Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2.6

M. First, then, I will speak of the weakness of many philosophers, and those, too, of various sects; the head of whom, both in authority and antiquity, was Aristippus, the pupil of Socrates, who hesitated not to say that pain was the greatest of all evils. 

 

And after him Epicurus easily gave in to this effeminate and enervated doctrine. 

 

After him Hieronymus the Rhodian said, that to be without pain was the chief good, so great an evil did pain appear to him to be. 

 

The rest, with the exceptions of Zeno, Aristo, Pyrrho, were pretty much of the same opinion that you were of just now—that it was indeed an evil, but that there were many worse. 

 

When, then, Nature herself, and a certain generous feeling of virtue, at once prevents you from persisting in the assertion that pain is the chief evil, and when you were driven from such an opinion when disgrace was contrasted with pain, shall Philosophy, the preceptress of life, cling to this idea for so many ages? 

 

What duty of life, what praise, what reputation, would be of such consequence that a man should be desirous of gaining it at the expense of submitting to bodily pain, when he has persuaded himself that pain is the greatest evil? 

 

On the other side, what disgrace, what ignominy, would he not submit to that he might avoid pain, when persuaded that it was the greatest of evils? 

 

Besides, what person, if it be only true that pain is the greatest of evils, is not miserable, not only when he actually feels pain, but also whenever he is aware that it may befall him? And who is there whom pain may not befall? So that it is clear that there is absolutely no one who can possibly be happy. 

 

Metrodorus, indeed, thinks that man perfectly happy whose body is free from all disorders, and who has an assurance that it will always continue so; but who is there who can be assured of that? 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2.6 

 

Making pleasure the greatest good, and by extension making pain the greatest evil, has always been present in the history of philosophy, because it is also such an easy conclusion to arrive at in daily life. A feeling is an immediate and powerful thing, and it is inclined to demand all the attention in the order of human priorities. 

 

That we are creatures of passion is not in question, but that our passions should be the primary measure of our choices should not be so hastily assumed. Can it be that the emotion itself matters the most, or is it that the emotion must be taken within the context of the action and the judgment? 

 

It all comes back to the old Socratic question: is it good because it is desirable, or is it desirable because it is good? If I only want to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, I will end up living a radically different life than if I wish to pursue what is right and avoid what is wrong, and so this isn’t just an issue of abstract contemplation. Consider the stark contrast between the man who runs away from hurt and the man who runs away from vice. 

 

I have often rambled on about this problem, and no doubt I will do so again, yet my thoughts for the moment are on a specific experience from my younger days. I had always been taught to go out of my way to be helpful to others, and I usually did as I was asked, though I often found myself annoyed by the inconvenience of it, and occasionally I even resented the intrusion. 

 

Simply put, I didn’t much like the feelings that went along with being charitable. Needless to say, this troubled me, and I wondered if I was some sort of heartless monster. I was in the Boy Scouts at the time, and found myself pondering their slogan: “Do a good turn daily.” I genuinely wanted to figure out how this could be fulfilling. 

 

And then one day, without any warning whatsoever, a simple act of concern made me feel the most incredible elation. One the next day, a harsh word to a friend made me feel a stinging regret. What was going on? Where were these emotions coming from? 

 

With time, I came to realize how my earlier reflection on the matter was the very cause of my altered sentiments. I had thought through the meaning of doing right, and so I started to feel good about it. Conversely, I had thought through the meaning of doing wrong, and so I started to feel bad about it. 

 

Long before I took a single class in philosophy, I was already hooked. I perceived, in however hazy a way, a relationship between awareness and sensation, between reason and the appetites, and I have since then never turned back from my conviction that the worth of the passion derives from the merit in the understanding. 

 

Feelings are often a mixed bag, the pleasurable all tangled up with the painful. Only an attention to conscience can discern how those feelings are to be interpreted. Sometimes pain is an opportunity for improvement, and sometimes pleasure is a prophetic warning. 

 

Cicero doesn’t hold back in his disdain for those philosophers who treat pain as an evil, whether total or partial. I stand with him in this, while I simultaneously know how often I have fallen into that same trap. 

 

At a lack for more eloquent language, when it hurts bad, I get caught up in the doom and the gloom. I then have to step back and organize my mess of emotions. This is precisely why we are made as creatures of reason, to go along with being creatures of passion. 

 

My love of philosophy is sorely tested when I suffer. It requires all my might to take the suffering as a means for building character, not as an excuse for surrender. Cicero precisely isolates the critical point: of what am I persuaded? Where do my deepest principles lie? 

 

It will be as easy or as hard for me to manage pleasure and pain as it is for me to master my own estimation of truth and falsehood. 

 

I take a special note of a problem Cicero presents, as I have been there many times. The fact is that I will always feel pain, to greater or lesser degrees, and I can certainly expect great big wallops in the face for the future. If dodging pain is necessary for my happiness, how can I handle that? 

 

What a miserable life it would be, if, like Metrodorus, I hoped for a life full of ease and empty of any affliction. It’s no wonder why the pleasure-seeker so often ends up as a bitter pessimist. 

 

Embrace the feelings God gave you. Now put them to use with the mind God gave you. 

—Reflection written in 7/1996 

IMAGE: Edvard Munch, The Scream (1893)