The Implausibility of Ataraxia

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The Implausibility of Ataraxia

Epicurean ethical theory consistently operates under the presumption that hedonism, or pleasure, is the greatest good. For the Epicureans, an individual in a state of ataraxia, or complete freedom from mental disturbance, has achieved the most complete and pleasurable life, the greatest good for a human being. The concept of ataraxia, however, differs in many ways from what most would characterize as hedonism. Consequently, Epicurus is able to construct a great many controversial (and perhaps counterintuitive) views on particularly delicate subjects like death, the gods, friendship, and society. I find the issue of death to be one of the most glaring holes in all of Epicurean ethics. How are we to reconcile an ethical doctrine of hedonism with the issue of death? The manner in which Epicurus defines his hedonism sheds an alternative light on the world, a light which illuminates a much more accepting image of death than other generic notions of hedonism.

With any form of hedonism, one is committed to the concept that pleasure is the chief good. In an extremely generic form of hedonism, it seems as though the quality of sensual pleasure should be given no more weight than the quality of emotional pleasure and vice versa. Additionally, this sort of hedonism would hold that the acquisition of kinetic pleasures would increase overall pleasure to seemingly no end, a concept which Epicurus’ doctrine would reject. Even if we understand death to be a genuine ceasing to exist, we must conjecture that it is bad for a person to die in the sense that it terminates even the possibility to acquire more pleasure. Under this concept of hedonism, we must agree that a person who lives a pleasurable life for ...

... middle of paper ...

...e years of kinetic pleasure can not compare to the enjoyment of ten years of kinetic pleasure.

The argument that the Epicureans fabricate in order to refute the negativity of death is alluring but ultimately dysfunctional. The foundation disintegrates in a wave of implausibility, allowing for the possibility that the ultimate consequence of death could potentially be bad for a person. Even hedonism, teeming with pleasure, cannot cast off the iron chains of death. For Epicureans, it may be the only obstruction to the plausibility of ataraxia. Death itself carries no negative impact on hedonistic individuals, but “he fears death not because it will be painful when present but because it is painful in anticipation” (LS 150).

Works Cited

Long, A.A. & Sedley D.N. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Trans. Long & Sedley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

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