Pleasure, virtue and what is up to us

An evening that must go well

Imagine Nadia inviting friends to dinner. She wants good food and time together, but then she pictures what they will think of her ordinary plates. She buys expensive replacements, worries about the cost and spends the evening watching for signs of admiration. When someone makes a careless joke about the food, she can think of nothing else.

The previous lesson asked about eudaimonia, living well across a whole life, and Aristotle connected it with virtues, the excellences of character, and with practical wisdom, the judgment of how to act well. Epicurus and Epictetus also ask how to live, but they give different accounts of what makes a life good. Both would ask Nadia to reconsider what she wants from the evening, and why it matters so much.

Pleasure worth choosing

Epicurus founded his school in Athens around the end of the fourth century BCE. [3] In his Letter to Menoeceus, pleasure is the end toward which our choices should be directed. Yet he explicitly denies that this means taking every pleasure available. An enjoyment may bring greater trouble afterward, and a painful effort may be worth accepting for the pleasure it makes possible. [1]

So he asks us to examine our desires. Some are natural and necessary, including those that sustain life. Some are natural without being necessary: a more elaborate meal can be welcome without being something we need. Others depend on groundless beliefs about what will secure a good life, and the endless pursuit of prestige offers no settled point at which we have enough. David Konstan explains this as the difference between meeting a need and pursuing wealth or fame as a promise of security. [3]

Nadia’s hunger can be satisfied, but her wish to outshine every other host can always find another comparison. The plates are not the whole problem; the trouble lies in the demand she has attached to them. A pleasant meal doesn’t have to prove her importance.

Enough can be pleasant

Epicurus counts freedom from bodily pain and mental disturbance as pleasure itself, not as an empty interval between entertainments. Ataraxia means freedom from mental disturbance, and such tranquility need not mean boredom. With hunger relieved, needless fears examined and simple enjoyments within reach, a life can be pleasant without a more intense excitement each day. [1] [3]

The letter recommends growing used to simple food, so that luxury can be enjoyed when it comes without becoming a condition of happiness. Nadia need not refuse a special meal, then. She should ask what it costs her, including the anxiety of treating it as indispensable.

Reason matters because fears and mistaken beliefs can spoil a life. Epicurus argues that being dead cannot be an experience of suffering: while we exist, our death is absent, and once death has occurred, we no longer experience anything. Whether death could still harm us by depriving us of future life is a further question, and understanding his argument does not require accepting its conclusion. [1]

Virtue belongs here too. Epicurus says that a pleasant life cannot be separated from living prudently, honorably and justly. Pleasure supplies the aim, and thoughtful, decent conduct is inseparable from achieving it, which asks far more of us than doing whatever feels agreeable now.

What is up to us?

Epictetus taught centuries later, in the Roman imperial world. He had been enslaved and later became a free teacher. His Enchiridion, or Handbook, condenses teaching preserved through Arrian, and it represents one influential Stoic voice, not every detail of the school’s long history. [4]

Its opening distinguishes what is up to us from what is not. Judgments, aims, desires and aversions belong to our agency, our capacity to examine what seems true or desirable and to decide how to respond. Possessions, reputation and even the condition of the body can be obstructed or taken away. The distinction separates our use of judgment from results we cannot guarantee; it does not claim that we have no influence on those results. [2]

Nadia can choose her reply, but she cannot ensure that everyone admires it. If their approval is necessary for her life to be good, she has placed that good at their disposal. Epictetus locates it instead in using her capacity for choice well. Virtue, the excellence of that capacity, is good in itself, and pleasure is not the standard that decides whether her reply is right. [4]

The event and our judgment of it

The joke happened; “This makes me worthless” is something Nadia adds to it. Epictetus asks the learner to examine such appearances before accepting them, and in chapter 20 he recommends gaining time before responding to provocation, so that judgment has a chance to work. [2]

His wider claim goes beyond the useful observation that a pause can help. He traces emotions such as fear and resentment to judgments of value: a blow can injure a body, but he denies that it must ruin our capacity to live well. That invites criticism. Does his account give enough weight to suffering, to coercion and to the conditions under which someone learns to judge? His ideal requires sustained training, and it does not establish that every distressed person could simply choose to stop feeling distressed.

Nor does his account make relationships pointless. Chapters 24 and 30 connect integrity with being a friend, a relative or a citizen. They also reveal its limits, since chapter 30 demands submission even to a bad father, and we can ask whether family relationships justify the obedience he demands.

Similar advice, different reasons

Both thinkers might challenge Nadia’s dependence on admiration, but for different reasons. Epicurus examines which desires and choices make a life securely pleasant. Epictetus asks whether she is using her judgment well, even when doing so brings discomfort or costs her approval. Neither view amounts to feeling calm at any price.

Their religious settings differ too. Epicurus rejects popular fears of divine interference, while Epictetus, in chapter 31, asks for trust in gods who govern the world justly. These commitments help explain the proposals, so neither is a purely modern technique detached from beliefs about the world. [3] [2]

The central disagreement concerns what ultimately makes a life good. For Epicurus, virtue and a pleasant life belong together, with pleasure as the end. For Epictetus, choosing well is itself the good, whatever comfort or reputation follows. Agreeing about one dinner does not erase that difference.

Try the comparison

Nadia says, “Epicurus tells me to buy whatever feels good, and Epictetus tells me that my friends do not matter because I cannot control them.” Explain one mistake in each claim. Then distinguish the reasons each thinker could give for abandoning her demand for admiration.

Read a possible response

Both claims misread their thinker. Epicurus asks Nadia to weigh consequences and the kind of desire she is satisfying, and a purchase that leaves her anxious and dependent on praise may work against a pleasant life. Epictetus distinguishes other people’s responses from her own judgment, yet he still gives her responsibilities as a friend, so she can attend to her friends without making their admiration the measure of her worth. Epicurus would connect giving up the demand with a more securely pleasant life, while Epictetus would locate its value in choosing and acting well, even if the evening remained uncomfortable. Neither account is established merely by showing that its advice might help in this case.

Carry this forward

These proposals make claims about pleasure, value and human agency. What should we do when competing arguments leave such claims unsettled? In What if inquiry does not settle the dispute?, we examine the possibility of withholding judgment while continuing to inquire and act.

Sources and limits

[1] Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, preserved in Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book X, §§122–135; translated by Robert Drew Hicks, for the accounts of pleasure, desire and death. The Wikisource edition identifies the 1925 Loeb translation. The whole letter was read, from its greeting to its closing instruction to practice; the surrounding book was not read in full. The section numbers identify passages in Book X:

• Death: §§124–127.
• Classifying desires and weighing choices: §§127–130.
• Simple food, pleasure and prudence: §§130–132.
• Agency and practice: §§133–135.

The web transcription is not backed by a scan. Its notes 132–134 were checked; note 134 identifies the divination remark following the letter as an editorial problem, and that remark is not used as part of the letter. No print page or Greek collation is claimed. A different online transcription had visibly damaged wording and was not used as the citation text.

[2] Epictetus, The Enchiridion, translated by Thomas W. Higginson, The Liberal Arts Press, second edition, November 1955; Project Gutenberg ebook 45109, updated 24 October 2024, for the distinction between what is up to us and what is not. Complete chapters 1–5, 8–9, 20, 24, 30–31 and 34 were read. This edition numbers its chapters in Roman numerals: I is 1, XX is 20, XXX is 30 and XXXI is 31.

The title, edition statement, complete “Note on the Text” and note 4 were checked. The edition reports minor changes to style, punctuation and spelling, plus marked editorial notes, so it is not an untouched original printing of Higginson. “Up to us” is the lesson’s phrase for the distinction he renders “within our power.” No omission marker appeared inside the selected chapters. The whole handbook, Salomon’s introduction and the underlying Discourses were not read in full, and this compressed selection cannot establish the whole Stoic system.

[3] David Konstan, “Epicurus”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, revised 8 July 2022, for context on ataraxia, desire and interpretation. The opening overview and §§1–2, on sources and life, were read, with selected paragraphs of §4 running from the discussion of reasoning and choice through the account of empty desires. The detailed physics, the whole entry and the cited works were not studied in full.

[4] Margaret Graver, “Epictetus”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, revised 16 July 2025, to place the handbook’s abbreviated claims in context. The lesson draws on §1 and §§4.1–4.6, which cover his life and the mediation of his texts, reasoning, divinity, choice, value, emotion and concern for others. The Discourses passages Graver cites are not credited as primary reading here, and the whole entry and bibliography were not read.

Nadia, the dinner, the critical questions and the optional response are original teaching material. The historical arguments remain open to examination, and the example offers no promise of emotional control. Selected English texts were used; no whole book, source-image comparison, original-language collation, independent specialist or learner review, or learner timing is claimed.