Good to hear from you waterholic and this is a very interesting question that it would be good to see if others have suggestions. But first, it seems to me that if you are looking for an abstract syllogistic / logical proof that pleasure is the goal of life, Torquatus would tell you that while some Epicureans (including Torquatus himself) might accept that as a proper approach, that Epicurus himself did not:

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Epicurus places this standard in pleasure, which he lays down to be the supreme good, while pain is the supreme evil; and he founds his proof of this on the following considerations.

[30] Every creature, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure and delights therein as in its supreme good, while it recoils from pain as its supreme evil, and banishes that, so far as it can, from its own presence, and this it does while still uncorrupted, and while nature herself prompts unbiased and unaffected decisions. So he says we need no reasoning or debate to shew why pleasure is matter for desire, pain for aversion. These facts he thinks are simply perceived, just as the fact that fire is hot, snow is white, and honey sweet, no one of which facts are we bound to support by elaborate arguments; it is enough merely to draw attention to the fact; and there is a difference between proof and formal argument on the one hand and a slight hint and direction of the attention on the other; the one process reveals to us mysteries and things under a veil, so to speak; the other enables us to pronounce upon patent and evident facts. Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain?

[31] There are however some of our own school, who want to state these principles with greater refinement, and who say that it is not enough to leave the question of good or evil to the decision of sense, but that thought and reasoning also enable us to understand both that pleasure in itself is matter for desire and that pain is in itself matter for aversion. So they say that there lies in our minds a kind of natural and inbred conception leading us to feel that the one thing is t for us to seek, the other to reject. Others again, with whom I agree, finding that many arguments are alleged by philosophers to prove that pleasure is not to be reckoned among things good nor pain among things evil, judge that we ought not to be too condent about our case, and think that we should lead proof and argue carefully and carry on the debate about pleasure and pain by using the most elaborate reasonings.

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My view would be that Epicurus rather than Torquatus was right, and that we need to keep in mind strict limitations on what we can hope to accomplish by abstract logic. Any proofs that we are going to find convincing are going to be direct appeals to evidence that we ourselves can feel (rather than identify abstractly apart from feeling).

Edit--ok, clearly Cassius and I are of one mind!

My answer is a hard no.

There is no possible claim about what constitutes the proper end of life that meets a test of falsifiability, in part because of an observation made by David Hume.

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The is–ought problem...is the thesis that, if a reasoner only has access to non-moral and non-evaluative factual premises, the reasoner cannot logically infer the truth of moral statements.

Applying this to the pleasure principle, I might think I'm on solid ground by starting things out this way:

"Every living thing, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure and recoils from pain." Starting with that, what would it take for us to get to this? "We ought to live our own lives like this, pursuing pleasure as the goal of our lives and avoiding pain as much as we can."

What we're missing is at least one extra premise; something to go between those two statements to connect them in some logical way. But this doesn't give us an objective truth about the proper end of life--it just gives us another argument from logic. What Epicurus actually does with regard to the two statements above (adapted from the Torquatus material) is to offer a non-logical approach.

Epicurus sets out to show this as follows: Every living thing, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure, and delights in it as its chief good. It also recoils from pain as its chief evil, and avoids pain so far as is possible. Nature’s own unbiased and honest judgment leads every living thing to do this from birth, and it continues to do this as long as it remains uncorrupted. Epicurus refuses to admit any need for discussion to prove that pleasure is to be desired and pain is to be avoided, because these facts, he thinks, are perceived by the senses, in the same way that fire is hot, snow is white, and honey is sweet. None of these things need be proved by elaborate argument — it is enough merely to draw attention to them. For there is a difference, he holds, between a formal logical proof of a thing, and a mere notice or reminder. Logical proofs are the method for discovering abstract and difficult truths, but on the other hand a mere notice is all that is required for indicating facts that are obvious and evident.

Just in case anyone is not aware of this section of Diogenes Laertius, this too would be relevant to the central question, which is lesser role that Epicurus gave to the use of abstract / dialectical logic in the determination of truth:

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Logic they reject as misleading. For they say it is sufficient for physicists to be guided by what things say of themselves. Thus in The Canon Epicurus says that the tests of truth are the sensations and concepts [preconceptions / anticipations] and the feelings; the Epicureans add to these the intuitive apprehensions of the mind. And this he says himself too in the summary addressed to Herodotus and in the Principal Doctrines. For, he says, all sensation is irrational and does not admit of memory; for it is not set in motion by itself, nor when it is set in motion by something else, can it add to it or take from it. Nor is there anything which can refute the sensations. For a similar sensation cannot refute a similar because it is equivalent in validity, nor a dissimilar a dissimilar, for the objects of which they are the criteria are not the same; nor again can reason, for all reason is dependent upon sensations; nor can one sensation refute another, for we attend to them all alike. Again, the fact of apperception confirms the truth of the sensations. And seeing and hearing are as much facts as feeling pain. From this it follows that as regards the imperceptible we must draw inferences from phenomena. For all thoughts have their origin in sensations by means of coincidence and analogy and similarity and combination, reasoning too contributing something.

Also so as to be clear for others reading, what it seems Epicurus would reject is this question in itself -

Quote from waterholic

If I require my nephew to accept that "pleasure is the valid natural goal in life", I would need to provide a falsifiability test: is there a hypothetical argument that if proven correct, my statement would be false?

As best I can determine Epicurus would say that you indeed "would not need" to provide any abstract logical proof at all, because logical proof tests are not the tests of human reality. The tests applicable to human reality are the perceptions we receive from the sensations, anticipations, and feelings, which we accept as the basis for all our reasoning. All validation tests are judged using those, not using "logical" word proofs. Words are tools just like virtue or hammers are tools, and they are very useful but limited, and they are not truth in themselves.

Also I think this is one area where later Epicureans went wrong in deviating from Epicurus. They should have stuck to Epicurrus' original insight and contention that logical word games are not the proper test of truth.

Or, at the very least, if they decided to engage in those logical word games they should have been rigorously clear that those word games were just that - word games with strictly limited usefulness.

And in fact perhaps they did make that distinction, but in relaying them through later years the limitations and qualifications were dropped from the discussion by later carriers who did not appreciate the importance of those limitations. Given Cicero's hostility to Epicurus he might well have been an example of someone who would cherrypick from the discussions to leave the logical debates while deleting the limitations in which they were framed. In Cicero's case it seems that he at least preserved that Epicurus had objected to logical proofs in this area, but he had to add in his own editorial commentary that he himself (speaking through Torquatus) agreed with the need for logical proofs.

Quote from waterholic

But couldnt the same approach be applied to Gods? I don't see or touch pleasure, in the same way I don't see or touch Gods. Yet, I feel it. Who is to say that someone doesn't feel God, ergo she is as right as I am?

Who is to say? That answer I think would be just like any other question, and only you can answer it by evaluating the evidence that is available to you and making the best decision that is possible to you.

If someone tells me that they have direct evidence of God then I tell them I am from Missouri and I ask them to "show me." If they can't, then I place their claim in the category of many other claims that are made without evidence that I can verify or have good reason to accept, and which I therefore reject.

That's something I think Epicurus was trying to be clear about: There ultimately is no "final arbiter" of right and wrong. There is no center of the universe to stand in and say that this perspective alone is the "right" perspective. There is no divine god or anyone else who knows everything and can say "this alone" is right. There is no realm of forms or essences -- no "true world" outside of our own to which to look to as authority. This is not reason for despair but reason to saddle up and get back on the horse and ride life as aggressively as you can to manage all the evidence and all the decisions available to you.

Quote from waterholic

What this implies is that I am designed in a way that this balance is a natural state for me. In a simple example, if I am about to die, have only 3 minutes left and have an option for a great pleasure at the cost of great pain (possibly life) of another, it would be consistent with the Epicurean pleasure/pain calculus to forego the pleasure, because in those minutes the knowledge of harm to another would cause us pain. Why? Because we are built that way and we don't need virtue, belief in afterlife punishment or diety to act that way.

I think I am agreeing with your example, but only because ultimately it comes down to "you have to determine yourself what is the most pleasurable course for you given all your mental and physical reactions." When you say "because we are built that way" I sense that you are wanting to look for an absolute answer that says for everyone that "altruism" or "the interests of others" are always to be chosen over "selfishness" or "your own interests." I don't think the facts or Epicurus lead in that direction and I would urge people away from that conclusion, or any other conclusion that implies that there is a "universal good" other than the fact that living beings have faculties of pleasure and pain.

And to carry that last point to a conclusion, I don't think Epicurus was a Benthamite and suggested that pleasure is out there floating in the air and that we should try to maximize "pleasure in general" or "the pleasure of everyone" no matter who is feeling it.

I think Epicurus is clear that each individual has to make that decision for themselves and decide what pleasure and pain is relevant to them. We can choose to be "Mother Theresa" and say that the pleasure of everyone in the world, or any stranger, is every bit as important to god (and to me) as the pleasure of my own spouse and children. Or we can choose to be much more limited and say that in the end the pleasure of our families and friends and ourselves is paramount. But either way, neither god nor platonic forms nor essences nor absolute justice nor anything else exists to justify the conclusion that one "must" or even "should" be selected one over the other. In the end most people seem to end up looking to what nature puts in them - which I gather to be stronger feelings for that which is close and less strong feelings for that which is distant.

Quote from Cassius

That's something I think Epicurus was trying to be clear about: There ultimately is no "final arbiter" of right and wrong. There is no center of the universe to stand in and say that this perspective alone is the "right" perspective. There is no divine god or anyone else who knows everything and can say "this alone" is right. There is no realm of forms or essences -- no "true world" outside of our own to which to look to as authority. This is not reason for despair but reason to saddle up and get back on the horse and ride life as aggressively as you can to manage all the evidence and all the decisions available to you.

Spot on!

I want to add that, in modern terms, deductive (“abstract”?) logic does not yield empirical truth – only coherency. (The opposite of “logical” in the deductive sense is not “false” but incoherent.)

Inductive logic (to my mind) yields no absolute empirical truths – but reliable probabilities (some of which may veer toward certainty in a subjective sense, even if not in terms of some strict objective “absolutism”).

We live in the empirical (experiential) world, and we have to rely on the evidence of our senses and reasoned induction therefrom – even informally, which is how we mostly go about it. That’s not a “problem” – certainly not one that can be “solved” by unquestioning “faith”. Or abstract logic.

In more metaphorical terms: we lay our bets as best we can. And keep going – as Cassius said: “saddle up and get back on the horse and ride life as aggressively as you can to manage all the evidence and all the decisions available to you.”

And that is my basis for agreeing with Joshua 's “hard no” (with his reference to Hume) as well. And is the only way I use that word “faith” – the best effective confidence I can muster in order to act in a real world where “abstract certainty” is not forthcoming. But absence of “abstract absolute certainty” is not the same as absence of reliable evidence.

And if someone thinks their evidence is more reliable than what now have, then “Show me.” I'll look.

Some Ideas from my side ( I often change between the stoic / epicurean perspective)

In Epicurean Philosphy virtue and pleasure are bound together.

Is the opposite falsifiable ? Or is virtue alone distinct from pleasure a better goal for life ?

That could be if a Stoic can proof me this thesis:

"Is there virtue or a virtuous act which brings in the short and long run no pleasure and no reduction of any pain ?"

Another question: Is there anywhere a table/summary for defense of pleasure as a goal of life ?

( I know for Epicurus this statement was obvious but even that is a statement and it seems for not clear / obvious for some other philosophies ).

So where go these philosophy wrong and why ( especially the Stoics ? In the naturalist philosophies they are the closest competitor I think ).

Here are some summarized attacks on this goal (pleasure):

Stoic Arguments Against Hedonism

Some notes on hedonism and the ancient criticisms made of it by Stoics and others.

donaldrobertson.name

What Seneca Really Said about Epicureanism

Survey of Seneca’s remarks about Epicurus in the Letters to Lucilius, and elsewhere.

donaldrobertson.name

Epictetus: Stoicism versus Epicureanism

Article outlining the criticisms of Epicureanism made by the Stoic Epictetus.

donaldrobertson.name

By the way does this book from Chrysippus still exist or does anyone know the content or the arguments made there ?

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The Stoics defined the goal of life as the attainment of wisdom and virtue. They frequently contrasted this with the common notion that pleasure (hedone) is the most important thing in life. Indeed, Chrysippus wrote one book entitled Proofs that Pleasure is not the End-in-chief of Action and another on Proofs that Pleasure is not a Good, i.e., pleasure is not intrinsically good at all let alone the supreme goal of life.

from:

Stoic Arguments Against Hedonism

Some notes on hedonism and the ancient criticisms made of it by Stoics and others.

donaldrobertson.name

Stoics advocate more "joy" instead of pleasure" ( only for the wise attainable according to the Stoics), what was there the greek term ? For pleasure it is "hedone".

Matteng your post led me back to the Wikipedia on Falsifiability:

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Falsifiability is a deductive standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses that was introduced by the philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934).^[B] He proposed it as the cornerstone solution to both the problem of induction and the problem of demarcation.

A theory or hypothesis is falsifiable (or refutable) if it can be logically contradicted by an empirical test using existing technologies. Popper insisted that, as a logical criterion, falsifiability is distinct from the related concept "capacity to be proven wrong" discussed in Lakatos' falsificationism.^[C][D] Even being a logical criterion, its purpose is to make the theory predictive and testable, and thus useful in practice.

Popper opposed falsifiability to the intuitively similar concept of verifiability that was then current in logical positivism. His argument goes that the only way to verify a claim such as "All swans are white" would be if one could theoretically observe all swans,^[E] which is not possible. Instead, falsifiability searches for the anomalous instance, such that observing a single black swan is theoretically reasonable and sufficient to logically falsify the claim. On the other hand, the Duhem–Quine thesis says that definitive experimental falsifications are impossible^[1] and that no scientific hypothesis is by itself capable of making predictions, because an empirical test of the hypothesis requires one or more background assumptions.^[2]

Are you thinking that there is anything in that Stoic material that gets to the issue of falsifiability of the Epicurean position? Or of the link between virtue and pleasure that Epicurus states? While there is a link Epicurus is very clear that virtue is a tool for pleasure and not an end in itself.

If you are not familiar with The Torquatus position in On Ends, and the statement of Diogenes of Oinoanda in Fragment I think you would find those interesting:

Torquatus on Virtue vs Pleasure

Diogenes Fragment 32

Late to this conversation, but there do seem to be some people who try to argue that psychological hedonism is empirically falsifiable by establishing empirically that altruism is possible (with the buried assumption that if possible, altruism is good and recommended). I have been as yet unconvinced, but the main people trying to establish this from a psychological perspective are Daniel Batson and (more recently) Paul Bloom. In the Philosophy Bites interview with Bloom, the blunt British hosts sort of reassert that it's not falsifiable.

I am late to this conversation as well, but it does contain some ideas I have been reflecting on recently that I wish to share and welcome the input of others!

As of late, I have actually been implementing more Stoic teachings and practices in my life, so the question of pleasure being the sole goal of life (and if it's falsifiable) has crossed my mind. As of now, I can say as others have, that it is not falsifiable. As rule of judgment goes, it is not my place to judge another individuals pursuits as far as they cause no harm to myself or others. The Epicurean goal of pleasure (as defined in his teachings) is in fact a most noble life pursuit in my opinion.

I can also attest to the argument that living creatures naturally want pleasure and actively pursue it, while trying to avoid pain. Even the Stoic school has preferred indifferents!

That said, an argument against propping up pleasure as the only good in life, is that it can lead to more states of psychological unrest, as pleasure is never a guaranteed and we often faces forms of hardship just as much if not more than pleasure, no matter how we may try to mitigate the pain and amplify the pleasure.

Can it be argued here that ataraxia is more difficult to obtain/ maintain when faced under the duress of pain?

Quote from A_Gardner

That said, an argument against propping up pleasure as the only good in life, is that it can lead to more states of psychological unrest, as pleasure is never a guaranteed and we often faces forms of hardship

Yes it certainly can..... and ....

Quote from A_Gardner

Can it be argued here that ataraxia is more difficult to obtain/ maintain when faced under the duress of pain?

Yes it certainly can..... and .....

Both of the questions are exactly why I think it is such a terrible fallacy to accept the consensus view that "tranquility" or even "ataraxia" (which I think is best to translate into English and call it for what it is - "absence of disturbance") is the Epicurean goal of life!

Not shouting at you here but this gives me another opportunity to get out the soapbox:

Of COURSE pleasure is not guaranteed, and OF COURSE we should feel psychological unrest if we run into obstacles to pleasure that we can do something about, which is the case of many or most of them. Should we just crawl into a hole and die and say "Oh me oh my I could have been so happy today but it's raining, and the noise outside is loud, and I have a headache which I could fix with an aspirin but i don't want to take it." You can't stop the rain but you can have fun inside; you can't fix all the noise but you can close the windows or put on mufflers; you can fix the headache with an aspirin! And if you DON'T do those things then you should thank your lucky stars that you DO have psychological unrest rather than having been made in the image of a Stoic god and being indifferent to everything!

Same answer as to absence of disturbance. If you wake up to find that you have fallen asleep on railroad tracks, or that there's a tornado bearing down on your house, you better hope that you disturbed! You better hope you are not "tranquil" or so "calm" that you can't muster every bit of excitement and energy and determination and even anxiety that you can muster, and get to safety as quickly as you can!

That's the problem with defining tranquility and ataraxia as the goal of life. They AREN'T. Epicurus said it correctly over and over, the goal is PLEASURE, and in the service of pleasure, which any normal human being knows requires work to obtain, you sometime accept and even choose and welcome pain, if it helps you achieve greater pleasure.

It's not Epicurus who put these advocates of "tranquility and ataraxia and absence of pain above all" people on the wrong track, in my view. It is the intentional misrepresentation - by taking out of the context of the rest of the philosophy - of a few sentences in the letter to Menoeceus. Those passages have an absolutely clear interpretation that is totally consistent with the rest of the philosophy when taken as a whole, but a series of anti-Epicureans like Cicero and Plutarch began the proccess of defamation by mischaracterizing Epicurus as a sluggard and a retiring wallflower who would never tolerate a moment of pain. Then - after the first generations of defamers passed away along with the remaining Epicurean texts and teachers who could explain the situation properly, another 2000 years of pro-Stoic and anti-Epicurean writers (some innocent and some not) have come along to bury the "Pleasure is the goal" message in a bunch of pro-Stoic rewriting of the original message to change its message entirely.

I am so glad you came back to make that comment, and to make it in that way!

This is the number one problem that holds back Epicurean philosophy in the world today.

For the sake of argument, let's grant for a moment that the advocates of "tranquility" as the goal of life will quickly accept what they don't grant to Epicurus - that it is sometimes necessary to embrace pain or disturbance for a few minutes - so that they can "get back on the path to tranquility."

So such a person is going to admit that there are times when they deviate from their highest goal, for the sake of getting back on to that highest goal -- but they are going to admit that their highest goal -- in the 70 years out of eternity that they have on this earth -- their highest goal is "to be tranquil.... to be calm"?

Oh my god, if that is what they see as the best way to spend their time on this earth, then either someone needs a new dictionary on the meaning of tranquility, or someone has been tragically led astray.

And I don't think Epicurus needed a dictionary, nor was he led astray. His words, however, have been hijacked.

This is a far better description of the goal of life -- a life of pleasure lived in this way - and there is no way that the word "tranquility" or even "ataraxia" conveys this. The aspect of "absence of disturbance" is clearly focused on not brooking any interruptions to a life of pleasure pursued actively and vigorously in this way:

Quote from Torquatus from "On Ends" (Rackham)

XII. The truth of the position that pleasure is the ultimate good will most readily appear from the following illustration. Let us imagine a man living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain: what possible state of existence could we describe as being more excellent or more desirable? One so situated must possess in the first place a strength of mind that is proof against all fear of death or of pain; he will know that death means complete unconsciousness, and that pain is generally light if long and short if strong, so that its intensity is compensated by brief duration and its continuance by diminishing severity. Let such a man moreover have no dread of any supernatural power; let him never suffer the pleasures of the past to fade away, but constantly renew their enjoyment in recollection, and his lot will be one which will not admit of further improvement.

A life spent sleeping in a cave would certainly be tranquil, but it does not take an Epicurus to see that such a life would admit of a heckofa lot of improvement.