One of the more popular articles on Untroubled is my invitation to modern Stoics to reconsider their allegiance, Most Modern Stoics Aren’t Stoics. Today, I’d like to do something similar for the ancient Skeptical school of Pyrrhonism, which has also (on a smaller scale) been finding some modern adherents. I believe that much of what might draw someone to Pyrrhonism is also present in Epicureanism, while I consider us to offer a broader scope of counsel that I think makes our school more compelling as an overall philosophy of life.
For those who are not familiar with Pyrrhonism, it is one of the two major Skeptical schools of antiquity (along with Academic Skepticism), both of which were concerned with undermining the claims of the other “dogmatic” schools. According to the Pyrrhonists, letting go of all dogmatic beliefs is the key to attaining ataraxia, the untroubled state also prioritized by the Epicureans. Importantly, suspending belief in dogmatic claims does not prevent one from living more or less normally: Pyrrhonists accept “evident” phenomena and the usefulness of subjective appearances, and have a practical set of criteria for action that they maintain as separate from appropriate criteria for belief. If you would like to know more, I recommend the work of Doug Bates, author of the book Pyrrho’s Way and of the Substack Ataraxia or Bust! I’ve always found Doug to be a willing participant in good-faith discussion and draw heavily on his work in today’s essay.
For my part, I would like to invite all Pyrrhonist sympathizers to consider the merits of Epicureanism in three steps. First, I’ll note some significant points of overlap between Pyrrhonism and Epicureanism: overall, both philosophies are intensely concerned with dispelling ungrounded opinions that lead to distress. Second, I’ll address perhaps the central Pyrrhonist concern with Epicureanism—the idea that we dogmatically assert the goodness and centrality of pleasure in an unjustifiable way—and lay out some factors that I think make our position significantly different than the dogmatic beliefs the Pyrrhonists rightly criticize in other schools. Finally, I’ll lay out my main dissatisfaction with Pyrrhonism: while the philosophy’s destructive project is quite effective, I think their constructive project is significantly incomplete, often briefly acknowledging practical concerns while consistently underrating their importance in achieving ataraxia.
Where we agree
I recently read and enjoyed Bates’ book Pyrrho’s Way. As far as I know, it is the foremost contemporary book that aims to take the doctrines of ancient Pyrrhonism, primarily documented in Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism, and actually advocate for their practical value. Based on the emphases of Bates’ book, there are a number of core Pyrrhonist claims with which Epicureans would be highly sympathetic:
1. Ataraxia is a good goal for philosophic practice.
Like the Pyrrhonists, the Epicureans consider this to be essentially self-evident. Almost everyone will agree, based on their own experience, that tranquility is preferable to distress.
2. Adhering to ungrounded beliefs causes distress; it is good to identify arguments against those beliefs and discard them.
The Epicurean term for “empty” or “groundless” opinions is kenai doxai. A great deal of Epicurean therapy is aimed at dissecting and dispelling counterproductive beliefs that dominate people’s thoughts, but which are not conducive to tranquility. For example, some Epicurean targets include the beliefs that death is bad, that the gods should be feared, that wealth, power, and fame will make one happy, or that the traditional virtues are inherently good.
3. Ordinary (“evident”) perceptions should be accepted. Useful criteria for guiding our practical decisions include the information of our senses, our internal drives such as hunger and thirst, and the laws and customs of our society.
All sound principles to the Epicurean mind! “Internal drives such as hunger and thirst” are a particular emphasis with us and I’m glad to see their usefulness is not disputed. We would likewise approve of the prudential consideration of local laws and customs:
Injustice is not bad in itself, but because of the fear and apprehension that one will not escape notice by those appointed to punish wrongdoing. (Principal Doctrine 35)
4. Many of the dogmatic beliefs that are most troublesome are related to ethical matters, such as religion, laws, and customs. There is so much disagreement here that we should be very skeptical whether simplistic moral claims are straightforwardly and objectively true.
Yes, moral claims and talk of “virtue” are rife with kenai doxai. We never assert particular moral rules or virtues as justification for our choices. We think you can only evaluate such things in terms of more concrete results, such as their impact on those “internal drives” we were talking about, like hunger, thirst, and other forms of physical pain. Different formulations of what is approved by law or society will be adopted in different times and places.
Justice does not exist as a thing in itself. (Principal Doctrine 34)
We should honor what is noble, the virtues and such things, if they give pleasure, but if they do not, then bid them farewell. (Usener fragment 70)
5. Science is a largely inductive endeavor, and so scientific theories are generally not “true” in an absolute sense, although they may be very useful for predictive purposes. We should recognize the history of changing scientific paradigms and be aware that a better theory may well come along in the future. As Bates says, however, “Well-tested, no-longer-disputed scientific theories can also be seen as just more complex examples of things the ancient Pyrrhonists explicitly accepted.”1
Epicureans were famous for a practice sometimes known as the “principle of multiple explanations.” We recognize that our senses and tools of scientific observation are limited, and so, as a practice of epistemic humility, we recommend formulating multiple plausible explanations for phenomena without asserting any one of them as true. In ancient times, for instance, Epicureans were unsure whether the earth orbited the sun—it was one viable hypothesis among others. Today, based on a large basis of detailed observation and human space exploration, we would feel confident in accepting such a claim.
Of course, Pyrrhonists and Epicureans still have their differences. But it is important to recognize our many areas of agreement. My impression is that many modern Pyrrhonists find ancient Skepticism appealing because they either have experienced distress themselves from previous adherence to dogmatic claims, or because they see how others cause themselves such distress. Maybe they argued about politics. Maybe they found dogmatic philosophers to be blindly self-confident. Maybe they thought the Stoics were spouting nonsense.
I would invite all such people to investigate Epicureanism. We are the most famous advocates of not getting upset by politics. We are the most famous practitioners of refraining from unjustified certainty, because having multiple plausible explanations of the way things are is more conducive to tranquility than pinning one’s hopes on an unjustifiably singular theory.2 We are the most famous opponents of the Stoics—for every good Pyrrhonist argument against the Stoics, we are right there with you.
So what’s holding you back from joining the Garden?
The main Pyrrhonist critique of Epicureanism
Ethically, most significant differences between the two schools are downstream of one big claim: the Epicureans assert that pleasure is good and pain is bad, while the Pyrrhonists argue that this is a dogmatic position which is counterproductive to ataraxia and should be abandoned. I think this is wrong, for three reasons:
Most critiques of Epicurean hedonism (including Bates’ in Pyrrho’s Way) are based on simple misunderstandings of what we mean by pleasure and pain.
If you correctly understand what we mean by pleasure, the core Epicurean principles need not even be read as espousing dogmatic beliefs. Our advocacy for pleasure as the good is closer to an action-guiding principle than a metaphysical claim.
I don’t think the Pyrrhonists actually oppose the real-world advice we derive from our hedonistic principles.
1. Misunderstandings of Epicurean pleasure
The Epicurean idea of pleasure is constantly misunderstood. To briefly recap what I’ve elaborated on elsewhere, we are:
Prudential hedonists: We do not grasp impulsively at near-term pleasures, but advocate for the careful calculation of total, long-term, net pleasure over pain.
Largely “negative” hedonists: We consider the positive physical pleasures of caricatural hedonists (food, sex, etc.) to be very minor elements compared to the reduction of pain, particularly mental pains like fear, distress, and unsatisfiable desires.
Psychological hedonists: We consider all human actions to be motivated by the desire for pleasure or the avoidance of pain. We prefer to consider motivations that are commonly considered to be opposed to pleasure (following duty or virtue, for instance) simply as alternative sources of psychological satisfaction that should not be categorically separated from more conventionally-understood sources of “pleasure.” This is a more neutral framework for comparing competing psychological impulses.
Once you understand this properly, much criticism of Epicurean hedonism is shown to be simply erroneous. For example, here is the complete response to Epicurean hedonism offered by Bates in Pyrrho’s Way:
The Epicureans think they have shown that pleasure is inherently choiceworthy. They point out that animals right from birth, and when still untrained, are inclined to pleasure and averse to pain. Against this position one can argue that what produces something bad cannot be inherently good. Pleasure, however, produces bad things, as pain is bound up with pleasure. For example, the drunkard feels pleasure filling himself up with wine, the lecher feels pleasure in risky and inappropriate sexual intercourse. But these activities lead to poverty and disease. Therefore pleasure is not inherently good.
Similarly, things which produce good things cannot be said to be inherently bad. But pains produce pleasures. For example, hard work is painful, but we gain things through hard work, such as knowledge and wealth. Exercise produces health. Therefore hard work is not inherently bad. Medical procedures are often painful, but people submit to them because the procedures so often make people feel better. If pleasure were inherently good and pain inherently bad, everyone would make the same decisions about them, but we see many people choosing hard work and temperance while disdaining pleasure. Therefore pleasure must not be inherently good nor pain inherently bad.3
Fully accounting for total hedonic outcomes is not a refutation of Epicureanism—it is Epicureanism! We don’t advocate in favor of drunken lechery, or against exercise and medical procedures. The only argument Bates gives against pleasure here is that sometimes pleasure will lead to negative outcomes like “poverty and disease”—such courses of action are simply not net sources of pleasure. His only argument against avoiding pain is that pains can “produce pleasures”—this likewise means they are not, on net, pains at all. The strategic mistakes that people make in their pursuit of pleasure have no bearing on whether people do or should pursue pleasure. This argument is so inadequate that I suspect Bates would probably revise it now, as I haven’t seen such clumsy anti-Epicurean arguments in his more recent work.
So, first of all: if you want to dismiss Epicurean hedonism, make sure you know what it is.
2. Our claim that “pleasure is the good” is not a dogmatic claim as commonly understood
Still, some might think that the Epicurean position remains unjustifiably dogmatic. Epicurus asserts unambiguously that “pleasure is the goal (telos) of a blessed life,” while other thinkers claim that we have, for example, an independent obligation to virtue, or moral responsibilities to others. I think the crucial point that needs to be emphasized here is our psychological hedonism, as mentioned above: we are not simply asserting that, out of various possible goals, humans should pursue pleasure. Instead, we prefer to view human motivation through a psychological framework in which we consider that people inevitably or even definitionally pursue their own pleasure, and that doing this well therefore constitutes success.4
Some people consider psychological hedonism to be itself an untenable theory. I simply consider it a useful framework, a practical redefinition of “pleasure” to enable consideration of all human motivations on an equal footing. Many don’t like this non-standard use of the word, but to criticize our choice of vocabulary is a much narrower argument against Epicureanism than a real dispute with the substance of our claims. And if our terminology is all you dislike, I am happy to reformulate! I understand that Skeptics often find the phrase “pleasure is the end” to be uncongenial and smacking of dogmatism. But I think one can find all kinds of wordings that are essentially synonymous with the Epicurean position, but which hopefully won’t trigger the same visceral reaction. For instance, just to rattle a few off:
Animals, including humans, are happier when they avoid pain. Avoiding pain is therefore good for producing happiness.
People prefer being happy over being unhappy. For humans, then, we can call happiness “good.”
It is reasonable to expect people to choose courses of action that appear conducive to their own happiness. Making those choices based on careful inductive prediction will probably achieve better results on average than making those choices without thoughtfulness about their conduciveness to happiness.
In all of these impromptu reformulations, I think the initial premises are ones that Pyrrhonists would largely agree are “evident.” While you can find a few philosophers willing to dispute anything, the opening sentences of these formulas are not controversial among normal people. (Modern skeptics might dispute the existence of the self or of physical objects, for instance, but Pyrrhonists don’t.) The second sentences are either modest, practical, clarifying definitions of “good” (the first and second) or a restrained, inductive claim (the third).
Our main “dogmatic” claim, then, is quite different than the typical targets of Pyrrhonist critique. For example, Pyrrhonists love to point out widely-abandoned moral beliefs (embracing the will of Zeus is good, race-based slavery is good) as evidence that dogmas don’t age well. But what Epicurean ethical advice seems obviously wrong? Mostly it seems like common sense, because that’s what it is—probabilistically prudent extrapolations from the essentially universal tendency to prefer happiness over unhappiness, shorn of extraneous dogmas.
I have very few “moral” beliefs. I recognize all the temporal and cultural counterevidence for traditional assertions—ask me if it is universally and inherently wrong to steal, to kill, or to eat dogs, and I will say “no.” I can easily imagine particular circumstances in particular societies in which such actions would reasonably not be considered wrong. However, I do believe that humans seek pleasure and avoid pain as an intrinsic aspect of our biological nature, that we will be unhappy if we fail at this goal, and that a philosophy that clears away illusory priorities and advises real-world prudence will improve our average level of success.
For more on why Epicurean advocacy for pleasure should be understood more as the basic, default position left over when dogmatism is stripped away, rather than itself an unjustifiably dogmatic position, see my recent article on Why Pleasure Should Be Our Goal.
3. Epicurean hedonic advice has no outright conflict with Pyrrhonist practice
To me, what makes it seem like Epicurean advice should be particularly congenial to Pyrrhonists is that the Pyrrhonists seem to accept it as well. They just classify its premises as part of “the criterion of action.”
In Pyrrho’s Way, Bates pushes back against the misconception that Pyrrhonists will not be able to function in daily life without beliefs. Instead of guiding one’s actions according to beliefs, the Pyrrhonist can respond to appearances. As mentioned above, physical sensations like hunger or a disinclination to go to jail would provide actionable reasons to eat and follow the law. Per Bates, then, this necessarily involves some amount of inference about foreseeable consequences.5 Pyrrhonists wouldn’t say that violating a local custom would be “inherently wrong,” but they think it’s perfectly reasonable for an individual to follow their aversion to social opprobrium. It seems fair to say that such subjective appearances of pain and pleasure are at least among the most widespread factors that guide human action.
Epicureans also think it reasonable to respond to the pain of hunger by eating. Epicureans also think it reasonable to respond to the appearance of potential pain from violating social norms by respecting social norms. So what’s the difference? It seems to me there are three possible reasons why a Pyrrhonist might still decline to endorse Epicurean ethics:
First, it might be largely a dispute of terminology. Epicureans like to call pleasure “good” and pain “bad.” These seem to me like reasonable and convenient labels, but if you want to replace every time we say “pleasure is good” with “pleasure typically appears good to people,” knock yourself out. The ensuing advice is unaffected.
Second, a Pyrrhonist might accept that “pleasure is good” is reasonable as a practical, everyday claim, but still dispute the Epicurean idea that “pleasure is the good.” Maybe something else should be considered. However, Pyrrhonists seem quite consistent in dismissing the claims of virtue, religious commandments, or other moral intuitions. As far as I can tell from the Pyrrhonists’ own writings, their remaining acceptable motives do boil down to hedonistic considerations, when considered in the broad Epicurean sense. So—unless they would like to reverse course and claim that there is some other value worth taking seriously as a guiding principle in life—perhaps this dispute can also be easily resolved by mild rephrasing. “Pleasure is the least problematic candidate for a human good that I am aware of” or “pleasure is the good which most consistently seems salient to me” would also lead one to Epicurean practices, while perhaps being less offensive to Pyrrhonist epistemological hygiene.
Third, perhaps the Pyrrhonists just haven’t thought through the actual Epicurean advice. As noted above, misunderstandings are rife. Perhaps if they evaluated Epicurean advice more closely, they would see that there is little to no substantive disagreement. Pyrrhonists generally prefer pleasure and decline unnecessary pain, but they simply spend less time talking about what courses of action tend to be correlated with more or less pain and pleasure.
This omission is what I consider to be Pyrrhonism’s biggest weakness as a philosophy of life.
An Epicurean criticism of Pyrrhonism
Pyrrhonists accept the existence of a criterion of action. They accept that internal impulses, such as pursuing the alleviation of pain, are valid for this purpose. They note that this includes prudential, forward-looking estimates of pain, such as the choice to follow laws and customs.
But that’s roughly all they say about such prudential matters. Instead, they spend most of their time asserting that the suspension of belief will itself lead to ataraxia. “The ancient Pyrrhonists do not give much advice about how to make decisions,” acknowledges Bates.6 As a side note, they propose that discarding unnecessary beliefs in the inherent goodness or badness of things can partially alleviate distressing reactions: “With regard to unavoidable experiences, the goal is moderation of feeling,” says Bates accordingly.7
I think this is a big hole. Is suspension of belief really enough to produce ataraxia? I would say it alleviates certain kinds of disturbance that stem from false beliefs, but it does not prevent more concrete sources of distress: hunger, physical security, or isolation, for instance. I assume that these kinds of biologically-mandated sources of discontent are what Bates means by “unavoidable” experiences, but it is very important to note that many unavoidably painful experiences are not themselves unavoidable. Pyrrhonism may be therapeutically sufficient for those who have achieved complete security when it comes to all their material needs in life—health, safety, financial stability, and so on. But if any of those unavoidably apparent sources of distress factor into one’s level of disturbance, then merely avoiding dogmatic thinking will not be sufficient to bring about ataraxia.
What Epicurus does is to propose—alongside the clearing away of empty opinions—a constant practice of prudential calculus, often employing various pragmatic guidelines for reducing sources of distress. He recommends frugality and simple living, to make financial security easier to obtain. He recommends avoiding the impulse to pursue great wealth, political power, or fame, because all of these desires seem empirically difficult to achieve, stressful to maintain, and highly competitive, leading to conflict with others. Importantly, he does not say these things are bad in themselves. If people are able to attain fame or power successfully, without an overall negative impact on their tranquility, then he has no problem with them. He recommends cultivating friendship, because friends are an enormous boost to our sense of security; they are both the preeminent form of ancient “insurance” and a direct source of pleasure.
The Pyrrhonists seem to abstain from all such advice. They seem to imply that decisions can be made “as one goes” with equal success and that careful inductive forecasting of outcomes is a fool’s errand. They assert that they would advocate for “living like normal people,” just with less mental distress from beliefs. But some of the distress of “normal people” is neither based in false beliefs, nor unavoidable—with a little planning. Epicurus would therefore revise the formula from “live like a normal person” to “pursue the normal ends of life in a more thoughtfully planned way.” This advice introduces no additional assumptions or criteria than those involved in Pyrrhonist “normal living”—it just extends the admitted utility of inductive reasoning beyond immediate results to the forecasting of longer-term probabilities. Strategies can be revised as new data comes in. But approaching life with no strategy is likely to produce less desirable outcomes.
Do modern Pyrrhonists even live like that, without long-term prudence regarding pleasure and pain? I would guess that many of them save money for retirement, purchase medical insurance, and care for their long-term health. Why do they do such things? Most normal people would say that they “believe” such actions are more likely than not to improve their long-term hedonistic outcome—old age poverty, medical bankruptcy, or physical incapacity would all be sources of pain and distress. Pyrrhonists don’t like the word “believe,” but they must have some degree of parallel faith in such inductive forecasting. I don’t insist that they abandon their vocabulary; if the Pyrrhonists would like to file all the factors that lead them to adopt these prudent decisions under the “criterion of action,” rather than the “criterion of truth,” that is fine with me.
But I don’t think they should ignore the utility of such actions in the exposition of their philosophy, if they actually consider such planning to be useful in how they lead their lives. And they shouldn’t dismiss the advice of the Epicureans, who construct their whole ethical system on the basis of fundamentally similar prudential counsel. Skepticism and argument are powerful tools against erroneous opinions. But they do not prevent the pains of poverty or hunger, or all the parallel fears that plague the unplanned lives of the imprudent. Epicurus takes a broader view, and treats all sources of unhappiness.
Pyrrho’s Way, 170
I know this is your bread and butter, Pyrrhonists, but we did it prominently too, and I’m pretty sure we are more well known today than any of the ancient Skeptical schools (albeit often in an inaccurate way).
Pyrrho’s Way, 105
For elaboration on the textual evidence for Epicurean belief in psychological hedonism, see “What Kind of Hedonist was Epicurus?” by Raphael Woolf. One clear instance is in Cicero (De Finibus 1.34–6), where Torquatus argues that his ancestors risked their lives in war and so on in pursuit of pleasure, broadly understood.
“Going against the laws and customs produces difficulties,” (Pyrrho’s Way, 93).
Pyrrho’s Way, 239
Pyrrho’s Way, 53
Ha! I was waiting for when you'd eventually take this one on. The funny part is, I agree with you on nearly everything.
I also have to laugh that this whole argument is happening almost 2,300 years after Epicurus died. I wonder if he'd be glad to see people still having this discussion.
I also wonder if suspension of judgment can become its own source of confusion rather than a cure for it. If ataraxia is the goal, does constantly withholding judgment eventually turn into its own unsettled state, maybe a quieter one, but still unsettled.
My honest hang up with modern Epicureanism, and maybe you can talk me out of this, is how often it gets used as a coat of paint for people's existing politics. A lot of contemporary Epicurean writing leans hard into a specific ideological direction and calls it Epicurean, and it makes me wonder how much of that is actually Epicurus versus people finding a philosophical justification for views they already held. I really don't know how to get past that.
But again, I agree with the kenai doxai list - fearing death is bad, thinking wealth, power, or fame will make you happy is bad. I also agree that the traditional virtues aren't inherently good, only instrumentally so.
And I wholeheartedly agree with the avoid politics line. I can see the connection to dogmatism, people screaming and shouting about things they're not actually sure of because they've decided to follow the mob. I've heard that line attributed to a lot of people, but it traces back to Epicurus through Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch's essay on the subject, lathe biosas, so I'm still not sure who said it first in any real sense.
All that said, I wonder if these two schools are even closer than I originally thought.
Like I've always said - show me where I'm wrong and I'll change my position.