Epicurus founded a school of philosophy called "the Garden" in Athens that was dedicated to attaining happiness through reason. According to Epicurus, pleasure is the highest good and pain the greatest evil. He argued that we should pursue pleasures that lead to tranquility and avoid desires that cause anxiety or remain unfulfilled. Epicurus distinguished between necessary and unnecessary desires, advocating for satisfying the former and eliminating the latter to minimize pain. His philosophy emphasized living a simple life free from fear of gods or death.

1. ETIKA DASAR
CHAPTER 19
PLEASURE IS THE GOOD
BY EPICURUS
Nama : Farrel Atallah Susilo
NIM : 20191000018

2. • Epicurus of Samos (341-270 BC), who flourished not long after
Aristotle died, founded a school of philosophy that convened at his
home and garden in Athens. Called 'the Garden', this school
dedicated itself to attaining happiness through the exercise of reason
and rational principles, and, in a highly stratified and sexist society,
admitted both women and slaves.

3. • According to Epicurus, reason teaches that pleasure is good
and pain bad, and that pleasure and pain are the ultimate
measures of good and bad. This has often been
misconstrued as a call for rampant hedonism, rather than
the absence of pain at all in this life

4. • Epicurus wrote prolifically, but the early Christians thought of him as
especially ungodly among the ancient philosophers, and almost none
of his works survived their disapprobation.
Epicurus held that the gods exist, but have absolutely no concern for,
or even awareness of, humankind.
• Indeed, for the gods to involve themselves in the menial matters of
men would be to perturb the supreme happiness and tranquillity that
characterizes and defines them. Instead of fearing the gods, human
beings should seek to emulate them in their supreme happiness and
tranquillity.

5. Neither should human beings fear death, and this for two principal
reasons.
• (1) The mind is a part of the body, and, just like other parts of the
body (and everything else in the universe), is made up of atoms.
• The death of a person entails the death of both body and mind and
the re-dispersion of their atoms. As there is no longer any person to
be troubled, death cannot trouble the person after she is dead. And if
death cannot trouble the person after she is dead, then nor should it
trouble her while she is still alive.
• (2) The eternity that comes before a person’s birth is not regarded as
an evil, and, therefore, neither should the eternity that comes after
her death.

6. • Epicurus agrees with Aristotle that happiness is an end-in-itself and
the highest good of human living.
• However, he identifies happiness with the pursuit of pleasure and the
avoidance of pain rather than with the pure exercise of reason.
• Pleasure is the highest good, Just as human beings can immediately
feel that something is hot or cold, colourful or dull, so they can
immediately feel that something is pleasurable or painful.
• However, not everything that is pleasurable should be pursued, and
not everything that is painful should be avoided.

7. To help them a bit, Epicurus proceeds to distinguish between two
different types of pleasure, ‘moving pleasures’ and ‘static pleasures’.
• Moving pleasures involve the satisfying of a desire, for example,
eating a meal when hungry. Static pleasures on the other hand
involve the state of having had a desire satisfied, for example, feeling
sated after eating a meal.
• Static pleasures, says Epicurus, are better than moving pleasures
because they free us from the pain of need or want.
• Pleasure often arises from the satisfaction of desire and pain from its
frustration. Thus, any desire should either be satisfied to yield
pleasure or eliminated to avoid pain, and, overall, it is elimination that
should be preferred.

8. • Epicurus also distinguishes between physical and mental pleasures
and pains, and argues that anxiety about the future, especially fear of
the gods and fear of death, are the greatest obstructions to
happiness.
• To attain a state of perfect mental tranquillity or ataraxia, we need to
avoid anxiety, which we can do by learning to trust in the future.
• There are, says Epicurus, three types of desires, (1) natural and
necessary desires such as those for food and shelter which are
difficult to eliminate but naturally limited and both easy and highly
pleasurable to satisfy, (2) natural but non-necessary desires such as
those for luxury food and accommodation, and (3) vain desires such
as those for fame, power, or wealth which are inculcated by society
and which are not naturally limited and neither easy nor highly
pleasurable to satisfy.

9. • Natural and necessary desires should be satisfied, natural but non-
necessary desires can be satisfied but should not be depended upon,
and vain desires should be entirely eliminated.
• By applying this recipe for the selective elimination of desires, we can
minimize the pain and anxiety of harbouring unfulfilled desires, and
thereby bring ourselves as close as possible to ataraxia.
• Pleasure often arises from the satisfaction of desire and pain from its
frustration. Thus, any desire should either be satisfied to yield
pleasure or eliminated to avoid pain, and, overall, it is elimination that
should be preferred.

10. Source :
https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epikuros
https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonisme#Epikuros
Introduction to Ethical Studies: An Open Source Reader
by Lee Archie and John G. Archie.