Epicureanism and Hedonism

chapter 7 Epicu r ea n H edon ism Voula Tsouna In the spirit of the myth related by Prodicus,1 Greek and Roman philosophers often assume that human beings are confronted with a fundamental moral choice, between the narrow path of Virtue and the broad path of Pleasure, and they give reasons why one should prefer the former alternative over the latter. And while many of them, including Plato and Aristotle, ascribe some conditional value to pleasure, they decisively reject hedonism, i.e., the view that pleasure is or ought to be the only intrinsic good and hence the telos or ultimate goal for man. The arguments for and against hedonism rehearsed in Plato’s dialogues2 and in Aristotle’s ethics and rhetoric,3 as well as the slim evidence concerning the fanatical anti-hedonism of Antisthenes and of the earlier Cynics and the more moderate attitudes of other Socratic schools, establish that pleasure was a major topic of debate in the classical and post-classical eras and that hedonism was viewed as an ethical theory to be seriously reckoned with. For, in addition to the fact that hedonism could be taken to be implicit in common practices and in the kind of social and political attitudes illustrated by the Platonic Callicles in the Gorgias, it also found philosophical expression both within the Academy and near the core of the Socratic circle. According to Aristotle, Eudoxus defended pleasure as the good on the grounds that every animal desires, most of all, to obtain pleasure but avoid pain, seeks pleasure for its own sake rather than for the sake of something else, and treats every other good as having greater value when pleasure is added to it (NE 10.2). In corroboration of his hedonism, he also remarked that, although pleasure is a good, it is never praised as such; this he took to be an indication of the fact that pleasure is superior to other praiseworthy things, in the sense that it constitutes a point of reference for assessing their value (NE 1.12). However, more intriguing and probably more influential was the hedonism of the 1 The sophist Prodicus relates an allegory, according to which Hercules was confronted with just that choice and opted for Virtue, rejecting Pleasure. 2 Plat. Prot. 351b–358d, Gorg. 492d–507e, Rep. 9.581a–587e, and the Philebus. The citations are found in that order also in Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1.121. 3 See NE 7.11–17, 10.1–5, Rhet. 1.10–11, also cited by Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1.121. 0004801389.INDD 141 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 142 VOULA TSOUNA Cyrenaics, a school founded by Aristippus of Cyrene, a regular member of Socrates’s entourage whose lifestyle gave rise to the impression that he was a hedonist.4 His grandson and third head of the school, Aristippus the Younger (born around 380/370 bce), developed a distinctive sort of hedonism commonly called presentist hedonism, which was endorsed with modifications by most Cyrenaics of the Hellenistic period as well. According to this doctrine, the body has greater importance than the soul; the pleasure that is of supreme positive value is bodily pleasure;5 every bodily or mental pleasure is related to a kinēsis, i.e., some sort of alteration or motion (DL 2.90). Moreover, pleasure can be experienced only in the present: it is monochronos, unitemporal (Athenaeus Deipn. 12.544a–b),6 and does not comprise either the memory of past enjoyments or the expectation of future ones.7 Conversely, bodily pain is of supreme negative value and, presumably, it too is confined in the present: neither the remembrance of past pains nor the fear of future ones has genuine moral import. More than any other element of the Cyrenaic doctrine, the primarily physical nature of the telos and its presentist character are responsible for the bad reputation of Aristippus and his followers as profligates who also provide theoretical justification for the pleasures of the many. By concentrating their criticisms mainly on those two features, Epicurus and his followers aim to show the conceptual and ethical advantage of Epicurean hedonism over its Cyrenaic counterpart and to make clear the points of difference between the two doctrines. Despite Epicurus’s professed rusticity (DL 10.5), and despite his notoriously critical attitude towards Socrates and his heirs, his account of pleasure indicates that he took seriously the challenges raised by the Socratic, Platonic, and Aristotelian traditions and, moreover, that he formed his hedonism in deliberate contrast to the presentism of Aristippus the Younger and in response to the Cyrenaic philosopher Anniceris. Democritus’s ideal of cheerful tranquility and the suggestion that it can be explained in physical terms by reference to the orderly arrangement and motion of atoms also appear to have exercised an influence on Epicurus’s conception of the good. The same holds, more generally, for Epicurus’s choice to reject the providentialist creationism associated with the Socratic tradition and, notably, with Plato and the Stoics, and to develop instead a modified version of atomic physics entailing a thoroughly mechanistic view of the universe and its contents. Not only do the extant fragments of Epicurus and his followers offer detailed materialistic explanations of physical phenomena, but they also account for 4 It is debated whether or not Aristippus the Elder was really an ethical hedonist. See Tsouna, “Aristippus of Cyrene.” 5 Aristippus the Younger defended the primacy of bodily pleasure over mental pleasure, possibly on the analogical grounds that bodily pain is considered worse than its psychic counterpart (DL 2.87). Later Cyrenaics modify this view in ways suitable to their own broader concerns. See Laks, “Annicéris et les plaisirs psychiques”; and Lampe, The Birth of Hedonism. 6 This term is probably intended to indicate that pleasure lasts and has value only as long as we are experiencing it: see Tsouna, The Epistemology of the Cyrenaic School, 15–16; and Sedley, “Epicurean versus Cyrenaic Happiness.” 7 They have no moral value, the former because it exists no more, the latter because it does not yet exist and is not manifest (Athenaus Deipn. 12.544a–b). The thesis that pleasure is monochronos holds for both physical and mental pleasure, and the same goes for pain. 0004801389.INDD 142 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 143 the atomic constitution and functions of the human soul. Thus they convey a reasonably clear idea of the far-ranging implications of atomism and of the extent to which it constitutes the basis of the Epicurean doctrine of pleasure. Also crucially pertinent to the development of this latter are some basic tenets of Epicurean epistemology and scientific method: the self-evident character and veridicality of all aisthēseis, sense-perceptions; the elevated status of sense-perceptions, preconceptions, and feelings as the fundamental criteria of truth; the school’s empiricist outlook;8 and the methods by which theoretical claims, including ethical tenets, get confirmed or refuted.9 While the present study will not discuss this rich and complex background of Epicurean hedonism systematically and in detail, nonetheless, it will refer to aspects of Epicurus’s interactions with rival doctrines whenever this seems philosophically necessary or relevant. Also, an effort will be made to use evidence from relatively unexplored sources, in particular Philodemus (c. 110 bce–c. 40s or early 30s bce) and Diogenes of Oenoanda (second–third century ce), as well as from Epicurus, his early associates and, to a lesser extent, Lucretius.10 The expansion of the evidential basis of the discussion will help, I hope, to emphasize more than usual the distinctive nature of Epicurean hedonism, its originality and sophistication, and its enduring core as well as its peripheral developments over time. Section 7.1 introduces Epicurus’s conception of the moral end and revisits a controversial argument bearing on his theory of motivation. Section 7.2 discusses a centrally important feature of Epicurean hedonism, namely, a certain sort of hedonistic calculus, and indicates how it is defended by different members of the school. Section 7.3 turns to Epicurus’s conceptual amplification and defense of his hedonism. It centers primarily on the distinctions between bodily and mental pleasures and between kinetic and katastematic pleasure. Also, this section addresses Epicurus’s concept of the limit of pleasure, his notoriously controversial claim that the removal of pain is the highest pleasure, the pleasures of memory and anticipation, and, more generally, the respective roles of the body and the mind in the achievement of the supreme good. Section 7.4 studies Epicurus’s classification of desires and its ethical implications, as well as the elimination of virtue from the sphere of the supreme good but also its uniquely important role in the rational pursuit of pleasure.11 To conclude, Section 7.5 briefly considers some of the criticisms rehearsed by Cicero against Epicurean hedonism and discusses whether the Epicureans have sufficient resources to respond to them. At the outset, it is useful to entertain the following remarks concerning the nature of the theory under examination, as well as the sources that will be used in this study. In the first place, hedonism ancient and modern can assume many forms, which depend on 8 See Tsouna, “Diogenes and the Cyrenaics.” 9 See Asmis, “Epicurean Epistemology.” 10 Since Lucretius is the topic of a separate chapter, I shall not much engage with DRN. 11 To some degree I follow the order of Torquatus’s presentation in Cicero’s De finibus. As David Sedley remarks (“Epicurean Anti-reductionism,” 134), although Torquatus’s exposé is not directly drawn from Epicurus, since it also incorporates divergent views of later Epicurean groups, nonetheless its structure constitutes evidence of Epicurus’s original methodology in the presentation and defense of his hedonism. 0004801389.INDD 143 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 144 VOULA TSOUNA the particular notion of pleasure used by each philosopher or school, and also on the corresponding interpretation of the central claim that pleasure is the good. Despite their substantial differences, however, hedonistic systems have been commonly charged with undermining many traditional values and advocating the maximal satisfaction of one’s desires and the achievement of maximal pleasure, especially sensualist pleasure. Epicurus and his followers were criticized along those lines by contemporary and later authors, who willfully represent the hedonism of the school as one more theory recommending physical indulgence and a sybaritic lifestyle. Thus, one task set before us is, on the one hand, to examine how Epicurus qualifies the concept of pleasure precisely in order to avoid this sort of accusation and, on the other hand, to explore whether there might be some basis for it. Obviously, this is a crucial issue, for it bears on the philosophical attractiveness and viability of Epicurean hedonism. Second, the ambiguities surrounding the practical implications of Epicurean hedonism and other ethical topics may be due to the fact that Epicurus left certain matters under-determined, or, alternatively, they may be caused by the fragmentary state of the evidence. Of Epicurus’s extant works concerning ethics, the only complete text is the summary exposition in the Letter to Menoeceus, whereas the rest of the surviving passages consist of maxims, aphorisms, and fragments detached from their context. Also fragmentary is the evidence about the other early authorities of the school as well as many of their successors including, notably, Zeno of Sidon. Lucretius’s poem On the Nature of Things appears to follow Epicurus’s writings closely and also, I believe, reflects later developments of the doctrine. However, since philosophical content and poetic form are inextricably linked, the poem does not offer the sort of rigorous exposition and defense of hedonism that may be found in a straightforward philosophical treatise. Lucretius’s near contemporary, Philodemus, is a prolific author who composes his treatises in fairly traditional form. But although the excavations at Herculaneum brought to light several papyri containing works by him, nonetheless, the extant portions of these are only a fraction of Philodemus’s work, and the carbonized papyri containing them are often difficult to read and interpret. Comparable problems occur in respect of the fragmentary exposition of Epicurean ethics found in the remnants of the monumental inscription dedicated by Diogenes of Oenoanda to his native city for the salvation of humanity. The account of Epicurean hedonism below makes selective use of all these texts. But although it is based on a broad range of texts, we ought to remain aware of its open-ended and tentative character. Some of the claims defended here may well require revision in the future, if fresh evidence is discovered in sources inaccessible to us at present.12 Third, a comment is in order regarding the presentation and criticism of Epicurean ethics in Cicero’s De finibus. The rhetorical and dialectical structure of that work, as well as its adversarial tone, should not cloud the fact that the exposition of Torquatus, the 12 In particular, fresh evidence is likely to emerge from the application of recently discovered techniques to the study of the Herculaneum papyri, and also from the publication of new fragments belonging to Diogenes’s inscription. 0004801389.INDD 144 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 145 Epicurean spokesman, is careful and thorough, and Cicero’s philosophical rhetoric (cf. 2.17) raises genuine philosophical problems for Epicurus’s hedonism.13 Although caution is necessary in dealing with Cicero’s testimony, this testimony must not be put aside.14 For in addition to the fact that it is consistent with the extant fragments of the Founder and of other members of the school, it is probable that Cicero largely reproduces Epicurus’s own exposition of his ethical system.15 Moreover, he expands and clarifies various aspects of Epicurus’s doctrine on the basis of reliable contemporary sources, which have endorsed, I believe, the interpretation of Epicurean hedonism advanced by the school of Athens, and in particular by Zeno of Sidon.16 For all these reasons, I intend to take seriously into account the discussion of Epicurean hedonism in both De finibus Books 1 and 2 and other relevant Ciceronian texts. 7.1 Pleasure as the moral end We may as well begin with Epicurus’s own words (Ep. Men. 129): This is why we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we know it to be a good which is primary and akin (prōton kai syngenikon). From it we derive every choice and avoidance and to it we come back, judging every good thing by the feeling (pathos) which we use as a yardstick. According to Epicurus, then, pleasure has priority over every other good. This does not only, or not necessarily, mean that it is the first thing that we encounter in our lives. According to Torquatus, who says that he remains faithful to Epicurus’s way of teaching 13 On the philosophical value of Cicero’s rhetorically expressed criticisms against Epicurus, see Inwood, “Rhetorica Disputatio: The Strategy of De Finibus II.” The admirable study by Schofield, “Ciceronian Dialogue” sheds light on the nature of Ciceronian dialogue and includes discussion of several excerpts from the first two books of the De finibus. 14 Gosling and Taylor, The Greeks on Pleasure and Nikolsky, “Epicurus on Pleasure” construe Epicurus’s conception of pleasure independently of Cicero’s testimony. Although I am sympathetic to the idea, defended by Nikolsky, that Epicurus shaped his hedonism in response to debates within the Academy, I do not think that these debates are Epicurus’s only reference point nor, as will become evident, do I find persuasive the arguments on account of which the above authors saw fit to disregard the evidence of the De finibus. Notably, there is no textual support for Gosling and Taylor’s contention that sensory pleasures untainted by pain are katastematic; on the contrary, they are described in the terms of “sweet motions.” Nor is it true, as Nikolsky claims, that Epicurus was not particularly interested in the distinction between kinetic and katastematic pleasure. For we find this distinction in his treatise On the Moral End and, philosophically, it is crucial in order to distinguish the goal advocated by Epicurean hedonism from the pleasures of the profligates which, as Epicureans of all periods suggest, coincide with those pursued by the Cyrenaics. On this last point, see Tsouna, “Cyrenaics and Epicureans on Pleasure and the Good Life.” 15 On the foundational structure of Epicurus’s ethics and the parallel structure of his physics, see the compelling argument by Sedley, “The Inferential Foundation for Epicurean Ethics.” 16 See Tsouna, “Cicéron et Philodème: quelques considérations sur l’éthique.” 0004801389.INDD 145 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 146 VOULA TSOUNA (Fin. 1.29), Epicurus designated pleasure as the telos, supreme or sovereign good, in the sense in which all philosophers agree that something is a telos: namely, all other goods must refer to it, whereas it does not refer to anything else. Epicurus’s further claim that pleasure is akin (syngenikon) and connatural (symphyton) points to its special affinity to our own nature. Because it has a nature congenial to us (cf. physin oikeian, Ep. Men. 129), every pleasure is in itself a good. Moreover, by virtue of that affinity, pleasure is closely related to physical and mental health (e.g. Ep. Men. 128). The opposite holds for pain: it is most alien to our nature and, therefore, every pain in itself is an evil and tends to destroy our constitution. Epicurus’s assertion that the pathos of pleasure is used as the standard for all choice and avoidance indicates that he has in mind, specifically, his own followers and not mankind in general. For only the Epicureans recognize pleasure as the first and congenital good, and only they employ the corresponding pathos as their sole ethical criterion. In fact, since feelings belong, together with sense-perceptions and preconceptions, to the Epicurean criteria of truth (Epicurus, Ep. Hdt. 82, DL 10.31), the judgments derived from the feeling of pleasure must be true judgments. And the corresponding decisions regarding things to choose or avoid must be good decisions, i.e. conducive to pleasure. Epicurus drives no sharp wedge between truth and value. Criterial beliefs about the moral value of things have objective truth, just as criterial beliefs about the physical nature of things do.17 And, in the former case, the feeling of pleasure serves as the ultimate arbiter of moral truth, while it is not itself subject to any higher authority. Like other criteria, it is self-evident (enargēs) and indemonstrable. These features characterize the feeling of pain as well.18 Epicurus’s doctrine that the greatest good is pleasure and the greatest evil pain is supported by an argument that came to be known as the Cradle Argument. While it is not explicitly advanced in the Founder’s surviving texts, a version of it probably played a part in his treatise On the Moral End,19 and different formulations are also found in other secondary sources. To convey a sense of the issues at stake, let us look at Torquatus’s use of that argument and examine the main interpretative options available to us. According to the Epicurean spokesman in the De finibus, Epicurus sets about establishing his thesis that pleasure is the highest good but pain the greatest evil in the following manner (Fin. 1.29–30): Every living being, as soon as it is born, seeks pleasure and enjoys it as the sovereign good, while it shuns pain as the sovereign evil and avoids it as far as possible. This it does at a time when it is not yet corrupted, on the pure and impartial judgment of nature itself. Hence he denies that there is any need to prove or dispute why pleasure should be pursued and pain avoided. He thinks that these matters are felt as fire is 17 See Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1.90. 18 It seems that, in Epicurus’s view, pleasure and pain are the primary feelings, while other feelings can be classified under them. 19 See Usener, Epicurea, 119. A different view is taken by Arrighetti, Epicuro. Opere, 187–90. 0004801389.INDD 146 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 147 felt to be hot, snow to be white, and honey sweet. None of these things needs to be confirmed by elaborate arguments; it is enough simply to point them out. Epicurus’s description of pleasure as the first and connatural good could be taken to allude to a similar line of reasoning (Ep. Men. 129): the fact that the primary feelings determining the behavior of all newborn creatures are pleasure and pain somehow supports the thesis that these ought to be the goals of our choices or avoidances. However, the relation between the description of the psychological hedonism of infants20 and the ethical hedonism proposed by Epicurus is far from clear. In fact, attempts have been made to exonerate Epicurus and his followers of the charge of committing the naturalistic fallacy: inferring that we, mature adults, ought to pursue pleasure and avoid pain from the empirical observation that infants in the cradle do, in fact, seek the former but shun the latter. On one view,21 the commonplace assertion that infants are naturally and primarily attracted to pleasure22 is not intended to serve as a basis for the identification of pleasure with the sovereign good, which is argued for by Epicurus on independent grounds. Rather, it is contended, the appeal to cradles provides an argument for the purely “natural” character of pleasure, which can be ascertained at a time when the child’s nature is not yet depraved by society and culture. In other words, observation of small children in the cradle is not necessary to justify the value of pleasure as the sole ethical criterion; but it is necessary in order to authenticate the natural origins of the pathos of pleasure as felt by the adult. On another view,23 the Cradle Argument plays no role in Epicurus’s theory of moral motivation because, in fact, Epicurus does not espouse psychological hedonism, since he allows for sources of motivation different from the pleasure or pain of an action or of its consequences. In particular, Epicureans are motivated also by friendship, which they take to be an intrinsic good, and this entails that one acts on occasion without being in sole pursuit of one’s own pleasure. Also, as has been forcefully argued,24 every passage deemed to be relevant to psychological hedonism concerns, in truth, the motivation of “we” Epicureans, not “we” human beings in general. Assuming that this is the case, the conclusion has been drawn that the Epicureans came to have the psychological tendency to pursue pleasure as a result of their ethical hedonism.25 20 Although Torquatus refers to the psychological hedonism of omne animal, every living being, I focus my discussion specifically on humans. 21 See Brunschwig, “The Cradle Argument in Epicureanism and Stoicism.” 22 As Brunschwig, “The Cradle Argument in Epicureanism and Stoicism,” 117 notes, Torquatus makes no attempt to justify that assertion by appealing to observable evidence, nor does he show any hesitation when he tells us what an infant feels and desires. The reason is that the psychological hedonism of very small children and animals had been a topic of intense discussion in the Academy, and its possibilities and implications had been fully explored. Notably, Eudoxus thought that the desire that obviously attracts all living beings to itself is the sēmeion, sign, that it is the best for everybody (NE 1172b9). On the other hand, Speusippus rejected hedonism on just those grounds. 23 This view has been defended on different grounds by Annas, The Morality of Happiness, 240–44; and Cooper, “Pleasure and Desire in Epicurus.” 24 See Cooper, “Pleasure and Desire in Epicurus.” 25 Cooper, “Pleasure and Desire in Epicurus.” 0004801389.INDD 147 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 148 VOULA TSOUNA However, critics of this latter view retort that the passages referring to psychological hedonism cannot all be attributed to the Epicureans alone but, more frequently than not, generally refer to the tendency towards pleasure that all living beings have as a matter of psychological fact.26 Moreover, it has plausibly been objected that Epicurus’s assumption that people learn to be motivated by considerations other than pleasure or pain does not preclude psychological hedonism. For it may still be true that the considerations motivating us, ultimately, can be traced back to these primary feelings. Alternatively, if they cannot be traced back to these feelings, ethical hedonism must be abandoned together with psychological hedonism.27 Evidence concerning the relation between the descriptive claim of psychological hedonism and the normative thesis of ethical hedonism casts doubt on the former line of interpretation, described above, as well. For, on the one hand, Torquatus’s version of the Cradle Argument appears compatible with the contention that the description of early animal behavior is not intended to serve as the basis for ethical hedonism. According to his exposition, what follows from the premise that all newborn creatures do seek pleasure and shun pain is not the normative conclusion that pleasure ought to be sought and pain avoided. Rather, Torquatus infers that the normative thesis does not need to be demonstrated: since pleasure and pain are experiences, it suffices merely to point them out.28 On the other hand, however, several texts present the descriptive claim as the grounds from which ethical hedonism is inferred. For instance, according to Diogenes Laertius, Epicurus uses that claim as a proof (apodeixis) that pleasure is the goal (DL 10.137). Also, according to Sextus Empiricus, the Epicureans suppose themselves to have proved (deiknynai) that pleasure is naturally choiceworthy on the strength of the premise that newborn and unperverted animals pursue it and move away from pain (P 3.194).29 In the light of such evidence, a different line of interpretation seems to me preferable. Namely, the force of the normative inference that we ought to pursue pleasure and avoid pain is intended to be derived, precisely, from the factual statement that all animals, when still uncorrupted, do seek the one but avoid the other.30 One may readily object that, if this is the structure of the argument, then Epicurus or his followers fall prey to the naturalistic fallacy. The answer that can be provided has a long history stretching back to Plato and his successors, including the hedonist Eudoxus: the idea is that nature has normative meaning, so that what nature propels us to seek is also the good thing to seek. If this is the case, the empirical generalization concerning living beings and, in particular, human beings in the cradle can be considered adequate grounds for inferring what sort of final goal we ought to set for ourselves as mature adults. 26 See, e.g., Woolf, “What Kind of Hedonist Was Epicurus?”; and Dimas, “Epicurus on Pleasure, Desire, and Friendship,” 165–68. 27 See Dimas, “Epicurus on Pleasure, Desire, and Friendship,” 165–66. 28 This point is argued by Brunschwig, “The Cradle Argument in Epicureanism and Stoicism,” 120–21. 29 These texts are discussed with a different purpose by Brunschwig, “The Cradle Argument in Epicureanism and Stoicism,” 124–25. 30 Sedley, “The Inferential Foundation for Epicurean Ethics,” 136–37. 0004801389.INDD 148 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 149 In sum, we cannot be certain as to the exact way in which Epicurus intended the Cradle Argument to be understood, and he may well have left that matter undetermined. But, judging from the available evidence, I am inclined to think that some of his later followers if not Epicurus himself held that psychological hedonism actually entails ethical hedonism.31 If it is psychologically impossible to pursue as the ultimate good anything other than pleasure, then there is nothing other than pleasure that one actually ought to pursue. Any other normative theory of choice and action would be bound to have no real object; it would be empty in just that sense. 7.2 The so-called hedonistic calculus According to Torquatus, while Epicurus relies on the self-evident character of the feeling of pleasure and does not see any need to argue for the thesis that pleasure ought to be pursued and pain avoided, some members of the school choose to support the selfevident goodness of pleasure by pointing out that it constitutes a natural preconception rooted in the mind and, therefore, can be infallibly grasped by both sensation and reason. Yet another group of Epicureans, to which Torquatus also claims to belong, believes that the fundamental contention of Epicurean ethics must be defended by argument against rival ethical theories (Fin. 1.31). There is no doubt that each of these groups justified its stance by appealing to the writings of Epicurus.32 This is precisely what Torquatus does, when he promises to explain the mistake of those who blame pleasure and praise pain by quoting arguments from the Founder himself (Fin. 1.32): No one rejects or dislikes or avoids pleasure itself because it is pleasure, but because greater pains ensue for those who are ignorant of how to pursue pleasure in a rational manner. Nor again is there anyone who loves, seeks, or wants to have pain itself because it is pain, but rather because there are conditions enabling one to achieve some great pleasure by hardship and pain. What is going on, then, in cases of painful actions which might appear to be chosen for the sake of things other than pleasure is that, in fact, they are chosen for the sake of greater pleasure resulting from them. The moral exemplars earlier extolled by the character Cicero are supposed to be explicable in that way. While laymen reason in that way without being fully aware that they do so, Epicurus and all his followers are fully conscious of the importance of the so-called hedonistic 31 I have briefly argued for this view in Tsouna, “Epicureanism and Hedonism.” The same position is also held by Dimas, “Epicurus on Pleasure, Desire, and Friendship” on different grounds. 32 On this point, see Sedley, “The Inferential Foundation for Epicurean Ethics,” 137–38. 0004801389.INDD 149 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 150 VOULA TSOUNA calculus,33 which they view as the hallmark of their ethics. Speaking on behalf of himself and his followers,34 Epicurus describes their way of making hedonistic choices as follows (Ep. Men. 129–30): Because pleasure is the primary and connatural good, for this reason we do not choose every pleasure, but we sometimes pass over many pleasures when greater difficulties for us would result from them. And we consider many pains preferable to pleasures whenever greater pleasure follows for us after we have endured many pains for quite some time. So, while every pleasure is a good because it is naturally congenial (to us), not every pleasure is choiceworthy. And likewise, although every pain is evil, not every pain is by nature to be avoided. But we have to judge all this by relative calculation (symmetrēsei) and survey of advantages and disadvantages. For, on some occasions, we treat the good as bad and, conversely, the bad as good. In sum, while everybody makes decisions with the aim of getting greater pleasure in the end, only the followers of Epicurus regularly and successfully assess the long-term implications of their actions (KD 8, SV 73) under the guidance of “this famous discoverer of the truth and architect, as it were, of the happy life” (Fin. 1.32). Diogenes of Oenoanda expresses this idea in more concrete and practical terms. In fr. 34 (Smith),35 he concludes his argument to the effect that pleasure is the supreme good by exhorting us to reject the sophistical arguments (τοὺς σοφιστικοὺς λόγους: 2.7–8), which advocate the thoughtless hedonism of the many ([οἱ πολ]λοί: 3.13–14),36 but apply instead the rational calculation of pleasures and pains ([λογισμῷ χρῆσθ]αι: 3.14–4.1).37 Moreover, Diogenes argues, the application of the calculus presupposes the acceptance that we shall not always be immediately successful in our efforts. Contrary to what some “sophists” suggest, however, we ought to persevere, enduring pains when this is needed in order to achieve greater pleasure in the end (Smith fr. 34 2.4–5.1): Thus, I say, where the danger is great, so also is the fruit. Here we must turn aside these sophistical arguments, because they are insidious and offensive, and have been contrived on the basis of terminological ambiguity to [lead astray] us miserable 33 It is important to register that what is commonly called the Epicurean hedonistic calculus greatly differs from the hedonistic calculus as it occurs in Jeremy Bentham and, generally, the Empiricist tradition. While this latter measures one’s pleasurable feelings against painful ones, the Epicureans concern themselves with a broader and richer sort of calculus conducted through phronēsis and oriented towards moral choice. Bentham’s calculus aims, precisely, to maximize one’s feelings of pleasure, whereas the Epicurean calculus does not. See, notably, the perceptive discussion of Epicurean pleasure by Mitsis, Epicurus’ Ethical Theory: The Pleasures of Invulnerability, 11–58. 34 Note the use of the first person plural in the passage that follows. 35 For the text of Diogenes’s inscription I use the editions by M. F. Smith and by J. Hammerstaedt and M. F. Smith. The translations are my own unless I indicate otherwise, but I have heavily relied on the translations provided by those two authors, as well as by Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1. 36 I provisionally accept Smith’s restoration of 3.12–14. 37 This is a conjecture, but nonetheless it is clear from the context that here Diogenes talks about the hedonistic calculus. 0004801389.INDD 150 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 151 humans . . . . [Do let us] not [avoid every pain that is present nor choose every pleasure as the many always do. For each person must employ reasoning], since he [will not always achieve immediate success: just as] exertion [often] involves one [gain at the beginning and] certain [others as time unfolds], so it is also with [the experience of pleasure]. For sowing seeds does [not] bring [the same benefit] to the sower, [but we observe] some of the seeds [very quickly] germinating and [bearing fruit but others taking longer] . . . . It is worth noting, however, that some doubts appear to have been raised within the Epicurean school regarding the degree and manner in which the calculus bears on ethical choice. According to the surviving part of Philodemus’s treatise On Choices and Avoidances,38 certain “rustic” Epicureans contended that the right choices are not effected through the calculus, but rather result directly from the application of the cardinal principles of the system (kyriōtata). In sharp contrast, the “urbane” or “sophisticated” followers of Epicurus, who presumably include Philodemus and his mentor Zeno of Sidon, have a correct understanding of the teachings of the Founder, according to whom the right choices and avoidances are dictated by the hedonistic calculus and only indirectly depend on the cardinal principles. These last determine the values according to which the calculus is performed, and the calculus in its turn determines the specific choices that we, Epicureans, make (Indelli and Tsouna-McKirahan De elect. 11.7–20). Evidently, Epicurus and his followers regularly relied on the calculus in order to address the aforementioned charge that they advocate excessive physical indulgence and follow a profligate lifestyle.39 The same accusation was targeted at the Cyrenaics as well. In fact, the enemies of ancient hedonism tend either to disregard the differences between the two schools or to play them against one another.40 Their willful misunderstandings are especially blatant with regard to the presence or absence of the hedonistic calculus. As mentioned, the orthodox Cyrenaics headed by Aristippus the Younger espoused a sort of hedonic presentism which entailed that one ought to aim to present pleasure and, foremost, bodily pleasure, whereas the experiences of the past or the anticipated pleasures of the future have no moral relevance whatsoever. Happiness is nothing but the aggregate of individual pleasures and, as many Cyrenaics including Hegesias point out, there are far too many impediments to its attainment. To the heedless pursuit of pleasure by the Cyrenaics, Epicurus and his followers oppose the rational calculation of longterm pleasure recommended by their own school. On the one hand, immediate pleasure can have an overwhelming power and can be considered choiceworthy merely because of its compelling force (Fin. 1.33). On the other hand, people steeped in the doctrine of 38 On the author and the title of P.Herc. 1251, see Indelli and Tsouna-McKirahan, [Philodemus] [On Choices and Avoidances], 61–70. 39 Such criticisms are discussed by Sedley, “Epicurus and His Professional Rivals”; and Erler and Schofield, “Epicurean Ethics,” 643. 40 Such is the practice of Cicero and Plutarch. See my study of the polemics between the Cyrenaics and the Epicureans and, especially, the role that the two Academic authors played in those polemics in Tsouna, “Cyrenaics and Epicureans on Pleasure and the Good Life.” 0004801389.INDD 151 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 152 VOULA TSOUNA Epicurus have the intellectual and psychological equipment to resist the immediate attractions of present pleasure, if the hedonistic calculus suggests to them that they should do so. As a result of that attitude, they have a moderate and self-sufficient mode of life, sharply different from the sybaritic lifestyle associated with the Cyrenaics, which enables them both to enjoy pleasure freely and to react appropriately to external constraints (Ep. Men. 130–32). While we shall return later, we should now consider two passages from late Epicurean authors, which draw a contrast between the Cyrenaics and the Epicureans regarding, precisely, the performance of the calculus. In his treatise On Choices and Avoidances, Philodemus sketches out various sceptical views, all of which deny the possibility of rationally evaluating one’s actions and integrating one’s experiences in a rational life-plan.41 In the first place, he uses as his premise the Cyrenaic epistemological claim that we can apprehend only our own pathē, and what he takes to be the corresponding ethical claim, i.e. that our moral decisions are dictated by our pathē, in order to infer that the subjectivism and sensationalism of the Cyrenaics have anti-rationalistic implications (De elect. 2.5–12). If the only things we can know are our pathē, we have no grounds for preferring one of them over another as a guide to action. Instead, we act impulsively, by attending to the pathē of the body or the mind (2.11–12), without being in a position to provide a rational explanation for our choices. Also, exploring further the links between Cyrenaic scepticism and a conception of action according to which action is guided by pathē, not by rational considerations, he argues as follows: since the Cyrenaics postulate the pathē as the moral ends42 and the sole criteria of action, they feel entitled to use any means to pleasure and do not hold themselves accountable for their own choices. To put it differently, Philodemus suggests that, because the Cyrenaics are septics, they adopt a subjectivist and presentist criterion of action; and because the latter is of that sort, it entails a crude hedonism according to which the agent’s choices are deemed incorrigible and do not involve long-term assessments of value (3.6–14).43 The context indicates that Philodemus brings the Cyrenaics back to life for an important dialectical purpose: to show that, in virtue of the hedonistic 41 The relevant excerpt is the following: “[They claim that], in truth, no [judgment takes precedence over any other], since they are persuaded that [the great affection] of the soul occurs as a result of pain and that we [accomplish our choices] and avoidances in that manner, [by observing both] (sc. both physical and mental pain). For it is not possible that [the] joys arise in us in the same way and [all together], in accordance with [some] expectation . . .” (2.5–15) “Some people [denied] that it is possible to know anything. And [they added] that if nothing is present on account of which one [should] make an immediate choice, then one [should not choose] in an immediate manner. Others, having selected the affections of the soul as the moral ends and as not in need of additional judgement based on further things, granted to everybody unchallengeable authority to take pleasure in whatever they cared to name and to do whatever contributed to it. Yet others held the doctrine that what we call grief or joy are totally empty notions, because of the manifest indeterminacy of things . . .” (3.2–18 Indelli and Tsouna McKirahan). 42 However, the Cyrenaics do not posit as the moral ends “the affections of the soul,” but the affections of both the soul and the body. I think that the genitive tēs psychēs either qualifies telē or is used in a generic sense indicating the entire living person. 43 Other aspects of Philodemus’s argument against the Cyrenaics are discussed in Tsouna, “Cyrenaics and Epicureans on Pleasure and the Good Life.” 0004801389.INDD 152 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 153 calculus, Epicurean ethics is far superior to the hedonistic presentism theorized by the Cyrenaics and followed unreflectively by the many. Philodemus pursues this goal in a manner both original and effective, pointing to the anti-rationalist implications of Cyrenaic hedonism and contrasting this last with Epicurus’s highly rational approach to action, whose principles are summarized in the surviving columns of Philodemus’s treatise. Diogenes of Oenoanda also compares and contrasts the two schools on similar grounds.44 Before moving on, we should pause to reflect on the defining features of Epicurean hedonism sketched out above. We may call them naturalism and rationalism. The former consists in the psychological tendency of all living beings, including humans, to seek pleasure and avoid pain, and it constitutes the basis entailing the ethical hedonism of the Epicurean school. The latter manifests itself above all in our rational capacity to assess the value of present pleasure in respect of its long-term consequences and judge correctly what to choose and what to avoid with a view to greater pleasure. If the natural tendency towards pleasure has much to do with the body and its needs, our capacity to perform the calculus is a matter of our mind. Body and mind, animality and rationality, are both aspects of our constitution and jointly determine the pursuit of the moral goal. How they do so will become clearer in the next section. 7.3 Epicurus’s elaboration and defense of hedonism Epicurus and his followers assess the contributions of the body and of the mind to the achievement of pleasure by considering the different natures of bodily and mental experiences as well as the relations holding between these two categories. On the one hand, like the Cyrenaics and unlike Plato’s Socrates, Epicurus gives some sort of primacy to bodily experiences and the concern with the well-being of the flesh ([e]usarkia: Philodemus, De Epic., P.Herc. 1232 17.15). He states, controversially as we shall see, that when life has been stripped of physical pleasures as well as of the hopes or memories of them, we have no reason to wish to remain alive (P.Herc. 1232 18.10–17). Furthermore, he is reported to have claimed that the root of all good lies in the pleasures of the stomach (Athenaeus Deipn. 546 ff.), and that the satisfaction of “the cry of the flesh” so as not to be hungry or thirsty or cold makes one as happy as Zeus (SV 33). In a similar direction, Zeno of Sidon urges us to concentrate on physical pleasures or “on pleasures which, on account of the body, find their place in memory or anticipation” (Angeli and Colaizzo fr. 8). Weaker variants of the same view underlie also Philodemus’s suggestion that we should endeavor to preserve our good health (De elect. 23.3–12) and his repudiation of 44 See Tsouna, “Diogenes and the Cyrenaics.” 0004801389.INDD 153 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 154 VOULA TSOUNA moral vices partly on the grounds that they cause a great deal of bodily suffering.45 The fundamental character of bodily pleasure is also illustrated by the Epicurean use of the pig as a positive symbol for human beings.46 For although that lowly animal cannot experience happiness, which can only be experienced by humans, nonetheless it illustrates a sort of basic contentment related to plain physical pleasure, that animals as well as humans are able to enjoy. On the other hand, in apparently deliberate contrast47 to the orthodox Cyrenaics, who privilege bodily pleasures over mental ones, Epicurus argues that mental pleasures are far greater and more influential with regard to the overall quality of one’s life. For bodily experiences are restricted to the present, whereas mental ones extend also over the past and the future (Fin. 1.55, DL 10.137). Also, the intensity of our experiences can be immensely increased by beliefs, especially future-directed ones, concerning the value of their intentional objects. Pain becomes more acute if we believe that it will result in some great evil for us and, correspondingly, pleasure is greater if we believe that there is no reason for apprehension and fear (Fin. 1.55). In Toquatus’s words (1.56): It is therefore clear that maximal pleasure or distress of the mind contributes more to a happy or miserable life than a bodily pleasure or pain of equal duration. Diogenes adds another argument to the same effect, drawing a sharp contrast between the Epicurean and the Cyrenaic positions concerning the primacy of mental or psychic pleasure (fr. 49 cols I.12-II.17): Our nature [requires what] is better for [our] soul. And the soul has clearly more [capacities] than the body. For it [has] control of the extreme and supremacy over the other pathē, as indeed we also claimed it to have [above]. [Therefore if], paying attention to the arguments of Aristippus, on the one hand, we take care of the body [by choosing] all the pleasures deriving from drink, food, and sexual acts and, in general, all things that no longer [give pleasure after they have been enjoyed but, on the other hand, neglect the soul, we shall deprive ourselves of the greatest pleasures]. Although, in this passage, Diogenes does not formally defend the contention that the primacy of psychic pleasure has a naturalistic backing, nonetheless he lends support to it by stressing the superior capabilities of the soul and its control over physical affects. In doing so, he perfectly aligns himself with Epicurus, but also enriches the thesis of the Founder by adding something new to the doctrine. As we shall see in more detail in the final section, the Epicurean position described above is not free of tensions. The primacy that Epicurus attributes to bodily pleasure 45 Tsouna, The Ethics of Philodemus, 23. 46 See Warren, Epicurus and Democritean Ethics, 129–49. 47 That the contrast in question is deliberate is suggested by both Lampe, The Birth of Hedonism; and Tsouna, “Cyrenaics and Epicureans on Pleasure and the Good Life.” 0004801389.INDD 154 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 155 may well appear incompatible with the dominance of psychic experiences over physical ones. It is probably for that reason that several Epicureans ended up rejecting the bodily origin of all mental pleasure and, therefore, were branded as heretical (cf. Fin. 1.55). Furthermore, while mental experiences have greater scope and intensity than the corresponding bodily ones, their effects are not invariably benign. For, on the one hand, the mind does have the power to counterbalance even the most severe physical sufferings by summoning memories of past pleasures. This is illustrated in a compelling manner by Epicurus’s letter to Idomeneus, written “in the last and most blessed day” of his life, in which he attests that the joy that he feels at the remembrance of their past conversations offsets the excruciating physical pains that he suffers (DL 10.22). On the other hand, however, the mind can also magnify bodily pain or overcome present pleasure by entertaining false beliefs about value. In this latter sense, the mind has a downside, whereas the body has none.48 In any case, it is important to observe that Epicurus and his school both acknowledge the fundamental character of physical experience and emphasize the moral dimensions of human rationality. The successful performance of the hedonistic calculus presupposes that we take into account, precisely, the very different ways in which our physical nature and our mental equipment each contribute to the achievement of pleasure. This observation is particularly important for the effective application of Epicurean moral therapy.49 Another distinction introduced by the Epicureans has a strikingly innovative character and paramount ethical importance: pleasure can be either kinetic, in which case it is associated with some sort of motion (kinēsis) causing an agreeable stirring, or, alternatively, katastematic or static pleasure, which is characterized by the complete absence of pain. These aspects of pleasure will be further examined below, but we should register up front that the Epicureans are the first school known to maintain each and all of the following: there is nothing intermediate between pleasure and pain; the absence of pain is pleasure; this latter is a stable condition rather than some process or activity; and it is the highest good. Although the authenticity of the distinction between kinetic and katastematic pleasure is disputed,50 there are good reasons to believe that the twofold concept of pleasure was introduced into the system by the Founder himself. In his work On Choices, he states his position as follows (DL 10.136): 48 However, bodily pleasures can adversely affect our happiness if we miscalculate their long-term consequences. 49 A general overview of Epicurean therapeutic techniques is offered by Tsouna, “Epicurean Therapeutic Strategies.” 50 See, notably, Gosling and Taylor, The Greeks on Pleasure, 365–96; and Nikolsky, “Epicurus on Pleasure.” Participants in the debate comprise Rist, Epicurus. An Introduction; Giannantoni, “Il piacere cinetico nell’etica epicurea”; Striker, “Antipater, or the Art of Living”; Mitsis, Epicurus’ Ethical Theory: The Pleasures of Invulnerability, 45–52; Hossenfelder, “Epicurus—hedonist malgré lui”; Purinton, “Epicurus on the telos”; and Konstan, “Epicurean Happiness: A Pig’s Life?” 0004801389.INDD 155 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 156 VOULA TSOUNA Freedom from disturbance (ataraxia) and freedom from physical pain (aponia) are katastematic pleasures; but joy (chara) and delight (euphrosynē) are viewed as kinetic activities. Moreover, he is attested to have used the above distinction in his ethical treatise On the End, the first book of On Ways of Life, and the letter to his friends in Mytilene. The Letter to Menoeceus does not employ the terms “kinetic” or “katastematic” but, all the same, I think that it clearly implies a distinction between, on the one hand, the pleasures deriving from the satisfaction of desires and, on the other hand, bodily painlessness and psychic freedom from disturbance. For this latter “is the end belonging to the blessed life” and the ultimate goal of our actions (Ep. Men. 128). Moreover, several Key Doctrines appear to imply the distinction under discussion (KD 3, 10, 18–21), and the same holds for certain Vatican Sayings as well (SV 33, 51, 59, 81). Epicurus’s critics do not tire of repeating that his twofold notion of pleasure is both psychologically counterintuitive and theoretically problematic. I shall return to this point, but for the time being we should briefly consider the dialectical and philosophical factors that may have motivated Epicurus to draw it. Not only is it likely that he reacts to Plato, who appears to favor the view that pleasure is a restorative process associated with some sort of kinēsis, and possibly to Aristotle, who determines pleasure in terms of a certain type of activity. Also, according to both ancient and modern interpreters, Epicurus shaped the keystone of his hedonism in such a manner as to set it in opposition to the concept of pleasure on which Cyrenaic hedonism is based, i.e., in Epicurus’s terms, kinetic pleasure (cf. SE, M 7.199). In particular, his radical move to call the absence of pain pleasure, indeed the highest pleasure, and therefore preclude the existence of any category of experiences other than pleasure and pain, appears intended to counter the view of Aristippus the Younger. According to this latter, there are three conditions of the human constitution, i.e., pleasure, pain, and an intermediate condition comparable to a calm sea (Aristocles ap. Euseb. Prep. ev. 14.18.32). And, correspondingly, there are three types of experiences: pathē of pleasure, pathē of pain, and intermediate pathē. Aristippus the Younger and his followers believe that this intermediate group of affectively neutral experiences have no moral value and that the only experiences that do have moral value are those resulting from motions titillating the senses; the Cyrenaics have been depicted as advocates of licentiousness on just that count (Athenaeus Deipn. 544e). On the contrary, by giving utmost ethical importance to the states of aponia and ataraxia, Epicurus probably intended, among other things, to make his own brand of hedonism immune to the charge of profligacy. The fact that Metrodorus too states that pleasure can be conceived as both kinetic and katastematic (On Timocrates: cf. DL 10.136) constitutes evidence that, already during the first generation of Epicurus’s followers, the twofold concept of pleasure became part of the orthodox Epicurean dogma. As such it is subsequently endorsed by every known member of the school. For instance, it underlies Lucretius’s approach to the passions and his therapeutic techniques. It is used by Philodemus in his analyses of emotions and 0004801389.INDD 156 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 157 vices and in his portrayal of the Epicurean ideal.51 And it is asserted by Torquatus in the core of his exposition of Epicurean ethics (Fin. 1.37): We do not simply pursue the sort of pleasure which stirs our nature with its sweetness and produces agreeable sensations in us. Rather, the pleasure we deem greatest is that which is felt when all pain is removed. For when we are freed from pain, we take delight in that very liberation and release from all that is distressing. Diogenes too evokes the distinction between kinetic and katastematic pleasure on numerous occasions, including the surviving part of his polemics against the presentist hedonism of the Cyrenaics, whose sects, however, had disappeared from the philosophical stage long before Diogenes’s time (fr. 34.6.2–14): Now we should investigate how our life will become pleasant in both the states (ἐν τοῖς καταστήμασι) and the actions (ἐν ταῖς πράξεσιν). And let us first discuss the states, keeping an eye on the point that, when the emotions which disturb the soul are removed, those which produce pleasure enter into it to take their place. If, as the context suggests, Diogenes intends to make an anti-Cyrenaic point, it is probably this: he contrasts the Epicurean agenda of investigating how to achieve lifelong pleasure in both states and actions with the Cyrenaics’ indifference to lifelong pleasure and, specifically, their exclusive interest in pleasurable actions but not in pleasurable states. Assuming that his reference to καταστήματα (katastemata) points to katastematic pleasure,52 he probably invites his readers to compare the Cyrenaics’ single-minded pursuit of actions aiming at immediate kinetic pleasures with the Epicureans’ concern for both short-term kinetic pleasures and stable conditions equivalent to katastematic pleasure.53 To acquire a better understanding of the distinction between katastematic and kinetic pleasure and of the interpretative problems surrounding it, let us dwell a little longer on some of the issues mentioned above. On what basis does Epicurus differentiate katastematic from kinetic pleasures? How are these two sorts or aspects of pleasure related to bodily and mental pleasures, the restoration of needs and, generally, the fulfillment of desires? In what way are the kinetic pleasures related to the katastematic state and what is their respective moral value? And, finally, what are the implications of Epicurus’s view that painlessness of the body and the undisturbed state of the mind constitute the highest good? In my view, Epicurus’s main criterion for distinguishing between kinetic and katastematic pleasures is that the former involve some sort of motion of which we are aware, 51 See Tsouna, The Ethics of Philodemus, 15–17. 52 On Diogenes’s use of κατάστημα (katastema) to denote Epicurean pleasure, see also NF 192 3.10–4.1. 53 For further discussion of fr. 34, see Tsouna, “Diogenes and the Cyrenaics.” 0004801389.INDD 157 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 158 VOULA TSOUNA whereas the latter do not. The motions in question have to do with processes oriented towards the satisfaction of all sorts of desires. To corroborate the accusation that Epicurus and his followers were after kinetic pleasures, Athenaeus cites a much maligned excerpt from On the Moral End, in which Epicurus is taken to extol the kinetic pleasures deriving from food, sex, hearing, and “the pleasant motions produced on the sense of sight by a beautiful form” (Athenaus Deipn. 12.546e). Likewise, Torquatus describes kinetic pleasure as a sort of pleasure “moving” our nature in a delightful manner (Fin. 1.37); Cicero confirms that, in the treatise On the Moral End, Epicurus claims that kinetic pleasures result from suaves motiones, sweet or pleasant motions produced through the eyes and through the other senses in the whole human being (Tusc. 3.41). However, the evidence regarding the sorts of pleasures that qualify as kinetic or katastematic is more ambiguous. Epicurus’s claim that he could not conceive of the good without reference to bodily pleasures associated with motions (Deipn. 12.546e), and also the fact that he usually illustrates kinetic pleasures by giving examples of sensory pleasures (including esthetic ones), could be taken to indicate that all kinetic pleasures are physical. Nonetheless, in On Choices, Epicurus refers to kinetic pleasures that are not physical but psychic: chara and euphrosynē, joy and delight (DL 10.136). Hence, kinetic pleasures can be either of the soul or of the body. The same holds for katastematic pleasure: “aponia” typically refers to painlessness in the body, whereas “ataraxia” indicates the absence of pain or disturbance in the mind (DL 10.136). To summarize, the distinction between katastematic and kinetic pleasure cuts across the one between pleasures of the body or of the mind. What makes a pleasure kinetic or katastematic is not its physical or mental character, but rather the presence or absence of the relevant stirring and of the sort of feeling that results from this latter.54 As indicated, contrary to the Cyrenaics, the Epicureans ascribe genuine value to the pleasures of recollection and anticipation as well as to those experienced in the present. Obviously, those pleasures belong to the mind, not the body, and they are kinetic in so far as they involve the mind’s movement to bring to the fore experiences of the past or to project itself towards the future. According to a widespread view, the pleasures remembered or hoped for are always kinetic, because Epicurus maintains that the mind feels joy when it has the expectation of tasteful food, sex, music, and other sensory experiences (Tusc. 3.41). Also, on the same view, the pleasures that we anticipate are always kinetic as well: we are looking forward to the processes or activities that will stir our senses or mind in an agreeable manner. However, I submit that katastematic pleasure too can be the object of anticipation and probably of memory as well (Plut. Non posse 1089d): For the stable condition (katastēma) of the flesh and the reliable expectation concerning it (sc. the katastēma) contain the highest and most secure joy for those who are able to reach it by reasoning. 54 The extant fragments of the Epicureans do not settle the question whether, when we are in a condition of katastematic pleasure, there may be some physical motion of which we are unaware or, alternatively, there is no motion at all. The Cyrenaic philosopher Anniceris appears to assume the latter, when he compares the condition of katastematic pleasure with the state of a corpse. 0004801389.INDD 158 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 159 This excerpt from On the Moral End implies that, in fact, the confident anticipation of the katastematic state is morally more important than the expectation of kinetic pleasures arousing the senses. This is as it should be, since bodily painlessness and psychic tranquility have supreme moral value. Whether kinetic pleasures are restorative, i.e., derive from the satisfaction of desires and the fulfillment of bodily needs, is under debate. According to one sort of approach, the motions involved in kinetic pleasure are always associated with mental desiresatisfaction or physical replenishment, e.g., quenching one’s thirst or satisfying one’s hunger (Fin. 2.9; SV 33), whereas, according to another, kinetic pleasures are distinct and different from replenishment processes.55 All things considered, it seems to me that, although many kinetic pleasures result from replenishment processes, not all of them do. In the first place, consider someone not entirely free of physical want, or mental anxiety, or both. Even though one’s primary desire will be oriented towards removing the pain and hence will probably be restorative, nonetheless that same person is likely simultaneously to feel desires for other things as well, wlhich are not related to the source of one’s dominant need at that time. For instance, while the pleasure of eating will address one’s hunger, the pleasure of admiring at the same time the arrangement of flowers on the table does not replenish anything at all. In the second place, we should consider the nature of the pleasures that one experiences when one is in a katastematic state. As indicated, these experiences may be bodily or mental: a person in a state of static pleasure can be both enjoying the sunshine by the beach and feeling joy or delight (cf. DL 10.136). Insofar as such pleasures involve motions, they qualify as kinetic.56 Nonetheless, they are not restorative,57 for the condition of katastematic pleasure does not lack anything that needs to be restored. In fact, Epicurus suggests that, while the pleasures deriving from replenishment can be viewed as steps leading to painlessness, the pleasures experienced when one is in this latter state are variations of it. ‘‘Pleasure does not increase in the flesh, once the pain due to deprivation is removed; simply, it varies (poikilletai)” (KD 18 part; also Fin. 2.10).58 Such variations determine, as it were, the particular texture of one’s katastematic condition. Philosophically, there is nothing problematic about the idea that kinetic pleasures can be of different sorts and fulfill different functions. For assuming that they are related to desires, and given that the nature and sources of desires vary, it is reasonable to suppose that kinetic pleasures will also vary in corresponding ways. 55 Regarding this point, compare the contributions by Mitsis, Epicurus’ Ethical Theory: The Pleasures of Invulnerability, 45–46; and Striker, “Antipater, or the Art of Living,” 15. 56 A different view is defended by Dimas, “Epicurus on Pleasure, Desire, and Friendship” who argues that the pleasures experienced in the katastematic state are katastematic pleasures. 57 The same holds for other pleasures considered by Epicurus: looking at a painting, tasting something savory, smelling a perfume, listening to music, and, generally, experiencing sensory or esthetic pleasures (cf. Cic. Tusc. 3.41). 58 See Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1.123. Also relevant are the remarks concerning Epicurus’s concept of the limit of pleasure and the Epicureans’ classification of desires. 0004801389.INDD 159 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 160 VOULA TSOUNA In contrast to the transient character of kinetic pleasures, there is nothing precarious about katastematic pleasure. As indicated, Epicurus and his followers conceive of it as a katastēma, a stable physical or mental condition enduring as long as one remains entirely unaffected by pain. As I said, the matter is controversial, but I am inclined to think that, according to Epicurus, katastematic pleasure of the body results, at least in part, from kinetic processes of replenishment (SV 33): The cry of the flesh is not to be hungry or thirsty or cold. For whoever has these things and hopes to preserve them could rival even Zeus in happiness. Katastematic pleasure of the mind, however, principally depends on detecting the deepest sources of fear and anxiety and on treating them by Epicurean moral therapy. We shall revisit this topic but, at present, it is important to note that painlessness of the body and tranquility of the mind are interconnected and crucially depend upon each other. On the one hand, the serenity of a mind free of disturbance is both intrinsically pleasurable and instrumentally essential to the successful management of physical suffering. On the other hand, even though the mind can overcome the latter, nonetheless the static condition of physical painlessness is far preferable to that of bodily suffering successfully offset by the operations of the mind. For aponia enables us to enjoy all sorts of pleasures and strengthens our confidence that we shall keep doing so in the future (cf. Tusc. 3.41). Comparably to Plato’s Socrates but for reasons radically different from his own, the Epicureans recommend that one should take diligent care of one’s health and should try to preserve one’s body in good condition (Philodemus De elect. 23.7–9). Importantly, according to Epicurus and the other members of his school, the katastematic condition, whether of the mind or of the body, constitutes the very limit of pleasure (KD 3; cf. Diog. fr. 34 lower margin): The limit of the magnitude of pleasures is the removal of all pain. Wherever pleasure is present, for as long as it is present, there is no pain of the body or distress of the mind or both of them together. Epicurus justifies his claim concerning the limit of pleasure by pointing to our physiological make-up: recall his claim that the flesh cannot experience pleasure greater than the removal of pain (KD 18). However, only the mind is in a position to grasp that fact, by reflecting on the nature of pleasure (KD 18) and by rationally assessing “the goal and limit of the flesh” in the light of the correct conception of a complete life (KD 20). The flesh, on the other hand, does not have the capacity to understand that the removal of all suffering marks the quantitative limit of pleasure. Therefore, it treats this latter as if it were infinite (KD 20). Later Epicureans appeal to the limit of pleasure in order to explore the question whether the temporal duration of one’s life has moral significance. Philodemus argues that, contrary to the empty beliefs of the many, the good cannot be measured by time nor is the structure and completeness of one’s life affected by the longer or shorter length 0004801389.INDD 160 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 161 of one’s life (De mort. 12.1–15). Most people believe that a longer life is a more pleasant life and that its greater pleasantness consists in a greater number of accumulated pleasures. Consequently they always aim for future pleasures in a self-defeating effort to possess more goods.59 However, as Philodemus notes, the Epicureans realize that one needs very little time to achieve pleasure (3.32–36) and that the pleasure quickly achieved in a very short time is equal to the pleasure provided by infinite time (3.37–39). Philosophical wisdom entails that we are able to grasp the limit of pleasure and understand that the temporal duration of a life should not be the criterion of its completeness and happiness.60 Arguably, this is compatible with the view that a longer life is likely to contain a greater number of pleasures than a shorter life, and that we have some good reasons to prefer the former to the latter (13.36–14.14).61 We shall revisit this latter issue in the last section of the paper. Epicurus and his adherents mostly take katastematic pleasure to be identical with happiness and often speak of this latter as the overall goal of human life (e.g., Ep. Men. 128; KD 33). However, it would be a mistake to think that kinetic pleasures lie outside the scope of the moral end, or that they are merely means to the removal of pain. On the contrary, they are integrated in the Epicurean telos in the ways defended above, i.e., as variations of or steps towards katastematic pleasure. It is important to stress that, even though the kinetic pleasures related to the restoration of physical needs can plausibly be described in terms of steps aiming to the katastematic condition, all kinetic pleasures are intrinsic goods. But they are not always choiceworthy, whereas katastematic pleasure invariably is. And, moreover, kinetic pleasures are dependent on the katastematic condition in ways in which this latter does not depend on them. One might object that the katastematic state takes on its pleasurable quality in virtue of the kinetic pleasures related to it and, in that sense, its value derives from these latter, but that, if considered on its own, it cannot plausibly be described as pleasure, let alone as the highest pleasure. Anniceris, a Cyrenaic philosopher interacting with Epicurus, put this point bluntly, by comparing katastematic pleasure to the condition of a corpse (DL 2.89). Judging from the surviving texts, however, Epicurus and his followers do not seem particularly disturbed by this sort of objection. We can only speculate why, but I think their reasons partly bear on the analogy between painlessness and health. When we are healthy, we have a feeling of well-being that accompanies everything we do; but we still feel well even if we do nothing. Epicurus appears to view aponia and ataraxia as conditions whose formal requirements coincide with the formal requirements of eudaimonia, happiness, and whose positive character makes them apt to be used as rules of ethical conduct.62 And he suggests that the absence of pain in the body and of disturbance 59 On this point, see Warren, Facing Death, 145 ff. 60 See Tsouna, The Ethics of Philodemus, 269–77. 61 See Sedley, “Epicurean versus Cyrenaic Happiness.” 62 Different developments of this suggestion are found in Hossenfelder, “Epicurus—hedonist malgré lui,” Mitsis, Epicurus’ Ethical Theory: The Pleasures of Invulnerability, 11–58; and Woolf, “What Kind of Hedonist Was Epicurus?,” 172–75. 0004801389.INDD 161 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 162 VOULA TSOUNA in the mind has its own experiential quality, which is distinct from whatever feelings of pleasure accompany the kinetic variations of the katastematic state. For all that Anniceris and other critics say, freedom from pain is not an affectively neutral state nor a condition of which one remains unconscious. In truth, as Epicurus and his followers appear to believe, it feels quite wonderful.63 An intriguing passage from Diogenes Laertius deserves separate comment (DL 10.121): We should think of happiness in two ways: as the highest, which god enjoys, and which is incapable of increase; and <as the happiness which is capable of>64 addition and subtraction of pleasures. On one possible reading, certain late Epicureans explicitly included in their notion of happiness kinetic pleasures as well, possibly in order to forestall the Academic criticism that Epicurean pleasure has two facets, but only one of them is claimed to be the highest good. On another possible interpretation, however, both ways of thinking about happiness have to do with katastematic pleasure: in the former case, it is ideally perfect and complete, whereas in the latter it admits of degrees reflecting the varied circumstances of the human condition. Philodemus’s suggestion that Epicureans suffering an untimely death may have gained happiness without, however, having reached its upper limit (De mort. 19.1–2) points in the direction of this latter interpretation. Epicurus’s treatment of katastematic pleasure as an equivalent of happiness, and his contention that a life free of pain is equal to the life of the gods, place him squarely within the tradition of ethical eudaemonism that most Greek moralists belong to, with the possible exception of the Cyrenaics.65 At the outset of his surviving epitomē on ethics, he explicitly underscores that fact. Having urged everyone, young or old, to undertake the study of Epicurean philosophy, he concludes (Ep. Men. 122): It is therefore necessary that we rehearse the things that produce happiness (eudaimonia), seeing that when happiness is present we have everything, whereas when it is absent we do everything in order to acquire it. Moreover, in the Letter to Mother, he describes himself as making progress towards the achievement of happiness, acquiring something useful day by day and getting closer to a state equal to that of the gods (Diogenes, fr. 112.23–40; cf. Ep. Men. 135; KD 33). Of course, what he means is not that he expects to become immortal, but that the assimilation of Epicurean philosophy renders one capable of “feeling joy as the gods do for as long as 63 A philosophical defense of that thesis, also in connection to the Cradle Argument, is provided by Woolf, “What Kind of Hedonist Was Epicurus?,” 173–75. 64 κατὰ τήν suppl. Usener. The supplementation is also accepted by Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers. 65 See Annas, The Morality of Happiness; Irwin, “Aristippus against Happiness”; and the response by Tsouna-McKirahan in “Is there an exception to Greek eudaemonism?” 0004801389.INDD 162 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 163 we live” (fr. 112.38–40). We should appreciate that the godlike character of Epicurean happiness crucially has to do with the long-term stability and anti-maximalist orientation of katastematic pleasure, and with the mind’s dominant role in the achievement of this latter. Once again, the contrast with Cyrenaic hedonism appears deliberate and, as ancient authors observe, could not have been more marked.66 For Cyrenaic pleasure is inherently unstable and locked into the present. Happiness depends on the accretion of pleasurable episodes (Aristocles ap. Euseb. Prep. Ev. 14.18.31) and is precarious (DL 2.91).67 And the mind has no overall control of the day-to-day pursuit of pleasure and no contribution to make by remembering or anticipating pleasures, because such pleasures are metaphysically non-existent68 and morally valueless. Moreover, although Cyrenaic presentism does not preclude future planning69 and happiness is considered in principle possible, nonetheless happiness cannot be pleasurably experienced as a whole. If it has a value, it is derivative and reducible to the value of its pleasurable constituents, while there are also several experiences in one’s lifespan that are value-neutral.70 To summarize, Cyrenaic hedonism entails a fragmentary conception of happiness, which does matter but only derivatively so, and also a deep anti-rationalism duly criticized by the school’s rivals (Philodemus De elect. 2.5–3.18). In sharp contrast, the Epicureans’ aspiration to godlike bliss relies, as it were, on a holistic conception of happiness as a dynamic condition of painlessness and tranquility, sustained and enriched by different sorts of kinetic pleasures, and firmly governed by the cognitive operations of the mind. The significance of that contrast is not merely historical. Both Epicurean authors, such as Philodemus and Diogenes, and their critics, especially the academics Cicero and Plutarch, realize that the parallel between the ethics of the two schools has major philosophical import, which we are invited to entertain and assess.71 66 On my own reconstruction of the story in Tsouna, “Cyrenaics and Epicureans on Pleasure and the Good Life,” Anniceris’s “corrected” version of Cyrenaic hedonism (Strabo 17.3.22) is a response to Epicurus’s newly minted hedonism (see also Lampe, The Birth of Hedonism, 22), not the other way around, as many scholars have thought. 67 See Warren, The Pleasures of Reason in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic Hedonists, 190–91. 68 According to Cyrenaic orthodoxy, the movement of the flesh or the soul associated with pleasure disappears with time (DL 2.89). 69 Assuming that our identity remains stable over time (contra Irwin, “Aristippus against Happiness”; and Zilioli, The Cyrenaics, 162–65), there is no reason why we should not try to secure future pleasures or avoid future pains. On various aspects of Cyrenaic future planning, see Graver, “Managing Mental Pain”; O’Keefe, “The Cyrenaics on Pleasure, Happiness, and Future-Concern”; Sedley, “Epicurean versus Cyrenaic Happiness”; and Warren, “Epicurus and the Pleasures of the Future.” O’Reilly’s M.Phil. thesis offers illuminating insights on the Cyrenaic technique of the prerehearsal of future evils. 70 These occurrences are the so-called intermediate pathē. 71 I argue for this claim in Tsouna, “Cyrenaics and Epicureans on Pleasure and the Good Life.” 0004801389.INDD 163 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 164 VOULA TSOUNA 7.4 The Epicurean classification of desires and the status of the virtues Given that the rational calculus lies at the heart of Epicurean eudemonism, it is especially important to understand the nature of the desires and beliefs motivating one’s hedonistic choices. In a broad sense, this enterprise falls under the study of nature (physiologia), since this latter comprises not only the atomic structure of the world but also the nature of humans. Epicurus classifies the desires into natural and necessary, natural and not necessary, and neither natural nor necessary or empty (kenai), and he contends that, of the necessary desires some are necessary for happiness (eudaimonia), others for the removal of annoyance in the body (aochlēsia), and others for life itself (auto to zēn) (DL 10.127–28; see also KD 29).72 His idea, endorsed by all his known followers, is that the evaluative beliefs related to our desires are necessarily or contingently true or, in the case of empty desires, they are both false and harmful. And the corresponding pleasures should be chosen or avoided depending on whether they derive from the satisfaction of natural desires, which are the only ones we should seek to fulfill, or from empty ones, which should never receive satisfaction. Later Epicureans reinterpret Epicurus’s classification using current analytic tools. They are motivated probably by a criticism of Academic origin, according to which Epicurus’s taxonomy confuses species with genera and does not realize that there are two categories of desire instead of three (Fin. 2.9.26). Probably in reaction to that criticism, Philodemus divides desires into two genera, natural and non-natural or empty, and then subdivides the former into two subcategories, necessary and not necessary (Philodemus De elect. 6.7–21).73 He adds that the sources of our desires differ, as do the ways in which we experience them: they spring from our individual nature or from external factors, and they can have a strong or a weaker impact on us (6.5–20): [We called] different causes those causes some of which, it seems, produce terrible storms while others do not, some occur prematurely due to certain defects, others happen because of the perceptions of joy, some are produced by habits whereas others are produced independently from them, some occur having originated from ourselves while others arise because of external factors, or because things 72 If the desires necessary for happiness are oriented towards ataraxia, and those necessary for physical annoyance towards aponia, the desire for life itself can be taken to be more fundamental than either of them and to be related to the natural tendency of all living beings to remain alive. Hence the Epicureans’ recommendation to take care of one’s health has strong naturalistic backing, in so far as it can be justified by reference to a necessary tendency of which the intentional object is, precisely, self-preservation. 73 For instance, desires for food and clothing are both natural and necessary. The desire for sex is only natural. And the desires for luxury, power, or fame are empty, probably in the sense that their objects have no real value. 0004801389.INDD 164 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 165 which become desirable by our lack of them inflicted [a sort of] wound by the very thought of them. Failure to understand such distinctions causes us to mistake alien desires for those congenial to our nature and to pursue ambition or luxury as we should not (De elect. 5.4–21). In keeping with the rationalism of the Founder, Philodemus develops the authoritative dogma of the school in new directions: he identifies the desires underlying vices or passions such as flattery, arrogance, envy, and greed, explains their negative value, and proposes ways in which they can be modified or uprooted. Also, both he and Lucretius expand Epicurus’s doctrine by exploring in depth the sorts of desires related to our deepest fears, and especially the fears addressed in the first two articles of the fourfold medicine concerning the gods and death. Some of the most pertinent and attractive elements of Epicureanism are found in their discussion of these topics. The two following remarks bear on the background of the Epicurean classification of desires and their use for polemical purposes. First, although Epicurus is widely believed to be the first to propose a taxonomy of desires and pleasures, in fact, there are precedents in Plato, which Epicurus probably knew and took into account. In the context of his analysis of defective constitutions in Republic 8, Socrates distinguishes the desires into necessary and not necessary, money-making (chrēmatistikai) and money-spending (analōtikai), relatively better and relatively worse (Rep. 558d).74 Necessary desires are those that are unavoidable or whose satisfaction is considered compelling and beneficial to us (558e), whereas not necessary are the desires that can be avoided by discipline from youth up or whose satisfaction does no good or actual harm (559a). An example of the former is the appetite for basic nourishment such as bread, which is beneficial and, if it fails, we die, whereas the excessive appetite for other kinds of foods can be avoided by proper training and is mostly harmful to both the body and the soul (559b). While both the oligarchic and the democratic man are governed by the appetitive part of the soul which dominates the rational part, the former type of man satisfies only his necessary desires because of his avarice and love of profit (554a), whereas the latter gives himself away to the not necessary appetites, because of lack of education (cf. apaideusia), idleness, and softness with regard to pleasure and pain (556c). Moreover, while both types of citizen experience internal conflict, the necessary desires governing the oligarchic man by force do still ensure a minimum of order, whereas the not necessary, money-spending appetites seizing the citadel of the democratic man’s soul (560b) overthrow every order. They remove all correct beliefs and attitudes, encourage a licentious life (561c) that the democratic man calls “the life of pleasure and freedom and happiness” (561d), and, eventually, lead to the necessity of tyranny. Interestingly for our purposes, Socrates describes the democratic citizen as “day-by-day indulging the appetite of the moment, now getting drunk and abandoning himself to the sounds of the flute, then again drinking only water and following a strict diet, at one 74 I am grateful to Paul Kalligas and Vassilis Karasmanis for discussion and to George Bebedelis for written comments on this point. 0004801389.INDD 165 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 166 VOULA TSOUNA time taking physical exercise but at another idling and neglecting everything, and sometimes pretending to occupy himself with philosophy” (561c–d). Although Epicurus’s distinction between necessary and not necessary desires does not exactly coincide with Plato’s, this latter may well have been a source of inspiration for the founder of the Epicurean school. Like Plato’s Socrates, Epicurus determines necessary desires as unavoidable, beneficial, and bearing on one’s physical sustenance, while his conception of empty desires corresponds quite closely to the not necessary, money-spending desires of the democratic man: they involve the wrong values, imply psychic disorder, and dictate an erratic and profligate lifestyle dictated by presentist attitudes, i.e., the heedless pursuit of day-to-day pleasure. Second, it is not accidental, I think, that these very elements occur in the Epicureans’ criticisms of Cyrenaic hedonism as well. Not only does Epicurus appear to target this latter by denouncing profligacy (DL 131–32),75 rejecting maximalism, and relating both to empty beliefs; Philodemus too highlights the connections between vain desires, empty beliefs, and the hedonic presentism associated with the Cyrenaics, and he criticizes different Cyrenaic sects for advocating an anti-rationalist and amoral pursuit of day-to-day pleasure (De elect. 2.5–3.18). Moreover, he remarks that such carpe diem attitudes are typically caused by superstitious beliefs and fears. People whose rationality is thus impeded seek only the things that provide immediate pleasure and refuse to endure any pains (17.1–3), just as the Cyrenaics urge us to do. Diogenes raises similar points and adds new elements as well. Like earlier members of his school, he treats the Cyrenaics as the theoretical defenders of the crude day-to-day hedonism of the many (e.g., frr. 44 and 49) and he alludes to the empty desires and beliefs underlying their presentism. For instance, having mentioned that it is the soul rather than the body that is responsible for the pain caused by empty desires (1.1–2.4), Diogenes says that he feels sadness at the conduct of those who waste their lives in the vain pursuit of theatres and baths and perfumes and ointments, and he contrasts these empty pleasures to the genuine joy generated from the study of Epicurean physics (fr. 2.3.7–14). Both the passage’s reference to sensual pleasures typically restricted to the present and the explicit comparison between these latter and the pleasures deriving from physiologia indicate that Diogenes is thinking of the Cyrenaics: they reject the study of nature as useless but indulge desires which are empty and harmful; the Epicureans, on the other hand, base their desires on a thorough understanding of nature and therefore pursue only beneficial pleasures. He makes a comparable point with regard to the desires related to the pleasures of memory and anticipation: the Cyrenaics reject them, whereas the adherents to his own school believe that the pleasures of anticipation can relieve present pain or increase present pleasure in so far as they are connected to natural desires and not to empty ones. Elsewhere, Diogenes refers to empty desires as “desires that [outrun] the limits fixed by nature” (fr. 34.7.5–7) and must be eradicated because they are “the roots of all evils” (fr. 34.7.10–12). 75 Epicurus talks about some people (tines) who ignore, disagree with, or misconstrue the Epicurean doctrine of pleasure, saying that it posits licentious pleasures as the moral end. Philosophers who do not agree with the Epicurean end of painlessness probably include the Cyrenaics. 0004801389.INDD 166 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 167 On the other hand, natural desires “seek after as many things as [are necessary] for our nature’s delight” (fr. 153.1.9–14). It is difficult to overestimate how important it is to understand the nature of desire, when it comes to the diagnosis and treatment of the vices and the passions. For both these kinds of traits entail empty desires as well as empty beliefs, and both make it impossible to achieve painlessness and peace of mind. The Epicurean analysis and therapy of the passions are among the most valuable contributions of the school to posterity,76 and they will be discussed in detail in other chapters of this volume. Here, suffice it to recall that the Epicurean agenda of moral therapy is outlined in the so-called fourfold medicine (tetrapharmakos), whose origins can be traced back to the Founder and whose articles are the following (Philodemus, Ad [. . .] 4.9–14): God gives no cause for fear, death no cause for alarm; it is easy to procure what is good, and also to endure what is bad. For present purposes, the last two items require brief comment. The contention that pleasure is easily available draws support from Epicurus’s theses concerning the limit of pleasure and the twofold nature of the highest good. Painlessness is all that matters for happiness, whereas wealth, power, or other externals are not essential for that goal (KD 15; SV 33, 59). Also, the third article of the tetrapharmakos gains plausibility in the light of Epicurus’s remark that natural wealth is both limited and easy to get, whereas the wealth that is desirable because of empty opinions is unlimited and hard to come by (KD 15). Metrodorus holds a similar view, and so does Philodemus. In his treatise On Property Management, this latter largely remains faithful to the idea that very little is needed in order to gain pleasure. However, he adds that, although the Epicurean manager knows that nothing important depends on possession of great wealth because nature makes readily available everything necessary for the satisfaction of our natural desires, nonetheless “he feels more inclined by his will to a more affluent way of living” (Oec. 16.4–6). Hence, it is rational to prefer greater wealth, provided that it is administered according to the principles of Epicurean philosophy. On the other hand, Diogenes appears to take a harder line with regard to the possession of riches (fr. 153.2.5–14): What [need to mention the] fabulous treasuries of Croesus and his gold ingots or the rivers running with gold for his sake? What [benefit], father Zeus, [did he derive] from these [riches]? Croesus drew no benefit, either because wealth is deemed by Diogenes totally irrelevant to pleasure or, alternatively, because Croesus did not have the proper attitude towards it. A final comment concerns the last principle of the fourfold medicine, that the bad is 76 According to Lucretius, greed could be one of the many emotions that, in fact, mask the presence of the fear of death—probably the deepest and most fundamental fear of humans. 0004801389.INDD 167 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM 168 VOULA TSOUNA easy to endure. Epicurus defends that principle by contending that pain is either severe but short or long but tolerable (KD 4). As mentioned, other texts appeal to the capacity of the mind to control physical pain by recollecting or anticipating pleasurable experiences. Yet others suggest that, even though pain is evil and it is natural to shun it, nonetheless its intensity depends on the nature of our beliefs and desires: empty beliefs and desires can greatly increase physical pain to the point of rendering it excruciating, whereas the absence of such beliefs and desires allows pain to be psychologically manageable. In sum, the last two principles of the fourfold medicine importantly bear on the doxastic and appetitive elements governing our pursuit of the highest good and avoidance of the greatest evil. They involve naturalistic assumptions concerning the availability of natural goods and our physical and psychological reactions to pain. And they reflect Epicurus’s optimism as well as the sort of rationalism that pervades his ethics. This last marks also another aspect of Epicurean hedonism, namely, the Epicureans’ conception of the virtues and their relation to pleasure. Epicurus’s approach to the virtues is moderately cognitivist: he views them as inner states importantly consisting of beliefs, and explains them by reference to their cognitive components. In the Letter to Menoeceus, immediately after he has emphasized that pleasure can be ensured only through sober reasoning investigating the causes and removing false beliefs (131–32), he states his view about the virtues as follows (Ep. Men. 132): Phronēsis, prudence, is the source of all these and the greatest good. Therefore, prudence, from which arise all the other virtues, is more precious even than philosophy, for it teaches us that it is not possible to live pleasurably without living prudently and honorably and justly, (nor is it possible to live prudently and honorably and justly) without living pleasurably. For the virtues grow together with the pleasurable life and the pleasurable life cannot be separated from them. According to the above passage, then, the virtues have a unique and exclusive relation to the life of pleasure. They mutually entail each other (KD 5),77 and they form some sort of unity: they grow together with each other and with pleasure, and none of them can be found in the soul without the others. Both the indispensability of the virtues and the elevation of phronēsis into a value greater than philosophy itself might appear to sit uneasily with Epicurean hedonism. For thus the virtues might appear to compete with pleasure for the position of the supreme good. In particular, phronēsis might seem to have value independently of pleasure, as it should not in a system that posits pleasure as the only intrinsic good.78 Further reflection on the texts, however, renders it clear that Epicurus and his adherents ultimately determine the value of the virtues in instrumental terms. According to the passage cited above, prudence is the source and the greatest good pertaining to the 77 De elect. 14.1–14 states only a one-way entailment, and also adds to the four canonical virtues several others. 78 On phronēsis as the source of all the other virtues, see the careful analysis in Mitsis, Epicurus’ Ethical Theory: The Pleasures of Invulnerability, 75 ff. 0004801389.INDD 168 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:43 AM Epicurean Hedonism 169 rational pursuit of katastematic pleasure,79 precisely because it teaches us (didaskousa) that the virtues are the sole unfailingly effective means to pleasure and, therefore, we have every good reason to acquire and practice them (Ep. Men. 132). The instrumental status of prudence is also compatible with Epicurus’s claim that “of all the goods provided by prudence with an aim to the blessedness of life as a whole by far the greatest is friendship” (KD 27). While prudence serves to secure important goods contributing to happiness and the pleasurable life, there is no implication that it is valuable for its own sake. The same holds for justice, whose concept is empirical and contractual and whose value lies solely in the huge benefits that it brings to human societies (KD 32–40). Torquatus makes the point in a straightforward manner: sapientia, practical wisdom, which is identical with the art of living, is desirable merely because it is the artificer of pleasure (Fin. 1.42): it roots out our errors, rids us of our fears and empty appetites, removes distress, and guides us to live within the bounds of nature (1.43–46). Temperance and courage also are valued as privileged means to pleasure, not in their own right (1.47–49). Moreover, justice consists in an agreement between fellow-citizens neither to harm others nor to be harmed (1.50–53). Its precise character is determined by social factors and its enforcement is choiceworthy only so long as it proves beneficial. So, the virtues are eliminated as candidates for the position of the supreme good, and pleasure remains the only victor in the field. Torquatus duly concludes that only pleasure is attractive to us in virtue of its own nature, and that a life of happiness is nothing other than a life of pleasure (1.54). Philodemus does not face the same challenges that Cicero’s Epicurean spokesman is presented as facing. Therefore, he does not feel the need to defend the instrumental status of the virtues, but rather takes it for granted and shifts his attention to both the advantages of virtue and the disadvantages of vice. And although he keeps up with the times by introducing new virtues into the Epicurean canon, such as magnanimity, philanthropy, and the disposition to make friends (De elect. 14.1–14), nonetheless he follows the tradition of his school by exploring both the cognitive and the extra-cognitive aspects of the virtues and by stressing the need to cultivate them.80 Diogenes adds to our understanding of Epicurean virtue by addressing the topic in a polemical context in fr. 33 (including NF 128). Assuming that his unnamed opponents in that fragment are the Cyrenaics,81 he indicates how the Cyrenaic position concerning 79 In my opinion, toutōn pantōn (Ep. Men. 132) refers back to the elements that constitute a pleasurable life and are secured through “sober reasoning” about the causes of moral choice. 80 For further discussion, see Tsouna, The Ethics of Philodemus, 25–27. 81 The interpretation of this fragment is controversial. Namely, it has been debated for over a decade whether Diogenes’s unnamed opponents in fr. 33 + NF 128 are the Stoics (Smith, Diogenes of Oinoanda: The Epicurean Inscription and Supplement to Diogenes of Oinoanda: The Epicurean Inscription, ad loc.) or the Cyrenaics (Sedley, “Diogenes of Oinoanda on Cyrenaic Hedonism”), or both (see the contribution of Francesca Masi in Güremen, Hammerstaedt, and Morel, Diogenes of Oinoanda: Epicureanism and Philosophical Debates). On balance, I am inclined to believe that the opponents under discussion are the Cyrenaics, for reasons that I develop elsewhere (see my article “Diogenes and the Cyrenaics”). Below, I cite the crucial excerpts of the fragment, relying on Sedley’s emendation and translation of the text. 0004801389.INDD 169 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:44 AM 170 VOULA TSOUNA the instrumentality of virtue differs from the view of his own school and why the former is mistaken: Even if these people (sc. the Cyrenaics and whoever else shares their attitude towards virtue) agree that, as a matter of fact, pleasure is inseparable from the virtues . . . (1.11–14)82 . . . [Prospective pleasure], as these people lay it down for all human beings like a snare, has the power to draw them like birds or fish open-mouthed to the names of the virtues, and sometimes enters people’s minds and paints all kinds of illusory pictures of itself, and the poor wretches are not ashamed [of bestowing favors on] each other, [and charming people by their wit], [in pursuit of their own eventual] pleasure, agreeing adroitly [also to face dangers] in order to avoid pain, like those who endure marching out to war and those who endure crag-climbing (3.7–14 + 4 = NF 128.1 + fr. 33.5 = NF 128.2.2).83 Therefore, I want to deflect also the error that, along with the feeling of self-love, has you in its grip which, more than any other, further inflates your doctrine as [ignorant]. It is this: [not] all causes in things precede in time their effects, even if the majority do, but rather some of them precede in time their effects, others [are simultaneous] with them, and other temporally follow them (5 = NF 128.2.2, fr. 33.6.3). The rest of the fragment gives examples of each category of causes (6.4–8.6) and concludes (8.7–15): Therefore you, being unable to draw these distinctions and not realizing that the virtues have their place among the causes that are simultaneous with their effects— for [they] are borne along [with pleasure—go entirely astray]. To fill in the argument sketched above, on the one hand, the Cyrenaics endorse a sort of consequentialist hedonism, which can plausibly be taken to entail that they view the virtues as bothersome means of securing the satisfaction of bodily desires and needs. Moreover, so far as psychic pleasures are concerned, they view virtuous activity but also friendship as tiresome, though the wise man may choose them for the sake of their pleasant consequences. On the other hand, Epicurus contends that virtue and pleasure are interrelated and inseparable (Ep. Men. 132), so that the exercise of the virtues for the sake of pleasure is itself a pleasant act.84 Besides, not only is virtue practiced at the same time as the pleasure resulting from that practice, but also it clears the ground for future pleasures which, we should recall, are integral aspects of the Epicurean telos. Virtue makes such future pleasures possible. 82 fr. 33 1.10–12——πασῶν ἀρετῶν/——ν ἀχώριστον οὖ-/[σαν τ]ὴν ἡδονήν, εὑρισ-/[κόμε]νον δ’ ὁμολογοῦσι/[τυχεῖν] καὶ οὗτοι πολλά-/[κι]ς οὐκ ἀπο[ Sedley. On the other hand, Smith, Supplement to Diogenes of Oinoanda: The Epicurean Inscription, ad loc. proposes the following reconstruction of fr. 33 1.9–14: [—τὸ ζ]ῆν δι[ὰ] παντὸς ἡ-/[δέως τῶν] πασῶν ἀρετῶν/[αἰεὶ ἐστ]ὶν ἀχώριστον, οὒ/[φασι τὴ]ν ἡδονὴν εὐρίσ-/[κειν, μό]νον δ’ ὁμολογοῦσί/[γε σοφισ]ταὶ οὖτοι πολλά-/[κι]ς οὐκ ἀπο[ . 83 See Hammerstaedt, “Zum Text der epikureischen Inschrift des Diogenes von Oinoanda,” 32–38. 84 However, such acts derive their value from the pleasure that ensues, not from the virtue involved in their performance. 0004801389.INDD 170 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:44 AM Epicurean Hedonism 171 On the above interpretation, in fr. 33 (including NF 128), Diogenes proceeds to accuse the Cyrenaics of failing to understand what sort of cause of pleasure virtue is: they believe, mistakenly, that virtue is a sort of cause that precedes its effects in the way in which cautery and surgery precede the restoration of health (6.4–11). In fact, however, virtue is a kind of cause that temporally coincides with its pleasurable outcome.85 If a hedonist holds, as Diogenes accuses the Cyrenaics of holding, that pleasure has only antecedent causes, then he must exclude the pleasures of anticipation, as indeed the Cyrenaics do. If, on the other hand, a hedonist also recognizes simultaneous as well as a posteriori causes, then he has the conceptual room both to view virtue as intrinsically pleasant and to value present experiences whose causes lie in the future. Of course, this is precisely what Epicurus recommends, and Diogenes’s polemics are intended to show why the Epicurean position is far preferable to the brutal instrumentalism entailed by Cyrenaic hedonism. In the end, Epicurus and his followers reject the choice of Hercules narrated by Prodicus. They choose the path of pleasure but also of virtue. They uphold hedonism and also propose a way of reconciling the pursuit of pleasure with the observance of traditional moral norms. What principally enables them to combine these two elements are, I submit, their view that painlessness of the body and tranquility of the mind constitute the highest pleasure, and the rigorous rationalism of their ethical doctrine. Their belief that the good is naturally easy to get also lends support to the idea that the pleasurable life and the virtuous life can coincide. The same holds for the Epicureans’ conception of the virtues as the only proper and effective means to Epicurean pleasure. Consequently, Epicurus and his followers feel entitled to claim that their hedonism does not advocate luxurious extravagance, as its critics contend. On the contrary, it is compatible with and conducive to a respectable, sober, and rather frugal lifestyle. Nowhere is the effort to combine the egoistic bend of Epicurean hedonism with the values prized by conventional morality more evident than in the school’s attitudes towards friendship. For present purposes, it is enough to mention Epicurus’s notorious claims that the sage will love his friend as much as himself (Fin. 1.67–68), and that he will sometimes die for his friend (DL 10.121), which appear to be in tension with the idea that the supreme goal consists in the attainment of one’s own pleasure or removal of pain. That tension mainly results from Epicurus’s more or less successful attempt to reconcile his self-interested and self-regarding hedonism with the altruistic attitudes commonly admired and praised, and his effort to draw a picture of Epicurean hedonism as a cheerful but austere ethical system compatible with the ideals of self-denial and self-sacrifice.86 85 According to David Sedley, “Diogenes of Oinoanda on Cyrenaic Hedonism” the Cyrenaics are the only group of ancient hedonists that both view virtue instrumentally and describe it as an irksome means to pleasurable ends; and therefore, it is plausible to think that they are the targets of Diogenes’s charge. 86 Some later Epicureans, probably under the pressure of Academic criticism, have admitted sources of motivation other than pleasure and have asserted that friendship is intrinsically valuable for the good life (Fin. 1.67–70; SV 23 Brown). 0004801389.INDD 171 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:44 AM 172 VOULA TSOUNA 7.5 Cicero’s criticisms and Epicurean responses Whether Epicurus and his adherents succeed in their enterprise depends in great part on the conceptual coherence and practical applicability of their brand of hedonism. The long history of the reception of Epicurean ethics reveals that these features have been challenged both in antiquity and in modern times. To conclude this chapter, we should look at some of the earliest criticisms against Epicurean hedonism spelled out by the character Cicero in De finibus, Book 2. Many of them are of Academic origin, others reflect Stoic reactions, yet others are probably formulated by Cicero himself. Their rhetorical effectiveness varies, while their philosophical relevance is, I submit, greater than it has been commonly thought to be.87 To appreciate their philosophical value we should consider, as far as space allows, both the objections raised by Cicero and the ways in which the Epicureans could reply to them. One set of objections concerns the alleged psychological foundation of Epicurean hedonism, and in particular the Epicureans’ use of the Cradle Argument. While Epicurus appeals to the behavior of newborn animals to support his contention that pleasure is the supreme good and pain the greatest evil, one may question the legitimacy of that move. For the instincts of animals in the cradle may be wrong, even though they have not been corrupted (Fin. 2.33). Or lower animals may not be analogous to humans in the relevant way. Or it may be that the dispositional tendencies of infants are not analogous to adult human behavior. Or perhaps Epicurus and his followers simply misread the facts: newborn creatures are oriented towards self-regard, self-preservation, and protection from injury in both mind and body; and they seek the primary natural objects of desire, which may include pleasure but are certainly not restricted to pleasure (2.33–34). So, as Cicero suggests, Epicurus’s ethical hedonism cannot be inferred from or illustrated by the behavior of very young humans and other animals. Even assuming that the Cradle Argument could provide support for the normativity of pleasure, Cicero points to further problems arising because of the dual character of Epicurean pleasure, and because of the view that katastematic pleasure rather than kinetic pleasure constitutes the highest good. For instance, even if we concede that newborn creatures first and foremost seek pleasure, it may be that they are after the agreeable feelings of kinetic pleasure and not after the mere absence of pain (2.35). Therefore, the Cradle Argument may be judged irrelevant to the most crucial aspect of Epicurean hedonism, i.e., the supreme value of aponia and ataraxia for the good life. More generally, Cicero’s observation concerning the pleasures of newborns may lead one to wonder whether the katastematic condition has motivational power or to what extent it does. For unlike the objects of desires related to kinetic pleasures, aponia and ataraxia are determined in negative terms and are not connected with any specific sort 87 See also the chapter of Carlos Lévy on Cicero in this volume. 0004801389.INDD 172 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:44 AM Epicurean Hedonism 173 of desire or any specific sort of process by which they may be attained. Hence, it is questionable whether aponia and ataraxia can provide adequate motivation or in what manner they can do so. In response, Epicurus would probably insist on the legitimacy of the analogy between humans and other animals, stress the uncorrupted nature of creatures soon after their birth, and insist on his own reading of the psychological facts. Moreover, he could either concede that newborn creatures seek kinetic pleasure, taking this observation to be sufficient for his purposes, or, more likely, contend that they primarily seek to remove discomfort, thus illustrating the supreme importance of katastematic pleasure. In any case, Epicurus and his followers would seem to have no option but to defend the idea that the removal of pain or disturbance constitutes our basic source of motivation. And they would probably do so, in great part, on the basis of an analogy between katastematic pleasure and health: more than anything, we naturally desire to be healthy in body and mind; and, as infant behavior shows, we are disposed to act accordingly. This latter point becomes clearer when we turn to the criticisms concerning Epicurus’s twofold concept of pleasure and its implications. Although, as Cicero confirms, he does not entirely disapprove of definitions nor of determining the meaning of our terms, Cicero accuses him of leaving vague and ambiguous his use of “pleasure” (Fin. 2.6; Tusc. 3.17.38). For either the term refers to what everybody takes pleasure to be, i.e., some sort of agreeable stirring of the mind or of the senses, or it points to the peculiarly Epicurean notion of pleasure as absence of physical or mental pain. Torquatus’s retort, that no definitional outline of pleasure is necessary because everybody understands what the term means (2.6), will not do, and Cicero is right to reject it. For, by the first century bce, the nature of pleasure was debated both outside and inside the Epicurean school, for the very reasons that Cicero also mentions: the idea that the highest pleasure is the absence of pain is counterintuitive; and the suggestion that pleasure has two distinct kinds or aspects (alia genera: 2.9) arguably undermines the unity of the Epicurean supreme good. Certain members of Epicurus’s school took the option of disputing the thesis that aponia and ataraxia are included in the moral end (P.Herc. 1012 1.1–8, 38.1–13),88 whereas others upheld the view that Zeno’s school attributed to Epicurus’s canon, i.e., that the absence of physical pain and mental suffering represent the highest good for man. Cicero’s criticisms concerning the ambiguity of pleasure match the former line of thought, whereas Torquatus’s insistence that “freedom from pain” means the same thing as pleasure (2.9) reflects the orthodox position as constructed by Zeno of Sidon, Demetrius Laco, and Philodemus. Philosophically, the above controversy points to substantial problems affecting Epicurus’s dual moral end. Does the mere removal of pain, which is deemed equivalent to the katastematic state, qualify as pleasure? How does the kinetic pleasure, e.g., of actually quenching one’s thirst, relate to the katastematic condition of having quenched it (Fin. 2.9)? If these are two different sorts of experiences, how can they both 88 Demetrius Laco corrects Epicureans who, in their writings, formulate in an equivocal manner Epicurus’s conception of the moral end, and he insists that Epicurus considers pleasure to be, first and foremost, the removal of pain. 0004801389.INDD 173 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:44 AM 174 VOULA TSOUNA be pleasure? Or assuming that they are two different kinds of pleasure (2.9), how are they related to each other? As I maintained earlier, Epicurus probably viewed kinetic pleasures as steps towards, or alternatively, if they occur when all pain is absent, variations of the katastematic state. However, his extant works and those of his followers do not provide a satisfactory answer to Cicero’s queries concerning the exact sense in which kinetic pleasures are claimed to be variations or varieties (varietates) of static pleasure but to constitute no increase of this latter (Fin. 2.10). On the one hand, it is easy to understand how there may be variations of a poem, a speech, a character, or someone’s fortunes. Moreover, pleasure too can be called varied in the sense that different things produce different pleasures. On the other hand, it is difficult to specify the sense in which the pleasant experiences that we may have when we are free from pain are variations of aponia (2.10). For instance, the experience of listening to music when all pain is absent does not depend on aponia in the way in which a variation of a poem or a speech depends on the main body of the poem or speech. Nor is it related to aponia in the way in which, e.g., pink is related to red or green is related to color. Nor yet is it the case that listening to music and being in a state of aponia are different pleasures of the same kind produced by different sources. One possible answer might be that, while the experiential quality of restorative kinetic pleasures depends on the sort of need that they address, the experiential quality of nonrestorative kinetic pleasures is determined by the fact that they supervene on the katastematic state. Having a drink when we are not thirsty simply feels different from drinking in order to quench one’s thirst. Relatedly, the Epicureans could also try to respond to Cicero’s accusation that they define the highest good solely in negative terms (2.41) by denying that their conception of the highest pleasure is negative. Namely, insofar as aponia and ataraxia correspond, respectively, to physical and mental health, they are equivalent not only to the absence of the greatest evil but also to the presence of the greatest good: a wonderful feeling of well-being that accompanies the unimpeded function of our body and mind and admits of no increase. This feeling is related to kinetic pleasures in a manner comparable to the manner in which health is related to the activities of the healthy organism. We preserve (and ought to preserve) our health by restoring the needs of our mind and body; and so long as we are healthy, we enjoy that condition both when we engage in various activities and when we do nothing at all. Similarly, the Epicureans make (and believe that we ought to make) every effort to keep the body free from pain and the mind free from disturbance. And they appear to think that anyone who finds oneself in the katastematic state does have a feeling of well-being, whether or not one enjoys kinetic pleasures as well while in that state. Objectively, then, kinetic and katastematic pleasures differ in that the former involve motions but the latter do not. Subjectively, however, although they are different sorts of experiences, they do share something in common: a sense of agreeableness, of things working as they should, physically and mentally. Whether this feature suffices to cement the unity of Epicurus’s twofold notion of pleasure is a question calling for further investigation. Epicurus’s conception of katastematic pleasure and the parallelism of this latter with health may explain why, as far as we know, Epicurus did not consider particularly 0004801389.INDD 174 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:44 AM Epicurean Hedonism 175 damaging Anniceris’s attempt to ridicule the moral goal of painlessness by comparing it to the condition of a corpse (DL 2.89). He probably believed that he had made sufficiently clear his view that aponia and ataraxia do not amount to insensitivity, but to positive states of awareness of one’s physical and mental well-being. A similar thought may underlie his contention that the supreme good is self-evident and that this holds for katastematic as well as for kinetic pleasure. While Cicero objects to the idea that painlessness is self-evidently the good, Torquatus retorts without argument that, surely, nothing can be more pleasant than freedom from pain and that this latter is the most intense pleasure possible (Fin. 2.11).89 Unlike Cicero, he appears to treat kinetic and katastematic pleasures on an equal footing: if the value of the one is self-evident, so is the value of the other. Again, katastematic pleasure is presented as a positively and supremely pleasant condition, not merely as a condition in which evil is absent. And again, Torquatus’s account of katastematic pleasure points to a close analogy between this latter and health: like health, katastematic pleasure is unconditionally good, not merely not bad; and it feels great, not just neutral.90 Nor do the Epicureans need to worry about Cicero’s suggestion, also entertained by modern interpreters, to remove altogether the kinetic pleasures from the sphere of the supreme good and confine this latter to katastematic pleasure (2.12). For, as Epicurus and every consistent hedonist maintain, every pleasure, in so far as it is pleasure, is intrinsically good (cf. KD 8). And no competent language speaker would doubt that the kinetic pleasures, i.e., the agreeable stimulations of the senses or the mind, constitute genuine cases of pleasure and, therefore, belong to the domain of the good (cf. Fin. 2.8). If the absence of pain falls under the heading of pleasure on account of being a positively (and supremely) agreeable condition, the Epicurean thesis that there is nothing intermediate between the experiences of pleasure and of pain acquires some plausibility. For it does not imply that we are always actually stirred by some feeling pleasurable or painful. Rather, the point is mainly that our body and mind function well (whether or not pleasurable motions occur) or badly, and we have a pleasant or painful sense of the relevant fact. Contrast the Cyrenaics, who define all pleasures and pains in terms of smooth and rough motions and, therefore, feel compelled to grant also the existence of value-neutral experiences that do not correspond to such motions. Moreover, consider Cicero’s objection, that ordinary life indicates that there are intermediate experiences which are neither pleasant nor painful (Fin. 2.16). Cicero believes this, because he shares the common assumption that pleasure consists solely in the agreeable stirring of the senses or the mind (2.14–15). But this is precisely the assumption that Epicurus rejects, thus inviting us to revise our understanding of pleasure and draw the appropriate inferences. Diogenes pursues this matter in an interesting direction, for he relies on 89 However, Torquatus believes that proof is useful in order to counter the arguments of the school’s rivals regarding pleasure (Fin. 1.31). 90 Cicero’s further objection that, even assuming that the katastematic condition is the most pleasant state it does not need to be identical with pleasure, i.e., kinetic pleasure (2.11), remains undeveloped. The crucial question is this: if one can be in a katastematic condition without experiencing any kinetic pleasure at all, on account of what factor would the former be pleasant? 0004801389.INDD 175 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:44 AM 176 VOULA TSOUNA Epicurus’s rejection of an affectively intermediate state in order to defend the articles of the fourfold medicine and specifically the third dictum, i.e., that the good is easy to get (NF 146.1.1–2.13): [Life offers us for our nutrition], although barley-bread [is sufficient] for our natural sustenance, [many] (foods) that do not involve unpleasantness when they are taken, and a bed that does not fight against the body because of hardness, and clothing that is neither extremely soft nor indeed extremely rough so that our nature would be repelled, just as if [we were clothing ourselves] [ . . . ] [with what] pricks [our constitution]. And in fact these things and those much greater are easily obtained, so that if (life) becomes one of continual luxury, and to others perhaps both a beneficial redeemer in their necessity, and—[a supporter] of the incapacitated in need. According to this passage, the amenities that do not cause any discomfort are thereby pleasurable. If food does not provoke disgust (ἀηδία, aedia), it is pleasant for nutrition; if a bed does not make us physically uncomfortable, it is good to sleep on; etc. His point is not merely that natural desires are easy to satisfy with simple and readily accessible goods. Rather, he declares that the pleasures that begin just where discomfort ends are no less than those deriving from refined luxuries. In fact, according to Diogenes, the pleasures related to the removal of all discomfort do count as luxuries, precisely because the absence of pain is the highest pleasure. Cicero raises additional objections pertaining to both the value of katastematic pleasure and the third article of the Epicurean tetrapharmakos positing that the good is easy to get. According to Cicero, this latter makes more sense for people who do not value pleasure highly than for those who do (Fin. 2.91): Persons who despise pleasure in itself can say that they value a sturgeon no higher than a sprat; but a person whose chief good consists in pleasure must judge everything by the senses and not by reason and call those things the best which are most pleasant. According to Cicero, then, consistent hedonists ought not to remain satisfied with nature’s resources which are easily available to us. On the contrary, they ought to aim for more and varied pleasures, deriving from things that are rare or expensive and difficult to get. A related criticism is oriented towards Epicurus’s classification of desires and his suggestion that we ought to seek the pleasure deriving from the satisfaction of natural desires but resist the pull of desires that are non-natural or empty (Fin. 2.22): This one point I cannot make out: how is it possible for a person to be devoted to pleasure and, nevertheless, keep his desires within bounds? Of course, Epicurus and his adherents could reiterate their view that a correct understanding of pleasure entails that one realizes its limits and adjusts one’s desires accordingly. 0004801389.INDD 176 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:44 AM Epicurean Hedonism 177 However, it seems to me that Cicero’s remark retains some weight, especially against Diogenes’s aforementioned idea that, as long as they remove discomfort, the most rudimentary goods count as luxuries. For, assuming that more refined pleasures do not result in greater pain, why would a hedonist not seek them but be content with the plain pleasures at hand? Philodemus implicitly concedes the force of this point, when he attempts to draw a tenuous line between the easy accessibility of the good at hand and the Epicurean property manager’s natural tendency to enjoy more goods, if they can be relatively easily secured (Oec. 16.4–6). However, the contention that the Epicurean hedonist will take huge risks at the prospect of considerable gains (Fin. 2.56–57) is flatly contradicted by Philodemus. In truth, the property manager conducting himself according to the ethical principles of the school will never take such risks. He will not engage in aggressive money-making, but will administer his wealth with moderation, primarily aiming to preserve it rather than to greatly increase it, cutting down expenses when necessary, and honoring his obligations to society and the requirements of friendship (Oec. 26.1–9, 27.5–12). Cicero also puts his finger on what he perceives as inconsistencies between different claims that Epicurus makes. These concern, notably, the respective value of kinetic and katastematic pleasure, the roles of physical and mental pleasures, and the limitations of these latter. First of all, he invites his audience to consider Epicurus’s professed view that painlessness is the highest good in connection with his assertions that he cannot conceive of the good independently of the enjoyment of bodily pleasures, and that he would find no fault with profligates if they were free from fear and error (cf. KD 20). According to Cicero, if Epicurus were really committed to the former, he should not have stressed the dependence of all pleasure on the body nor should he have been ready to condone profligate pleasures provided that they are not accompanied by distress (Fin. 2.20–25). So, the argument goes, either Epicurus held conflicting views about the highest good or, in fact, he privileged kinetic pleasures over the katastematic state. However, I think that this argument is not decisive. As I proposed above, Epicurus’s comment that he cannot imagine the good apart from bodily pleasure probably makes a conceptual point, but neither asserts nor implies the good is equivalent solely to bodily pleasure. As for his statement that he would not blame those living in a swirl of pleasures if they were not afflicted by fear and falsehood, it is counterfactual. In truth, sybarites have the wrong conception of pleasure and, therefore, could never be rid of fear and empty beliefs. Even if it were possible for them to put aside for a while their passions, these latter would return and cause further suffering. Furthermore, Cicero asks (Fin. 2.21–22), what is the point of imagining profligates who, though living licentiously, might not be blamed by Epicurus? This question too has an answer: precisely, to point to the counterfactual nature of that hypothesis and underscore the hopelessness of the profligates’ unceasing quest for pleasure. Generally, Cicero interprets Epicurus’s statement “that he cannot even understand what good there can be or where it can be found apart from that which comes from food and drink, the delight of the ears, and the grosser forms of gratification” (Fin. 2.7; cf. also 1.55) as being equivalent to the view that, in the end, all pleasure is bodily pleasure. 0004801389.INDD 177 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:44 AM 178 VOULA TSOUNA In fact, this interpretation appears to belong to the anti-Epicurean polemics of the Academy, for Plutarch too appeals to it in order to accuse the Epicureans of profligacy. He argues that, contrary to the Cyrenaics, who realize that mental pleasures can be independent from and irreducible to bodily pleasures and hence propose practices of selfrestraint, the Epicureans believe that every pleasure is rooted in the bare sense and therefore encourage the mind to run riot by arousing more and more bodily pleasures (Non posse, 1089A–B). However, although the claim that all mental experiences originate (cf. nasci: Fin. 1.55) in the body can be taken to entail that all mental experiences are reducible to bodily ones, it does not need to be read in that manner. For the former claim presupposes that the body and the mind interact and that the involvement of the body is necessary for mental functions to occur. But that claim does not entail that, ultimately, mental functions are bodily functions, let alone that the pleasures of the body are more desirable than those of the mind. In this case as in others, Epicurus and his followers have to tread carefully, both acknowledging the necessities of our physical nature and making room for the moral predominance of rationality and the mind. Even if residual tensions remain, I submit that Torquatus has good grounds for denying that the aforementioned Epicurean views are inconsistent, and that Epicurus’s tenet concerning the bodily origin of all pleasure constitutes a theoretical justification of profligacy. This last remark holds both for the heedless profligate, who, by most accounts, does not really live pleasantly, and for the sophisticated profligate, who enjoys refined pleasures of the body and the mind without getting vulgar, ill, or bankrupt (Fin. 2.23). For contrary to what Cicero or his source appear to think (2.23), Epicurus would not accept that the sophisticated profligate lives well. Both these kinds of profligates think about pleasure in the wrong way, i.e., in quantitative terms. And both have empty beliefs that hinder the successful performance of the hedonistic calculus and cause anxiety and fear. Cicero’s next criticism, that the mental pleasures of recollection and anticipation concern almost exclusively the kinetic pleasures of the body and hence are contemptible (2.107), is belied by Epicurus’s own example. For the memories that he entertains on his deathbed and that enable him to feel joyful amidst great physical suffering are not about food, drink, and the like, but about his past conversations with his friends (DL 10.22). The Epicureans could give a similar answer to a related Academic criticism leveled against them by Plutarch (Non posse 1089B): Remembering and containing in oneself the sights and feelings and motions related to pleasures [the Epicureans] are in fact recommending a practice unworthy of the name of wisdom; they allow the dregs of pleasure to remain in the soul of the wise man as they would in the house of a profligate. The Epicureans could retort that, in fact, the pleasures that the wise man stores and recollects are chiefly of the mind, not of the body; Epicurus’s own example on his deathbed illustrates precisely that fact. Moreover, although it has been commonly assumed that, according to Epicurus, the pleasures of memory or anticipation are always kinetic, I contend that, in truth, they can be katastematic as well. For example, in the treatise 0004801389.INDD 178 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:44 AM Epicurean Hedonism 179 On the Moral End, Epicurus stresses the importance of the physical stability of the body as well as the value inherent in the anticipation of that stability (Plutarch Non posse 1089d): For the stable condition (katastēma) of the flesh and the reliable expectation concerning it (sc. the katastēma) contain the highest and most secure joy for those who are able to reach it by reasoning. More damaging to the Epicurean cause, however, are the arguments brought by Cicero against the fourth principle of the tetrapharmakos and Epicurus’s related contention that mental pleasures are always capable of offsetting physical pain. As indicated, the former consists in the claim that the bad is easy to avoid, for the reason that severe pain is brief, whereas milder and prolonged pain grants intervals of respite and can be counterbalanced by the mind. Nonetheless, Cicero objects that pain cannot be disregarded all that easily, especially by those who posit it as the supreme evil. He uses the rhetorical technique of demonstrating by example that, in fact, pain can be both severe and prolonged and also can occur intermittently and in bouts (Fin. 2.93–94). Also, he traces what he takes to be the limitations of Epicurean rationalism by arguing that, in cases of great and chronic pain, the strategy of recollecting past experiences in order to secure a preponderance of pleasure over pain does not work. For, because of his belief that pain is the greatest evil, the afflicted hedonist lives in bitter remembrance of the pain experienced in the recent past and in fear of the pain to come in the near future (2.95). One may find this a decisive objection and, furthermore, one may share Cicero’s scepticism regarding our capacity to remember only what we choose to remember (2.104).91 Also, some may go as far as endorsing Cicero’s thesis that the best method of facing pain is to view it as a physical handicap rather than a moral evil, and to lessen its impact, whenever it occurs, by summoning one’s own psychological and moral strength (2.95). If one opts for that path, then, of course, one must reject hedonism altogether. There is no need to linger over Cicero’s attack on Epicurean instrumentalism regarding the virtues and friendship for, as mentioned earlier, this topic is addressed elsewhere in the volume. In brief, he is unimpressed by Epicurus’s effort to preserve central features of morality by stressing the unique role of the virtues in the good life and by determining this latter chiefly in terms of mental serenity rather than physical delights. Cicero makes use of the picture sketched by Cleanthes of the virtues ministering to pleasure as its handmaids (Fin. 2.69), which is intended to illustrate Epicurus’s idea that the value of the virtues is only derivative and depends on the fact that they serve as means to pleasure (2.69, 107). Also, he argues that, in principle, Epicurus leaves open the possibility that one will commit any action, however base or criminal, provided that it remains undetected (28). And, anticipating the Epicurean retort that, pragmatically speaking, we have good reasons to act virtuously because wrongdoers are usually 91 I quite agree with Cicero that Epicurus expects too much from his followers (2.105), insofar as he takes for granted that they can use their memory exactly as they want. 0004801389.INDD 179 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:44 AM 180 VOULA TSOUNA caught, he remarks that actions are genuinely virtuous only if they derive from a good disposition, not from one’s fear of punishment. Hence, Epicurean virtue is a sham (Fin. 2.69–71). Now, this objection may be considered unfair, for Cicero does not take adequately into account Epicurus’s thesis that pleasure and the virtues are interrelated nor the relevant features of the Epicurean wise man. However, Cicero’s contentions that virtue is a matter of one’s moral disposition and not of deterrents, and also that instrumental virtue is no virtue at all, should give us pause for reflection. And Epicurean hedonists would have reason to find disturbing Cicero’s suggestion, probably inspired by Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’s amplification of Thrasymachus’s challenge in Republic Book 2, that the mere appearance of virtue serves the Epicureans just as well as virtue itself does (2.71). Similar remarks concern Epicurean friendship as well. On the one hand, Epicurus advances the claims that the sage will love his friend as much as himself (Fin. 1.67–68) and will sometimes die for his friend and (DL 10.121), alongside his thesis that each agent’s own pleasure is the moral goal. Hence he gives the impression of a more or less successful attempt to reconcile his self-interested and self-regarding ethics with the altruistic attitudes praised by conventional morality.92 On the other hand, Cicero contends that genuine friendship is fundamentally incompatible with the overarching pursuit of one’s own pleasure and hence Epicurean friendship is not friendship at all (Fin. 2.78–85). Like other criticisms, this one too was probably in circulation before Cicero’s time. For Torquatus reports the response of certain Epicureans, according to whom friendship originates from self-regard but eventually acquires independent value (1.67–68). Whether this latter approach is compatible with the egoistic bent of the Founder’s hedonism or whether it allows for genuine altruism is another matter. As mentioned, the Epicureans are eudemonists and Cicero views them as such. According to his account, they believe that happiness extends over one’s life making it perfect and complete, and also that happiness consists in a preponderance of the good over the evil and that, once acquired, it cannot be lost. However, Cicero maintains that their kind of eudemonism is flawed and their notion of happiness problematic, precisely because it is ultimately determined by reference to pleasure. One set of arguments targets the Epicurean tenets concerning the quantification of pleasure over a lifetime and the relevance of this to the finitude of one’s life and the possibility of achieving perfect happiness (cf. KD 19–21). Like most ancient and modern interpreters, Cicero understands Torquatus to say that the temporal duration of pleasure is irrelevant to its pleasantness, and that both a shorter and a longer period of time contain equal amounts of 92 Some scholars believe that Epicurus held that friendship has elements of altruism and otherconcern even if these elements cause problematic tensions in the doctrine: see Mitsis, Epicurus’ Ethical Theory: The Pleasures of Invulnerability, ch. 3; and Annas, The Morality of Happiness, ch. 11. Others maintain that Epicurus values friendship only instrumentally: see O’Keefe, “Is Epicurean Friendship Altruistic?”; and Brown, “Epicurus on the Value of Friendship (Sententia Vaticana 23).” An argument to the effect that egoistic hedonism is entirely compatible with Epicurus’s view of friendship is advanced by Dimas, “Epicurus on Pleasure, Desire, and Friendship.” 0004801389.INDD 180 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:44 AM Epicurean Hedonism 181 pleasure (2.87).93 So, he retorts that, in fact, if pleasure is the good, the more we get of it the better life should be; in other words, if one is a hedonist, one ought to be committed to the maximization of pleasure. Cicero defends that contention, first, by postulating a symmetry between pleasure and pain. If pleasure is not increased by duration, nor is pain; but this implication is absurd. Conversely, if pain is greater the longer it lasts, so pleasure is better the longer it lasts. Second, Cicero appeals to Epicurus’s notion of the gods as blissful and eternal: if duration does not matter, why describe the perfect happiness of the gods as everlasting? Both arguments point to the conclusion that, in truth, duration does matter and Epicurus implicitly recognizes that fact. However, an alternative interpretation is now on the table as well.94 When Epicurus claims that infinite and finite time have equal pleasure (KD 19) and that the person who realizes both the limits of pleasure and the limits of life knows what makes the whole life complete (pantelēs), he does not mean that the duration of one’s life is irrelevant to how much pleasure one will experience. Rather, he means that a life acquires its value in virtue of being finite and of having a proper structure from which nothing essential is missing. The opening lines of Epicurus’s deathbed letter to Idomeneus express just that concern: “I wrote this to you while I was spending and at the same time bringing to its proper close that blessed day which is my life” (DL 10.22).95 If the Epicurean position is read along these lines, Cicero’s criticism becomes moot. If, on the other hand, one opts for the former, traditional interpretation of Epicurus’s stance concerning the temporal duration of pleasure, the Epicureans could defend their position as follows: they could deny that there is symmetry between pleasure and pain, but insist that the correct understanding of pleasure entails, precisely, removing the belief that pleasure increases with time. Yet another group of Ciceronian arguments focuses on the vulnerability of Epicurean happiness with regard to the supreme evil and to factors beyond our own control. In the first place, if pleasure is the supreme good but pain the greatest evil, and since pain is bound to affect all of us some time in life, then even the sage cannot be happy when he is afflicted by pain (Fin. 2.104). But insofar as happiness is permanent and not intermittent, one might draw the conclusion that the sage cannot be happy at all. If so, then something must be very wrong with Epicurus’s hedonistic eudemonism, for it jeopardizes the prospect of the good life. A related point is this: since Epicurus makes pleasure importantly dependent on external sources, and since the availability of these external sources is subject to fortune, it follows that happiness too is subject to fortune. This holds not only for Epicurean laymen, but also for the wise man. Of course, Epicurus would deny that the sage is in any way the slave of fortune. Physical pain cannot shatter the katastematic pleasure of Epicurean exemplars. As for mental pains, even though they can have greater intensity than physical suffering (cf. 2.108), they cannot affect those who live according 93 Most ancient and modern scholars read Epicurus’s thesis in the way Cicero does. I call this the traditional reading which, however, is rejected by Sedley, “Epicurean versus Cyrenaic Happiness.” 94 Sedley, “Epicurean versus Cyrenaic Happiness.” 95 Both the translation and the interpretation of that passage belong to Sedley, “Epicurean versus Cyrenaic Happiness.” 0004801389.INDD 181 Dictionary: NOAD 4/18/2020 10:23:44 AM 182 VOULA TSOUNA to the principles of Epicureanism. For these latter have the intellectual resources of eradicating the empty beliefs constitutive of the passions, and hence of removing the causes of mental or psychic pain. However, the answer available to the Epicureans vis-à-vis the criticism that pleasure crucially depends on externals outside our control may be judged unsatisfactory. Consider, for instance, Metrodorus’s claim that happiness consists in sound health and an assurance of its continuance (Fin. 2.92). As Cicero points out, there can be no certitude that one will be healthy for the entire span of one’s natural life. Moreover, his remark that the actions of many illustrious people demonstrate that their motives were other than pleasure (2.34–35)96 also bears on the Epicurean conception of happiness, as does Torquatus’s response. On the one hand, this latter maintains that eminent statesmen acted as they did because of hedonic motives: one had his child beheaded, another sent his son to exile, yet another committed suicide, and so on. On the other hand, however, Torquatus does not even broach the question how happiness could be factually or psychologically possible in the aftermath of such actions. Overall, I think that his position would be more defensible, if he argued that people with sound Epicurean values shall not do such things, precisely because the latter cause far greater pain than pleasure in both the short and the long run. A last challenge raised by Cicero seems to me to constitute a serious philosophical problem for Epicurean hedonism. Cicero aptly calls it “the silence of history” (Fin. 2.67): there are simply no recorded examples of distinguished persons who have explained their actions by claiming that they were seeking their own pleasure. According to Cicero, the reason is that they feel shame. So, Cicero asks, what are the Epicureans’ options (Fin. 2.77)? Are you to affect an artificial language and say what you do not think? Or are you to change your opinions like your clothes and have one set to wear indoors and another to wear when you go out? Outside all show and pretense, but your true self concealed within? Reflect, I ask of you, is this right? It seems to me that these opinions are true which are honorable, praiseworthy, and noble, and which can be openly avowed in the senate and the popular assembly and in every company and gathering, so that one need not be ashamed to say what one is not ashamed to think. Of course, the Epicureans could deny that they conceal their hedonistic motivations. For example, they could mention the fact that they participate in the banquets devoted to the worship of Epicurus, a man who professed and practiced hedonistic values and thereby lived an exemplary moral life. However, the Garden was not a public venue. And the ritualistic celebration of Epicurus in that context does not constitute a counterexample to the above criticism. 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