychological egoism attempts to set our different emotions on a more level playing field, rather than labelling some actions with the privileged description of “altruistic” and others with the condemnatory epithet of “selfish.” We believe that jumping to moralizing labels isn’t particularly helpful: we want to develop a more useful conception of self-interest, a process that is not benefitted by across-the-board villainizing of our natural instinct to consider our own interest.

Some sources will insist that psychological egoism is invalid if any altruistic actions exist. Rescuing a child at risk of your own life is not “egoistic” in any normal understanding of the word, they would say. And if you want to stick to the commonsense usage of the word and call the child-rescuer “altruistic,’ that is fine with me! But we shouldn’t overlook that the vast majority of our mundane daily actions are clearly self-interested in a variety of often very boring ways. We eat because we’re hungry and put on socks because our feet are cold. We brush our teeth so we don’t experience dental health problems, bad breath, or consequent social disapproval. We go to work so we will have money we can spend on stuff from which we will derive utility or pleasure.

There are therefore two things to take away from the Epicurean belief in psychological egoism. The first is just an understanding and clarity about what we mean when we accept the label “egoism,” even if you are skeptical about the terminology. We are the kinds of egoists who will do seemingly “altruistic” actions—we just think that realism about our motives will reveal some form of psychological self-interest.

The wise man feels as much pain when his friend is tortured as when he is tortured himself.1

The wise man will sometimes die for a friend.2

The second useful reason for this lens of psychological egoism is a greater awareness and attention given to our default and natural motives for action. Whether you accept that egoistic rationales motivate all of our actions, or 99%, or 95% doesn’t really matter. If you are convinced that 5% of the time, humans manage to transcend or overcome their selfish instincts in order to behave in an authentically altruistic manner, it still remains the case that our most common motivational impulses are based on some form of self-interest. It is therefore of great practical benefit if we can have thought patterns in which those natural “selfish” instincts lead to good outcomes, rather than short-sighted greediness and zero-sum conflict.

In many contexts, this is now a familiar and mundane idea. Market-based economies are based on the premise that putting individual “greed” and ambition to work in a socially-beneficial structure will create value and improve outcomes for everyone: pre-determined labels of “selfish” or “altruistic” may not accurately identify whether a behavior actually has good consequences for the actor or for society at large. Or consider the usefulness of laws and social disapproval for enforcing good behavior. Awareness of legal and social penalties for violence and theft are sufficiently widespread that most people are not even tempted by egoistic impulses to push over little children and seize their snacks: you don’t need to be morally exhorted to unselfish conduct to conduct yourself well in this respect, you just need to have a clear picture of the likely personal consequences to see where your more secure self-interest lies.

The point is that some form of egoistic impulse makes up our basic motivation for almost everything we do, most practical people in real life accept that, and going against that current to insist that people “should” act against their own interest will induce lots of psychological strain, dissonance, and rebellion. Sometimes you will get the desired result, but better clarity about the true nature of your self-interest will probably get the same job done with more reliability and much less psychological effort.

2. Prudential Egoism

This leads to the next element of Epicurean egoism, which we can call “prudential egoism” in parallel with the “prudential hedonism” discussed in my previous post. We Epicureans don’t want endless riches, we want peace of mind. This means that in practice, we are law-abiding, prosocial, generous, and faithful friends. People think that egoists are disrespectful of common norms, greedy, and selfish. But keep in mind what Epicurus actually recommends we do.

He tells us that if we have more than we need to give away the extra, because it is better to have the goodwill of one’s peers.3 He tell us that the wise person would die for a friend, as described above. He tell us to follow the laws4, but that in general the wise won’t need to be compelled by legal sanctions, because they recognize that their true self-interest does not reach after any antisocial goals:

Laws are made for the wise: not to keep them from doing wrong, but to keep them from being wronged.5

Once you understand Epicurean hedonism, this point is relatively straightforward. But it is essential to keep in mind. If you ever hear a critique of Epicureanism as being an egoistic philosophy, you should inquire what exactly about this egoism does the critic dislike? That it authorizes greed? It doesn’t. That it encourages disregard for the laws? It doesn’t. That it licenses selfishness and makes generous relationships impossible? It doesn’t.

Epicurean egoists want what is best for themselves. But that is above all peace of mind, which is impossible in conditions of social conflict or suspicion.

3. Prosocial Egoism

We’ve established that Epicurean egoism does not motivate people to pursue the common objects of egotistical people: wealth, attention, or unfair advantage, for instance. Epicureans just aren’t interested in those things. But we can actually make a stronger claim: espousing an enlightened egoism will promote better results for society. Let me make this argument in yet another three-part division:

1. The things this philosophy values are prosocial.

2. The things this philosophy discourages are antisocial.

3. The way this philosophy convinces people is more effective than fighting against nature and pretending we can easily disregard or override our egoistic impulses.

First, egoistic values are not necessarily egotistic values. I hope I’ve made it clear that Epicurean egoists are not the caricatured selfish people that one might think of when hearing the word “egoist.” Many of our values have already been alluded to here and in the past. We place a very high value on avoiding conflict. We think friendship is the greatest source of pleasure. We enjoy practicing and spreading our philosophy of thoughtfulness and cooperation, which we do through writing and conversation with willing participants.

Next, the things that we discourage are all the same things that non-egoistic philosophies discourage. We recommend that people avoid greed, jealousy, anger, ambition, politics, and generally being moralizing busybodies (remember—we only talk philosophy with willing participants). Imagine if everyone followed that advice! The world would be nicer! It is in fact arguable that our set of discouraged activities is more prosocial than many traditional moral codes, insofar as many systems valorize various kinds of ambition that can easily turn harmful. The borders of “harmful” ambition can be endlessly debated, but can you imagine someone who is too intent on maximizing their financial gain, or who is too intent on securing political power? Such persons may think they are doing socially-sanctioned things, for socially-granted rewards, but their efforts can easily turn detrimental to actual societal well-being.

So: Epicureanism by and large agrees with common moral frameworks in its selection of encouraged and discouraged behaviors. Cooperation and friendship are good; dishonesty, lawbreaking, and violence are bad. Right now, this form of egoism seems roughly interchangeable with non-egoistic philosophies espousing the same values. I believe that egoism’s big advantage, however, comes in how we advance those values. I think that we are more likely to successfully motivate the desired behaviors when they are framed as the thoughtful pursuit of our natural desires, rather than as some abstractly “right” course of behavior that actually conflicts with each individual’s true desires and self-interest, which need to be forcefully repressed. Remember the Epicurean precept:

Nature must not be forced, but persuaded.6

οὐ βιαστέον τὴν φύσιν ἀλλὰ πειστέον

The western world preached the Christian virtues for many hundreds of years characterized by violence, corruption, and inequality. Merely asserting altruistic duties does not seem highly effective. In the modern world, we have less public moral exhortation, but greater security than ever—I suspect that improved critical thinking through universal secular education and the existence of clear punishments, reliably enforced, have had a significantly higher impact on encouraging good behavior.

This doesn’t mean that Epicureans advocate for a maximum intensity surveillance state. It means that we recognize the reason those laws are formulated: to make the negative consequences of antisocial behavior clearer to those who are not wise enough to see those consequences already. We make these laws because they are more effective than exhortations to moral altruism: people respond to consequences that impact their own self-interest. In the same way, I think that increasing the salience of likely negative consequences in the long run and the big picture —as Epicureanism does—is the more effective, lasting, and easy way to encourage “good” behavior.

An important footnote: I refer to laws as one means to encourage good behavior. But how are these laws constructed if we assert that egoism is the proper lens for ethics? The answer is that laws should be written on the basis of universal hedonism, or Utilitarianism. If you happen to be a legislator, your job is to consider law writing from a universal perspective, rather than an egoistic one (in this specific scenario, your egoistic motivation is activated by the rewards of performing your job well—or at least it would in a well-functioning political system). Meanwhile, in our private lives, individual egoists should recognize that it is in their own prudential interest to live in a society that treats everyone with predictably equitable rules.

Summing it up

Now that you’ve heard these three detailed elucidations of Epicurean egoism, let’s drive home the key points.

First, now you know that Epicureans are psychological egoists, not stereotypical egotists. “Egoism” describes how we understand human motivation, but it doesn’t mean that we behave in ways that are self-important, greedy, or selfish. Epicurus tells us to keep a low profile, give away our excess wealth, and be willing to die for a friend, so don’t fight a strawman.

Second, reconsider the merits of prudential egoism. Next time you have some doubts about a course of action, confused by the specter of public opinion or some moral code you’ve learned of and how it might label a behavior as “wrong” or “bad,” throw out all such considerations. Instead, ask the simple question: if I consider my long-term goals and the long-term consequences, will this action help me?

Consider the big-picture merits of the superficially appealing option—does grabbing the last donut, arguing over the ten bucks, or winning the argument actually help you? Maybe those objectives offer very little or even negative pleasure in the long run. Or maybe the pleasure to you is very small and likely to be outweighed by the negative social consequences: will this action reduce the trust or goodwill of others towards you? Ongoing selfishness can cut off possibilities for friendship—that would be very bad indeed. But milder cases of pursuing an impulsive desire can also have negative results: maybe you will add a few drops of strain to an otherwise equable work relationship, or simply sour the conviviality of your passing interaction with a stranger. So don’t ask what is “right.” Ask if you are truly making your life more pleasant.

Finally, reevaluate what behaviors actually help other people. Do supposedly altruistic people necessarily make the world better than consistent practitioners of Epicurean prosocial egoism? I think that the common labels of “altruistic” and “egoistic” are simply poor predictors of behaviors and their social consequences. Consider any contentious political issue—abortion, immigration, or raising taxes to expand the social safety net, for instance. On any of these, you can find good-faith proponents on both sides who think they are supporting the “right” position in order to benefit their community, country, or the general human population. In the probable case that you disagree with at least one side of these arguments, you have to admit that you consider the behavior of some nominal “altruists” to be harmful. And a good chunk of that party will, in turn, consider your “altruistically” motivated positions to be harmful.

What might be a better way? Egoism, which diminishes all claims of an individual’s right to control the lives of others, which is always a doubtful and often a counterproductive endeavor. Are you a person with an emotional commitment to classically altruistic behaviors? There are still plenty of projects for you consistent with Epicurean ethics. Be a model of friendly, kind, cheerful contentment. If you have an excess of material wealth, then give it away to those who will derive a benefit from it. When you encounter people struggling with unnecessary mental pain, try to nudge them towards a more helpful way of considering their problems: maybe all they need to be happier is a few words. I would consider that to be a more helpful act than inciting them to anger, animosity, or vicarious victimhood: making people happy is better than making them bitter and aggrieved. Embrace all of these Epicurean-recommended behaviors and you will have made the world better with a high degree of certainty, along with obtaining an increase in your own contentment and security.

Admitting your egoism relieves guilt and cognitive dissonance. Being more thoughtfully prudential in your egoism achieves better outcomes than short-sighted impulsiveness. And recognizing the inherently prosocial qualities of this kind of egoism makes the world a nicer place to live in, reducing conflict, increasing harmony, and replacing discontented anger with tranquility.

Next, accustom yourself to living with this belief: death is nothing to us, for everything good and bad consists in sensation, and death brings an end to sensation. Knowing this, a correct understanding that death is nothing to us enables us to enjoy the mortal nature of life, not by providing us with unlimited time, but by taking away the desire for immortality.

There is indeed nothing terrifying in life for one who has truly understood that there is nothing terrifying in not living. Only a foolish man says that he fears death not because it will cause him pain when it is actually present, but because it causes him pain now when it is still in the future—something that gives us no trouble when it is actually present can cause only empty and groundless pain when it is merely expected. Therefore, death, the most terrifying of evils, is nothing to us, since whenever we exist, death cannot be present, and whenever death is present, then we no longer exist. I say to you again: death does not exist for either the living or the dead, for there is no death among the living, while the dead themselves no longer exist.

The many, however, sometimes shun death as the greatest of evils, while at other times they long for it as a relief from the evils of life. But the wise man neither refuses to live nor fears not living, for he does not find living to be distasteful, nor not living to be an evil. Just as he would choose not the largest portion of food, but the most pleasurable, so he also seeks to enjoy not the longest, but the most pleasant span of life.

Those who counsel the young to live well and the old to die well are fools, not only for failing to appreciate life’s warm welcome, but because the practices needed to live well and to die well are one and the same. Even worse is the man who claims that it is good not to have been born, or “Once born, to pass as quickly as possible through the gates of Hades.”

If he is persuaded of this, why does he go on living? It is easy to bid farewell to life if he has truly come to this conclusion. If he is only joking, however, and does not speak in earnest, then all those who do not believe his claim will see him as the empty fool he is.

Overall, we must remember that the future is neither entirely up to us, nor entirely beyond our control. Nothing is certain, and nothing is hopeless.

Commentary

This week, we’re moving on to the second entry in our five-part series on Epicurus’ Letter to Menoeceus, the short summary of his ethical teachings included by Diogenes Laertius in his Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Last week, we covered the intro and the nature of the gods; this week we’re talkin’ about death. This is a subject that continues to cause many people a good deal of fear, dread, and angst, but Epicurus is fortunately able to clear all that up in a matter of 300 or so Greek words. Let’s jump in:

Next, accustom yourself to living with this belief: death is nothing to us, for everything good and bad consists in sensation, and death brings an end to sensation. Knowing this, a correct understanding that death is nothing to us enables us to enjoy the mortal nature of life, not by providing us with unlimited time, but by taking away the desire for immortality.

“Death is nothing to us” is one of Epicurus’ most famous dictums. Here he presents a simple syllogistic defense of this position:

1. Things are only bad (or good) if they can be perceived.

2. Death brings an end to perception.

3. Therefore, death is not bad.

Personally, I accept both premises. Not everyone does, of course. Some people think that things are objectively good or bad, that perception has nothing to do with it, and that death self-evidently belongs in the “bad” category. Some people are convinced there is a life after death. I don’t see much usefulness in the first claim or evidence for the second, but if you adhere firmly to such a position, then Epicurus’ reasoning will obviously not appeal to you.

A somewhat better objection would be to dispute the precision of those two premises. Death brings an end to our own perception, but other people do perceive our death, and that may cause them pain. This is true and Epicurus does not dispute it: his argument here is about our fear of our own death, but he would not deny that it is painful to lose a loved one, for instance. Similarly, one might object that while death will not cause someone pain once it has arrived, the anticipation of non-existence does cause us pain here and now. Epicurus lets us know what he thinks of this argument in the very next paragraph:

There is indeed nothing terrifying in life for one who has truly understood that there is nothing terrifying in not living. Only a foolish man says that he fears death not because it will cause him pain when it is actually present, but because it causes him pain now when it is still in the future—something that gives us no trouble when it is actually present can cause only empty and groundless pain when it is merely expected. Therefore, death, the most terrifying of evils, is nothing to us, since whenever we exist, death cannot be present, and whenever death is present, then we no longer exist. I say to you again: death does not exist for either the living or the dead, for there is no death among the living, while the dead themselves no longer exist.

This is a somewhat nuanced distinction, and one which I think Epicurus gets more right than his detractors. Yes, the pain of anticipating death is clearly real—people do feel it. That is empirically undeniable. However, it is an “empty and groundless” pain (κενῶς λυπεῖ; literally, it “gives pain emptily” or “gives pain to no purpose”). The fact that someone can cause themselves mental pain is no evidence of that pain’s objective truth or inevitability. People cause themselves pain through unproductive thought patterns all the time.

This is the underlying premise of modern Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. If someone has a phobia of crossing bridges, we don’t simply accept that bridges are terrible—we encourage him to develop a more accurate and helpful understanding of the world, perhaps by showing him that no physical pain actually results from crossing a bridge. It is harder to demonstrate the painlessness of death, so people have often been tempted to give excessive credence to scary stories, but I think the preponderance of evidence strongly points towards death involving the dissolution of our consciousness. The fear of death is simply an irrational phobia that is relatively more widespread due to the historical prevalence of fear-inducing stories about the afterlife.

Today, those old stories are often not believed literally, but I think they have a vague afterlife in the background of our thoughts. For instance, I’ve heard people compare life to a party that they don’t wish to leave—they say that the thought of it all ending for them causes them pain, even though they don’t expect to be in Heaven, Hell, or anywhere else. But I think the party analogy falls apart when we truly embrace an expectation of nonexistence. In truth, we won’t be sitting home alone while the party continues. We won’t be going to work the next day and wishing our life were more pleasurable. We simply won’t exist, so it is no more reasonable to lament missing next year’s party than it would be to lament missing the party of life that took place a year before we were born. I agree with Epicurus: that would be a foolish and empty way of causing ourselves pain.

The many, however, sometimes shun death as the greatest of evils, while at other times they long for it as a relief from the evils of life. But the wise man neither refuses to live nor fears not living, for he does not find living to be distasteful, nor not living to be an evil. Just as he would choose not the largest portion of food, but the most pleasurable, so he also seeks to enjoy not the longest, but the most pleasant span of life.

Here, Epicurus adds additional precision as to how thinks the wise man will live once he has realized that death is not to be feared. It does not mean he will actively pursue death. As a general rule, Epicurus does not endorse suicide (the Stoics are more enthusiastic about it), though I think there is room for debate as to whether he would disapprove in cases of intensely painful terminal illness. It does mean that he will place a relatively low premium on extending his life. If one can secure additional days or years of life, but at the cost of diminished pleasure, it may well not be worth it. Betrayal of all your friends? Ridiculously expensive experimental longevity drugs? Becoming a house-bound recluse to avoid snakes, cars, and lightning? Probably not the choice of the Epicurean sage. Someone who lives a happy 80-year life is not less happy than someone who lives a happy 81-year life.

Those who counsel the young to live well and the old to die well are fools, not only for failing to appreciate life’s warm welcome, but because the practices needed to live well and to die well are one and the same. Even worse is the man who claims that it is good not to have been born, or “Once born, to pass as quickly as possible through the gates of Hades.”

If he is persuaded of this, why does he go on living? It is easy to bid farewell to life if he has truly come to this conclusion. If he is only joking, however, and does not speak in earnest, then all those who do not believe his claim will see him as the empty fool he is.

Epicurus enjoys calling people fools, even if they are supposedly authoritative wisdom poets (the quote is from Theognis 425-428). I think his certainty here is admirable and healthy. Suicidal tendencies should be recognized as obviously counter to common sense. I recently watched the movie Vicky Christina Barcelona, in which Penelope Cruz has an off-screen suicide attempt. In response, Javier Bardem shakes her and asks in frustration, “Why were you thinking about killing yourself? I mean, what a stupid idea did cross on your mind!” I agree with this emphasis on intelligence: for a healthy young person to think killing herself is a good way to pursue happiness is stupid, unreasonable, and obviously unlikely to achieve the desired result.

Overall, we must remember that the future is neither entirely up to us, nor entirely beyond our control. Nothing is certain, and nothing is hopeless.

Epicurus wraps up his discussion of death with a slightly broader look at fatalistic mindsets more generally. He will return to this topic later in the letter, but for now it sets a nice capstone to his dismissal of the sorts of gloomy, pessimistic, people who praise suicide (without actually killing themselves). Life is not entirely beyond our control. Chance exists, but we can make our circumstances better.

As a closing aside on translation, if you compare my version of these lines with other published ones, you may find that it seems rather condensed. It is. Literally, Epicurus writes:

And it must be remembered that that which is going to be is neither entirely ours nor entirely not ours, so that we may neither entirely count on it as going to happen, nor despair of it as entirely not going to happen.

μνημονευτέον δὲ ὡς τὸ μέλλον οὔτε πάντως ἡμέτερον οὔτε πάντως οὐχ ἡμέτερον, ἵνα μήτε πάντως προσμένωμεν ὡς ἐσόμενον μήτε ἀπελπίζωμεν ὡς πάντως οὐκ ἐσόμενον.

Literal translation of each individual word, however, is not the only thing that translation hopes to convey. Such a literal translation would make things longer (even my shortened version contains more words than the Greek), less natural, and harder to understand than they are in Greek. Epicurus is not famous for his prose style, but much of this letter is quite eloquent, in a terse and epigrammatic kind of way. A good translation should not replace lucid eloquence with unclear wordiness.

Up next week: why pleasure is the proper end of life and how we should best understand our desires so as to truly get the most of it. Stay tuned.

Original Text

συνέθιζε δὲ ἐν τῷ νομίζειν μηδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς εἶναι τὸν θάνατον ἐπεὶ πᾶν ἀγαθὸν καὶ κακὸν ἐν αἰσθήσει· στέρησις δέ ἐστιν αἰσθήσεως ὁ θάνατος. ὅθεν γνῶσις ὀρθὴ τοῦ μηθὲν εἶναι πρὸς ἡμᾶς τὸν θάνατον ἀπολαυστὸν ποιεῖ τὸ τῆς ζωῆς θνητόν, οὐκ ἄπειρον προστιθεῖσα χρόνον, ἀλλὰ τὸν τῆς ἀθανασίας ἀφελομένη πόθον.

οὐθὲν γάρ ἐστιν ἐν τῷ ζῆν δεινόν τῷ κατειληφότι γνησίως τὸ μηδὲν ὑπάρχειν ἐν τῷ μὴ ζῆν δεινὸν. ὥστε μάταιος ὁ λέγων δεδιέναι τὸν θάνατον οὐχ ὅτι λυπήσει παρών, ἀλλ’ ὅτι λυπεῖ μέλλων. ὅ γὰρ παρὸν οὐκ ἐνοχλεῖ, προσδοκώμενον κενῶς λυπεῖ. τὸ φρικωδέστατον οὖν τῶν κακῶν ὁ θάνατος οὐθὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς, ἐπειδήπερ ὅταν μὲν ἡμεῖς ὦμεν, ὁ θάνατος οὐ πάρεστιν, ὅταν δὲ ὁ θάνατος παρῇ, τόθ’ ἡμεῖς οὐκ ἐσμέν. οὔτε οὖν πρὸς τοὺς ζῶντάς ἐστιν οὔτε πρὸς τοὺς τετελευτηκότας, ἐπειδήπερ περὶ οὓς μὲν οὐκ ἔστιν, οἳ δ’ οὐκέτι εἰσίν.

ἀλλ’ οἱ πολλοὶ τὸν θάνατον ὁτὲ μὲν ὡς μέγιστον τῶν κακῶν φεύγουσιν, ὁτὲ δὲ ὡς ἀνάπαυσιν τῶν ἐν τῷ ζῆν <κακῶν ποθοῦσιν. [126] ὁ δὲ σοφὸς οὔτε παραιτεῖται τὸ ζῆν>* οὔτε φοβεῖται τὸ μὴ ζῆν· οὔτε γὰρ αὐτῷ προσίσταται τὸ ζῆν οὔτε δοξάζεται κακὸν εἶναί τι τὸ μὴ ζῆν. ὥσπερ δὲ τὸ σιτίον οὐ τὸ πλεῖον πάντως ἀλλά τὸ ἥδιστον αἱρεῖται, οὕτω καὶ χρόνον οὐ τὸν μήκιστον ἀλλά τὸν ἥδιστον καρπίζεται.

ὁ δὲ παραγγέλλων τὸν μὲν νέον καλῶς ζῆν, τὸν δὲ γέροντα καλῶς καταστρέφειν, εὐήθης ἐστὶν οὐ μόνον διὰ τὸ τῆς ζωῆς ἀσπαστόν, ἀλλὰ καὶ διὰ τὸ τὴν αὐτὴν εἶναι μελέτην τοῦ καλῶς ζῆν καὶ τοῦ καλῶς ἀποθνήσκειν. πολὺ δὲ χείρων καὶ ὁ λέγων· καλὸν μὴ φῦναι,

φύντα δ’ ὅπως ὤκιστα πύλας Ἀίδαο περῆσαι.

[127] εἰ μὲν γὰρ πεποιθὼς τοῦτό φησι, πῶς οὐκ ἀπέρχεται ἐκ τοῦ ζῆν; ἐν ἑτοίμῳ γὰρ αὐτῷ τοῦτ’ ἐστίν, εἴπερ ἦν βεβουλευμένον αὐτῷ βεβαίως· εἰ δὲ μωκώμενος, μάταιος ἐν τοῖς οὐκ ἐπιδεχομένοις.

μνημονευτέον δὲ ὡς τὸ μέλλον οὔτε πάντως ἡμέτερον οὔτε πάντως οὐχ ἡμέτερον, ἵνα μήτε πάντως προσμένωμεν ὡς ἐσόμενον μήτε ἀπελπίζωμεν ὡς πάντως οὐκ ἐσόμενον.

In my opening essay, I outlined the positive case for Epicureanism: this philosophy gives good advice for increasing happiness by prudently reducing sources of disturbance while appreciating easily accessible pleasures. It seems wise for me to now turn, least briefly, to two of the most common critiques of Epicurean philosophy, in hopes of warding off some frequent misunderstandings and answering some of the most likely queries. These two veins of critique are encapsulated in the philosophically accurate but easily misunderstood description of Epicureanism as hedonistic egoism.

“Hedonism” and “egoism” both have a very bad reputation in everyday speech. To many, “hedonism” is suggestive of shortsighted pleasure-seeking. “Egoism” is often taken to imply selfishness or self-centeredness. Fortunately, I can comfortably assure you: Epicureanism is not a philosophy of selfish, impulsive sensualists. Today I will deal with the first of these two not-really-a-slurs: hedonism. In my next post, I will defend egoism against its many mistaken detractors.

Let’s start correcting the story. What kind of hedonists are Epicureans? In short, to use the philosophical jargon:

1. We are prudential hedonists: Epicureans don’t grab at the first source of pleasure that occurs to them, but consider the total net pleasure and pain of different behaviors.

2. We are primarily negative hedonists: Reducing pain is more important than diversifying pleasures.

3. We are psychological hedonists: Pleasure and pain are not confined to physical sensations. Most of our pleasures and pains are mental. In the most expansive definition of psychological hedonism, all of our motivations for action come down to seeking pleasure or avoiding pain, but you don’t need to fully accept this to find value in the Epicurean precept that alleviating and avoiding mental pain should in practice be the largest focus of our energy.

1. Prudential Hedonism

Let’s take each of these in turn, starting with the easy one: prudential hedonism. This is the subject of the most superficial misunderstanding of Epicurean hedonism. We don’t seize impulsively at whatever pleasures appear before us, but instead consider the total sum of pleasure and pain that each course of action is likely to provide.

Precisely because pleasure is our first and most natural good, we do not choose every pleasure. There are often times when we forgo certain pleasures, if greater discomfort or difficulty would come with them. Likewise, we often consider certain pains to be preferable to immediate pleasure, if a greater pleasure would follow after we endure the pain for some time. So while every pleasure is good and fitted to our nature, that doesn’t mean that we should choose every pleasure. In the same way, every pain is bad, but not every pain is to be avoided.1

If sensual indulgence of some kind (food, drink, drugs, sex, etc.) would be excessively detrimental to our health, financial security, or ability to perform the other necessary tasks of our lives, causing us larger pain later, then we will forgo those pleasures. Note that this applies not just to the easily identified and stereotypical images of excess (alcoholics, drug addicts), but potentially to just about any pleasure one might purchase. Financial expense alone represents a quantifiable “pain” to be weighed against any pleasure, which everyone agrees with on some level (few people would readily drop $10,000 on a sandwich), but which most people overlook when confronted with the steady drip of smaller enticing purchases. $8 can be safely spent on a fancy coffee drink by many people without threat to their financial security or peace of mind, but if you add up hundreds of purchases of this magnitude over the course of the year, then impacts to one’s larger financial picture become easier to see.

The point is not that Epicureans would never spend money on any pleasures. The level of “safe” expenditure will vary depending on one’s income and savings. But we are more thoughtful about such things than many philosophies, because prudence is in fact very relevant to our happiness. Chronic overeating or alcoholism are not net sources of pleasure, and we should try to avoid those behaviors. Financial hardship is a source of pain, and we should try to avoid that too. Most people would agree in principle with this basic idea of prudential hedonism, even if they don’t consider it to form the basis of an entire ethical system: if you are aiming for pleasure, but your result is frequently pain, then you are probably not acting wisely.

Epicureans are officially and self-declaredly hedonists. But part of being an avowed and intentional hedonist is being more thoughtful about our pursuit of pleasure than the average person, not more short-sighted and impulsive.

2. “Negative” Hedonism

The second idea that characterizes Epicurean hedonism is sometimes described as “negative hedonism,” though this is a less universally-used phrase and I am not personally enamored of it. (Describing Epicureans as “tranquilists” rather than “hedonists” at all is another terminological option.) It is crucial to keep in mind that Epicurean “hedonism” is not just concerned with positive pleasures as we usually think of them, but about the sum of positive pleasures and negative pains. Epicurus thinks that, in practice, the reduction of pain is usually far more important than addition or diversification of pleasures.

Take bodily pleasure first. Epicurus asserts that it basically consists in the absence of pain:

The body cries out to not be hungry, not be thirsty, not be cold. Anyone who has these things, and who is confident of continuing to have them, can rival the gods for happiness.2

As long as your hunger is fully sated, the boost in happiness you will obtain from an elaborate feast is zero. This same logic applies to any more superficially extravagant version of satisfying our basic needs: novel foods, sweet drinks, extra soft sheets, and so on. Epicurus maintains that so long as the pain of hunger is resolved, the difference between a four star restaurant and bread and cheese will ultimately consist only of a variation in pleasure, not any true augmentation. This ancient claim is in general alignment with the findings of modern psychological studies on hedonic adaptation: many seeming boosts to our material circumstances do not deliver a lasting increase to our well-being. Epicureans are hedonists—but we place less value on the “pursuit of pleasures” than the average person because our empirical observation is that this just doesn’t work. The main goal is alleviating pain—including that of unfulfilled desires.

If you want to make Pythocles wealthy, don’t increase his riches but reduce his desires.3

The same logic applies to mental pleasures as to eating and drinking. People often seek mentally stimulating pleasures: maybe they watch a funny video, go to a concert, or read a novel. As with physical pleasures, Epicurus doesn’t deny that such experiences can be enjoyable. But compared to alleviating the great negative emotions of life—fear, loneliness, self-loathing, greed, envy, resentment, or hatred, for instance—the pleasure of watching funny videos is inconsequential. If you are dissatisfied with your life, no amount of jokes will bring you happiness. You need to resolve the negative feelings, either through satisfying your desires or redirecting them towards more attainable objects.

Is alleviating mental dissatisfaction really “hedonism”? Consider this perspective: We think of “buying things” as generally falling under the larger heading of “pleasure seeking.” But in practice, many purchases do aim at the easing of such mental pains. Advertisements promise that if you buy a product, you will resolve your sense of inferiority, frustration, or boredom. Epicureanism offers the same reward, but directly, through wisdom, rather than indirectly, through some act of material acquisition. I think this is an entirely reasonable and healthy revision of our understanding of hedonism and pleasure: alleviating pain and dissatisfaction is the ultimate goal behind many of our actions, and successfully doing so is far more valuable to our happiness than passing in and out of ephemeral pleasures while leaving deeper dissatisfactions untouched.

Even if you don’t consider the resolution of mental pain or discomfort to be appropriately described by the word “hedonism,” it is important to know that this is what we mean. Attacking Epicurean hedonism on any other basis would be inaccurate, a strawman: we enjoy the easily obtained pleasures, but we invest our energy primarily in the reduction of pain.

3. Psychological Hedonism

This expansion of our frame of reference for hedonism to encompass both the positive and the negative, both the physical and the mental, gets us most of the way to our third description of Epicurean hedonism as psychological hedonism. The basic idea of psychological hedonism is that all human motivation comes down to pleasure and pain (this is also sometimes known as a strong form of “motivational hedonism”).

Everything we do, we do for this reason: to avoid pain and fear… pleasure is the beginning and end of a blessed life.4

As an absolute statement, this is contentious, to say the least (see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for an overview). Critics will ask: are altruistic acts of self-sacrifice pleasurable? How about continuous grinding efforts at living up to some idealized version of “self-improvement”? Throwing yourself on a grenade or exercising for an hour every morning at 5 AM, these critics maintain, would not fit any normal use of the word “pleasure.”

A thoroughgoing psychological hedonist would say yes—everything counts as pleasure. Acts of “altruism” must give us some immediate mental pleasure or we simply wouldn’t do them. A mother is more likely to impulsively take a bullet for her child than for a random stranger, presumably because the intensely painful prospect of harm coming to her child flashes through her mind. The seeming pain of self-improvement efforts is aimed at achieving a pleasurable state in the future, or might relieve us from immediate painful disappointment with our own self-image. I believe that Epicurus would be satisfied by these explanations and I largely am as well. But I don’t believe that it is necessary to categorically insist that no actions can be referred to as anything other than pain or pleasure to accept the substantial merit in broadening our conception of “pain” and “pleasure” beyond the most straightforward cases.

Putting our hand on a hot stove is a source of physical pain. Taking our hand away eases that pain. Wanting to own some particular item that you do not currently possess is a source of mental pain—that’s a plausible explanation of why people buy it. But Epicurus would say that if you cease to desire that thing, then you also resolve that pain. Feeling jealousy or anger is an unpleasant state; Epicurus thinks that replacing those emotions with mental tranquility constitutes a boost in net pleasure.

If you wish, you can quibble over philosophy’s choice of words: this isn’t what most people think of when they hear the word “hedonism.” But again, you should know that that is what we Epicureans have in mind: we seek to live with a maximum of mental tranquility, pursued through a combination of practical actions aiming at concrete results and deep thoughtfulness about which desires are really necessary and helpful. Along the way, we have no objection to enjoying other pleasures that cross our path, and when they are easily or costlessly attained, we will relish them without the least bit of guilt.

Do you know any people who seem less than perfectly happy? Of course you do. Can you think of some reasons for their discontent? Maybe they are in an unhappy relationship or a miserable job. These are hard situations to live with, and Epicurus would encourage them to find a way to change their situation and stop experiencing that pain. On the other hand, maybe they make a comfortable income but complain about money (while buying things that don’t bring them happiness), or worry about politics (while doing nothing that actually changes political outcomes). These are unnecessary sources of self-imposed pain—the easier way to resolve that pain is not to win the lottery or await the revolution, but to adjust your actions and expectations to match reality.

In a great many cases, our practically identifiable sources of unhappiness consist of mental pain of one kind or another. In the rich world, it’s rarely an absolute lack of food or a frigid shivering in the night that prevents contentment. And I would go so far as to say that happiness will never be secured by increased access to upscale dining options or an endless catalog of streaming video. If you agree that mental suffering in all its million forms is the chief obstacle to human happiness, then you are in fact a hedonist of the Epicurean school.

Epicurus to Menoeceus, greetings,

The young must not delay the practice of philosophy, and the old must not grow weary of the love of wisdom: it is never too early or too late to seek the health of one’s soul. To say that it is not yet time for philosophy, or that the time for philosophy has passed, is like saying that it is not yet time to be happy, or that the time for happiness is over. And so both the young and the old must practice philosophy—the old, so that they may be young again in their enjoyment of the good things of life, grateful for all that has come to pass, and the young, so that they may have the confidence of maturity, fearless about what will be. We all must study what truly produces happiness, for when we possess happiness, we wish for nothing else, but when we lack it, all our efforts go to its pursuit.

Remember all that I have taught you—study and practice these precepts, knowing them to be the foundation of a noble life. First, understand that the gods are immortal and blissful beings—this is what all conceive a god to be. Do not, therefore, attribute to the gods anything inconsistent with immortality and blessedness, but rather make sure that your beliefs keep their immortality and blessedness in mind. There are gods; we have a clear conception of them. But they are not as the many believe them to be, nor indeed do the many maintain a consistent account of them.

And so the impious man is not the one who does away with the gods of the many, but the one who attaches to the gods the opinions of the many. For the assertions of the many about the gods are not based on that universal and innate conception, but on false assumptions, according to which it is from the gods that the greatest harms come to the wicked, and the greatest benefits to the good. Since the many are familiar only with their own human virtues, they believe in gods that are similar to themselves, and find anything that is not like themselves alien and difficult to conceive of.

Share

Commentary

For our second installment of Tuesday Translations, I’ll be starting a multi-part series on the best short introduction to Epicurean ethics, the Letter to Menoeceus (we’ll be returning to the rest of the Principal Doctrines later). Preserved in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, along with the Letter to Herodotus (on physics), the Letter to Pythocles (on celestial phenomena), and the Principal Doctrines, this letter is the longest continuous piece of Epicurus’ own writings on ethics that survives, with his full, book-length treatises all lost.

Over the next five weeks, we’ll cover this five-page letter at a moderate pace, taking enough time to clear up vague passages and appreciate the implications of what he’s saying. In this opening segment, Epicurus introduces the goals of philosophy and briefly lays out his understanding of the gods, a foundational teaching that underlies his ethical advice.

A note on my approach to translation: In translating Epicurus, and philosophy generally, I think our first priority has to be clarity. This means fidelity to the meaning, to the philosophical argument, rather than fidelity to the original syntax. Accordingly, if a word-for-word translation would result in obscure translationese, I generally don’t hesitate to adjust the sentence structure. Sometimes a word present in the Greek will therefore be omitted from my English rendition, while conversely I will occasionally expand a single Greek word into a short phrase or a few alternative possibilities if I feel a single English word cannot capture all the connotations of the original.

Let’s go through some highlights:

The young must not delay the practice of philosophy, and the old must not grow weary of the love of wisdom: it is never too early or too late to seek the health of one’s soul. To say that it is not yet time for philosophy, or that the time for philosophy has passed, is like saying that it is not yet time to be happy, or that the time for happiness is over. And so both the young and the old must practice philosophy—the old, so that they may be young again in their enjoyment of the good things of life, grateful for all that has come to pass, and the young, so that they may have the confidence of maturity, fearless about what will be. We all must study what truly produces happiness, for when we possess happiness, we wish for nothing else, but when we lack it, all our efforts go to its pursuit.

Remember all that I have taught you—study and practice these precepts, knowing them to be the foundation of a noble life.

It’s easy to breeze over these introductory sentences as mere pleasant filler, but a number of distinctive and important features of Epicurean philosophy are actually present here:

1. “The health of the soul”: Epicurus frequently describes his philosophic mission as one of achieving health, a pleasurable and by no means impossible state. This is more grounded than idealist traditions (Platonism, Christianity) that suggest our bodily state is inherently flawed and that perfect happiness must be postponed to a future state of existence. It is more achievable than the Stoic ideal of sagehood. It is “merely” health, a mental and spiritual state that should be normal, and that can be normal, if certain specific errors are corrected.

Note that what is typically translated “the health of the soul” (τὸ κατὰ ψυχὴν ὑγιαῖνον) could also be translated as “the health of the mind” or even “mental health”—a great deal of Epicurus’ therapeutic activity is engaged in correcting intellectual error, and so this would not be inaccurate. Overall, however, “soul” better captures the grand and all-encompassing nature of the object of philosophical therapy.

2. Eudaimonism: Epicurus very directly states the objective of his philosophy: to secure happiness, or eudaimonia. (The Greek concept is somewhat broader than a merely momentary sense of contentment, so some prefer “well-being” or even “thriving.”) Epicurus is often quickly categorized as a “hedonist” while a thinker such as Aristotle is traditionally labelled a “eudaimonist,” giving some the erroneous impression that Epicurean hedonism is pursuing some less worthy goal than overall well-being. Don’t make that mistake—Epicurus is clearly a eudaimonist as well.

3. An exoteric—not esoteric—philosophy: What is the primary point of the opening lines? That philosophy is for everyone. This openness was one of the defining characteristics of the Epicurean Garden, which welcomed foreigners, wives, courtesans, and slaves. Some philosophical schools (such as the Platonic Academy) were intrinsically elitist. In Epicureanism, you won’t find any “noble lies” excluding the less worthy from the truth—just an open invitation to happiness.

4. How should one look back? With gratitude. The old should practice philosophy “so that they may be young again in their enjoyment of the good things of life, grateful for all that has come to pass.” A strictly literal translation can distract from the meaning:

ὅπως γηράσκων νεάζῃ τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς

so that being old, one may be young in good things

“To be young in good things” is not a standard or even meaningful expression in English. Epicurus’ underlying point, however, is clear from other writings: we should be grateful for everything we have experienced, and continue to derive pleasure from both our memories and our awareness of current blessings.1

5. How should one look forward? Without fear. The advice directed towards the young employs a parallel structure, again somewhat awkward in a literal English rendering:

ὅπως νέος ἅμα καὶ παλαιὸς ᾖ

so that being young, he may at the same time be old

Here again, “so that the young may at the same time be old” is not a comprehensible rendering. What is enjoined is fearlessness about the future, derived from both prudence regarding the true necessities of life and and an accurate understanding of what comes after death. In what sense is this equivalent to “being old”? I have attempted to suggest it with my “so that they may have the confidence of maturity.” In terms of strict word-for-word correspondence, this is an invention, but I think this is the best way to understand the underlying meaning.

6. Living nobly: The closing phrase of my translation (“a noble life”) is often rendered simply as “living well” (Inwood and Gerson2) or “the good life” (Strodach3, Bailey4). The Greek is καλῶς ζῆν. Kalos is one of the classic examples of a Greek word that is not perfectly aligned with modern English. “Good” and the adverbial “well” are perfectly defensible translations. In some contexts, “beautiful” would be most appropriate, while in others, “noble” or “honorable” would better express the primary emphasis. What I would point out here—again in preemptive defense against accusations of a lower form of hedonism—is that Epicureanism does not aim at a base satisfaction of low desires, but at an overall existence that is not merely “good” but does in fact deserve the appellation of “noble”—one characterized by fearlessness and imperturbable tranquility.

On to the gods:

First, understand that the gods are undecaying and blissful beings—this is what all conceive a god to be. Do not, therefore, attribute to the gods anything inconsistent with immortality and blessedness, but rather make sure that your beliefs keep their immortality and blessedness in mind. There are gods; we have a clear conception of them. But they are not as the many believe them to be, nor indeed do the many maintain a consistent account of them.

And so the impious man is not the one who does away with the gods of the many, but the one who attaches to the gods the opinions of the many. For the assertions of the many about the gods are not based on that universal and innate conception, but on false assumptions, according to which it is from the gods that the greatest harms come to the wicked, and the greatest benefits to the good. Since the many are familiar only with their own human virtues, they believe in gods that are similar to themselves, and find anything that is not like themselves alien and difficult to conceive of.

In the second half of today’s extract, Epicurus summarizes his teachings on the proper understanding of divinity. We were introduced to this basic concept last week in Principal Doctrine 1. Here it is given slightly more elaboration (with a similar elaboration of PD 2 to follow in next week’s continuation of the Letter to Menoeceus). Still, the justification of Epicurus’ position is given quite briefly and controversially:

θεοὶ μὲν γὰρ εἰσίν· ἐναργὴς γὰρ αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ γνῶσις.

There are gods. For our understanding of them is clear.

A few lines below, he employs another term relevant to this “clear understanding,” contrasting a true “prolepsis” (πρόληψις) with the “false assumptions” of the many. A prolepsis is a central yet much-disputed term in Epicurean epistemology, which I have translated as “universal and innate conception.” There is significant debate over what exactly a prolepsis is. Diogenes Laertius describes it as being the result of past experience (from seeing many horses, we come to have a clear idea of a horse—probably what Inwood and Gerson are thinking when they translate it as “basic grasp”).5 However, we have four extant uses of the word by Epicurus, all of which refer to subjects for which we don’t have empirical experience (the gods, justice). More could be said in defense of my translation, but my brief position in this dispute is that I believe Diogenes Laertius did not accurately report Epicurean use of the term.6

I may write more on this in the future, but for now, the narrow takeaway is that Epicurus’ argument is that if everyone has a clear, innate, and uniformly-agreed upon idea of something, then we should accept that understanding as sufficiently evidenced. If everyone agrees that gods are immortal and lead lives of perfect bliss, then let us speak of them in a way consistent with that agreed-upon understanding—not by telling stories that portray them as petty, insecure beings who throw tantrums over peer slights or human misbehavior.

Now, even if we accept that this is what Epicurus means by “prolepsis,” we may still find this to be quite weak justification for the blank assertion that “the gods exist.” I agree! I myself lean towards the interpretive camp that is skeptical about Epicurus’ belief in literal gods and favors understanding his statement mostly as a rhetorical strategy to defend against accusations of atheism on the one hand, while defanging religion of all its actually harmful elements on the other. “Can we all agree that gods are perfect beings? Great. Would a perfect being really get so upset at Lizzie the slave-girl for not keeping her word last week that he would strike her with lightning? No? That doesn’t make sense? Good—it sounds like we agree that we don’t need to worry about divine displeasure, because we all agree that gods are perfect.”

Before I wrap up, I will note that the final lines have caused some translators difficulty. I rendered them like this:

For the assertions of the many about the gods are not based on that universal and innate conception, but on false assumptions, according to which it is from the gods that the greatest harms come to the wicked, and the greatest benefits to the good. Since the many are familiar only with their own human virtues, they believe in gods that are similar to themselves, and find anything that is not like themselves alien and difficult to conceive of.

This understanding is in accord with the old translations of Bailey and Strodach, but the popular modern translation of Inwood and Gerson rather makes a meal of the passage:

For the pronouncements of the many about the gods are not basic grasps but false suppositions. Hence come the greatest harm from the gods to bad men and the greatest benefits [to the good]. For the gods always welcome men who are like themselves, being congenial to their own virtues and considering that whatever is not such is uncongenial.

Some of the confusion is from a somewhat unconventional use of the word ἒνθεν for “according to which.” Bailey notes it as a “slightly forced” use of the word in his commentary, but the subsequent claim about the gods harming bad men is distinctly not Epicurean, so it seems necessary to understand this claim as existing only in reference to the preceding “false assumptions” of the many. The next sentence does not explicitly state the subject or the object (“they accept those who are similar to their own virtues,” says the Greek); I believe that Inwood and Gerson make a mistake in understanding this as “the gods welcome men.” Instead, I agree with Bailey that the subject is “the many” from the preceding sentence, which generates a more comprehensible meaning. The argument could be paraphrased like this: “The many are most willing to imagine gods who are like them, since that is what they can understand most easily. But this is not consistent with our formally agreed upon understanding of the gods as perfect and blissful beings, so obviously hoi polloi are wrong.”

That’s the entirety of Epicurus’ discussion of the gods in this text (if only we had his lost book On the Gods!). Does it prove their existence? Not very convincingly. But does it reveal the fallible, vengeful, spiteful, and capricious gods of traditional Greek religion—some of which characteristics could certainly be seen as surviving into the Judeo-Christian monotheism of the Old Testament—as internally inconsistent and unsuitable to be taken seriously? I think this point still stands.

Original Text

[122] μήτε νέος τις ὢν μελλέτω φιλοσοφεῖν, μήτε γέρων ὑπάρχων κοπιάτω φιλοσοφῶν. οὔτε γὰρ ἄωρος οὐδείς ἐστιν οὔτε πάρωρος πρὸς τὸ κατὰ ψυχὴν ὑγιαῖνον. ὁ δὲ λέγων ἢ μήπω τοῦ φιλοσοφεῖν ὑπάρχειν ἢ παρεληλυθέναι τὴν ὥραν, ὅμοιός ἐστιν τῷ λέγοντι πρὸς εὐδαιμονίαν ἢ μὴπω παρεῖναι τὴν ὥραν ἢ μηκέτι εἶναι. ὥστε φιλοσοφητέον καὶ νέῳ καὶ γέροντι, τῷ μὲν ὅπως γηράσκων νεάζῃ τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς διὰ τὴν χάριν τῶν γεγονότων, τῷ δὲ ὅπως νέος ἅμα καὶ παλαιὸς ᾖ διὰ τὴν ἀφοβίαν τῶν μελλόντων·

μελετᾶν οὖν χρὴ τὰ ποιοῦντα τὴν εὐδαιμονίαν, εἴ περ παρούσης μὲν αὐτῆς πάντα ἔχομεν, ἀπούσης δέ πάντα πράττομεν εἰς τὸ ταύτην ἔχειν. [123] ἃ δέ σοι συνεχῶς παρήγγελλον, ταῦτα καὶ πρᾶττε καὶ μελέτα, στοιχεῖα τοῦ καλῶς ζῆν ταῦτ’ εἶναι διαλαμβάνων.

πρῶτον μὲν τὸν θεὸν ζῷον ἄφθαρτον καὶ μακάριον νομίζων, ὡς ἡ κοινὴ τοῦ θεοῦ νόησις ὑπεγράφη, μηθὲν μήτε τῆς ἀφθαρσίας ἀλλότριον μήτε τῆς μακαριότητος ἀνοίκειον αὐτῷ πρόσαπτε, πᾶν δὲ τὸ φυλάττειν αὐτοῦ δυνάμενον τὴν μετὰ ἀφθαρσίας μακαριότητα περὶ αὐτὸν δόξαζε. θεοὶ μὲν γὰρ εἰσίν· ἐναργὴς γὰρ αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ γνῶσις· οἵους δ’ αὐτοὺς οἱ πολλοὶ νομίζουσιν, οὐκ εἰσιν· οὐ γὰρ φυλάττουσιν αὐτοὺς οἵους νομίζουσιν. ἀσεβὴς δὲ οὐχ ὁ τοὺς τῶν πολλῶν θεοὺς ἀναιρῶν, ἀλλ’ ὁ τὰς τῶν πολλῶν δόξας θεοῖς προσάπτων.

[124] οὐ γὰρ προλήψεις εἰσίν ἀλλ’ ὑπολήψεις ψευδεῖς αἱ τῶν πολλῶν ὑπὲρ θεῶν ἀποφάσεις. ἒνθεν αἱ μέγισται βλάβαι τε τοῖς κακοῖς ἐκ θεῶν ἐπάγονται καὶ ὠφέλειαι <τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς>. ταῖς γὰρ ἰδίαις οἰκειούμενοι διὰ παντὸς ἀρεταῖς τοὺς ὁμοίους ἀποδέχονται, πᾶν τὸ μὴ τοιοῦτον ὡς ἀλλότριον νομίζοντες.

As time goes on, I’ll be covering all aspects of Epicurean ethics in great detail. But if you would like a comprehensive overview of this philosophy that is available now, the first resource I would recommend is Emily Austin’s excellent book Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life.1

Austin is a professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University, and her scholarly bent shows in the book’s accuracy, organization, awareness of historical context, and competence in dealing with the primary sources. Fortunately, her academic background does not squeeze the readability and humor out of her prose: Austin is consistently both easy and fun to read, which is admittedly rarely the case with ancient philosophy in the original. If you’d like to get a quick taste of Austin’s tone and approach, you might check out one of the several podcast interviews she has recorded in promotion of the book, including appearances on The Next Big Idea and UnSILOed.

So what does the book cover? After a few introductory chapters on the fundamental arguments of Epicurean ethics (“Maybe We’re Doing It Wrong”) and the basic historical background (“Epicureanism, the Original Cast”), Austin dives into a host of subjects with ongoing relevance: friendship, frank speech, wealth and what it costs, political activity, ambition and success, dealing with misfortune, love and marriage, and the usefulness of scientific knowledge are just some of her topics.

Let me give you an idea of the book’s approach. Consider, for instance, her summary of Epicurean prudential hedonism:

For example, Epicurus thinks we struggle to recognize the deleterious effects of greed for money, power, success, and admiration because we are so often sold on their benefits. The riches and recognition from long hours at work look great now, but we might find ourselves with grown children who resent us because we never got to know them. Power gleams until we get it and realize we have compromised for a status that we worry we could lose or have stolen from us at any moment. We might win money and fame from hamming for YouTube subscribers, only to discover that we have turned over the rudder of our life to the whims of whatever it turns out millions of other people want to watch.

Discerning and measuring the long-term consequences of indulging some powerful desires is more challenging because the error is so pervasive and so few people encourage us to look out into the distance. That sex can lead to pregnancy is commonplace. That greed is inconsistent with satisfaction is not so often acknowledged.

This is typical of Austin’s style: readable and contemporary, but still remaining faithful to what Epicurus and other ancient sources say. She is generally careful to ground each chapter in direct passages from primary sources to prevent becoming merely “Epicurean-flavored” self-help, as some contemporary books seem to do with Stoicism. While her examples are consistently drawn from modern life, I rarely find anything in Living for Pleasure with which I think Epicurus would disagree.

A major Epicurean quality which marks Austin out from some other scholars of ancient philosophy is her distinct lack of snobbery. Rare is the academic paper in which you will find phrases such as “magical sparkleponies of tranquility” or “Will Ferrell movies.” In one of her podcast interviews, Austin describes how she had never been to Greece until she got the opportunity for a free trip by working as a chaperone on a college study abroad trip and how her typical summer vacation involves working as a campground host in Idaho or somewhere. Or consider how she describes the Epicurean enthusiasm for shared meals:

Simply eating together with a friend in conversation counts as an Epicurean meal, whether you eat oatmeal, fire up the grill, or converse for hours over a six-course tasting menu with wine pairings. For me, this Epicurean conception of what matters in eating crystalized at a rare and welcome dinner party attended by eight people, some of whom had never met. Everyone had a wonderful time, and the hosting couple served frozen pizzas and a simple green salad on compostable plates. The drinks were tasty and abundant, and no one wanted to go home. In the same vein, some of the best and most meaningful conversations I have had were in dive bars or in the equivalent of a Chili’s. It’s not about the furnishings, the price, or even the food—it’s about the people, the time, and the spirit.

Frozen pizzas or drinks at a Chili’s knockoff—this is the true spirit of Epicureanism, but most scholarly writers don’t enter this territory. That isn’t to say that Austin isn’t a card-carrying academic philosopher, as you can tell by some of her jokes:

Thankfully, you can plow through Epicurus multiple times without losing a single month of your life—try that with Kant!

The book is written to be contemporary and relevant; the author is distinctly unpretentious and authentically funny. I think these are all valuable features in a book of popular philosophy. But Austin most importantly succeeds at what is ultimately the goal of any such book: to convey some real wisdom that can impact the reader’s life. Plentiful direct excerpts from Epicurus and other primary sources ground those useful examples from modern life, but Austin’s own paraphrasing periodically attains a pithy directness that the ancients would have appreciated. “Friends don’t make friends anxious,” she summarizes at one point. Or later: “We often assume that if we get what we want, it will be good. Never assume that.”

To cynical modern ears, the earnest directness of ancient philosophy can sometimes seem naïve, excessive in its sincerity, self-seriousness, or belief in individual agency. By virtue of her subject, Austin can’t entirely avoid that impression, but her skillful writing and self-awareness mean that when she does dip tonally into self-help speak, she’s built up some credit and we’re more inclined to objectively evaluate the message she’s communicating. In her final chapter, “Practicing Epicureanism,” Austin distils the book into a number of thematically cross-cutting suggestions. On the highly important topic of gratitude, she includes this proposal, for instance:

In case of emergency, practice gratitude. Epicurus writes that “he who forgets the good which he previously had, has today become an old man.”

… I try, at least when I remember, to prioritize doing at least one thing worth remembering every day, jotting it down. It could be as simple as a good conversation with a friend or as momentous as a beautiful hike on a fall afternoon.

“Gratitude journals” are not a fresh and original idea. The notion can seem trite. But Austin’s presentation is reinforced by the testimony of Epicurus and the support of modern empirical research (to which she occasionally refers). It is given more substance and solidity by her choice of intensely Epicurean examples—friendship and the easily obtained gifts of natural beauty rank high among the worthy subjects of gratitude. And in the end, whether you pursue a wiser philosophy of life through ancient teachings or contemporary interpreters, you will have to set aside all cynicism and grapple with the ideas: will prioritizing friendship, nature, and the other multitudinous joys of the world—and remembering to be grateful for them—bring greater happiness to your life?

I think it will. And if you would like some 260 pages of such time-tested Epicurean advice, skillfully organized and updated for maximum modern applicability, presented with humor and unpretentious goodwill, then you cannot currently do better than Emily Austin’s Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life.

A quick look at the alternatives

This newsletter is intended to be a serious examination of the deep foundations of Epicurean thought, as you can tell from my use of quotations in the original Greek. So why don’t I recommend the primary sources as the first stop?

Well, I wouldn’t recommend against them—just be aware that our extant remains from Epicurus himself are very limited. The most important ethical writings are the Letter to Menoeceus and the Principal Doctrines, both contained within the biography of Epicurus in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. These are available in inexpensive paperbacks: The Epicurus Reader by Brad Inwood and L.P. Gerson also contains the full Vatican Sayings (a collection of largely ethical maxims) and many other important fragments, while the Penguin Classics Epicurus: The Art of Happiness, translated by George Strodach, has a perhaps slightly more eloquent translation, but omits some of the Vatican Sayings and all of the more fragmentary material.

So that’s about 10–20 pages of ancient ethical content that is fairly accessible. Ideally, however, a full anthology of Epicurean ethical writings would contain a more comprehensive collection of fragments than is found in Inwood and Gerson, additional fragments from Epicurean followers like Diogenes of Oenoanda and Philodemus, well-chosen selections from Lucretius’ epic poem On the Nature of Things (much of which is occupied with physics and meteorology), ancient descriptions of Epicurean doctrine from non-Epicureans like Cicero and Seneca, and perhaps some eloquent poetry from Epicurean-inclined poets, most notably Horace. Unfortunately, such an anthology doesn’t exist. (Publishers—you know where to find me.)

As for modern, popular works, there are few true competitors to Austin’s book. For an even briefer introduction, John Sellar’s The Pocket Epicurean (around 70 pages; previously published as The Fourfold Remedy) presents a good, but necessarily less in-depth account. For more comprehensive accounts of the philosophy as a whole, including history, physics, epistemology, and so on, I like Tim O’Keefe’s Epicureanism and Norman DeWitt’s classic Epicurus and His Philosophy, although both are on the expensive side. I do not particularly recommend Catherine Wilson’s How to Be an Epicurean. Despite the implied practicality of the title, the book spends quite a bit of time digressing from the ethical material, and, more problematically, often veers off track in its search for modern parallels. Austin, like Epicurus, is insistently unpretentious. Wilson is not, with her version of Epicurean lifestyle advice including hiring a housekeeper, avoiding the painful ugliness of public transportation hubs, and liberating your house from the bane of plastic bottles with printed labels and “poorly functioning utensils.”

For a modern book on Epicurean ethics, Austin’s Living for Pleasure is currently unrivalled.

Share

Principal Doctrines 1–4

1. The blessed and incorruptible experience no disturbance, nor do they cause disturbance in others. Such natures are therefore not affected by either anger or gratitude, for all such feelings belong only to weaker and imperfect creatures.

2. Death is nothing to us, for what has been dissolved is incapable of sensation, and a state without sensation is nothing to us.

3. The greatest magnitude of pleasure possible is the removal of all suffering. And if our present state is pleasurable, then we are not experiencing pain, nor distress, nor both together.

4. Pain does not afflict the body continuously: either it has peaks that last only for the briefest moment, or it barely exceeds our baseline of pleasure and lasts for a matter of days. The long-lasting forms of sickness, meanwhile, allow more pleasure than pain to the body.

The tetrapharmakos

The gods are not frightening.

Death is nothing to worry about.

The good is easy to obtain.

The bad is easy to endure.

Commentary

Each Tuesday, I will present a text from classical Epicureanism, freshly translated into English and accompanied by commentary elucidating its philosophical significance, highlighting its implications, and addressing any controversies of interpretation. For our initial installment of Tuesday Translations, it makes sense to start at the beginning, with the first four of Epicurus’ forty Principal Doctrines (or Kyriai Doxai), along with their even briefer summation known as the tetrapharmakos, or Fourfold Remedy.

For those unfamiliar with Epicureanism, or who have only heard my opening pitch for Why You Should Be an Epicurean, these four maxims can seem underwhelming or opaque. If you are, say, a healthy young atheist with no chronic pain who rarely thinks about death, they may seem like a combination of irrelevance and technically dubious ideas about pleasure and pain. Is this really the core of Epicurus’ notorious egoistic hedonism?

In part, I can see where such reactions are coming from—for those who don’t worry much about the gods or death, the first two maxims may seem like irrelevant relics, and Epicureanism will have more interesting things to say to you in future installments on pain, pleasure, desire, prudence, egoism, hedonism, friendship, and more. That doesn’t mean that Principal Doctrines 1 and 2 should be dismissed. If fears of god and death do not afflict you, then you should recognize to what degree Epicurus has already won the argument—over 2000 years ago, he pioneered the claims leading to the greater peace of mind you enjoy today.

But that’s getting a little ahead of myself. Let’s briefly go through these famous first four sayings and reckon with their profound implications.

1. The blessed and incorruptible experience no disturbance, nor do they cause disturbance in others. Such natures are therefore not affected by either anger or gratitude, for all such feelings belong only to weaker and imperfect creatures.

This maxim is generally taken to summarize Epicurus’ views of divinity, which have been the subject of much debate over the ensuing millennia. On the surface, Epicurus says outright that “gods exist” (Letter to Menoeceus 123). However, he has often been accused of atheism, because he denies many of the traits and behaviors that popular religion has often ascribed to the gods (or God): according to him, if we actually believe in gods that are perfect and immortal, then we have to understand such beings as utterly imperturbable by any trivial little human misbehaviors or requests. Why would a perfect god feel any compulsion to punish you in an afterlife, or feel offended if you didn’t present the right offerings and sacrifices? Variations on such queries have vexed many religious minds over the years—why would a just and perfect God allow cruelty and injustice to exist?

Epicurus’ answer is that the gods must exist in complete independence from all earthly activity, uninterested in the punishment and reward of human beings. In a future installment, I’ll dive deeper into the debate over whether Epicurean gods actually exist or are merely an ideal, spoken of in literal terms to avert contemporary censure or persuade the religiously committed. For now, Epicurus’ main assertion is simple: there is no good reason to believe that there are gods who can be angered or appeased by anything we do.

2. Death is nothing to us, for what has been dissolved is incapable of sensation, and a state without sensation is nothing to us.

Epicurus believes there is no afterlife: our existence is entirely material, and when we die, the atoms that make up our being will be dispersed and no longer capable of sensation. Death should not be thought of as a fearful or painful state, but simply as neutral nonexistence, holding a position in our understanding equivalent to our nonexistence before birth.

Much more can and will be said about Epicurus’ therapeutic techniques concerning death, but this is the core teaching that denies one of the most prevalent fears on the subject—that we will be subject to an afterlife of punishment, reward, or eternal dissatisfaction. In today’s more secular world, many people don’t go through life oppressed by fears of eternal hellfire, instead assuming that existence will simply cease. If you are in this camp, welcome—you were already half-Epicurean, even if you were unaware of the fact.

3. The greatest magnitude of pleasure possible is the removal of all suffering. And if our present state is pleasurable, then we are not experiencing pain, nor distress, nor both together.

This maxim contains two claims, both of which can seem dubious to modern ears. Can’t we be in a painless state, and then experience more pleasure? If we are handed a delicious beverage or are informed that our bank account has just received an anonymous donation of a million dollars, won’t we experience pleasure? Meanwhile, aren’t mixed states possible, where we experience physical comfort, but have some nagging worries, for instance?

What Epicurus is doing here can be thought of as introducing more productive ways of thinking about pain and pleasure. His doctrines run counter to our normal, everyday way of talking about these words, but that isn’t a fault, or evidence of error—revising our standard thinking is the point. For now, set aside questions of absolute proof—discussion of that will come later—and instead consider how thinking in Epicurean terms would affect your typical perspective, decisions, and results.

In the first claim, Epicurus encourages us to think of pleasure in terms of the removal of pain. If we enjoy a beverage, we must be experiencing the pain of thirst—if we have no thirst at all (or any fear of future dehydration), then drinking will bring us no pleasure. If more money makes us happier, then it does so because we think it will alleviate some lack we are currently experiencing or fear experiencing in the future.

When we break down our desires into their most fundamental components, we will often find that they can be alleviated very simply (thirst is alleviated by water) or that some actions may not be productive towards our underlying goal (we often think money enhances security, but sometimes it attracts envy while being dissipated in pointless consumption, for instance). There will be more on this subject to come.

Epicurus’ second claim can easily seem unclear, especially in more literal translations. Inwood and Gerson, for instance, translate this passage as “Wherever a pleasurable feeling is present, for as long as it is present, there is neither a feeling of pain nor a feeling of distress, nor both together.” I think Norman DeWitt is correct in interpreting this maxim as an Epicurean version of what will come to be known as the “hedonic calculus” of the Utilitarian tradition:

Epicurus implies instead and elsewhere teaches [in the next maxim, in fact] that pain is subtractable from pleasure, leaving a balance of the latter.

A few more words would make this more obvious, without, I think, diverging from Epicurus’ intended meaning:

And if our present state is pleasurable [on net], then [we should consider that, on balance,] we are not experiencing pain…

The reason these two claims go together should now be clearer: both suggest, first and foremost, that pleasure and pain can be conceived as positive and negative values that can be compared to derive an overall state of pain or pleasure. What Epicurean hedonism means by “pleasure” primarily is pain alleviation. The other implication of this second claim is a bias towards a positive balance of pleasure over pain: Epicurus believes our normal state of health is a pleasurable one and encourages us to retain a perspective of contentment whenever our current balance of pleasure over pain is positive—our typical state, and a very achievable goal.

4. Pain does not afflict the body continuously: either it has peaks that last only for the briefest moment, or it barely exceeds our baseline of pleasure and lasts for a matter of days. The long-lasting forms of sickness, meanwhile, allow more pleasure than pain to the body.

Here, again, some modern sticklers will find reason to quibble. Presumably it is technically possible to suffer from a terrible chronic illness, in which condition every day is intensely painful and yet life continues for years. Fine—revise the maxim to “Pain does not typically afflict the body continuously” if you want. I think Epicurus’ advice as to a healthy perspective on normal discomforts remains sound.

Is your pain intense? It will abate soon. Is your pain not at a sharp peak, but still resulting in a negative balance? It will also abate soon, though perhaps on a pace typically measured in days or weeks rather than seconds or minutes. Do you have a long-lasting sickness? Then you are evidently living with it, and you should not cease from enjoying the pleasures that life still has to offer.

If anything, I would argue that modern medicine makes Epicurus’ advice more applicable today. Our ability to alleviate pain has greatly advanced and peaks can now be dulled, while our ability to address root causes has also advanced. Epicurus died of some kind of bladder stone, which caused him intense pain, and yet still found his dying weeks to be on balance happy. Today we could prevent most of that pain and our road to happiness is even easier.

Finally, the tetrapharmakos:

The gods are not frightening.

Death is nothing to worry about.

The good is easy to obtain.

The bad is easy to endure.

A scrap of papyrus has survived from an ancient library at Herculaneum, covered in lava during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. Deciphering the charred remains, scholars uncovered a brief passage described as the τετραφάρμακος, or fourfold remedy. These four lines are thought to be a mnemonic device devised by later Epicureans that summarize the first four Principal Doctrines, dealing in the most compressed form possible with their four respective subjects: the gods, death, pleasure, and pain. It should not be taken as a substitute for the detailed philosophical arguments that Epicurus made, but rather as a useful tool to help a student remember and internalize the core tenets of the school.

Subscribe now

Original Texts

Κύριαι Δόξαι

1. τὸ μακάριον καὶ ἄφθαρτον οὔτε αὐτὸ πράγματα ἔχει οὔτε ἄλλῳ παρέχει, ὥστε οὔτε ὀργαῖς οὔτε χάρισι συνέχεται· ἐν ἀσθενεῖ γὰρ πᾶν τὸ τοιοῦτον.

2. ὁ θάνατος οὐδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς· τὸ γὰρ διαλυθὲν ἀναισθητεῖ· τὸ δʼἀναισθητοῦν οὐδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς.

3. ὅρος τοῦ μεγέθους τῶν ἡδονῶν ἡ παντὸς τοῦ ἀλγοῦντος ὑπεξαίρεσις. ὅπου δʼἂν τὸ ἡδόμενον ἐνῇ, καθʼ ὃν ἂν χρόνον ᾖ, ουκ ἔστι τὸ ἀλγοῦν ἢ λυπούμενον ἢ τὸ συναμφότερον.

4. οὐ χρονίζει τὸ ἀλγοῦν συνεχῶς ἐν τῇ σαρκί, ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν ἄκρον τὸν ἐλάχιστον χρόνον πάρεστι, τὸ δὲ μόνον ὑπερτεῖνον τὸ ἡδόμενον κατὰ σάρκα οὐ πολλὰς ἡμέρας συμβαίνει· αἱ δὲ πολυχρόνιοι τῶν ἀρρωστιῶν πλεονάζον ἔχουσι τὸ ἡδόμενον ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ ἤ περ τὸ ἀλγοῦν.

τετραφάρμακος

ἄφοβον ὁ θεός,
ἀνύποπτον ὁ θάνατος,
καὶ τἀγαθὸν μὲν εὔκτητον,
τὸ δὲ δεινὸν εὐεκκαρτέρητον.

Share

κενὸς ἐκείνου φιλοσόφου λόγος, ὑφʼ οὗ μηδὲν πάθος ἀνθρώπου θεραπεύεται.

A philosopher’s words are empty if they do not assuage human suffering.1

Philosophy can be a very useful thing. It can help you to understand the world accurately and live a good and happy life. I believe that one ancient school of philosophy answers the most important questions better than any other unified ethical system that I am aware of and is now due for a revival in widespread popularity. That philosophy is Epicureanism.

The Greek philosopher Epicurus formulated these principles at his school known as the Garden, founded outside of Athens around 306 BCE. Why would a modern human being follow the teachings of an ancient Greek philosopher? Because they are correct, or more precisely, because they work—the principles laid out by Epicurus and his followers form a supremely useful guide to a less troubled and more joyful existence.

In future posts, I will explore a great many questions one could pose about this philosophy: Can a philosophy of hedonism—even a moderate, prudential type of hedonism such as this—really be the best way to achieve happiness? How does Epicurus respond to those who think that our personal happiness shouldn’t be our primary goal? And what does living as an Epicurean actually look like in the real details of modern life? I’ll consider all of these questions in the future, sharing philosophical essays, new translations and commentaries, and concrete proposals for what living as an Epicurean might look like today.

For now, I’ll start with an overview of one big question and this philosophy’s answer: what is the best way to achieve happiness? Epicureanism’s core advice can be divided into three parts: what it suggests we avoid, what it suggests we aim for, and how it suggests we approach the pursuit of our true good.

What to let go of: diminish fears and desires

ἢ γὰρ διὰ φόβον τις κακοδαιμονεῖ ἢ διʼ ἀόριστον καὶ κενὴν ἐπιθυμίαν· ἅ τις χαλινῶν δύναται τὸν μακάριον ἑαυτῷ περιποιῆσαι λογισμόν.

Unhappiness is caused by fears, or by endless and empty desires, but he who is able to rein these in creates for himself a blissful understanding.2

Epicurus identifies two main sources of discontent: fear and unsatisfied desire. Unlike modern consumerism—which generally amplifies every passing impulse or aversion—he recognizes that “reining in” our feelings is a more fruitful path to happiness. Unlike the Stoics—who teach that all fears and other emotional responses are subject to rational control and that nothing should be desired except virtue—he believes that fears can often be addressed through prudent action and that many desires are perfectly natural and lead to benign sources of pleasure. Epicureanism therefore strikes a wise and humane middle ground between taking pragmatic steps to achieve security and adjusting our thought patterns when our fears or desires are misplaced.

Consider fear. In the ancient world, Epicureans spent a great deal of energy combatting “superstition,” which included things like fears of punishment in the afterlife or beliefs that celestial phenomena indicated divine displeasure. Many people still have similar worries: if you are suffering from religious guilt, believe in astrology, or ever find yourself cursing some more colloquial version of fate’s antagonism towards you, Epicurus would tell you to stop. These are not reasonably grounded fears and you are causing yourself unnecessary pain.

Other fears originate in real risks to our well-being. Violence and dangers do exist, crippling poverty would be bad, and our health is not invulnerable. It therefore makes sense to avoid conflict, provide for the future, and avoid self-destructive habits, for instance. Most of us understand this common-sense conception of fear as a response to dangers, the factual amelioration of which would be good.

Fortunately, the dangers have gone down! The world is safer, richer, and longer-lived than ever before, so it would make sense for fear and anxiety to also be at historically low levels. Unfortunately, our feelings don’t always match these facts. Consider the most anxious worrier and complainer you know—don’t you think she makes things harder for herself than she has to? Match your fears to reality. To a practiced Epicurean, everyone seems to be worrying excessively.

Many of our desires stem from fear—consider the popularity of security cameras, health supplements, and ever-growing bank balances. Some other desires, it may be argued, are simple: maybe someone wants to buy fancy food, fancy clothes, and a fancy car not because of any inner insecurity, but for the pure pleasure of their ownership. (In reality, motives are often mixed, but positively hedonistic pleasures certainly exist.) Here also, Epicurus’ advice is pragmatic and prudential rather than ideologically chastising. How great is the pleasure you obtain from those things? What does it cost you, all things considered?

Money is one of the most obvious costs: money requires work and many people work more than they would like to—maybe if you needed less money, you could work less, retire sooner, or choose a more enjoyable occupation rather than the most lucrative. So it’s worth asking: how closely does expense correlate with pleasure? I rarely buy expensive cheeses, because I enjoy cheap cheese quite a bit. I never buy fine wine, because the $4 bottles seem quite adequate. You’ll probably enhance your total pleasure more by considering factors besides maximizing consumption, Epicurus would suggest: making good use of your leisure time, achieving greater peace of mind, and finding good company with whom to share your life.

Diminish your fears, whether they are outright superstition or merely exaggerated images of reality, amplified by media, marketing, or popular opinion. Diminish your desires: they are a poor guide to what really brings pleasure, distorted as they are by all the same forces. And do both of these things, not through a guilt-driven process of self-flagellation, nor through a hyper-rational lens that denies the existence of fear or desire, but through undogmatic pragmatism and general reasonableness in your weighing of pros and cons.

Phronesis, the Greeks call it—“practical wisdom.” Epicureanism is the tradition that elevates phronesis above philosophy itself, because reasonable calculation is more helpful to one’s happiness than complex and arcane theory, more helpful than impossible ideals or worrying about fictitious afterlives.

What to hold on to: better pleasures

ταγαθόν εὐπόριστον.

The good is easy to obtain.3

If you have heard a very little about Epicureanism, you might associate the philosophy with hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure. Which might leave you a little confused about the sections above recommending the limitation of desires and the avoidance of fancy wine. The answer is that both “hedonist” and “Epicurean” itself are frequently misused in general conversation: Epicureans are hedonists, but prudential hedonists, who recommend weighing the potential pains of a course of action against the pleasure it offers. On the simplest level, this means that they counsel against overeating, for instance, because even though food tastes good, the aftereffects of excessive consumption are unpleasant. Such estimations of net pleasure, as suggested above, often result in Epicureans advising not to pursue many things commonly thought of as pleasurable.

Fortunately, there are many pleasures that clearly exceed their accompanying or prerequisite pain. On the simple level of physical necessities, what our bodies actually want is very limited: not to be hungry, not to be thirsty, not to be cold. You may think this a very meager standard of existence, but it also has a lot of truth to it. Put in a hard day’s work of outdoor labor and a drink of cool water will be an intense delight. Come in out of the cold to snuggle in a cozy home, and you won’t care if it’s a cheap apartment with cheaper furnishings. More pleasure comes from the easy-to-obtain basics than from the extravagant upgrades, and their recognition of this fact means that Epicureans are far more enthusiastic enjoyers of the simple pleasures of life than are ascetically-inclined Stoics or Puritans. To my knowledge, Epicurus is the only ancient philosopher from whom we have letters recording his fondness for cheese.4

For Epicureans, the most valuable pleasure of all is that of friendship (including with spouses and family members). The company and conversation of like-minded individuals is worth more than any stuff. And the “cost” of friends is negative—their support adds to, rather than subtracts from, the total peace and security of our lives.

The nature of these approved pleasures—freedom from physical pain, simple food, security-enhancing friendship—points towards a core tenet of Epicureanism: the state of mind to aim for is not a constant bliss or euphoria (an impossible goal), but tranquility and peace of mind. The Greeks called this ataraxia; one who obtains this state is ataraktos, or untroubled. A person can increase their approach to ataraxia by discarding irrational fears and unsatisfiable desires, while practicing prudence, cultivating friendship, and focusing on easily obtained pleasures.

To some people, used to extravagant hopes of success, wealth, fame, or similar goals, mere tranquility can seem rather staid and unexciting. In reality, however, most people pursuing wealth and fame don’t achieve them, and even the wealthy and famous don’t tend to achieve a blissful and unworried existence. The most accurate frame of reference for evaluating the Epicurean goal of tranquility, therefore, is not what is promised by conventional standards, but what is delivered.

The actual state in which many people live is, to greater or lesser degree, one filled with worries, ground down by anxiety, and worn out with striving after always receding objects. Epicureanism promises peace of mind and a world of daily pleasures. Those pleasures aren’t based on fulfilling difficult-to-achieve desires sometime in the future, but are instead available right this instant.

Consider an illustrative example: I enjoy looking at birds. They are everywhere, they look pretty, they sing, they fly, and they do all kinds of interesting things. I can recognize many birds by sight or sound, and so any walk outside is filled with constant little points of interest. All birdwatchers are familiar with this phenomenon: they notice little things that other people don’t and derive pleasure from them, simply because they are used to paying attention to birds and feeling grateful when some unexpected piece of pleasure flies into view.

That’s how the whole world is to Epicureans. We practice enjoying all the tiny things of life—a sunny day, a simple meal, a smile. Tagathon euporiston, we say—the good is easy to obtain.

Share

The strategy: develop practical wisdom, follow nature

I believe Epicureanism correctly guides us away from detrimental goals and behaviors and suggests alternative, more rewarding objects for our endeavors. Simply choosing the right ambitions will greatly increase your odds of success! But Epicurus also offers extremely wise advice on how to pursue these goals. Two maxims encapsulate his often-underrated approach:

τὸ μέγιστον ἀγαθὸν φρόνησις.

The greatest good is practical wisdom.5

οὐ βιαστέον τὴν φύσιν ἀλλὰ πειστέον.

Nature cannot be forced, but must be persuaded.6

Many philosophical schools of thought or venerable religious traditions seem to ignore these points. They will debate ethical behavior while ignoring the fact that many people’s efforts to obtain happiness are hindered more by poor calculation and a lack of long-term prudence than erroneous ethical theory—basic principles like “it is unwise to fund your consumer habits with high-interest credit card debt” is not very interesting to philosophers, but consistent application of that guideline would help a great many people avoid real distress. Others will insist that “human nature” is fundamentally flawed, and that considering its limitations constitutes a logical fallacy when it comes to determining truly ethical behavior.

Epicureans don’t make these mistakes. They focus constantly on the prudential, recognizing that people often don’t achieve what they aim at, not due to some moral failing, but due to a lack of big-picture thoughtfulness. What is needed is not more theory or moral chastisement. What is needed is a little basic knowledge and calm consideration of the most helpful course of action. Epicureanism is practical.

And even ancient Epicureans have an understanding of human behavior that seems strikingly modern and evocative of contemporary evolutionary biology, an understanding that grapples with the basic truth that we are animals like any other, subject to basic biological impulses that cannot be erased by our more developed reasoning abilities. Forcing ourselves to act against our nature is very difficult, but it is possible for us to be persuaded as to what is true and reasonable. We cannot simply declare our fears and desires nonexistent, but we can analyze them, make their illogicalities stand out, and point out better alternatives. Moral standards that push directly against all our instincts are often doomed to fail. Epicureanism is realistic.

And that means that it works. In the years since I began seriously studying and practicing this philosophy, I have found that I have grown happier and happier. While other ancient philosophical schools are dominated by arcane debates about fantastical nonsense (see Plato’s Theory of Forms), or have a well-founded reputation for coldness and a nature-denying disconnect from human reality (see Stoicism), Epicureanism is marked by an attitude of warmth, friendliness, and conviviality. Members of the Garden had friends and families. Wives, courtesans, and slaves were welcome to participate. Epicureans enjoyed feasting on the 20^th of every month (with cheap food and wine, of course).

Plato’s Academy stressed geometry. Stoicism required students to practice imagining the death of their family members. Epicureans had picnics. Which philosophy do you think is most likely to promote a joyful existence?

Different wisdom traditions rise and fall in popularity. The great monotheistic religions are now in decline in most parts of the world, in large part because much of their teachings are grounded in stories that modern science tells us simply cannot be true. And so I think the time is now right for the revival of an ethical teaching that does not posit any divine interference in the world or depend on claims about an unknowable afterlife. The time is right for a teaching that properly values practical wisdom and tries to work with our evolved human nature, not against it. Epicureanism is such a tradition.

To avoid unhappiness, recognize unfulfillable desires and practice prudence.

To enjoy the good, appreciate what you have and cultivate friendship.

To change your way of thinking, don’t fight against nature.

Subscribe now