The Limits of Pleasure

Translation Tuesday: Principal Doctrines 18–20

Which one of these oaks is most complete? Photo by Bob Wick/BLM (CC BY 2.0)

Principal Doctrine 18:

Pleasure in the flesh is not increased once the pain of want is removed, but is only varied. Understanding these matters and those like them—the other subjects which have produced the greatest fears of the mind—produces the limit of mental pleasure.

Principal Doctrine 19:

Infinite time and finite time contain equal pleasure, when pleasure’s limits are measured by reason.

Principal Doctrine 20:

The flesh takes the limits of pleasure to be infinite, such that infinite time would be needed to provide it. The mind, however, having rationally understood the goal and limit of the flesh and having resolved the fears about eternity [after death], produces a complete life, and no longer feels a need for infinite time. Overall then, the mind neither flees pleasure, nor, when circumstances bring about its departure from life, does it die as if falling short in any way from the best life.

Commentary

Today we’re hitting the halfway mark in our progress through Epicurus’ forty Principal Doctrines (you can see previous entries in the series here). All three of today’s maxims are occupied with describing the limits to pleasure. This is a very important notion for properly grasping the Epicurean version of hedonism, which is very prone to misunderstanding, since the school’s ideas about pleasure are much more precise and thoughtful than the loose and casual ways in which pleasure is normally discussed.

18. Pleasure in the flesh is not increased once the pain of want is removed, but is only varied. Understanding these matters and those like them—the other subjects which have produced the greatest fears of the mind—produces the limit of mental pleasure.

PD 18 opens the subject by first distinguishing two different categories of pleasure: physical and mental. This is not inherently a strange concept, but one which can easily be elided when people start thinking about the idea of maximizing pleasure—how does one weigh physical and mental pleasures against each other when deciding preferences? Epicurus doesn’t necessarily think there is a direct tradeoff. Instead, he advises us to maximize both: he believes that if we properly understand the respective limits of physical and mental pleasures, it is entirely possible for us to pursue and attain the highest degree of both.

In regards to physical pleasure, Epicurus’ position is idiosyncratic compared to the common understanding, but I think essentially convincing in its practical implications. According to him, physical pleasure reaches its peak when all pain is removed—any stimulus in addition to that point is mere “variation” or “embellishment,” rather than an actual augmentation of pleasure. We’ve encountered this idea before in the first half of PD 3:

PD 3: The greatest magnitude of pleasure possible is the removal of all suffering.

Now, it is true that this isn’t how most people think of pleasure. In normal life, we might imagine ourselves to be in a perfectly pain-free state, and then to receive additional physical pleasure through some stimulus—maybe we eat a tasty treat or receive a massage. I think, however, that Epicurus would hesitate to endorse that description of our experience.

In general, he seems to think that many of our “pleasures” should actually be conceived of as alleviation of pain. We eat to relieve the pain of hunger—eating food will only be pleasurable if we have some hunger, while if we are entirely satiated, the food will no longer be a source of physical pleasure to us. Perhaps all physical pleasures are like this: the shoulder rub feels good because we were experiencing some degree of painful tension—this also has a point of satiation. Food, drink, massage, sex—all could be seen as relieving some form of pain or tension. To actually have all those painful appetites and desires fully satisfied would be to reach a point where further physical stimulus adds no further pleasure. If that eating and massage-receiving is pleasurable, then we must not be in a pain-free state.

Perhaps, however, you are unwilling to abandon all distinctions between different physical pleasures. You could alleviate your hunger by eating a bowl of plain rice, or by eating a delicious meal of varied tastes and textures. Isn’t the second one more pleasurable? I think a few routes of defense are possible here. First, one could argue that the more varied meal is more pleasing to us because our hunger is in fact more sophisticated than “present” or “absent”—our bodies require different nutrients, and so eating a more diverse diet than unvarying plain rice will probably be beneficial to the health of our body, avoiding more pain in the long run. First then, I think a properly fleshed-out modern Epicureanism will admit that we do have some legitimate need for variety.

A second defense is to make some concession to natural language, while maintaining the spirit of the Epicurean argument: if you want to call your gourmet meal more pleasurable than the bowl of plain rice, I don’t really mind, as long as you are willing to concede that the additional pleasure of that fancier meal is relatively miniscule compared to the hedonic difference between “satiated” and “actually starving.” In fact, it is arguable that even this is not actually a contradiction of the Epicurean terminology: some, notably Norman DeWitt, prefer to translate poikilletai as “is embellished” rather than “is varied.” If Epicurus calls such things “embellishments,” then perhaps “pleasure is not increased” really means something like “pleasure is not increased to any significant degree,” since I think “embellishments” as a concept could be fairly understood as “tiny additions.”

That was a long commentary on just the first sentence (I’ll get faster). The second half of the maxim describes the limit of mental pleasures. Here, Epicurus makes a similar argument: pleasure in our mind is maximized when all of our fears and distressing thoughts have been resolved. (The words used elsewhere for this pairing are aponia for the lack of physical pain and ataraxia for the freedom from mental distress, i.e. untroubledness). Epicurus does not go into detail here, but simply summarizes the largest sources of mental pains as stemming from a misunderstanding of “these matters” (i.e. the true limits of physical pleasure as just described) and “things like them” (i.e. any other false beliefs that might cause us pain).

According to Epicurus, those are the big sources of mental distress, and their resolution is consequently the biggest source of mental pleasure. As for the more everyday mental pleasures we might think of, I think they can be conceived of analogously to physical pleasures. What we might think of as positive pleasures—the happiness of seeing a friend again, the relief of knowing some danger has been averted, excitement about an upcoming experience—can all be understood as reliefs from pain. We missed our friend, we were afraid of something, we wanted distraction from more boring or otherwise painful objects of our attention. Such day-to-day gratifications are legitimate pleasures, but Epicurus seems to consider them to be quite small compared to the great sources of mental grief. This seems fair to me.

Again, I am not too much of a stickler over the language here. If you find this reframing to be an imperfect fit for some pleasures you can think of, then I am not too bothered if you prefer to continue speaking of purely positive pleasures, such that do not consist in the relief of pain. But I would still encourage you to take seriously the idea that such pleasures are very small compared to the great pains of life. Just as obtaining your preferred condiments is inconsequential if you are starving, the mental stimulus of your preferred genre of video entertainment is inconsequential if your life is dominated by fear, anxiety, and unsatisfiable longings.

19. Infinite time and finite time contain equal pleasure, when pleasure’s limits are measured by reason.

Now that we’ve established the limits of pleasure according to reason, we’re already halfway to understanding PD 19. The things that truly enhance pleasure, in the Epicurean conception, are those that alleviate pain. Experiencing varied additional stimuli can be an agreeable embellishment to life, but it does not significantly increase your pleasure if you obtain a first-rate croissant, a $500 pair of shoes, and a luxury car. Collecting things and experiences is unimportant. Therefore, a greater period of time does not contain greater pleasure—it simply extends a given level of pleasure over a longer duration.

I won’t take up more space on this here, since this topic has already been discussed in Death Is Nothing To Us: Part One.

20. The flesh takes the limits of pleasure to be infinite, such that infinite time would be needed to provide it. The mind, however, having rationally understood the goal and limit of the flesh and having resolved the fears about eternity [after death], produces a complete life, and no longer feels a need for infinite time. Overall then, the mind neither flees pleasure, nor, when circumstances bring about its departure from life, does it die as if falling short in any way from the best life.

Principal Doctrine 20 summarizes the preceding two maxims and adds a little extra nuance. The first sentence is an acknowledgment that to our bodies, it feels like additional pleasure is possible. The claims of PD 18 and PD 19 are not asserted to be intuitively obvious: as a matter of simple sensory experience, our bodies feel like they would like to have their tastebuds stimulated by pleasant flavors over and over again. It is our minds that can perceive that such stimulation does not help the body to achieve a truly higher level of pleasure.

The other thing needed in order to discard the desire for infinite time is to resolve our “fears about eternity.” I agree with Cyril Bailey that this is probably referring to traditional notions of an afterlife, the “eternity” that we would experience after the dissolution of our temporary bodies. As Epicureanism teaches, such fears are groundless, since we will have no consciousness after death. This unjustified fear has also been discussed in Death Is Nothing To Us: Part One, as well as way back in Principal Doctrine 2.

The final sentence clarifies the proper orientation of our mind towards pleasure, given all that we have said in the previous maxims. We have no reason to flee pleasure: both bodily and mental pleasure are naturally appealing and intrinsically choiceworthy. But we should understand that increasing the duration of our life does not increase our pleasure. That is achieved through resolving our bodily pains and dispelling all the false beliefs that disturb our peace of mind.

A life can be complete, today. Your life can be “the best life” that any life can be, today. There is no need to wait.

Read the complete series on the Principal Doctrines here.

Original Text

18. οὐκ ἐπαύξεται ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ ἡ ἡδονή, ἐπειδὰν ἅπαξ τὸ κατʼ ἔνδειαν ἀλγοῦν ἐξαιρεθῇ, ἀλλὰ μόνον ποικίλλεται. τῆς δὲ διανοίας τὸ πέρας τὸ κατὰ τὴν ἡδονὴν ἀπεγέννησεν ἥ τε τούτων αὐτῶν ἐκλόγισις καὶ τῶν ὁμογενῶν τούτοις, ὅσα τοὺς μεγίστους φόβους παρεσκεύαζε τῇ διανοίᾳ.

19. ὁ ἄπειρος χρόνος ἴσην ἔχει τὴν ἡδονὴν καὶ ὁ πεπερασμένος, ἐάν τις αὐτῆς τὰ πέρατα καταμετρήσῃ τῷ λογισμῷ.

20. ἡ μὲν σὰρξ ἀπέλαβε τὰ πέρατα τῆς ἡδονῆς ἄπειρα καὶ ἄπειρος αὐτὴν χρόνος παρεσκεύασεν· ἡ δὲ διάνοια, τοῦ τῆς σαρκὸς τέλους καὶ πέρατος λαβοῦσα τὸν ἐπιλογισμὸν, καὶ τοὺς ὑπὲρ τοῦ αἰῶνος φόβους ἐκλύσασα, τὸν παντελῆ βίον παρεσκεύασεν, καὶ οὐθὲν ἔτι τοῦ ἀπείρου χρόνου προσεδεήθημεν· ἀλλʼ οὔτε ἔφυγε τὴν ἡδονὴν οὐδʼ ἡνίκα τὴν ἐξαγωγὴν ἐκ τοῦ ζῆν τὰ πράγματα παρεσκεύαζεν, ὡς ἐλλείπουσά τι τοῦ ἀρίστου βίου κατέστρεφεν.