Thomas Aquinas v. Epicurus
ON THE NATURE OF PLEASURE
Issue | Other Opinions Aquinas Considers | Thomas Aquinas | Epicurus |
Is Every Pleasure Evil? | 1 - Every pleasure is evil because it destroys prudence and hinders reason.
| 1, It is not the pleasures that result from an act of reason that hinder or destroy prudence, but extraneous pleasures, such as pleasures of the body. 2. The temperate man does not shun all pleasures, but those that are immoderate and contrary to reason. 3. Art is not concerned with all kinds of good, but only with the making of external things. … Nevertheless there is an art of making pleasures, the art of cookery and the art of making unquents…. | Doctrine 8. No pleasure is intrinsically bad; but that which is necessary to achieve some pleasures brings with it disturbances many times greater than those same pleasures. Doctrine 10. If those things which debauched men consider pleasurable in fact put an end to the fears of the mind, and of the heavens, and of death, and of pain; and if those same pleasures taught us the natural limits of our desires, we would have no reason to blame those who devote themselves to such pursuits. |
Is Every Pleasure Good? | 1 - Every Pleasure is good because it is useful.
| “While some of the Stoics maintained that all pleasures are evil, the Epicureans held that pleasure is good itself, and that consequently all pleasures are good. They seem to have thus erred in not discriminating between that which is good simply, and that which is good in respect of a particular individual. That which is good simply is good in itself.” | Letter to Menoeceus: And since pleasure is the first good and natural to us, for this very reason we do not choose every pleasure, but sometimes we pass over many pleasures, when greater discomfort accrues to us as the result of them: and similarly we think many pains better than pleasures, since a greater pleasure comes to us when we have endured pains for a long time. Every pleasure then because of its natural kinship to us is good, yet not every pleasure is to be chosen: even as every pain also is an evil, yet not all are always of a nature to be avoided. Yet by a scale of comparison and by the consideration of advantages and disadvantages we must form our judgment on all these matters. For the good on certain occasions we treat as bad, and conversely the bad as good. |
Is Any Pleasure The Greatest Good? | 1 - It would seem that no pleasure is the greatest good. Because nothing generated is the greatest good: since generation cannot be the last end. But pleasure is a consequence of generation, for the fact that a thing takes pleasure is due to its being established in its own nature. Therefore pleasure is not the greatest good. 2 - Further, that which is the greatest good cannot be made better by addition. But pleasure is made better by addition, since pleasure together with virtue is better than pleasure without virtue. Therefore pleasure is not the greatest good. 3 - Further, that which is the greatest good is universally good, as being good in itself: since that which is such of itself is prior to and greater than that which is such accidentally. But pleasures is not universally good, therefore pleasure is not the greatest good. | “Happiness is the greatest good, since it is the end of man’s life. But happiness is not without pleasure, for it is written (Psalm xv.11): Thou shalt fill me with joy with Thy countenance, at Thy right hand are delights even to the end. I answer that Plato held neither with the Stoics, who asserted that all pleasures are evil, nor with the Epicureans, who maintained that all pleasures are good: but he said that some are good and some evil; yet, so that no pleasure be the sovereign or greatest good. ….. ….. Accordingly, man’s last end may be said to be either God Who Is The Supreme Good simply, or the enjoyment of God, which implies as certain pleasure in the last end. And in this sense a certain pleasure may be said to be the greatest among human goods. Reply to 2 - This argument is true of the greatest good simply, by participation of which all things are good; wherefore no addition can make it better….. | Letter to Menoeceus: The right understanding of these facts enables us to refer all choice and avoidance to the health of the body and (the soul’s) freedom from disturbance, since this is the aim of the life of blessedness. For it is to obtain this end that we always act, namely, to avoid pain and fear. And when this is once secured for us, all the tempest of the soul is dispersed, since the living creature has not to wander as though in search of something that is missing, and to look for some other thing by which he can fulfil the good of the soul and the good of the body. For it is then that we have need of pleasure, when we feel pain owing to the absence of pleasure; (but when we do not feel pain), we no longer need pleasure. And for this cause we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good. Letter to Menoeceus: But the wise man neither seeks to escape life nor fears the cessation of life, for neither does life offend him nor does the absence of life seem to be any evil. And just as with food he does not seek simply the larger share and nothing else, but rather the most pleasant, so he seeks to enjoy not the longest period of time, but the most pleasant. Reply to 2 - Doctrine 3. The limit of quantity in pleasures is the removal of all that is painful. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body nor of mind, nor of both at once. Doctrine 18. Once the pain arising from need is removed, physical pleasure is not increased, and only varies in another direction. The essential happiness of the soul depends on understanding this, and on understanding the nature of similar questions which cause great concern of the mind. VS59. It is not the stomach that is insatiable, as is generally said, but the false opinion that the stomach needs an unlimited amount to fill it. |
Is Pleasure the measure or rule by which to judge of moral good and evil? | 1 - Pleasure is not the measure or rule of moral good and evil, because that which is first in a genus is the measure of all the rest. Pleasure is not the first thing in the moral genus because it is preceded by love and desire. Therefore it is not the rule of goodness and malice in moral matters. 2 - A measure or rule should be uniform, hence that movement which is most uniform is the measure and rule of all movements. But pleasures are various and multiform, since some are good and some are evil. Therefore pleasure is not the measure and rule of morals. 3- Judgment of the effect from its cause is more certain than judgment of cause from effect. Now goodness or malice of operation is the cause of goodness or malice of pleasure: because those pleasures are good which result from good operations, and those are evil which result from evil operations. Therefore pleasures are not the rule and measure of moral goodness. | I answer that Moral goodness or malice depends chiefly on the will…. and it is chiefly from the end that we discern whether the will is good or evil. Now the end is taken to be that in which the will reposes: and the repose of the will and of every appetite in the good is pleasure. And therefore man is reckoned to be good or bad chiefly according to the pleasure of the human will; since that man is good and virtuous who takes pleasure in the works of virtue; and that man evil who takes pleasure in evil works. On the other hand, pleasures of the sensitive appetite are not the rule of moral goodness and malice; since food is universally pleasurable to the sensitive appetite of both good and of evil men. But the will of the good man takes pleasure in them in accordance with reason, to which the will of the evil man gives no heed., | Letter to Menoeceus: The right understanding of these facts enables us to refer all choice and avoidance to the health of the body and (the soul’s) freedom from disturbance, since this is the aim of the life of blessedness. For it is to obtain this end that we always act, namely, to avoid pain and fear. And when this is once secured for us, all the tempest of the soul is dispersed, since the living creature has not to wander as though in search of something that is missing, and to look for some other thing by which he can fulfil the good of the soul and the good of the body. For it is then that we have need of pleasure, when we feel pain owing to the absence of pleasure; (but when we do not feel pain), we no longer need pleasure. And for this cause we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good. |
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