By Simon Knutsson

Published Dec. 2, 2019

I will be concerned with the plausibility of Epicurean ideas about pleasure, pain, good and bad. I’ll defend a contemporary interpretation of Epicureanism, or perhaps it should be called an idea inspired by Epicureanism, according to which tranquility and painlessness are better than kinetic pleasures, which have no or negative value. This text is more like a sketch for future work by myself or, even better, by others, rather than a thoroughly researched scholarly text.

Introduction

Let’s start with Wedberg’s (1982) book A History Of Philosophy. His section on Epicureanism is short and contains only a couple of brief passages on the topic. He writes,

Pleasure is the only good and pain the only real evil…. The pleasure of the soul is merely freedom from pain. The wise man, who is not misled by superstition and does not vainly strive for indifferent things, easily attains this state of mind, which the Epicureans at times likened to the peace of the sea during a calm. (Wedberg 1982, p. 143).

He also states that, according to the Epicureans, “what is really worth having … is the freedom of the mind from pain” (Wedberg 1982, p. 143).

It has been said that Epicurus was a prolific writer but that most of his writings are lost. Some first-hand and some second-hand sources remain, but experts disagree on what views Epicurus held.

I will assess the Epicurean ideas in the spirit of contemporary value theory (axiology) and discussions of pleasure and pain. I will not use the framework of appealing to human nature to justify ethical claims, although ideas about human nature seem important for understanding what Epicurus actually thought. According to Annas (1993, pp. 135–136), “ancient ethical theories appeal to [human] nature to ground their ethical claims.” Several experts on ancient philosophy emphasize the importance in Epicureanism of living naturally. For example, Gosling and Taylor (1982, p. 347) write, “any painless conscious life is pleasure, where, we must remember, life would not consist simply in being alive, but in living the kind of life characteristic of the species.” Another example is, again, Annas (1993, p. 338), which describes the Epicurean final end as: “a state where you are functioning normally, in ways that do not constrain or flout your nature, and you are not hindered or upset by mental or bodily troubles.”

I will assume a contemporary axiological notion of final value, regardless of what Epicurus meant by ‘good’ or ‘end.’ According to Annas (1993, pp. 4–5), ancient ethical theories are concerned with life as a whole, character and virtue. A fundamental question is, “What should my life be like?” (Annas 1993, p. 27). She continues, “Ancient ethics does not aim at the production of good states of affairs… Rather, what I aim at is my living in a certain way…. The final end is not unlike the modern notion of a life-plan” (Annas 1993, p. 38).

The difference between kinetic and katastematic pleasure

A distinction that figures prominently in the literature on Epicurus is between katastematic (static) and kinetic pleasures. Mitsis (2013, p. 88) explains the distinction briefly as follows: “Kinetic pleasures consist in those positive sensations and feelings that are often taken to be the hallmark of pleasure, whereas katastematic ones are those that arise in an organism when bodily pain or mental distress has been removed.” The experts on ancient philosophy I am familiar with agree that Epicurus thought that katastematic (not kinetic) pleasure is the final end or greatest good. They also seem to agree that the distinction cuts across the distinction between the pleasures or pains of the body, on the one hand, versus those of the mind or soul, on the other hand. Experts, however, disagree about how to understand the distinction between katastematic and kinetic pleasures. I’ll next summarize four such understanding.

According to Annas (1993, p. 188), these are two different kinds of pleasure. Katastematic pleasure includes both tranquility (ataraxia), that is, “the absence of … trouble, worry or irritation,” and the absence of pain (aponia), and both ataraxia and aponia are our final end (Annas 1993, pp. 188, 336). Kinetic pleasure, on the other hand, is felt when “lack or need is being removed,” and it is not our final end (Annas 1993, p. 188). Pleasure is not a uniform sensation, but rather “what results from fulfilling a desire” (Annas 1993, p. 336).

In contrast to Annas, according to Cooper (2012, p. 232), Epicurus did not intend to distinguish between two kinds of pleasure, but two types of circumstances in which “a single type of feeling” of pleasure arises. Kinetic circumstances have to do with “bodily and psychic movements,” such as swallowing tasty food, the sun shining on bare skin or “excited movements in your thoughts when you’ve just learned something.” Katastematic circumstances are healthy, natural functioning, and one is “free of any and all disturbances that cause pain, distress, or discomfort (bodily or mental)” (Cooper 2012, pp. 234, 237). Waking awareness must have a hedonic tone, so this katastematic state is pleasant (Cooper 2012, p. 233). Reformulated in a contemporary framework, I would say Cooper’s account of Epicureanism seems to include that katastematic pleasures are of final value, while kinetic pleasures are only of instrumental value. It can, for example, be wise to pursue kinetic pleasures, even if they include some pain, in order to maintain katastematic pleasure over time (Cooper 2012, pp. 237–246).

Another interpretation of katastematic and kinetic pleasures is provided by Purinton (1993), according to which katastematic pleasure, in contrast to Cooper’s interpretation, is not feeling; it does not feel good, but it is good. “Painlessness … without the addition of kinetic pleasure, feels neither pleasant nor painful” (Purinton 1993, p. 302). Adding kinetic pleasure of the body would feel good, but would not be better (Purinton 1993, p. 302). Similarly for “the katastematic pleasure of the soul: undisturbedness does not feel good, even to the mind (whatever that would mean). Rather, it is good, and indeed, is the best possible condition of the mind” (Purinton 1993, p. 302). Based on these quotes, Purinton seems to describe kinetic pleasure as having no final value (at least kinetic pleasure “of the body”). Elsewhere in the same text, one could interpret Purinton’s interpretation as that Epicureanism gives lexical priority (my term; not Purinton’s) of katastematic over kinetic pleasure, although both are still finally valuable:

Presented with a choice between two courses of action, one promising painlessness and kinetic pleasure and the other promising painlessness but no kinetic pleasure, one has reason to prefer the former, since kinetic pleasure is “worth pursuing” even if the action by which one obtains it rids one of no pain…. [But] one should never choose a kinetic pleasure, no matter how intense or long-lasting, if doing so entails the sacrifice of katastematic pleasure” (Purinton 1993, p. 318).

The idea of both katastematic and kinetic pleasure having final value, with katastematic being a lexically higher value is probably far-fetched as an interpretation of Epicurus, but it is a position in the vicinity of his ideas that one could take. A more accurate understanding of Epicurus is probably that katastematic pleasure is higher than kinetic pleasure, at least partly because, as Purinton (1993, p. 318) says, kinetic pleasure is not needed for reaching the telos.

A fourth interpretation is provided by Mitsis (2013, p. 90), who writes that Epicurus “seems to embrace as katastematic pleasures states of an agent that are dependent on various favoured beliefs about the world—fearlessness towards death, an understanding of atomism, recognition of divine indifference, etc.” Mitsis speculates that Epicurus’ account may be pointing to that “there is something about the way holding a particular belief feels. Holding the right belief feels pleasurable. It is not just that the Epicurean maintains various cognitive attitudes to the world that cause pleasure, but that such attitudes themselves are united and justified by a particular sort of pleasurable feel” (2013, p. 90). In other words, perhaps katastematic pleasures are those one feels when holding certain beliefs.

Why should katastematic pleasure be (so) privileged?

Regardless of interpretation, one can ask why katastematic pleasure should be so privileged or be better than kinetic pleasure. For example, on Cooper’s account, why is katastematic pleasure the greatest that can be experienced, when both katastematic and kinetic circumstances give rise to a single type of feeling? Cooper asks a similar question: “Epicurus went on to count the katastematic pleasure as the greatest that can be experienced. What leads him to that conclusion?” (Cooper 2012, p. 236). Cooper’s main reply, as far as I can tell, is that katastematic pleasure is purest in the sense that some kinetic pleasures are “compromised by the stressful state of mind … associated with intense desires,” they involve a “frustrated dissatisfaction,” or are “mixed with pain” (Cooper 2012, pp. 237–238). Katastematic pleasures do not have such negative aspects. If that is correct, it would be an explanation of why such kinetic pleasures are worse than katastematic pleasures, but it would not explain why katastematic pleasures are better than all kinetic pleasures, because, on this account by Cooper, not all kinetic pleasures are mixed with something negative in this way (Cooper 2012, p. 243). So, Cooper’s reply (i.e., his understanding of the Epicurean reply), is not satisfactory.

My impression is that Epicurus’ main positive arguments for the privileged status of katastematic over kinetic pleasure is based on an appeal to human nature, but I don’t know what that appeal is exactly, and it matters little for my investigation here since I reject appeal to human nature as a method for justification of axiological claims, and I am interested in the plausibility of the ideas. The following passage from Annas (1993) supports my impression that Epicurus appeals to nature. It also suggests the argument in defense of the Epicureans that, roughly speaking, one would agree with them if one thought critically and corrected some false beliefs. Perhaps a debunking idea is included here, in the sense that one could debunk common beliefs that conflict with Epicureanism. At the end, the passage by Annas also mentions an interesting other or perhaps overlapping debunking argument, which seems to be aimed to show that if we find Epicurus’ thesis counterintuitive, such intuitions are unreliable. She writes,

We might object that ataraxia is too negatively defined to be a plausible conception of pleasure; the ethical appeal of pleasure is that it is something that we positively want to go for, whereas mere freedom from trouble and frustration falls short of this. Epicurus’ answer to this is to be found in his view of nature and how we fall short of living naturally. In his view, most of us are living highly unnatural lives, since we are uncritical and mostly mistaken about our desires, and this in turn is so because we have uncritical and false beliefs about our needs. (We might in turn ask why this is so, but the further answer seems merely to be that we pick up wrong beliefs and attitudes from our society. And the question, how society got that way, is not the question seen as of primary importance; more urgent is the question, how then am I going to rid myself, by reflection, of these false and harmful beliefs?) By the time we have a correct view of what it is our needs really are, we will, Epicurus thinks, have revised our view as to the negative character of ataraxia. The reason most people expect to get a positive charge from their activity comes from their false beliefs and the unhealthy emotional attitudes that these tend to produce. By the time we are clear about our natural desires, Epicurus thinks, we will see that freedom from pain and trouble is in fact what we really want; the more exciting, positively attractive goals turned out to be ones which brought more pain and frustration in their wake. We may, of course, question this whole story about nature and natural desires, but without doing so we cannot really object that the final end is too negative and unexciting. To the extent that this is unintuitive, Epicurus has an account ready of how and why our intuitions on this topic are untrustworthy. (Annas 1993, p. 344)

The claim that one would agree with the Epicureans if one thought critically about the matter and got rid of false beliefs about our needs and so on is hardly convincing to someone who finds the Epicurean ideas about value and pleasure implausible. Plenty of people have probably by now thought about these matters critically and simply disagree with Epicurus, and more would need to be said to establish that they are uncritical or have mistaken beliefs about, for example, their needs.

The debunking argument at the end aiming to show why opponents’ intuitions on this matter are unreliable is more interesting, but Anna’s passage doesn’t say what the argument is; just that Epicurus has an account ready.

Setting the passage by Annas aside, another type of argument, which may be promising, is to reply to objections of the kind that some period of katastematic pleasure should be able to be outweighed axiologically by a large quantity, high intensity or long duration of kinetic pleasure. For example, if kinetic pleasure cannot increase in quantity or intensity, or if the value of kinetic pleasure (assuming it has positive final value, which I don’t think) does not increase with quantity, intensity or duration, then that would make it more plausible that katastematic pleasure is, for example, lexically dominating kinetic pleasure axiologically. There is some literature on Epicureanism that deals with hedonic calculus and quantities, intensity and duration of pleasure. For example, there has been a debate about whether kinetic pleasures vary in intensity at least since the 1930s (Purinton 1993, p. 315). I won’t pursue this line of argument here though.

Such an argument would seemingly not support that kinetic pleasure has no final value at all, but one could, of course, try to give a direct explanation of or argument for why kinetic pleasure has no positive value. If this is established, and if katastematic pleasure has positive value, or neutral value while kinetic pleasure has negative value, the axiological difference between katastematic and kinetic pleasure will have been established; that is, that katastematic pleasure is better than kinetic (including that katastematic pleasure cannot, e.g., be outweighed by kinetic pleasure). This will be my concern in the remainder of the text. For example, we saw above that on Cooper’s account, some kinetic pleasures are mixed with pain or other negative aspects, which, one could claim, makes them lack positive value, and one could add an idea or two to get the following explanation of why all kinetic lack positive value: Some kinetic pleasures are, as Cooper says, mixed with negative aspects, and here is the main new part: the other pleasures Cooper labels kinetic pleasures are actually katastematic pleasures. Hence, all kinetic pleasures have negative aspects.

One can, as I alluded to above, formulate several versions of the rest of this argument. For example, one can argue that because the kinetic pleasures are mixed with negative things, they either (a) lack positive value, while katastematic pleasure has positive value, (b) kinetic pleasures have negative value, while katastematic pleasure has positive value, (c) kinetic pleasures have negative value, while katastematic pleasure has neutral (no) value. For the points in the rest of this text, I don’t think it’s important to choose between (a), (b) or (c), but I find (c) most plausible. Below I’ll sketch how to argue for (i) that the kinetic pleasures are so tainted that they are of either no or negative value, and for (ii) these kinetic pleasures are all the kinetic pleasures there are.

Regarding (i), it seems one would not need to go (much) beyond Cooper’s work. As mentioned above, I think the argument is roughly that if one introspects properly and thinks about it, one can notice and realize that kinetic pleasure is compromised by pain, stress, frustration, discomfort, dissatisfaction or the like. But, one might ask, couldn’t kinetic pleasure be of positive value if it is very intense and only has some minor negative aspect? An answer could be either, as some argue (see above), that kinetic pleasure cannot vary in intensity. Another answer, which is a modification of what Cooper says, is that as kinetic pleasure becomes more intense, the negative aspects also increase, for example, more intense stress or dissatisfaction so the state of mind does not become better. Cooper doesn’t say this but he talks in similar words about that greater intensity of kinetic pleasure does not bring a greater quantity of pleasure: “Epicurus argues…. Philosophy shows that extreme intensity of pleasure is caused by the stressful intensity of the desire at work in its pursuit, which in turn causes the excited psychic movements that give rise to it” (Cooper 2012, pp. 237–238).

Regarding (ii), that kinetic pleasures that are not compromised are actually katastematic pleasures: One might think that this is just a pointless change of the label of some pleasures from kinetic to katastematic, but I think it is a substantial claim that there are not these kinetic pleasures without negative aspects, for which there is an explanation needed of why they are worse than katastematic pleasure. Rather, they are katastematic pleasures, so no such explanation is needed, and we already have an explanation of why the other kinetic pleasures lack positive value: they are mixed with pain, stress, dissatisfaction or the like. The examples of kinetic pleasures without negative aspects that Cooper gives do indeed sound like katastematic pleasures. These kinetic pleasures include the following:

Many, or even the vast majority, of the favorite pleasures of variation in any normal human being’s life will not be mixed with pain in any of the ways I have mentioned, though they too will be kinetic pleasures. If one is fond of music (either for playing or singing oneself, or for listening to), the pleasure is of the sort “which stirs our nature with its sweetness and produces agreeable sensations in us,” which is Cicero’s first characterization of what he later calls pleasure “in movement.” The organ of hearing and the central organ for sensing are stimulated with smooth and orderly movements, which give rise to smooth and pleasant movements in the soul or mind, so that the pleasure we experience is aptly characterized, as Epicurus and Cicero both characterize it, as kinetic pleasure, or pleasure in movement or movements (bodily and psychic). Yet these are not in any way disturbing or distressing or painful movements; the pleasures they cause are not mixed pleasures at all. The same holds, in most cases, for the pleasure of conversations with friends, or of reading and studying, or going to the theater, or even of watching television (provided the program’s subject or the images conveyed are not distressing in themselves.) The pleasures of caring for a garden, or of all sorts of social games and interactions (the ones that are pleasant, I mean) are similar. (Cooper 2012, pp. 243–244)

It is striking how similar the characteristics of these “kinetic pleasures” seem to the characteristics of katastematic pleasure. All of the activities listening to or playing music, gardening, having interesting conversations, reading, studying, and watching something engaging in a theater or on television, often involve avoidance of stress, worry, troubles, dissatisfaction, feeling down, bored or sad, and the like. Many would describe at least some of these activities as ‘meditative’ and as sometimes involving a state of flow. One could say: Cooper, what you are describing here are ways of reaching a state of mind of tranquility, satisfaction, freedom from disturbance and worries, and even perhaps taking one’s mind of bodily pains and health problems during all or parts of the activity—in other words, one is experiencing katastematic pleasure. Well, maybe these states don’t qualify as “complete” tranquility or katastematic pleasure, but it sounds reasonable that they are better than kinetic pleasures because they have more of the features of katastematic pleasure. Sure, perhaps these states of mind could be called ‘kinetic’ because they involve some activity, as opposed to, say, meditation in stillness, but then we could make an axiologically fairly uninteresting distinction between different katastematic pleasures (active katastematic pleasures vs. static katastematic pleasures), based on whether the katastematic pleasure involves some activity or movement or not.

Conclusions

The argument I have sketched for why katastematic pleasure is better than kinetic pleasure can seemingly become persuasive if developed further. It hinges on a realization that experiences commonly thought of as pleasurable actually has a perhaps surprising extent of negative aspects, and that other experiences are better because they involve tranquility, and no or at least less experience of pain, trouble, worry and the like.

Acknowledgements

Maybe some of what I write in this text builds on or overlaps with ideas in Gloor (2017); I have not noted above where there is overlap because I am unsure. I am grateful for him writing that text and for our discussions of his ideas. Many thanks to Jonas Olson for comments on an earlier version of my text.

References

Annas, J. (1993). The morality of happiness. New York: Oxford University Press.

Cooper, J. M. (2012). Pursuits of wisdom: six ways of life in ancient philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus. Princeton, N.J.; Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Gloor, L. (2017). Tranquilism. Foundational Research Institute. https://foundational-research.org/tranquilism/

Gosling, J. C. B., & Taylor, C. C. W. (1982). The Greeks on pleasure. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Mitsis, P. (2013). Epicurus : Freedom, Death, and Hedonism. In R. Crisp (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics (pp. 73–92). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Purinton, J. S. (1993). Epicurus on the Telos. Phronesis, 38(3), 281–320.

Wedberg, A. (1982). A History Of Philosophy: Volume 1: Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.