Ethics

Epicurus and the Pleasure of Rebelling Against Plato

Epicurean philosophy was built from the ground up as a deliberate, systematic rebellion against Plato across physics, canonics, and ethics alike, and participation in this revolt is itself a pleasure, because pleasure includes all that matters to us in life - and what matters the most produces great pleasure.

Cassius

August 28, 2026 at 6:14 PM

Ethics - General

Life Is Desirable, But Unlimited Time Contains No Greater Pleasure Than Limited Time

Since pleasure involves intensity and completeness as well as duration, an unlimited lifespan could add nothing to a life that is already, in the relevant sense, complete.

Cassius

August 25, 2026 at 8:23 AM

Ethics - General

Virtue Is Not Absolute Or An End In Itself. All Good And Evil Consists In Sensation.

Virtue is not a divine or absolute ideal but a set of tools for living well -- and good and evil are not abstractions, but consist in sensation itself.

Cassius

August 25, 2026 at 8:22 AM

Ethics - General

By Pleasure We Mean All Experience That Is Not Painful (The Absence of Pain)

Since Nature gives us only two feelings, whatever is not painful is in fact pleasurable -- making "Absence of Pain" and "Pleasure" exactly the same thing, and a pleasant life available to nearly everyone.

Cassius

August 25, 2026 at 8:21 AM

Ethics - General

Pleasure Is The Guide Of Life

With no supernatural gods or absolute virtue to appeal to, Nature gives us only Pleasure and Pain by which to determine what to choose and what to avoid.

Cassius

August 25, 2026 at 8:21 AM

Ethics - General

Happiness Is The Goal Of Life

Happiness is the overall target across an entire life -- a life in which pleasure predominates over pain -- distinct from pleasure itself, which is the moment-to-moment guide used to reach it.

Cassius

August 25, 2026 at 8:20 AM

Ethics - General

Moderation in All Things Is Not Always the Prudent Course

Epicurus advocated prudence (phronēsis) — practical wisdom in judging particular pleasures and pains — not the vague, borrowed idea of “moderation in all things.”

Kalosyni

August 24, 2026 at 8:50 PM

Ethics - General

Bread and Water: Debunking the Idea of Epicurean Asceticism

A transcription of Don Boozer's presentation showing that Epicurus's 'bread and water' was the ordinary, everyday diet of ancient Greeks -- not a punitive or ascetic deprivation, but nourishing barley bread and spring water.

Don

August 24, 2026 at 5:21 PM

Ethics - General

The 'Academic Questions' Behind Evaluation Of Pleasure and Happiness

“Academic Questions” sounds like exactly what a modern reader expects from ancient philosophy: a dry, technical argument about definitions, conducted by men with nothing better to do, over a question no one outside a cla

Cassius

July 31, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Ethics - General

Aulus Gellius And The Clearest Ancient Testimony That Absence of Pain Means Nothing More Than Pleasure

“The removal of all pain is the limit of the magnitude of pleasures.” – Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 3 Centuries of commentators have treated this and similar statements as an invitation to make something other than plea

Cassius

July 19, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Ethics - General

Living For The Pleasures Of The Moment Isn't Epicurean — It's Lunacy: Why the World's Most Famous "Hedonist" Would Have Despised What We Call Hedonism

The Words You’ve Seen a Thousand Times, and What It Actually Says You have almost certainly seen this sentence before, even if you’ve never read a word of it: “Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit,

Cassius

July 16, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Ethics - General

Against Katastematic Supremacy: Pleasure Is A Unified Good, Not A House Divided Against Itself

The Current Establishment View - Which It Is the Editorial Policy Of EpicureanFriends.com to Reject With only a few notable exceptions, practically every modern account of Epicurean ethics repeats the same claim: Epicuru

Cassius

July 15, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Ethics - General

The Full Cup Model: Pleasure, Purity, and the Limit That Answers Plato

“I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, of sex, of sound, and the pleasures of beautiful form.” – Epicurus, in Diogenes Laertius, Book X Introduction Epicurus declared pleasure to be the

Cassius

July 9, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Ethics - General

The Letter of Epicurus to His Mother

The Letter of Epicurus to His Mother Diogenes of Oinoanda (fr. 125–126) – Free rendering Mother, concerning everything that troubles you, I want you to form clear and confident thoughts. The images we see in dreams - esp

Elli

June 19, 2026 at 2:31 PM

Ethics - General

Living For Pleasure Or Dying For Relief From Pain?

“For this reason we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life.” — Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus Is The “Emphasis” In Epicurean Philosophy On Relief From Pain? In a separate article I have made the case that

Cassius

May 28, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Ethics - General

Why It Is Incorrect to Say Epicurean Philosophy Is Primarily About 'Absence of Pain'

“For this reason we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we retu

Cassius

May 18, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Ethics - General

In Troubled Times, Why Young People Should Turn To Epicurus Rather Than To The Pope

A friendly but direct word to young people searching for solid ground and thinking they might find it in the old but newly trendy Catholic Church Something is stirring among young people in the West, and it deserves to b

Cassius

April 20, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Ethics - General

How Is The Wise Epicurean Always Happy

There are as many opinions about happiness as there are people. Everyone has their own idea of what happiness is or should be. Some say that we should look to religion for happiness. Others say that there are no hard and fast rules. This article explores these issues.

Cassius

April 20, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Ethics - General

Not A Bunker But A Camp

An Epicurean response to Massimo Pigliucci’s March 3, 2026. article on Epicurus, the Stoics, and political engagement Massimo Pigliucci’s essay “The Garden Or The Forum: Epicurus, The Stoics, And The Duty To Engage” repr

Cassius

March 23, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Ethics - General

“When Science Returns to the Hellenic Worldview: Empathy and Consciousness Redeemed”

Friedrich Nietzsche, in his work The Antichrist , denounces Paul as the inventor of Christianity and an enemy of Rome’s grandeur. But perhaps Nietzsche himself misunderstood what Paul truly fought against. Rome may have

Elli

November 18, 2025 at 2:39 PM