Principal Doctrine 26:
The desires that do not cause suffering when unfulfilled are not necessary, but rather are easily relinquished whenever they seem difficult to fulfill or harmful.
Principal Doctrine 29:
Of our desires, some are natural and necessary, some are natural and not necessary, and some are neither natural nor necessary, but are produced by empty opinion.
Scholion (ancient marginal note) on PD 29:
Epicurus holds that the “natural and necessary” desires are those that relieve pain, such as drinking for the thirsty; the “natural but not necessary” are those that only aim at varying pleasure and do not take away suffering, such as expensive food; and the “neither natural nor necessary” are for things such as crowns and the erection of statues.
Principal Doctrine 30:
If there is intense passion in any cases regarding those natural desires which do not cause pain if unfulfilled, then those desires have come about through empty opinion, and it is not on account of their own nature that they persist, but because of man’s senselessness.
Commentary
I have discussed all of these texts previously in the first part of my article on The Classification of Desires. Although I’ve fine-tuned my translations a little here, that two-part essay offers a deeper dive into the overall topic, bringing in some additional texts and addressing various nuances of the relevant doctrines. Today, then, I will confine myself to relatively briefer remarks on each saying: think of this as either a quick refresher, or as an abbreviated intro—for a fuller understanding, read the longer essay.
Although the Principal Doctrines often have clearly meaningful groupings, the order is often not as straightforward as one would like. Some speculate that some errors in transcription may have occurred, including here, such that the original order may have been lost. In today’s case, Principal Doctrine 26 discusses a part of the famous three-part classification of desires, PD 27 and 28 discuss friendship (I’ll return to them in the next installment), PD 29 provides the most natural introductory statement on the classification of desires, and PD 30 continues the discussion. Accordingly, the most straightforward order to take these in today is PD 29 (with its accompanying ancient commentary), then PD 26 and 30.
Of our desires, some are natural and necessary, some are natural and not necessary, and some are neither natural nor necessary, but are produced by empty opinion. (PD 29)
This maxim sets out the three categories in a very simple and straightforward way. A slightly more elaborate version has also been preserved in the Letter to Menoeceus:
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. (LM 127)
In both cases, however, the categories are presented as generalities—some examples would be very helpful! Fortunately, the manuscripts contain a marginal note (scholion) that seems to be of ancient origin, by a commentator who had knowledge of other Epicurean texts.
Epicurus holds that the “natural and necessary” desires are those that relieve pain, such as drinking for the thirsty; the “natural but not necessary” are those that only aim at varying pleasure and do not take away suffering, such as expensive food; and the “neither natural nor necessary” are for things such as crowns and the erection of statues. (Scholion to PD 29)
This is one of the most straightforward pieces of evidence for what kinds of things Epicurus would have placed in each category. “Natural and necessary” is easily understood in the cases of bodily necessities: we need food, we need hydration, and we need basic clothing and shelter (if we lack these, we will experience pain from exposure to the elements. Such items would also seem to correspond to two of the sub-categories mentioned in the Letter to Menoeceus passage: food and water are things “necessary for life itself,” while clothing and shelter may fall sometimes into that sub-category and sometimes into that of things needed to “pacify the body’s demands”—i.e. while a certain level of cold will not kill us, it will be unavoidably uncomfortable. Epicurus would still consider that a “natural and necessary” desire, since it is not one we can train ourselves out of. The third sub-category from the Menoeceus passage is about desires needed “for happiness.” This is the least clear. A highly likely candidate for this designation is the desire for friendship; others also propose the desire for wisdom or for sex (for my thoughts on the latter, see here).
For the second category of “natural but not necessary” desires, the scholion suggests “expensive food.” It also notes that such desires serve only to “vary” pleasure, and do not take away suffering. The word translated as “vary” is poikillo (ποικίλλω), of which the literal meaning is “embroider,” “ornament,” or “adorn.” In many context, “vary” is a perfectly good translation, but I think it’s reasonable to see some flavor of “adornment” here as well: some people might say that if pleasure is “ornamented” further, then something has indeed been added to it. Technically speaking, this is defensible. But ornamentation is still inherently minor and non-essential, with only a trivial addition of value and no improvement of function (to a garment, for instance). So, while it is often written in commentaries that things like expensive food only “vary” but do not increase pleasure in the Epicurean sense, those who find this phrasing technically objectionable (“isn’t tastier food a little more pleasurable than less tasty food?”) could instead think of the Epicurean distinction in terms of “ornamentation.” Items in this category might “ornament,” might add some little frills and fancy edges to the pleasures of life. Such frills, however, are comparatively unimportant. The difference between the pain of real hunger and a satiated state is immeasurably larger than the difference between a $10 meal and a $100 meal.
To clarify these non-necessary desires further, we should look at our other texts:
The desires that do not cause suffering when unfulfilled are not necessary, but rather are easily relinquished whenever they seem difficult to fulfill or harmful. (PD 26)
To continue with the scholion’s “expensive food” example, you will not experience any suffering if you eat inexpensive food rather than expensive food. Your body will be just as satisfied. If someone walks into a sandwich shop with a hankering for a meatball sandwich, but is told that it will cost $500, while the chicken sandwich is available for $10, most people will drop the desire for the meatball sandwich, eat the chicken sandwich, and feel just as much physical contentment afterwards. We would likewise change our order if the meatball sandwich came with a warning that it will likely cause painful indigestion and vomiting after a few hours.
Similar scenarios could be written up for other such desires: more expensive drinks, more expensive clothing, more expensive houses. All such desires are “natural” in that we unavoidably desire to eat, drink, be clothed, and be sheltered. If the meatball sandwich is easy to acquire, then enjoy it! If you find some nice shirts on the clearance rack, then pick the one you like! But the desire for any one specific way of satisfying an underlying bodily demand is not itself necessary. Why then, you might ask, do some people get so attached to pursuing such desires? Epicurus has more:
If there is intense passion in any cases regarding those natural desires which do not cause pain if unfulfilled, then those desires have come about through empty opinion, and it is not on account of their own nature that they persist, but because of man’s senselessness. (PD 30)1
Apparently, desires are not categorized only according to their external objects, but also according to the internal state they evoke: the desire for expensive food can be more aptly placed in the third category of “neither natural nor necessary” if it is held with an excessively “intense passion.” That strength of feeling, that neurotic obsessiveness, is a clear sign that this is not simply the natural and relatively unobjectionable desire for pleasant variety, but the product of some kind of “empty opinion” (kenai doxai).
Maybe you want expensive clothes because you think they will win you the admiration of the world at large as you walk down the street. Maybe you want to eat at the expensive restaurant because that’s where the rich people eat, and you want to earn their esteem. Maybe you want a new $100,000 car because driving a used Chevy is for poor people and you want potential mates to know that you are not a poor person. None of these desires are necessary. None of them are even “natural,” in the sense of “a universal attribute of human nature”—plenty of humans have lived through life without ever feeling such desires. Instead, they are the result of interacting with a particular society in a particular way, adopting the habits and beliefs of a particular subset of its members.
Now at last we can come full circle, to the main body of those desires which are “neither natural nor necessary.” The scholion mentioned “crowns and the erection of statues,” which are the physical manifestations of the desires for political power and fame. Other desires that belong in this category according to Epicurus are those for great wealth or eternal life. None of these are innate to humans; all of them are created through ungrounded opinion.
Evolutionary biologists might point out that the desires for, say, social status and material resources, are perfectly natural. Epicurus’ point is that the pursuit of these specific, particularly complex, hard-to-achieve manifestations of such desires is not. There is nothing in the human genetic inheritance to say that a person needs to be admired by thousands of online strangers or have five million dollars to be happy. There is nothing in our biology that says when our desires for status or resources have achieved “enough.” When it comes to such mental, rather than physical desires, it is therefore up to our minds to determine that point of pleasurable satiety. We should do so based on the careful evaluation of our own experience along with the rational application of science—not based on the hearsay of the least thoughtful.
Return, therefore, to the natural desires. It is easy to slake your thirst, satisfy your hunger, and wrap your body up in comfort on a cold night. Friendship and knowledge have very modest price tags. Fame and fortune have no limits except those we set ourselves, so be sure to set them wisely, at levels that are within easy reach. No matter where you draw the line, our nature will declare it sufficient for what is after all a really quite modest project—the making of a single happy human.
Read more on the Classification of Desires here, or explore the complete series on the Principal Doctrines on this page.
Original Text
26: τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν ὅσαι μὴ ἐπʼ ἀλγοῦν ἐπανάγουσιν ἐὰν μὴ συμπληρῶσιν, οὐκ εἰσιν ἀναγκαῖαι, ἀλλʼ εὐδιάχυτον τὴν ὄρεξιν ἔχουσιν, ὅταν δυσπορίστοι2 ἤ βλάβης ἀπεργαστικαὶ δόξωσιν εἶναι.
29: τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν αἱ μέν εἰσι φυσικαὶ καὶ <ἀναγκαῖαι, αἱ δὲ φυσικαὶ καὶ>3 οὐκ ἀναγκαῖαι, αἱ δὲ οὔτε φυσικαὶ οὔτε ἀναγκαῖαι, ἀλλὰ παρὰ κενὴν δόξαν γινόμεναι.
Scholion to 29: φυσικὰς καὶ ἀναγκαίας ἡγεῖται ὁ Ἐπίκουρος τὰς ἀλγηδόνος ἀπολυούσας, ὡς ποτὸν ἐπὶ δίψους: φυσικὰς δὲ οὐκ ἀναγκαίας δὲ τὰς ποικιλλούσας μόνον τὴν ἡδονήν, μὴ ὑπεξαιρουμένας δὲ τὸ ἄλγημα, ὡς πολυτελῆ σιτία: οὔτε δὲ φυσικὰς οὔτ᾽ ἀναγκαίας, ὡς στεφάνους καὶ ἀνδριάντων ἀναθέσεις.
30: ἐν αἷς τῶν φυσικῶν ἐπιθμιῶν μὴ ἐπʼ ἀλγοῦν δὲ ἐπαναγουσῶν ἐὰν μὴ συντελεσθῶσιν, ὑπάρχει ἡ σπουδὴ σύντονος, παρὰ κενὴν δόξαν αὗται γίνονται, καὶ οὐ παρὰ τὴν ἑαυτῶν φύσιν οὐ διαχέονται ἀλλὰ παρὰ τὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κενοδοξίαν.
Compared to my earlier translation, I’ve done a little bit of syntactical tweaking and changed the last word to “senselessness.” This is a new rendering of tou anthropou kenodoxian (τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κενοδοξίαν). Literally this is the dispositional state that accords with kenai doxai, “empty opinion,” but translating this as “empty-opinionedness” would be too artificial, while translating it simply as “empty opinion” again loses another kind of distinction. “Senselessness” tries to evoke not just the standard Epicurean terminology (for which “empty” has never been an entirely satisfactory word—sometimes I use “groundless” and “senseless” wouldn’t be invalid either), but also this more vibrant sense of criticism.
To say people hold groundless opinions is not just neutral commentary; it’s an aggressive pointing-out of a distinctly regrettable state of affairs. If you keep pining after a $500 sandwich, it’s because you’re being a stupid, unthinking, empty-headed idiot and you need to stop doing what you’ve been doing and start thinking clearly.
Editors disagree about the correct case of this word, but mostly not with any great impact on the meaning. This is the most grammatically convenient option, but I don’t have any particularly strong conviction that it is the true original.
The bracketed text covering the first category of desires is missing from the Diogenes Laertius manuscripts, however the full maxim is preserved intact as Vatican Saying 20, so the emendation is certain.