Forget Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics: try being Epicurean | Aeon Essays 06/11/19 10.

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How to be an Epicurean
A philosophy that values innocent pleasure, human
warmth and the rewards of creative endeavour.
Whatʼs not to like?
Catherine Wilson 05 November, 2019

Like many people, I am skeptical of any book, lecture or article offering to

divulge the secrets of happiness. To me, happiness is episodic. Itʼs there
at a moment of insight over drinks with a friend, when hearing a new and
affecting piece of music on the radio, sharing confidences with a relative
or waking up from a good nightʼs sleep after a bout of the flu. Happiness
is a feeling of in-the-moment joy that canʼt be chased and caught and
which canʼt last very long.

But satisfaction with how things are going is different than happiness.
Satisfaction has to do with the qualities and arrangements of life that
make us want to get out of bed in the morning, find out whatʼs happening
in the world, and get on with whatever the day brings. There are
obstacles to satisfaction, and they can be, if not entirely removed, at
least lowered. Some writers argue that satisfaction mostly depends on
my genes, where I live and the season of the year, or how other people,
including the government, are treating me. Nevertheless, psychology and
the sharing of first-person experience acquired over many generations,
can actually help.

So can philosophy. The major schools of philosophy in antiquity –

Platonism, Stoicism, Aristotelianism and, my favourite, Epicureanism,
addressed the question of the good life directly. The philosophers all
subscribed to an ideal of ‘life according to natureʼ, by which they meant
both human and nonhuman nature, while disagreeing among themselves
about what that entailed. Their original writings, most of them widely
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accessible, readable and thought-provoking, remain a resource, not just

for philosophy students and specialists, but for everyone interested in the
topics of nature, society and wellbeing.

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What was a ‘schoolʼ of philosophy for the ancient Greeks and Romans?
Essentially, it was a group that shared common beliefs and values. Its
members would meet regularly to listen to lectures by the leader, to
discuss the philosophical issues among themselves and with occasional
visitors, and to work out how to defend their views against the objections
of their competitorsʼ schools. Accounts of the lectures and discussions
might make their way into written texts, crafted by the leader or his
students. Philosophy was not, however, a form of public education.
Between 40 and 80 per cent of the population of Athens in the first few
centuries BCE were male and female slaves. Some of them might serve
and entertain at philosophical functions but did not participate.

Plato, who collected the thoughts and discussions of his 5th-century

BCE teacher Socrates, emphasised the cultivation of the four virtues of
wisdom, courage, moderation and justice. Plato considered these virtues,
and other ‘formsʼ such as truth and beauty, more real than anything
composed of matter. Virtue, he thought, was the route and the only route
to eudaimonia, usually translated as ‘welfareʼ or ‘flourishingʼ. Dishonesty,
cowardice, gluttonous, lustful, intemperate behaviour and mistreatment
of others could produce only a disordered and unhappy personality.

The audiences that Socrates and Plato meant to address consisted most
typically of ambitious and spoiled young men from top Athenian families
who needed to be set straight. Was Platoʼs theory of human flourishing
through virtue meant to apply to women? Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics

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led all-male academies. The women of the time were largely confined to
the household, at least the respectable ones. Their domestic occupations
would not have given them opportunity to display courage (mostly
understood as courage in battle), or wisdom (as they lacked an education
and experience of the world outside the home), or moderation (as they
had no sexual freedom and did not take part in heavy-drinking parties),
or justice (as they had no scope to judge adult men and to mete out
rewards and punishments). Platoʼs pupil, Aristotle, writing in the 4th
century BCE stated explicitly that virtue was different for men and for
women. For women, obedience was the top virtue and so presumably
conducive to their flourishing.

Aristotle wrote on a much wider range of subjects than Plato had, from
marine biology to human reproduction, from political organisation to
drama and rhetoric. In ethics, he pointed out that some supposed virtues
could be too much of a good thing. Too much courage was foolhardiness;
too much moderation was stinginess and asceticism. Too much wisdom
might make you seem pompous, I suppose, and a fanatical commitment
to justice would exclude mercy and forgiveness, which seem virtuous.
But Aristotleʼs main contribution to moral philosophy is often considered
to be his point that to be happy you have to be somewhat lucky. If you are
born with a terrible, progressive disease, or into the middle of a war, or if
you happen to have powerful enemies who impede you at every turn,
your chances of flourishing are lower than otherwise. For eudaimonia,
you not only have to practise virtue; you need friends, your health and a
decent income.

The Epicureans had no patience for the Stoic claim that human beings
are self-sufficient, without need for the goodwill of others.

A third major school of philosophy, Stoicism, represented by a number of

teachers and writers in the Greek and Roman traditions, including
Epictetus and Seneca, reverted to the Platonic view that external events

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cannot diminish the wellbeing of the good person. The world, they
thought, is ruled by providence; all that happens is fated to happen, and
we must embrace our individual fates and the past and the future that
has been determined for us. As things could not have happened
otherwise, regret and remorse over past decisions and actions are
pointless.

Not only regret, but all emotions, including anger, pity and love, are
‘diseasesʼ of the soul in need of a cure, though a general benevolence
towards humanity was permissible. An emotional reaction, they
maintained, always involves the illusion that some external event, a
rejection letter, or a friendʼs betrayal, or meeting someone fantastic, or
being tortured, is objectively bad or good for you. An emotion, they said,
is just a bodily disturbance that causes mental disturbance. To restore
tranquility, one should remember that these things happen all the time,
that they were fated to happen, and that the self is an ‘inner citadelʼ that
can withstand any attack.

Stoicism has many adherents even today because it offers explicit coping
mechanisms for everyday adversities. Psychotherapeutic techniques that
involve getting distance or perspective on individual problems have a lot
of overlap with Stoic techniques. But there are many problems with
Stoicism – and psychotherapy. The major one, in my opinion, is that these
techniques havenʼt been proven. I have found no well-designed and
methodologically sound empirical study showing that emotionally
troubled people who undergo perspective-inducing therapy fare better,
after some given length of time, than emotionally troubled people who
just wait for time to heal their wounds.

A second problem with Stoic practices is that emotions make life feel
worth living. Emotional numbness and absence of motivation is the main
feature of depression. Drugs that reduce affect are widely disliked by
patients who have been prescribed them. Recent empirical work

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suggests that we need the emotions to make decisions; otherwise we

just waffle endlessly, making up rationales and counter-rationales for
some course of action. And finally, the Stoic claim that pity for the
suffering of others just makes you feel bad yourself is deeply inhuman.

The fourth major philosophy of antiquity was developed in the 3rd

century BCE in Athens by Epicurus and taken up by his 1st-century BCE
Roman follower, Titus Carus Lucretius, the author of the great didactic
poem ‘On the Nature of Thingsʼ. Epicureanism challenged both the overall
organisation and the accounts of the way to eudaimonia of the other
philosophical schools. Epicurus and his followers formed a sort of
commune based in Epicurusʼs house, surrounded by a ‘gardenʼ, outside
the city walls. The Epicureans took their meals in common, discussed
science and ethics, and socialised. Women were included in the sect, and
their flourishing was not understood differently to that of men. Epicurus
was notorious for his nonmarital relationships that combined sex and
philosophy.

Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics each made a place in their systems for a
god, or godlike intelligences, as the creator or the rulers of the world. And
in their various ways, they all agreed that matter by itself was dead,
illusory and devoid of any characteristics except being a lump. Spiritual
entities, such as Platoʼs forms, or Aristotleʼs souls, or the Stoicʼs world-
enlivening pneuma, had to be brought in to explain life, thought and the
changes observed in nature.

Epicurus, by contrast, was a materialist. All that really existed, he

declared, were indestructible atoms – tiny mobile particles, invisible to
the naked eye, with various shapes and sizes, but devoid of colour, odour,
flavour and sound, and separated by void space. In combination, they
gave rise to the physical world and all its phenomena, including thought
and perception. The atoms had formed the world by themselves –
originally sticking together just by chance and growing into larger stable

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complexes. If there were gods, they too were made of atoms. But there
was no need to appeal to the gods to explain any happenings on Earth or
in the sky – or for that matter in history or in anyoneʼs personal life. The
soul was composed of atoms as well; it dissipated into the air at death, so
there was no immortality, or resurrection, or transmigration of souls.

Their theory of nature had ethical consequences for the Epicureans.

Prayer was useless, and there was no hell, regardless of what the priests
taught, for the wicked. The life of eudaimonia was simply one in which
pleasure dominated over pain. This required prudence, and the ability to
tell the difference between experiences and occupations conventionally
assumed to be pleasurable and those that were truly pleasurable.

The Epicureans had no patience for the Stoic claim that human beings
are self-sufficient, without need for the approval, goodwill or assistance
of others. They doubted that the mind could, or should try to repress or
dissolve emotions. To be happy, they insisted, we need to be engaged
with external things and with other people. When things go badly, we will
suffer, and there is no real cure except time and distraction. So itʼs
essential to be aware of the most frequent external causes of misfortune
and to steer clear of them before misfortunes happen. As the future is
not predetermined, and as humans have free will, this is possible.

If life is limited to this life, and if virtues such as justice are only abstract
ideas, why be moral?

Political ambition and wealth-seeking almost always cause anxiety and

disappointment. So does romantic love when unrequited, which
sociologists tell us is most of the time. So try not to get or remain snared!
(Obsession with someone unavailable will fade quicker with no contact,
according to Epicurus, and, according to Lucretius, temporary diversion
with just about any willing bystander can help.) Many painful illnesses can
be avoided by prudent behaviour and correct choice of food and drink,
and, when those befall us despite our best efforts, intense pains are
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short-lived and long-lived pains are mild.

Rather than aiming specifically to maximise pleasure, the Epicureans

concentrated on minimising pains, the pains that arise from failures of
‘choice and avoidanceʼ. They knew that immediate intuition about costs
and benefits is unreliable. One must sometimes sacrifice appealing food
and drink in the short term to avoid the long-term pains of addiction and
poor health; and sacrifice sexual opportunity to avoid humiliation, anger
or social or economic fallout. But there is nothing virtuous about poverty
and deprivation, and no oneʼs misery is ever deserved. Martyrdom for a
cause is pointless, and, if we punish wrongdoers, it should be only for
reasons of deterrence, not for revenge; if punishment doesnʼt work, it is
morally wrong to punish.

But if life is limited to this life, and if virtues such as wisdom, moderation
and justice are only abstract ideas in atomic minds, why be moral?

The Epicureans had two answers to this question. One was that the
people around you resent stupidity, cowardice, self-indulgence and
injustice – the opposites of the traditional virtues. So, if you habitually
engage in them, you will find yourself socially excluded and perhaps even
punished by the law. Nonconformity to morality brings pain.

The other answer was that it is possible to have an entirely pleasant life
without causing injury to others through dishonesty, immoderation or
other vices. The sources of innocent pleasure are all around us: in the
sensory enjoyment of music, food, landscapes and artworks, and
especially, Epicurus thought, in the study of nature and society, and in
conversing with friends. Unlike Aristotle, who thought oneʼs friends
should be chosen for their virtue (rather than for their advantage),
Epicurus thought that friends were just people who thought more or less
the same way you did, whom you just happened to like.

Although few of us want to drop out and join a residential philosophical

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cult in the suburbs, carrying the Epicurean perspective into daily life can
be of personal value.

A first point of departure for thinking about Epicureanism in a

contemporary context is the fact that competition for power, esteem and
financial reward (none of which the Epicureans regarded as real goods) is
built into every aspect of our society. We are urged to strive for
promotions and better salaries, for the best GPAs, test scores and
university places, for recognition and approval from colleagues, for the
best possible mate in terms of looks and status. Advertisements on the
New York subway urge me to get a diploma, bid for construction
contracts, initiate and win lucrative lawsuits, and fix my face and figure.
My glossy alumni magazine glorifies those faculty who discovered or
invented something patentable, or who at least seem to be on track to do
so, and its advertising urges me to invest my wealth with prestigious
firms to acquire even more wealth. The bestselling self-help books
advertised on Amazon, and lining the shelves in the airport newsvendors,
promise to boost me to a top position where I can make all the decisions
and boss others around, and to crush the self-defeating behaviour
preventing me from finding lasting love.

This success-driven focus of contemporary life is complemented by a

focus on the passive consumption of supposed comfort- and pleasure-
inducing objects, such as speciality mattresses and bamboo-fibre socks.
We women are urged to seek relief from bias and obstruction in the
corporate world by treating or indulging ourselves with sticky desserts
and complicated cocktails, perfumed lotions, potions, candles and all
manner of personal services such as massages, waxing and spa
treatments.

The accumulative, competitive luxury-seeking society has brought us,

everyone will agree, beauty and utility, hot and cold running water, new
medicines to relieve painful and disabling conditions, wonderful new

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devices for communication and entertainment, as well as asparagus and

strawberries out of season. Lucretius mentions roads, architecture and
sculpture as the advantages produced by civilisation in his own time. We
could add jet travel, escalators and the cinema, along with much else. But
the intense efforts to change the world, more often motivated by
ambition and hope of financial gain than by pure benevolence, have also
brought us warfare and the enormous economic waste of military
preparedness, the exploitation of working men and women, poverty and
deprivation, and environmental destruction.

Fame and wealth are zero-sum. For some to be wealthy, powerful and
famous, others must be poor, obedient and disregarded. And if money,
fame and luxury articles really made people happy, we would have to
consider only the political costs of our modern aspirations and habits. But
the evidence is that an agreeable life depends neither on achievements
or worldly goods, and is not served by attractively packaged fripperies,
deceptively promising escape into another dimension of harmony and
relaxation.

Everyone who has ever received them will agree that it is pleasing to get
a promotion, a raise, a favourable notice, a grant, a prize or an invitation.
A desire for validation by oneʼs fellows for oneʼs personality or outputs
seems to be built into our psyches. But everyone can agree too that the
pleasure of being recognised, appreciated and rewarded, though it is also
fleeting, is different from the truly intoxicating moments of happiness in
which we feel in tune with another individual or become totally absorbed
in something outside the self. Contrary to what is still assumed in some
management circles, external rewards are not especially motivating.
Motivation and dedication can arise only from the actual pleasure of an
activity, whether it takes place at a desk or on a playing field or in a shop
or studio or on a building site.

An Epicurean strategy for avoiding pointless consumption is to regard

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shopping as a museum experience

Epicurus emphasised the pleasures of learning and speculating about

nature and the social world, and Lucretius pointed out that what was
exceptional about human beings was their creativity and handiwork.
People enjoy figuring things out and getting things to work, or just getting
things to look, sound and taste better, for themselves and for others. Real
enjoyment arises from activities that activate concentration, that require
practice and skill, and that deliver sensory enjoyment. The ability of our
hands to manipulate small objects with speed and precision is unique to
humans. Together with the appreciation of beauty in colour and form, this
endowment adds the arts to the sciences, as the best that humans can
do.

One of the tragedies of life in civilisation is that most human work doesnʼt
require or develop human ingenuity and artistry. Nevertheless, every
human being who is not living in conditions of total cultural deprivation
can activate them. The traditional pastimes of childhood were activities
carried out for their own sake: crafts and puzzles, reading about animals,
history, far-off places and the future, exploring the outdoors, and helping
adults and younger children. Their adult equivalents are found in
kitchens, sewing rooms, garages and workshops, along with libraries and
lecture rooms. Making things such as pottery, jewellery, knitted,
embroidered and stitched items, and fixing things around the house is a
profound source of human satisfaction. In these activities, hands, eyes
and mind are engaged with the material world, and it is your own taste
and judgment that determine the outcome. You donʼt need to win a prize
at Cannes.

Decades of research have established that wealth above a certain level

does not add to an individualʼs satisfaction with life, and older people who
have achieved considerable worldly success often report that raising
their children and enjoying their adult company has given them more

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satisfaction than any career recognition they obtained. Yet the

discoveries of happiness researchers seem to resemble those of
nutritionists. They are accepted as true, but they donʼt motivate.

People know – in principle – what is good for them to eat. If you give them
a test asking: Which is better for you: fruits, vegetables, whole grains and
animal protein in moderation? Or muffins, cookies, ready meals, fast food
and soft drinks? just about everyone will give the right answer. And if you
asked: Which is the basis of a better life: friendships, creative activities
under your own control, enquiring and learning, tasty food and refreshing
drink, and contact with nature? Or status, influence, money and the
purchase of as many goods and services as possible? most people would
give the right answer, too.

So why is the truth so hard to internalise and act on? In the case of
nutrition, you have to fight mainstream culture, with all its propaganda,
alluring displays and incentives. The same is true in the case of personal
wellbeing.

An Epicurean strategy for avoiding being lured into pointless

consumption, despite the curiosity most of us have about the material
world and its incentives to buy, buy, buy, is to regard shopping trips as a
museum experience. You can examine all these objects in their often-
decorative packing and muse on the hopes and fears to which they are
symbolically and magically attached. There exist mattresses that can
seemingly make boring marriages or miserable solitudes more fun, and of
course creams and lotions for eternal youth. You can enjoy looking at or
perhaps handling these objects; you donʼt need to purchase and store
them.

The value of philosophy is that it typically poses a challenge to

conventional and socially powerful ideas. At its best, it tries to replace
them with more difficult, less palatable, but better ideas. Epicurean
philosophy described a material, constantly evolving world without a just
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and benevolent deity – and a long human history of domination and

deception. This seemed harsh to his many critics, and Epicureanism
became associated with ‘crude materialismʼ, ‘reductionismʼ, and with a
finicky, self-indulgent form of hedonism, associations that only a return to
the original writings can fully correct. Rather than making us feel
dwarfed, Epicurusʼs expansive and objective view can give us insight into
our own situation and powers. Like other good philosophy, it urges us to
let our decisions and actions flow spontaneously from our understanding
of ‘the nature of thingsʼ and how the world actually works.

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