Why Epicurean Hedonism Is Wise
In Which I Defend a Much-Maligned Word
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:
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.
We are primarily negative hedonists: Reducing pain is more important than diversifying pleasures.
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. Commercials promise that if you buy their 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.
Letter to Menoeceus 129
Vatican Saying 33
Usener fragment 135
LM 128