What amount of effort should be put into pursuing pleasure or removing pain?

Quote from Kalosyni

Now...what happens if it is a tie?

This is why I don't like the term "hedonic calculus"!

Cassius I'm not clear how to work the copy paste of a quote but I'd like to chime in on your comment: "The pleasures Don lists which can be achieved by "getting out of the way" of them is a valid approach if you are able to maintain those and have confidence in their continuance and your satisfaction with them, but there are also other pleasures that you will never experience if you do not pursue them vigorously."

Yes, I agree with your overall comments, and those other pleasures might be the natural but not necessary pleasures.

I think about the possible foundations of Epicurus' teachings, and then how they might be adopted more widely. I guess he studied the beliefs of other philosophers, and looked around to see how people generally behaved on a daily basis. He must have seen how they tried to live well and avoid the anxiety of daily life. From what I've learned here in Epicurean Friends, his Garden included average people as well as intellectuals.

As I understand it, modern science is disclosing how our brains work, and it's not just a matter of paying attention to the teacher. Some among us can conceptualize to a higher degree, and intellectually discipline ourselves because of their particular brain structure. They are the lucky ones and not the average person. They have that capacity while the majority of people don't have the same ability to focus on the pursuit of higher pleasures. Making a living, raising a family, trying to be comfortable after a busy week takes up the majority of time for most of us, whether highly gifted or not.

So, I tend to appreciate the way Don addressed the more effortless process to pursue a happier life. I don't know how that way of life can be widely adopted unless monotheistic thought is abandoned widely. Thoughts?

Great points and they definitely lead to your final question.

Quote from DaveT

I don't know how that way of life can be widely adopted unless monotheistic thought is abandoned widely. Thoughts?

I believe that you are right and the Epicurean way of life can't be widely adopted in many parts of the world - the prevalence of monotheistic influence, including in the morality of "humanism" which has much the same basis, is a huge obstacle.

Certainly monotheistic religion is not going to be abandoned overnight, but on the other hand there was a time when it played little role in Western civilization, so it's not inevitable that it remain so powerful.

Epicurus didn't have to confront the type that we confront today, but I agree with Nietzsche that Epicurus was already combating a form of monotheism as it existed in the Greco-Roman world at his time. What we face today is a much more powerful and oppressive form than what Epicurus faced.

But if Epicurus was right - as I think he was - there is no fate or necessity that prevents change from happening. We live in a time when at least for now information is more widely accessible than ever, and that opens up possibilities that never before existed.

Epicurean philosophy provides a foundation from which people in the future can build further to overcome these problems, and even now in the present I personally get a lot of satisfaction and pleasure out of thinking that we can do a small part to re-educate the world to the Epicurean alternative.

No doubt we know only the famous ones, but every example of a devoted Epicurean in the ancient world seems to have been a campaigner for the views that they adopted from Epicurus. That's really the core mission of Epicureanfriends.com, to campaign on these ideas, even as we also help ourselves and learn to live better in the here and now.

According to Epicurean teaching, the effort you have to put in to pursue pleasure — and, on the other hand, to eliminate pain — is always about reason and measure. Here's how things are structured:

1. The effort needed to pursue pleasure

Identification of "natural and necessary" pleasures

Examples: food, shelter, the company of friends.
Effort: the minimum necessary to obtain them.
Too little effort → lack of food, security, social support.
Too much effort → stress, anxiety, risk of generating more pain (e.g. excessive work for money).
"Natural but unnecessary" pleasures

Examples: sophisticated food, luxurious comforts.
Effort: modest at best, because satisfying them does not contribute essentially to lasting happiness.
Too much effort → imbalance ("hunting" pleasures that complicate your life).
“Unnatural and useless” pleasures
Examples: desire for fame, excessive wealth, political power.
Effort: rational, if you want — but Epicurus considers them “traps” that bring more anxiety than satisfaction.
Ideal: avoid them completely, because no amount of effort is worth the endless fear and desire they give you.
Conclusion: there is an “optimal level” of effort that corresponds to the discovery and moderate satisfaction of natural and necessary pleasures. Too little leaves your essential needs unmet; too much throws you into a chain of new desires and worries.
2. The effort required to eliminate pain

Aponia (absence of bodily pain)
Effort: to realize what pains are real (the needs of the body) and to cure them through simple measures (food, rest, modest medical care).
Too little effort → prolonged suffering (untreated diseases).
Too much effort → invasive, expensive interventions that can generate new pain (side effects, anxiety).
Ataraxia (lack of mental restlessness)
Effort: exercise of reason to understand the limits of desires and release fears (especially fear of gods and death).
Too little effort in reflection → persistent anxieties and superstitions.
Too much intellectual effort → moving away from simple pleasures and moving into a state of excessive concern for philosophical details.
Conclusion: to eliminate pain, you need to balance: enough care and reflection to free yourself from essential suffering, but not so much that you create unnecessary suffering through overly complicated or excessive methods.
3. The Epicurean “middle way”
In both cases — the pursuit of pleasure and the removal of pain — the key is prudence (φρόνησις). It shows you:

What is worth the effort (natural pleasures, the elimination of real pains).
Where effort becomes a cause of pain (unnecessary desires, excessive interventions).
How to help maintain balance: regular introspection, support through friendship, simple meditation practices on mortality (“memento mori”) and on things you can control.
Thus, there is no “hard work” in the modern sense of the word, but constant rational support: neither too little nor too much. Under the rule of prudence, we continually adjust the level of effort so that pleasure remains a gentle master, not a tyrannical mistress.