epicurus
Raphael, "School of Athens" 1511
(Detail of Epicurus) Vatican Palace, Rome
As we have indicated, Plato maintained that the good life has
nothing to do with pleasure. Aristotle moderated this
doctrine. Although he did not think that the good life was
identical with a life of pleasure, he thought that
"pleasure must be in some way an ingredient of happiness".
Epicurus disagreed with both of them. Epicurus was the
exponent of a type of philosophy which has persisted down to the
present time. He held a view which is sometimes called "Hedonism",
the doctrine that pleasure is the only good.
The influence of his philosophy can be judged from the fact that
the English language contains the word "epicure". As with many
words, however, the meaning of the word epicure as it is now
used does not represent accurately Epicurus' philosophy. An
epicurean is now depicted as a person whose main
delight consists in the enjoyment of exotic or fastidiously
prepared food and rare wines. As a matter of fact, Epicurus
himself suffered for years from stomach trouble and was
never an epicure in the modem sense.
The ethical philosophy of Epicurus consists mainly of advice for
living moderately but pleasurably. He considered pleasure to be
good, but he also realized that if a person seeks pleasure too
actively, pain will follow. If we drink too much we will suffer
headaches the next day.
Epicurus' philosophy may be seen as instructions designed to help
us achieve pleasure & to help us to avoid pain.
If one engages in a life of pleasure which leads to pain
then such a life would be regarded as a bad one by Epicurus.
Since some pleasures are obviously accompanied by pain, Epicurus
distinguished between those pleasures which are accompanied by
pain ("dynamic" pleasures ) and those which are not ( 'passive'
pleasures ). Epicurus regarded only the latter as good.
Sexual love, for example, is bad because it is accompanied by
fatigue, remorse and depression. Other "dynamic" pleasures are
gluttony, fame & drinking. All of these are
bad because they are accompanied by pain: gluttony will lead to
indigestion, fame may be accompanied by all sorts of distress,
drinking will lead to headaches, disease, & so forth.
As a result Epicurus advocated (and led) a life which we now think
very ascetic. This is because he believed that it is better to
avoid pain than to seek pleasure if it will produce pain.
He is remembered for his simple belief that "if you live according to nature you
will never be poor."
Friendship, on the other hand, is a "passive pleasure".
It is not accompanied by pain and therefore is permitted &
encouraged by him.
Hedonism, in philosophy, has two forms: "Psychological Hedonism",
and "Ethical Hedonism". Psychological Hedonism is the idea
that we in fact do pursue pleasure, & only pleasure, in our lives.
All activities, according to this theory, are directed toward
gaining pleasure & avoiding of pain.
Epicurus is generally seen as being a Psychological Hedonist.
He apparently believed that all people were motivated in their
daily lives to attempt to acquire pleasure. Epicurus is also an
Ethical Hedonist (with some qualifications). Ethical Hedonism
is the view that we not only in fact seek pleasure, but further
that we ought to do so since pleasure alone is good.
Psychological Hedonism does not entail Ethical Hedonism. For
example, we might believe that we are motivated to seek
pleasure, and we also might believe that we ought not to
do so. In fact, this is roughly what Epicurus believed. His
view was that even if we are motivated to acquire pleasure,
certain pleasures are bad & should be avoided.
On the other hand, he held that some pleasures, such as friendship,
conversation, philosophy & so on, ought to be cultivated; & the
good life consists in acquiring pleasures of this sort. He can
therefore be interpreted as holding a limited form of Ethical
Hedonism, as well as a psychological version of the theory.
kinds of hedonism
According to Psychological Hedonism every conscious action is
motivated by the search for pleasure. Whether we are a hermit,
or whether we seek fame, in either case (if we accept
Psychological Hedonism) we are motivated to act
as we do because we are striving for pleasure. What the theory
attempts to do is to provide a single explanation for every
possible type of conscious or voluntary action we engage in.
Consider any kind of conscious behaviour - why do we do it?
The answer is always the same - we are seeking pleasure.
Here we need to mention the distinction between 'means' and
'ends'. Some things may not be worth having in themselves, are
but worth having because they help us to achieve other goals.
On the other hand, other things may be worth having in themselves.
They are, as philosophers say, 'intrinsically valuable'.
We value them not because they help us to achieve something else,
but for their own sakes. Exercise, for example, may not be worth
doing in its own right but it has value in that, by doing it, we will
become healthy, which is valuable in itself. In terms of our
distinction, exercise is valuable as a 'means' while health
is valuable as an 'end'. The argument of the Psychological Hedonist
is that the ultimate end towards which all activity is
directed is pleasure. Fame, riches, success are all means to other
ends. Thus, all conscious human behaviour can be explained
by saying that we are motivated ultimately by pleasure -
it is the end for which we all aim. Put this way, Psychological
Hedonism has been a theory which has attracted many followers,
and has had a great influence on the history of Western thought.
Ethical Hedonism, on the other hand, goes beyond the psychological
account: it holds that we ought to seek pleasure, for ultimately
this is the only thing worth having for itself. Both aspects of
Hedonism seem plausible.
In so far as this part of Hedonism is interpreted as a purely
scientlfic account of our conscious behaviour it does not
withstand present-day scientific scrutiny. Psychologists
agree that we are sometimes motivated by the search for
pleasure, but they go on to say that such is not always
the case. Some people may begin by trying to acquire riches
as a means to pleasure, after a time they may come to regard
wealth as an end in itself. In psychological language, they
become 'fixated' upon the acquisition of wealth and disregard
the use to which it may be put for acquiring pleasure. (Such
people are commonly called 'misers'.)
These people may be so strongly motivated by the attempt
to acquire money that they may disregard or even
reject the pursuit of pleasure as being of any value to them if it
interferes with the acquisition of money. We are all familiar with
newspaper accounts of men and women who are found living in
squalid conditions even though they may possess a fortune hidden
in the mattress. The acquisition of money, not pleasure, becomes
an end for them - and for this reason, psychologists tell us that
Psychological Hedonism cannot be accepted as an accurate picture
of all conscious human motivation. And this is merely one instance
of such exceptions. Unfortunately, Psychological Hedonism is not
simply a scientific theory, and it cannot be refuted merely by an
appeal to the latest scientific findings.
The Psychological Hedonist will claim that the miser actually
gains pleasure by hoarding money. The miser is merely giving up
the usual means for acquiring p]easure, such as living in a decent
home, eating well and so on. Money has not become an end in itself
for him - rather it has become the sole means for achieving
pleasure; but pleasure is still the end for which he strives. At
this stage, the theory has been removed from the area where
a scientific finding can possibly confirm or refute it. It has
now become a philosophical, rather than a scientific, problem,
for no collection of facts can be gathered which would resolve
the problem.
But when Psychological Hedonism is interpreted in this way, it
can still be attacked on philosophical grounds. For when any
theory cannot be refuted by facts then it loses its explanatory
force. It becomes true 'by definition' but no longer refers to the
world in the way in which scientific theories do, since its truth
or falsity no longer depends upon the facts. When this happens,
the theory may be rejected on the ground that it has lost its power
to provide us with a satisfactory explanation of the facts it
started out to explain. It has now defined 'pleasure' as 'what people
desire', so that in asserting that all people are motivated by a
desire for pleasure it is asserting no more than the tautology that
'all people are motivated by a desire for what they desire'. It has
become irrefutable by becoming trivial and not worth refuting.
Ethical Hedonism, as contrasted with Psychological Hedonism
can be divided into two parts, which may be regarded as answers
to the questions: 'What is the good life for people" and 'How ought
people to behave ?' The answers, according to the Ethical Hedonist
are that the good life for us consists of a life of pleasure, and that
we ought to act so as to acquire pleasure.
Epicurus, the founder of Hedonism, recognized that some pleasures
may produce pain. For example, smoking opium may give us
pleasure, but it will produce physical and mental sickness if
persisted in. It thus appears that some pleasures are bad and if so
we cannot say simply that the good life is the same as a life of
pleasure.
Epicurus attempted to escape this difficulty by finding pleasures
that do not produce painful consequences, and then argue that
such pleasures constitute the good life. But this approach will
not do, since even friendship, which he regards as a passive
pleasure is sometimes accompanied by problems. For example,
if a friend dies, we may suffer a lot from sadness.
A second way of defending the view that pleasure is good is to
hold that pleasure itself is never bad - the pleasure one gets
from smoking opium and from a friend. It is only the painful
consequences themselves which are bad.
This defence is logically good, but it has practical
difficulties which make it doubtful that Ethical
Hedonism can offer acceptable guidance in our daily life.
We cannot, as a matter of fact, separate the painful consequences
of an action from the pleasurable ones. If we smoke opium, we
may be given pleasure, to be sure, but we will also suffer pain as
a result of doing so. To advise one, as Ethical Hedonists do, to
seek pleasure is in effect frequently equivalent to advising one
to seek pain as well, since the two sometimes cannot be
disassociated.
Ethical Hedonism therefore, must sometimes advise us not to
pursue pleasures when those pleasures are followed by pain,
and thus its practical effect seems incompatible with the theory.
Finally, let us consider the doctrine that men ought to behave so
as to acquire pleasure. This view likewise seems plausible at
first but further reflection shows that it violates our
common-sense belief about how we ought to behave. Consider
the following case:
A soldier is put on guard duty at an important post. S/he is forced
to walk back and forth, and this is monotonous. It is a
hot night. It would be more pleasant not to remain but
to leave for a bar where s/he can have a cool drink. Most people
would say that if s/he deserted the post for this reason, then s/he
would be acting wrongly. If s/he said that s/he acted as s/he
ought to have done because s/he was seeking pleasure this defence
would be laughed at. The plain person feels that sometimes we
should act so as to acquire pleasure, but not always. Sometimes
we have obligations which we must fulfil and in these cases we
ought to behave so as to fulfil them even if in doing so we do not
acquire pleasure. This objection shows that it cannot be regarded
as an adequate account of such behaviour.
Hedonism, even though theoretically attractive, can thus be seen
to violate our ordinary feelings about what constitutes moral
behaviour. Do we not object on moral grounds to the 'playboy' ?
The objection is not merely that he seeks superficial pleasures,
but more fundamentally, that pleasure is not the sole object which
we should strive for. The average person is with regard to
pleasure, more Aristotelian than Epicurean. We feel that
sometimes pleasure is a worthwhile object, and that no life can
be happy without some pleasure in it, but we find the doctrine that
pleasure is the only worthwhile goal, objectionable. We reject it as
containing advice that he cannot in fact follow.