Letter to Menoeceus
Epistole pros Menoikea
Pleasure, correctly understood as the absence of bodily pain and mental disturbance rather than indulgence in every available appetite, is the natural and proper goal of life, and an irrational fear of death or the gods is the single greatest obstacle standing in its way.
- pleasure as absence of pain and disturbance (ataraxia)
- death as 'nothing to us'
- the gods as indifferent, not punishing
- philosophy as therapy for anxiety
- prudent choice among desires
Preserved complete because Diogenes Laertius quoted it in full in his life of Epicurus, this letter to a student named Menoeceus summarizes Epicurean ethics as a practical therapy for anxiety, arguing that philosophy is worthless unless it heals human suffering, and that most suffering stems from irrational fears, above all fear of death and fear of the gods' punishment, that careful reasoning can dissolve. Epicurus argues that death is nothing to us, since where death is we are not and where we are death is not, and that the gods, if they exist, live in blissful indifference to human affairs. He then redefines pleasure against its popular reputation for indulgence, arguing that the highest pleasure is the calm absence of bodily pain and mental disturbance (ataraxia).
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