Is This Really What You Want? Choosing Pleasures Well
Translation Tuesday: Principal Doctrines 8, 9, and 10
Principal Doctrine 8:
No pleasure is bad in itself, but the things that produce some pleasures bring disturbances many times greater than the pleasures.
Principal Doctrine 9:
If all pleasures were compressed to an equal duration, and if each affected either our whole organism at once, or the most important parts of our nature, then there would be no further difference between them.
Principal Doctrine 10:
If the pleasures of sensualists put an end to their fears about celestial phenomena, death, and suffering, as well as taught them the limit of desires, we would have nothing to censure them for, filled with pleasures on every side and completely free from pain and distress, for it is these things which are the real evil.
Commentary
Most people get pleasure wrong. Epicureanism is a hedonistic philosophy, which means it tries to teach us how to pursue pleasure effectively. Today’s set of Principal Doctrines accordingly lays out some important ground rules for Epicurean hedonism. Are some pleasures good and some bad? What differences between pleasures matter? How should we balance the pursuit of active physical pleasures with our overall goals in life? These are all vitally important questions that cause many people confusion, leading to a great deal of pain and wasted effort. Fortunately, Epicurus is here with some guidance. Let’s take these sayings one by one.
8. No pleasure is bad in itself, but the things that produce some pleasures bring disturbances many times greater than the pleasures.
Principal Doctrine 8 is straightforward, but very important. Much conventional morality admits certain things as pleasurable, but then advises against pursuing them because they are wrong, wicked, ignoble, or qualitatively “lower” than some “higher” pleasure. Don’t sit on the couch all day while shopping on your phone, because it is sinful to be slothful and covetous, a simplistic Christian moralist might assert. Epicurus would give similar practical advice in this case, but the reason is because those activities will not on net make you happy—passing your life on the couch is bad for your mind and body, while online shopping gives too much value to unimportant things. The pleasure these things give is less than the pains they cost in health, time, and money. What this person needs is not a bigger dose of guilt, or additional labels like “wrong” or “sinful,” but better insight into his own long-term self-interest.
Pleasures are only bad if their accompanying downsides are greater than the pleasures themselves. The word for the negative consequences here is ὄχλησις. It could be translated as disturbance, distress, annoyance, or trouble, all of which are forms of pain, not moral depravity. Ultimately, there is only one scale of comparison between different objects of pursuit or courses of action and that scale is hedonic. If a given pleasure truly has negligible ill consequences, then you should feel free to indulge it. If a pleasure does have negative consequences, and you see them with adequate clarity, then you will find that you no longer desire it.
9. If all pleasures were compressed to an equal duration, and if each affected either our whole organism at once, or the most important parts of our nature, then there would be no further difference between them.
This one is a bit more obscure, and commentators have disagreed significantly as to its meaning.1 The interpretation that makes the most sense to me is that presented by Cyril Bailey in the classic translation and commentary Epicurus: The Extant Remains (1926). (His notes suggest that he is going all the way back to Gassendi in the 1600s here, and Strodach’s commentary from the 1960s also agrees, so Bailey is not an isolated voice in arguing for this position.) According to this interpretation, Principal Doctrine 9 contains the Epicurean case for “the differentiation of pleasures,” explaining the proper grounds for choosing between different options. While Epicurus famously declared there to be a strict quantitative limit to pleasure in the elimination of all pain, this maxim notes that pleasures differ in their “compression in time” (i.e. in duration) and in which parts of our organism they affect. A pleasure that affects our whole organism (being saved from drowning, say) or “the most important parts” (the mind, in Bailey’s reading, such as achieving liberation from all superstitious fears), is more valuable than a pleasure that only affects a narrow part of our body, such as a shoulder massage or sweet treat.
Per Gassendi, Bailey, and Strodach, this is therefore a response to the Cyrenaics, who did advocate for the kind of undiscriminating accumulation of pleasures which Epicurus was often accused of encouraging. As other texts make clear, Epicurus did believe we can perform a hedonic calculus: this maxim makes the relevant criteria of comparison explicit. It makes sense to choose pleasures that last longer, affect our whole organism, or affect our mind, in preference to those that are short and only affect a small part of our body. (This is in addition to avoiding pleasures that come with attached disturbances and pains, as in PD 8.)
My formal translation above tries to stay close to the literal text, while avoiding any direct implication of erroneous interpretive tracks. If I were fleshing out the paraphrase in modern English, however, I’d probably come up with something like this:
If pleasures didn’t vary in duration or in what parts of our organism they affect (whether it be our whole being, our mind, or some smaller part of our body), then they would all be the same and equally worth pursuing, as the Cyrenaics say. But obviously pleasures do vary in these ways, and so we have good grounds for choosing among them.
Importantly, these differences in duration or area of effect are not dependent on an additive model, in which simply accumulating the largest number of intensely pleasurable experiences is the priority, and so remain consistent with the claim that the elimination of all pain is the height of pleasure. Notably, this is a difference from the Bentham-style calculus familiar to students of Utilitarianism, in which intensity is not capped. In Epicurean hedonic calculus, we do not compare our pleasures based on perceived intensity (in practice, we think it is irrelevant to one’s happiness to choose a meal that gives you 89 hedons over another that only gives you 88), but in duration or stability (short-lived pleasures have only a minimal importance) and in breadth of effect (localized stimulation is inconsequential compared to overall health or peace of mind).
Don’t chase “intense” pleasures, whatever that might mean to you—exotic vacations, high-end restaurants, drugs, gambling, extramarital affairs, skydiving. Instead, strive to attain long-lasting pleasures that encompass your whole body and mind—health, security, friendship, wisdom.
10. If the pleasures of sensualists put an end to their fears about celestial phenomena, death, and suffering, as well as taught them the limit of desires, we would have nothing to censure them for, filled with pleasures on every side and completely free from pain and distress, for it is these things which are the real evil.
Here we have one final guideline for the kind of hedonism Epicurus recommends. PD 8 warned against pleasures that came with associated pains. PD 9 advised long-lasting pleasures that affected the whole body or mind. In this maxim, we put the short-term pleasures up on stage alongside the primary objects of Epicurean therapy—elimination of fears, correction of illusions, training in good judgment—and see that even if the sensualists were able to avoid the pitfalls of PD 8 and 9, their course of action would be unlikely to bring them happiness. We might choose not to pursue certain kinds of pleasure because they come with pains (PD 8), because they are short in duration and small in extent (PD 9), or simply because they are relatively unimportant or irrelevant next to the big obstacles to eudaimonia (PD 10).
Contrary to the unfair imputation of Cicero, Epicurus clearly doesn’t actually encourage the lifestyle of “profligates” (On Moral Ends, Book 2). What he is doing is being careful to identify where his objections lie. Unlike Cicero and his ilk, Epicurus is unwilling to simply wave his hands in the general direction of the impulsive pleasure-seekers and say “such pleasures are bad.” Epicurus is reiterating that he doesn’t have any fundamental objection to any pleasure, but that he still doesn’t recommend the life of sensual profligacy because it simply isn’t an effective way to address our real problems.
Putting these doctrines together in a condensed form, then, we are left with this core advice:
Don’t pursue pleasures that bring you more pain in the long run.
Put most of your energy into pursuing pleasures that are stable and long-lasting, and that affect your whole body or your mind, rather than short-lasting pleasures that affect only an isolated part of your body.
Always keep in mind that sensual pleasures are insignificant compared to the big rewards of philosophy: freedom from fear, illusion, and unsatisfiable desires.
This all seems very sound to me. Most of it should be obvious—of course it makes sense to choose pleasures that don’t bring you more pain overall, of course long-lasting pleasures are better than momentary ones, of course fine dining is not a solution to existential angst. But most people don’t live as if they’ve truly internalized these ideas. Pleasures are immediately appealing, and it is easy to be drawn towards whatever nearest pleasure beckons, especially when the messaging on offer is split between the censorious moralists who say “pleasure is bad” as a simplistic and unjustified assertion and commercial marketing which simply says “you deserve pleasure—buy it from us.” Fewer voices are advocating the wise middle ground of prudence and common sense. But that is exactly what Epicurus does.
Original Text
8. οὐδεμία ἡδονὴ καθʼἑαυτὸ κακόν· ἀλλὰ τὰ τινῶν ἡδονῶν ποιητικὰ πολλαπλασίους ἐπιφέρει τὰς οχλήσεις τῶν ἡδονῶν.
9. εἰ κατεπυκνοῦτο πᾶσα ἡδονὴ καὶ χρόνῳ καὶ περὶ ὅλον τὸ ἄθροισμα ὑπῆρχεν ἢ τὰ κυριώτατα μέρη τῆς φύσεως, οὐκ ἄν ποτε διέφερον ἀλλήλων αἱ ἡδοναί.
10. εἰ τὰ ποιητικὰ τῶν περὶ τοὺς ἀσώτους ἡδονῶν ἔλυε τοὺς φόβους τῆς διανοίας τούς τε περὶ μετεώρων καὶ θανάτου καὶ ἀλγηδόνων, ἔτι τε τὸ πέρας τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν ἐδίδασκεν, οὐκ ἄν ποτε εἴχομεν ὅ τι μεμψαίμεθα αὐτοῖς, πανταχόθεν ἐκπληρουμένοις τῶν ἡδονῶν καὶ οὐδαμόθεν οὔτε τὸ ἀλγοῦν οὔτε τὸ λυπούμενον ἔχουσιν, ὅπερ ἐστὶ τὸ κακόν.
According to Norman DeWitt’s Epicurus and His Philosophy, Epicurus’ point is to deny the essential differences between pleasures (235). For him, “condensation” refers to something like being saved from shipwreck. This seems like an extremely intense pleasure, but Dewitt thinks that Epicurus’ underlying argument is that living (or health, or security) is actually always this pleasurable—the compression is a superficial trait and impression, not a reflection of actual greater magnitude of pleasure. Similarly, distinctions people draw between the pleasures of different parts of the body are overrated—all pleasures are of fundamentally equal standing in Epicurus’ view. In sum, according to DeWitt, the point is something like this: If pleasures didn’t vary in their density in time or in what parts of our body they affect, we would not be distracted by these appearances and would recognize that they are all the same.
I think there is some good Epicureanism here (appreciate static pleasures; don’t be mislead into chasing the most apparently intense pleasures), but I’m skeptical as a specific textual reading of this maxim. Epicurus literally says that “if pleasures didn’t vary in these qualities, then they would not differ.” The standard and most natural way of understanding this is that the pleasures do differ in the specified qualities. To twist this into DeWitt’s preferred meaning, we have to insert some significant implications that just aren’t there, something like: “if the pleasures didn’t vary in these [unimportant] qualities, then [we would see that] they do not differ [as they fundamentally don’t].”
According to Long and Sedley’s The Hellenistic Philosophers, the saying has another meaning (Volume 2, 118). They adopt an interpretation they attribute to Gosling and Taylor’s The Greeks on Pleasure, in which this maxim is suggesting a thought experiment: if all the pleasures of life were compressed together and applied to all of our sentient parts, the result would be the maximum possible pleasure, whatever its source. Since it is not possible for individual pleasures to be thus condensed, the strategy of the pleasure-collector (discussed in the next maxim) is not viable.
I don’t find this persuasive either. The overall subject of the saying clearly seems to be the comparison of different pleasures. As such, it seems most natural to understand “if all pleasures were condensed in time” as meaning “if each pleasure were compressed to an equivalent time, so they no longer differed in duration and could be accurately compared,” rather than “if all the pleasures of the world were packed together to form a continuous and unintermittent experience.” It’s just a strange and artificial construction, and none of the other translators and commentators I’ve seen understand “compression” in this way. So, while there is some good Epicureanism in this interpretation too, in the sense that Epicurus doesn’t endorse the maximal collection of sensual pleasures as a good strategy, I don’t think this explanation fits well with the text we have either.