A reader has asked me a question about Epicurean morality. A very good question about pleasure and where pleasure ends and selfishness begins.
Epicurus taught that the moral good is the same as pleasure, either physical or mental, and that moral evil is the same as pain, and that you should always avoid pain. An act is always moral if it produces, over the longer run, more pleasure than pain. The question is: should this be taken literally?
Imagine that you are a man married to a woman with three tiny children. Because of their age it is difficult for her to work, or at least to work full time. You can’t take the crying kids, meet another woman and walk out. The other woman turns out to be fun and loving. You marry her and have a delightfully happy life. If you take Epicurus literally, this is the thing to do, because it gives you personal pleasure.
Tomorrow, I will give my more nuanced interpretation of what I believe Epicurus would have said were this question posed to him. Was he really advocating a self-indulgent free-for-all with no regard for others? I think not.
Think of this the other way round. The poor woman, abandoned by her husband with three children and no income, remembering the carefree life she had just a few years before, decides to simply walk out on the kids. Let the social services look after them. She is now free to return to her old job and go clubbing again . Meets another man and returns to her former happy, carefree life. Sounds likely?