Today, you will read about two different schools of thinking back in the days of Ancient
Greece. Both groups were concerned with how to live a good life. Their version of a “good
life” was not necessarily what we might imagine today; a good life meant a morally and
ethically correct life. They attempted to discover an ethical path to living. As you read,
answer the questions and try to understand the different paths Hedonists and Stoics took to
in finding that ethical path.
The Hedonism of Epicurus
An Ancient Philosophy of Ethics, Pleasure, and Pain
By Lisa Keele
Epicurus was born in Athens in 341 BCE, six years after Plato died. He began doing
philosophy at the age of 14, and lived in and near Athens for most of his life. He established
a sort of commune for philosophers, which he called the Garden, where he and his followers
lived and talked about ethics and science and the nature of the cosmos. He was, by many
accounts, a kind and generous man.
Pleasure as the Greatest Good
Epicurus was a hedonist, which means that he believed pleasure was the greatest good. He
wrote in his Letter to Menoeceus, "Pleasure is the starting-point and goal of living blessedly."
He also wrote that "pleasure is our first innate good." However, Epicurus was not a fan of
most of the activities commonly associated with pleasure. Parties, alcohol, sex, and even
fancy food would not have counted as pleasant for him. Thus, to understand Epicurus's
hedonism, it is necessary to understand what he meant by "pleasure."
Pleasure Is the Absence of Pain
For Epicurus, pleasure is the starting point of a blessed life, and he wrote that a blessed life
is, "health of the body and the freedom of the soul from disturbance." Thus, anything that
promotes health and limits disturbance of the soul is blessed, and anything that disrupts
health or disturbs the soul is pain. Pleasure is, for Epicurus, simply getting rid of unhealthy
and disturbing things. In other words, pleasure simply is the absence of pain, no more, no
less.
Thus, suppose you have a headache. This is not health, and the physical pain you feel
disturbs the soul. Aspirin provides relief of the physical pain and any worry you feel over the
pain, and thus, aspirin, in this case, represents pleasure; it promotes health and gets rid of
worry and concern.
The interesting aspect of Epicurus's theory of pleasure is that pleasure does not go beyond
the relief from pain and worry. If one aspirin is bitter, and another is chocolate coated, they
both are equally pleasant, in so far as they both get rid of the pain. This is what he meant
when he said that pleasure is the absence of pain.
The Pleasure of Food
Hunger is another example of pain. Physical hunger causes physical pain and the lack of
good health; worry about hunger disrupts the soul. A plentiful supply of food is pleasure
because it protects against ill health, physical pain, and anxiety. However, any type of food
will work to rid a person of this pain. A chocolate cake is not more pleasant than a bowl of
plain oatmeal. In fact, a bowl of oatmeal will bring you more pleasure because it gets rid of
the pain of hunger easily. It is easy to obtain and prepare, and inexpensive. It causes no pain
in the process of alleviating hunger. Chocolate cake, on the other hand, may be expensive or
hard to prepare, and too much of it leads to tooth decay and health problems.
Epicurus and the Simple Life
It is easy to see that this view of pleasure leads one to an appreciation of simple pleasures.
As Epicurus wrote, "simple flavors provide a pleasure equal to that of an extravagant life-
style when all pain from want is removed." By living simply, Epicurus thought, we could
simultaneously protect against the pain of ill health and worry, while protecting ourselves
against the further pains inherent in extravagant living.
Epicurus, in his Garden, lived as he taught; he ate simple foods, drank water, and spent his
days discussing the nature of the universe with good friends.
The Stoics
Stoicism was one of the most important and influential traditions in the philosophy of the
Hellenistic world. It claimed the adherence of a large portion of the educated persons in the
Greco-Roman world. It had considerable influence on the development of early Christianity.
The Roman Stoics, Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius were widely read and absorbed
by the Western cultural tradition. Indeed, the very word 'stoic' has come to represent that
courage and calmness in the face of adverse and trying circumstances, which was the
hallmark of the ancient Stoics. Briefly, their notion of morality is stern, involving a life in
accordance with nature and controlled by virtue. It is an ascetic system, teaching indifference
to everything external, for nothing external could be either good or evil. Hence to the Stoics
both pain and pleasure, poverty and riches, sickness and health, were supposed to be equally
unimportant.
The founder of Stoicism, Zeno (you remember him from the paradoxes of motion, right?)
admired Socrates, in particular, his strength of character and independence of external
circumstances. From Zeno's point of view, virtue resided not in external fortune, wealth,
honor, and the like, but in self-sufficiency and a kind of rational ordering of intention.
Principal Ideas
The Stoics were determinists, even fatalists, holding that whatever happens happens
necessarily. Not only is the world such that all events are determined by prior events, but the
universe is a perfect, rational whole. This determinism and belief in a rational world guided
many of their ethical beliefs.
The Stoics asserted that virtue alone is good, vice alone evil, and that all else is absolutely
indifferent. Poverty, sickness, pain, and death, are not evils. Riches, health, pleasure, and life,
are not goods. A person may commit suicide, for in destroying his life he destroys nothing of
value. Above all, pleasure is not a good. One ought not to seek pleasure. Virtue is the only
happiness. And people must be virtuous, not for the sake of pleasure, but for the sake of
duty. And since virtue alone is good, vice alone evil, there followed the further paradox that
all virtues are equally good, and all vices equally evil. There are no degrees.
The life of virtue is the life in accordance with nature. Since for the Stoic nature is rational
and perfect, the ethical life is a life lived in accordance with the rational order of things.
From the Stoic Handbook: "Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but
instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well" (Handbook, ch. 8).
Essential to appreciating this Stoic theme is the recognition of the difference between those
things that are within our power and those not within our power.
Furthermore, Stoics believed that “Our opinions are up to us, and our impulses, desires,
aversions--in short, whatever is our doing. Our bodies are not up to us, nor our possessions,
our reputations, or our public offices, or, that is, whatever is not our doing...So remember, if
you think that things naturally enslaved are free or that things not your own are your own,
you will be thwarted, miserable, and upset, and will blame both the gods and men”
(Handbook, ch. 1).
The only thing over which we have control, therefore, is the faculty of judgment. Since
anything else, including all external affairs and acts of others, are not within our power, we
should adopt toward them the attitude of indifference. Toward all that is not within our
power we should be apathetic.
Stoics believed in facing struggles, even death, with apathy and calm. They believed “What
upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about the things. For example,
death is nothing dreadful (or else it would have appeared so to Socrates), but instead the
judgment about death is that it is dreadful, that is what is dreadful” (Handbook, ch. 5).
To avoid unhappiness, frustration, and disappointment, we, therefore, need to do two
things: control those things that are within our power (namely our beliefs, judgments, desires,
and attitudes) and be indifferent or apathetic to those things that are not in our power
(namely, things external to us).
Toward those unfortunate, unavoidable things that are not within our power (for example,
death and the actions and opinions of others) the proper attitude is one of apathy. Distress is
the result of our attitudes towards things, not the things themselves. This is the consoling
feature of Stoic fatalism. It is absurd to become distraught over externals for the same
reason that it is absurd to become distressed over the past; both are beyond our power. The
Stoic is simply adopting toward all things the only logical attitude appropriate to the past--
indifference.
It is tempting to characterize Stoicism as an emotionally cold, not to say sterile, moral
outlook. Yet this is at least misleading. The Stoics were not so much concerned with
emotion as with excessive attachment.