In the first post of the Epicureanism 101 series, we talked about Epicurus’s division between types of desires. He divides between necessary, unnecessary, and unnatural desires to provide us a guide to focus our behavior.
But focus it toward what? That’s the question we answer in today’s post.
For the Epicurean, we aim for pleasure! That is to say that pleasure, for the Epicurean, is our final end or goal. It’s how we achieve eudaimonia.
So, in this post, I’ll say a bit about pleasure.
Two Kinds of Hedonism
Epicurean ethics is an example of an approach called hedonism, but not the only example. Any hedonistic ethics centers the pursuit of pleasure, either the pleasure of humanity as a whole or individual people.
When people first hear the word ‘hedonism,’ they probably think about the mindless pursuit of personal gratification. But, as we’ll see, that’s not what it’s about.
Readers probably begin with the Cyrenaic version in mind. The Cyrenaics were a group of ancient philosophers who argued that the highest good is bodily pleasure, or pleasure of the senses. That might seem like it matches our first impression. However, even this kind of hedonism recognizes the need to carefully monitor and govern our pleasures. The Cyrenaics wouldn’t endorse things like addiction or drug use, even if those things bring a brief sense of bodily pleasure.
In the long term, those things just bring pain.
The Epicureans endorse a different kind of hedonism from the Cyrenaics even further removed from the common stereotype. For the Epicurean, mental pleasures are more intense than bodily pleasures. Furthermore, they argue that pains of the mind (e.g., anxiety) are more intense than pains of the body. This shift in focus away from bodily pleasure leads to a very different story about how to live our best life.
Unlike the Cyrenaic, then, the Epicurean focuses on achieving mental pleasure and avoiding mental pain. In addition, they take a longer term view of pleasure. They place it into the context of one’s entire life. For obvious reasons, then, the Epicurean also recommends against gluttony, additions, or intense drug use. Indeed, they have even greater reason than the Cyrenaic to critically evaluate pleasures in order to avoid pain.
Why Pleasure?
So, that’s great. We’ve got a hedonistic ethics. But why does Epicurus find pleasure key to living the good life?
For one, he points out that people are born naturally with a direction toward pleasure. He points to the infant, who naturally comes to move toward pleasure and away from pain. Epicurus thinks that our natural state tells us a lot about what kinds of people we are.
Some philosophers think this kind of argument makes Epicurus a psychological hedonist. This is a person who argues that the pursuit of pleasure underlies our behavior, as a kind of hardwired motivation. However, it’s far from clear that Epicurus was really a psychological hedonist in the modern sense. For the ancient Greeks, appeals to nature typically stand next to ethics. Their project isn’t one of reducing values to facts in a modern sense.
But also, Epicurean hedonism presents a natural evolution from the childhood striving toward pleasure. As we grow older, we cultivate a more mature sense of the kind of pleasure we seek. And we do so while staying true to our natural state. When we’re at our most developed, we find ourselves able to sort each of our desires into its proper role in our lives. That point takes us back to the first post of Epicureanism 101.
Active and Static Pleasures
Let’s get into a bit more detail before we leave this topic. Epicurus divides pleasures into active (kinetic) and static (katastematic) pleasures.
Active pleasures are the ones that come to mind when we think about pleasure today. They’re the positive sensations involved in things like eating, drinking, having sex, or engaging in other enjoyable activities. And they’re the ones the Cyrenaics aimed toward.
By contrast, static pleasure is a kind of tranquil state one achieves once they eliminate physical and mental pain and angst. Furthermore, these tranquil states also produce positive sensations Epicurus identifies as ‘pleasures.’
Epicurus wants us to focus on static pleasures, rather than active ones. He doesn’t tell us to shun active pleasure, exactly. But they’re not the main goal. Rather, Epicurus sees static pleasure as the key to achieve happiness or flourishing in life, which the Greeks called ‘eudaimonia.’
Once we achieve tranquillity, we’ve simply maxed out our pleasure. We can’t increase it beyond that. We can, and should, continue satisfying our natural and necessary desires, such as those for food, drink, shelter, and friendship. But once we hit tranquilly, we can only vary our pleasures.
This means that once we are tranquil, even eating a delicious, fancy dinner won’t increase our pleasure!
Summary
With these first two posts in the Epicureanism 101 series, we should now understand Epicurus’s philosophy at a very basic level. Our main aim in life is to achieve happiness and flourishing (eudaimonia). To do that, we should pursue pleasure (hedonism).
However, ‘pleasure’ refers primarily to a state of tranquillity that produces positive sensations. We achieve the highest pleasures by removing all mental and physical pain. In our daily lives, we do this by satisfying natural and necessary desires. To live well, we should seek friendship and satisfy our simple needs for food, drink, and shelter.
