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Pain In Augustine's 'Letter To Meneoceus'

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Letter to Meneoceus
Epicurus’ views are the views of a hedonist; the only thing that is intrinsically good is pleasure. By pleasure, Epicurus did not mean a sexual pleasure, but the “absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul” (Epicurus, n.d., p. 3), which meant that pleasure is the absence of pain, so removal of pain equals pleasure. Epicurus believed that living a calm life was better than living a thrilling life. However, a calm life would be boring and without purpose compared to a thrilling life. A thrilling life does not necessarily mean creating excitement in everything one does, but living a meaningful life without being too precarious to avoid pain. Epicurus believed that people should live a calm life to avoid pain and …show more content…

However, if you turned it around, so the pleasures are the ones that add up to create a better life, it make people create more interested in seeking wisdom, exploring, and experiencing life on a higher level. Augustine of Hippo went in the opposite direction of Epicurus and focused on the good versus the evil. However, Augustine put it in terms of good versus evil compared to Epicurus’ pleasurable versus pain (Wikipedia, n.d., p. 1). Nevertheless, the focus on having more good/pleasurable things in one’s life and focusing on the good compared to avoiding the painful/evil is somewhat the same point, which is the inverse view on life compared to Epicurus. Why should one live a life focusing on avoiding pain when one can live a life focusing on how to make the life better and live the good life? Epicurus would say that living a thrilling life would equal too much pain and therefore it would not be worth living. However, living a thrilling life might add more pleasure than pain if you look at Augustine’s scale. According to Epicurus, there is no such thing as living a more pleasurable life, because pleasure cannot be measured, but if it could an exciting life would likely be more interesting than a boring

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