Episode 195 - Cicero's On Ends - Book Two - Part 05

Typo here Godfrey, or am I misreading the "desire, not desire"?

Quote from Godfrey

Another thought is that desire, not desire, is the reason to get out of bed. The desire to relieve a full bladder, to drink a cup of coffee, to accomplish such-and-such.

To sort of recap for a moment let me say this:

My major issue with the "absence of pain" analysis I see discussed by many modern commentators is that they either state or imply that there is some kind of "true pleasure" or "higher pleasure" that is the ultimate goal of life which is only experienced when every last drop of pain is eliminated. As a result they imply that the ordinary experience of pleasure in normal life as you get your life under control and gradually increase the predominance of pleasure in your experience from 50% to 75% to 90% to 99% ultimately is worthless, and that nothing is worth achieving until you cross that 100% pleasure / 0% pain threshold.

To coin a new term that no one has ever used before - that interpretation would make "the perfect the enemy of the good."

As I would say it now, PDO3 is making clear BOTH:

1 - That the theoretical goal is 100% pleasure / 0% pain, because it's obvious nothing can be more complete than 100%. When looking at your whole life "in sum," the logical goal for your life as a whole is 100% pleasure / 0% pain. Of course we know it is canonical Epicurus that we sometimes choose pain when that leads to more pleasure or less overall pain, so the 100% / 0% goal is a "whole organism" perspective, and not an inflexible rule that says at every moment that your "prime directive" is to make sure you never experience a moment of pain. You look to all the consequences and you act accordingly.

2 - That every step along the way, in any discrete moment / part / feeling / experience of your life, what you are feeling / experiencing is registered as either pleasure or pain, and that there is no "neutral" or third or fourth or any other kind of experience that does not fall under pleasure or pain. If you are not feeling pain, what you are feeling is pleasure, full stop, end of need to look for any other high-level label. Any feeling that we find to be desirable is equally describing as "pleasure" or "absence of pain" at this high level of analysis.

If those two points are accepted as clear, I think you eliminate most of the ill effects of all the "woo" that surrounds absence of pain, and you end up with a very practical and common sense framework that refutes all the ascetic or esoteric assertions that people who are averse to the word "pleasure" want to push. Accepting these two points as core Epicurus fleshes out what Epicurus is talking about in the letter to Menoeceus and makes clear he is not pointing in an ascetic direction, and that he has no intention of "writing out" the pleasures of "stimulation" from within the proper and full definition of pleasure, which includes both stimulation and all other activities of normal life which are not painful.

There's a lot further we can go in terms of practical advise and additional details, such as linking statements to the effect that life is desirable and that is a small man indeed who has many reasons for ending his life. We can then develop a similarly clear statement on the issue of being satisfied with what you have while at the same time wanting to continue living so long as you can expect a predominance of pleasure over pain.

But if points 1 and 2 above are not clear, I don't think it's productive to move further until we have confidence in those two.

Any thoughts?

I think your comment is on target - and I think that Frances Wright agreed with you and devoted a significant amount of her fictional reply of Epicurus to Zeno on the same point:

Quote from A Few Days In Athens Chapter 7

But, perhaps, though Zeno should allow this last effect of my philosophy to be probable, he will not approve it: his severe eye looks with scorn, not pity, on the follies and vices of the world. He would annihilate them, change them to their opposite virtues, or he would leave them to their full and natural sweep. ‘Be perfect, or be as you are. I allow of no degrees of virtue, so care not for the degrees of vice. Your ruin, if it must be, let it be in all its horrors, in all its vileness; let it attract no pity, no sympathy; let it be seen in all its naked deformity, and excite the full measure of its merited abhorrence and disgust.’ Thus says the sublime Zeno, who sees only man as he should be.

Thus says the mild Epicurus, who sees man as he is: — With all his weakness, all his errors, all his sins, still owning fellowship with him, still rejoicing in his welfare, and sighing over his misfortunes; I call from my gardens to the thoughtless, the headstrong, and the idle — ‘Where do ye wander, and what do ye seek? Is it pleasure? Behold it here. Is it ease? Enter and repose.’ Thus do I court them from the table of drunkenness and the bed of licentiousness: I gently awaken their sleeping faculties, and draw the veil from their understandings: — ‘My sons! do you seek pleasure? I seek her also. Let us make the search together. You have tried wine, you have tried love; you have sought amusement in reveling, and forgetfulness in indolence. You tell me you are disappointed: that your passions grew, even while you gratified them; your weariness increased even while you slept. Let us try again. Let us quiet our passions, not by gratifying, but subduing them; let us conquer our weariness, not by rest, but by exertion.’ Thus do I win their ears and their confidence. Step by step I lead them on. I lay open the mysteries of science; I expose the beauties of art; I call the graces and the muses to my aid; the song, the lyre, and the dance. Temperance presides at the repast; innocence at the festival; disgust is changed to satisfaction; listlessness to curiosity; brutality to elegance; lust gives place to love; Bacchanalian hilarity to friendship. Tell me not, Zeno, that the teacher is vicious who washes depravity from the youthful heart; who lays the storm of its passions, and turns all its sensibilities to good. I grant that I do not look to make men great, but to make men happy. To teach them, that in the discharge of their duties as sons, as husbands, as fathers, as citizens, lies their pleasure and their interest; — and when the sublime motives of Zeno shall cease to affect an enervated generation, the gentle persuasions of Epicurus shall still be heard and obeyed.