Pleasure vs. Pain = Good vs. Evil?

Anthony Read

Is it better to avoid pain than risk seeking pleasures that lead to pain? Discuss with respect to Epicurus views on the matter.

In a letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus outlines what he believes is the best and most holistic way of life. He says that we only feel the lack of pleasure when from its absence we suffer pain; but when we do not suffer pain we are no longer in need of pleasure (Geer, pp. 56). Freeman further helps this view by noting that Epicurus says, in the same letter, that pleasure is the end of life (1938, pp. 157). With respect to this view of Epicurus, would one consider living with pain and pleasure to be the ultimate way of life? Would one follow Epicurus view, and eliminate pain with the collateral damage of pleasure included? Or are his definitions of pain and pleasure arbitrary at best? Epicurus addresses the idea of pleasure as follows: Pleasure is the chief and natural good (Geer, pp. 56). A statement that potentially derails the preceding idea then follows this quote: We do not choose every pleasure, but there are time we must bypass pleasure if they are outweighed by the hardships that follow. Firstly, Epicurus asks us to recognise that pleasure is the prime natural good thing to occur to us in life. Some critics of Epicurus have noted that he may be making a case for blind hedonism, but Epicurus himself brushes these claims away, stating that by pleasure we mean the state wherein the body is free from pain and the mind from anxiety (Geer, pp. 57). So why try and avoid this state of pleasure, if it is wholly a pure state of mind? His next idea of avoiding pleasure, if the pains involved in gaining it are too much, makes sense in a modern context. Think of the credit card. This invention allows us to buy whatever we want, whenever we want, and to ignore (at least for a time) the reality of paying back the debt. This short-term pleasure of gaining an item of desire is soon taken over by the pain of paying back the money owed to the bank. The same goes for extra-marital affairs: while pleasurable in the short-term, the reality of dealing with two relationships at once becomes a pain, and can lead to losing one (or both) partners in a flurry of anger and pain. Now Epicurus presents us with a confounding situation: if pleasure is the state of mind wherein one is free from pain, how can we gain it? Epicurus seems to have two definitions of pleasure in his vocabulary. Removing pain should allow us infinite, ideal pleasure, yet when pain is removed there is no need for pleasure. So what now? How can we have pleasure at the same time as not having pleasure? Perhaps what Epicurus is trying to suggest is that when pain (and therefore pleasure) is removed from oneself, then they enter a state of ataraxia: a perfect mental peace. This is achieved by sober calculation and banishing those beliefs which are the cause of greatest agony to the mind (pinktriangle.org.uk 1997). We can organise these different definitions as such: Pleasure (with a capital P to denote the state of ataraxia) and pleasure (such as ordinary daily pleasures we experience). What Epicurus is essentially saying is that to understand and experience pleasure, we must first experience and understand pain. The language game immediately places us in trouble here, as in German the opposite of pleasure is not pain, but unpleasure. This also places us in the issue of

having mental pains and physical pains: they may have the same name, but they are not the same experience (Mezes 1895, pp. 22). Epicurus noted earlier in his letter to Menoeceus that every pain is an evil, yet not every pain is of a nature to be avoided on all occasions (Geer, pp. 56). So why should we not avoid these pains, physical and mental, that cause us so much tension and anxiety? Epicurus also mentions that one should sometimes experience pains at length to attain some pleasure at the end. Speaking purely philosophically, this idea of attaining pleasure is almost impossible, for how can one point out an end point in anything? The ends justify the means: we have heard this many times before. Perhaps a better saying would be the means justify the means justify the means justify the meansinto infinity. The question posed at the beginning of the essay was whether pain with pleasure is better than no pleasure and pain at all. What Epicurus is meaning to say is that without pain (or unpleasure, as Mezes likes to term it), we would not understand pleasure (with a small p), and we would never achieve Pleasure, true and full. What he also seems to suggest is that these two concepts are inextricably linked: that removing one removes the other. What the questions fails to remember is that pleasure and pain is different to different people. Somebody may gain pleasure from seeing others fail and suffer immense pains, and some people may see everyday pleasures as pointless and frustrating (therefore leading to anxiety/pain). The question should not be which choice is better: it should be which one is preferable to one in the context of their lives and experiences. Or for those who choose to straddle the fence, there is another way to consider: one where the lines between pleasure and pain are blurred beyond ultimates. In the Socratic method, one can question ill-founded truths and societal norms to undermine them and find a different route (de Botton 2000). While this is used by de Botton as primarily a way to find flaws in others truths, it can be applied to any philosophy as well (including the Socratic method itself). Let us apply this method to the essay question, and to Epicurus philosophy in general. Pleasure and pain, as discussed earlier, are simply terms used to describe a personal feeling. There are no ultimate pleasures or pains, and in the same tact, it is impossible to apply a universal definition to both. Epicurus takes his philosophy one step further by saying that pleasure equals good, and pain equals evil. Again, if we use the Socratic method, we discover that the terms good and evil are simply relativistic ideas that change in many ways from one self to the next. So how can Epicurus say that pleasure is the chief and natural good when, for all he knows, pleasure can be considered an evil to some? Vice versa, how can he say that pain is an evil, when some consider it to be good and right? The issue here is language: as soon as we put these abstract, transient ideas into words, they fail miserably at allowing us to see a true definition (if there even is one). We can use, as an example, the idea of sado-masochism as a counterpoint to Epicurus argument. Sadism is defined as a sexual perversion in which gratification is obtained by the

infliction of physical or mental pain and masochism is pleasure in being abused or dominated (Merriam-Webster 2009). By Epicurus standards, this pain-in-pleasure is an abomination, and something which is not only unnatural but sickening. Sado-masochism takes Epicurean ideals and turns them on their heads, making physical and mental pain the source of pleasure. How does this stack up against Epicurean ideas? Is this form of pleasure-pain a reaction against the values Epicurus stood for? Or is it just a by-product of the passage of time and peoples needs to find pleasure in other places than the norm? It seems as though a writer called Edmund Burke may have had the idea: We shall venture to propose, that pain and pleasure are not only not necessarily dependent for their existence on their mutual diminution or removal, but that, in reality, the diminution or ceasing of pleasure does not operate like positive pain; and that the removal or diminution of pain, in its effect, has very little resemblance to positive pleasure. (Burke 1909-1914) Epicurus formed a good idea about the removal of pain, and therefore pleasure, to gain Pleasure. However, it falls short in many ways. Firstly, he mentions that pleasure is good, yet one should not obtain it all the time. This chief and natural good can be avoided if it leads to pain. On pain, he says that this evil should not be avoided at all times, if it leads to greater pleasures. Throughout all this, he fails to define the difference between pleasure and Pleasure: the transient, everyday pleasures and the state of ataraxia he wishes to obtain through removal of pain. The biggest problem with his philosophy is the idea that pleasure is good and pain is evil: we can clearly see that sexual perversions like sado-masochism fly in the face of this idea. Burke even goes as far as to say that removal of pain does not equal pleasure, and removing pleasure does not equal pain. Perhaps we should not say that pleasure and pain is better than overall Pleasure, or vice versa. We should be saying that neither is better, and that it is up to the eye of the beholder to judge their state of pleasure-pain for themselves.

References
Pleasure, On the Sublime and Beautiful, http://www.bartleby.com/24/2/103.html, accessed 1/4/09. De Botton A, 2000. Consolation for Unpopularity, The Consolations of Philosophy, Penguin Group, Melbourne.

Anthony Read

Burke E, 1909-1914. The Difference Between the Removal of Pain, and Positive

Epicurus (translated by Geer R). Letter to Menoeceus, Letters, Principal Doctrines and Vatican Sayings, acquired through RMIT University lecturer Peter Rzechorzek, 2009. Freeman K, 1938. Epicurus A Social Experiment, Greece & Rome, Vol. 7, No. 21, pp. 156-168. Merriam-Webster, 2009. Sadism. http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/sadism, accessed 1/4/09. Mezes S, 1895. Pleasure and Pain Defined, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 22-46. Pinktriangle.org.uk, 1997. The Garden of Epicurus, Introducing the Humainst Tradition, http://www.pinktriangle.org.uk/leaflet/epicurus.html, accessed 20/3/2009.