New Graphics: Are You On Team Epicurus? | Comparison Chart: Epicurus vs. Other Philosophies | Chart Of Key Epicurean Quotations | Accelerating Study Of Canonics Through Philodemus' "On Methods Of Inference" | Note to all users: If you have a problem posting in any forum, please message Cassius
. So I think I'm on firm ground in saying that further pains don't contribute to blessedness, i.e., don't increase pleasure beyond its maximum (the maximum which is noted in PD 3)
Max I presume the underline "pains" I underlined there is a typo?
Yes, that should read "pleasure."
Display MoreMax,
The twentieth-meal example is very useful.
Let me restate it to make sure I have it right: given a choice between 10 units of pleasure/0 pain and 30 units of pleasure/3 pain, "refer your actions to the goal of nature as tranquility" tells you to take the first option — forfeiting 17 units of net pleasure - solely to avoid the 3 units of pain.
Is that a fair restatement of your own answer?
So you're saying that on your view, no amount of net pleasure gained can outweigh even a modest amount of pain accepted to get it. That's the "even a small amount of pain is too much to pay for a large amount of pleasure" position I've been thinking your view amounts to. Is that correct?
As to what that would mean, Epicurus wrote on his last day, in real physical agony, that the joy of memory and friendship that day outweighed (or arrayed against in the military metaphor) the pain in his body. This is a direct claim that a great pleasure was worth to him a very great pain, in full net balance. Regardless about what we think of whether he changed his calculation as the pain got worse (which would be entirely reasonable to do), Epicurus did not avoid or forfeit those pleasures in advance just because great pain was involved.
Excellent point, this is really helpful.
No, I want to nuance my previous point: choose against pain if it'll interfere with enjoying katastematic pleasure. It's totally fine to accept some pain if it promotes katastematic pleasure. That's why we should run some risks for the sake of friendship (VS 28). And if there's a pain that won't interfere with enjoying katastematic pleasure (because anticipation/recollection allows us to manage it, and it doesn't prevent the fulfillment of our needs), it's fine to accept that pain. That's why junk food (which doesn't satisfy hunger) is a problem even if it's very pleasurable, but overeating a bit of something nutritious could be ok.
But in general, yes: don't take on risky kinetic pleasures, which might foreseeably prevent enjoying katastematic pleasure.
Your rule would have told Epicurus in advance never to have made the friendships at all, since every friendship carries the certainty of future grief — real pain — in exchange for something "merely additive" and therefore, on your account, not counting toward blessedness. Do you accept that consequence?
...
As to friendship, PD27 doesn't call friendship just a useful tool alongside the virtues — it calls it "far the greatest" of the things which "produce the blessedness of the complete life." If friendship is instrumental the way courage or prudence are instrumental, why does Epicurus single it out instead of listing it among them? I think Epicurus is telling us the pleasure of friendship is a major part of what a full life is made of, not that it's a mechanism that occasionally throws off some pleasant ("nice") side effects.
Friendship is important for blessedness. It's an extremely important instrumental good, so it's worth taking on pain (and risk of pain) for it, not because it's intrinsically valuable, but because it's the best way to achieve the highest pleasure.
What role does the pleasure of friendship play in constituting blessedness, in your view? (Your view might be a bit similar to Alex Gillham's in his 2018 dissertation; he thinks Epicurus's view of happiness isn't about well-being.) The problem for friendship is that if it's a kinetic pleasure, it's not clear how it can contribute to blessedness; and if it's a katastematic pleasure, it's not clear what it has to do with the absence of pain.
Display MoreAs to what that would mean, Epicurus wrote on his last day, in real physical agony, that the joy of memory and friendship that day outweighed (or arrayed against in the military metaphor) the pain in his body. This is a direct claim that a great pleasure was worth to him a very great pain, in full net balance. Regardless about what we think of whether he changed his calculation as the pain got worse (which would be entirely reasonable to do), Epicurus did not avoid or forfeit those pleasures in advance just because great pain was involved.
...
Second thing, maybe even more important. You've now stated at least twice that you don't know why Epicurus would be committed to the claim that a blessed life has to be complete or perfect in the Platonic sense. Everything you're saying after that , that additive pleasures can't confer blessedness, friendship is instrumental rather than itself a pleasure/good , seems built entirely on that starting point. If you can't explain that reasoning, why would we find it persuasive to overturn all the many statements commending Pleasure as the goal?
...
I don't think "tranquility as prime directive" survives contact with either the deathbed letter or PD27. I'd like to hear you take those two head-on., because that's what is of most benefit to the forum - providing understandable answers that are of practical use to the kind of normal people to whom Epicurus appealed in the ancient world. It can't have required a degree in philosophy to understand Epicurus in the ancient world, and it can't require that now.
[helpful material about Cassius Longinus and Cicero]
Yes, I've been really struggling with the deathbed letter recently (as I think I said upthread). But my basic response will be: it's because the pain doesn't get in the way of blessedness. The question is always whether pain interferes with blessedness, not simply whether pain is present. (I develop this sort of approach in my paper on self-sacrifice as well.) Thanks for the opportunity to clarify my approach to pain in the example I offered; I wasn't careful enough to indicate the question of whether foreseen pain is likely to interfere with blessedness. In cases where pain won't interfere with blessedness, I don't think the two decision standards are different. Epicurus does claim to have tranquility in the deathbed letter, so this isn't a case of tranquility conflicting with other goods (although it might still be hard to explain how he's able to maintain tranquility).
I think the evidence that Epicurus believed a complete life can't get any better is clear; I don't know how else to interpret KD 3, 18, and 20-21, and Men. 128 and 131. And again, we don't need to overturn any statements saying that pleasure is the good or the goal, because katastematic pleasure is a pleasure. Saying that pleasure is the good/goal doesn't give us any guidance, in itself, on which pleasures to pursue. And Epicurus certainly doesn't want us to pursue all pleasures equally (a Cyrenaic-style position). He thinks we should be discriminating when it comes to pleasures.
My short answer to the material about Cassius Longinus and Cicero is that tranquility is a pleasure, so it's always proper when someone speaks of pleasure as the good. We ranks goods, but what's the most important good is one of the goods.
So, to sum up, the "tranquility as prime directive" view is only a view about which pleasures to pursue; it's not to deny that Epicurus is a hedonist.
(Separately, I think Epicurus should've embraced value dualism rather than hedonism, arguing that the absence of pain and pleasure are both intrinsic goods; but my interpretation above stands even without this point.)
No, I want to nuance my previous point: choose against pain if it'll interfere with enjoying katastematic pleasure. It's totally fine to accept some pain if it promotes katastematic pleasure. That's why we should run some risks for the sake of friendship (VS 28). And if there's a pain that won't interfere with enjoying katastematic pleasure (because anticipation/recollection allows us to manage it, and it doesn't prevent the fulfillment of our needs), it's fine to accept that pain. That's why junk food (which doesn't satisfy hunger) is a problem even if it's very pleasurable, but overeating a bit of something nutritious could be ok.
But in general, yes: don't take on risky kinetic pleasures, which might foreseeably prevent enjoying katastematic pleasure.
I've been uneasy with this claim for a few years now. It seems to create a problem for lots of everyday activities, such as driving for a vacation (vacation is unnecessary fun, and driving is risky because accidents are common). I realize my interpretation is radical here. But I can't understand what else KD 3, 18, and 20-21 and Men. 128 and 131 might mean.
