PHILOS 2P03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Epicureanism, Epicurus, Hedonism
21 Apr 2020
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The epicurean life: limited desires, virtue and pleasure, controlling our attention, eliminating fear. Thus the epicureans were hedonists (thinkers who thought pleasure was the good): hedonist people who think pleasure was good, what is good is pleasant. Indeed, they were the most famous and influential hedonists of antiquity. However, their views about the best life were not what the term hedonism might lead one to expect! Some think he also endorsed psychological hedonism: the view that everyone in fact always aims only to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. Epicurus was probably not a psychological hedonist. Epicurus maintained that pleasure is good in and of itself. Epicurus apparently thought it is simply obvious from our experience that pleasure is good and pain is bad: doesn"t really acquire thinking, should know your self. Some later epicureans also offered a cradle argument for the conclusion that pleasure is good by nature:
