The Rolling Stones and Philosophy_ It's Just a Thought Away - Luke Dick [50]
While the Cyrenaics make it clear that they think one pleasurable activity is as good as any other, and that each should be judged merely in terms of the amount of pleasure it provides the person who engages in it, the Epicureans thought that pleasures exist in a hierarchy. Epicurus is very explicit about what he means in holding pleasure as the ultimate good, and he decidedly does not mean unbridled bodily indulgence. He says:
We do not mean … those that consist in having a good time … but freedom from pain in the body and disturbance in the soul. For what produces the pleasant life is not continuous drinking and parties or pederasty or womanizing or the enjoyment of … dishes of the expensive table, but sober reasoning which tracks down the causes of every choice and avoidance, and which banishes the options that beset souls with the greatest confusion.” (The Hellenistic Philosophers, p. 114)
For Epicureans, prudence is the greatest virtue, for it is the key that allows us to live happy lives. Although not a particularly common word today, the concept of prudence, or phronesis, in Greek, is an idea that is readily recognizable. Prudence is the ability to foresee the results of our actions, to recognize the implications for tomorrow of what we do today. Prudence was extremely important to the Epicureans because the ability to predict the consequences of our actions was integral to choos-ing those actions that would lead to the most pleasure, all things considered, rather than the most pleasure right now. So you see, their goal of pleasure, pleasure, and more pleasure really isn’t essentially different from the Cyrenaics, or the Stones. The difference is their reliance on prudence to help them achieve more lifetime pleasure over pain. Unlike the Cyrenaics, they would not be continually subtracting from their pleasure score to account for the pains that inevitably follow the unconsidered pursuit of pleasure.
This doesn’t mean the Epicureans had anything against physical pleasures, either. Cicero says, “I cannot conceive of anything as the good if I remove the pleasures perceived by means of taste and sex and listening to music…. Certainly it is impossible to say that mental delight is the only good.”30 What’s more, the Epicureans are not categorically opposed to any particular pleasures. Epicurus says, “No pleasure is something bad per se: but the causes of some pleasures produce stresses many times greater than the pleasures.”31
Rather than rule out certain kinds of pleasure altogether, then, the Epicureans merely rule out pleasures that result in greater pain than pleasure at the end of the day. This means that, though a particular pleasure, such as drug use, is still permissible, it must be indulged in a way that avoids the negative consequences that often follow it. A life free of addiction will have more pleasures than the life of an addict, so the Epicureans will advise responsible drug use that avoids the perils of addiction. Likewise, a life free of disease will have more pleasures open to it than a life cut short by AIDS, so sexual pleasures should be pursued in ways that minimize disease. In other words, if you ran into some Epicureans at a rock festival today, they’d be the ones passing out free condoms and running the needle exchange programs.
What Can a Poor Boy Do?
Since the purpose for adopting a moral code is the belief that it will lead to happiness, which form of hedonism—Cyrenaic or Epicurean—is more likely to do that? Is it better to live in the moment and fully enjoy each fleeting pleasure as it presents itself, or should we take a more considered and choosy approach to the pleasures we