Types of human desires according to Epicurus

According to Epicurean philosophy, desire is primarily intended to satisfy a pleasure that if not is satisfied causes pain, therefore, happiness is a fullness that implies the absence of desire. Thus, for Epicurus, the concrete experience of happiness is not having fulfilled desires, but their silence and their absence in life.

The dynamics of desire is incessant, it runs the risk of making us prisoners in an endless process, so only with the absence of desire is pain avoided. In this Psychology-Online article, we will explain what the types of human desires according to Epicurus with examples

Index

1. what are wishes
2. Natural and necessary desires
3. Unnecessary natural desires
4. Desires neither natural nor necessary

Desire is a state of affect of the me, specifically, a impulse directed at an external object of which contemplation is desired, or, more easily, possession and/or availability. The condition proper to desire implies sensations that can be painful or pleasant for the

Since the origins of the philosophical discipline, experts have wondered what space to give to desires. The answers are very varied:

• Plato: exposes the idea of ​​an ascetic path, or how man must fight against the turbulent desires of his own body
• the cyrenaics: they make the satisfaction of all desires the highest good.

All these reflections lead to establishing numerous distinctions such as that of Epicurus. Specifically, epicureanism formulate the theory of pleasure, understood as the absence of pain. For Epicurus, pleasure is the end of human life and is divided into kinetic pleasure, which accompanies a process and mixes with pain, and catastemic pleasure, which, being stable, has no pain.

According to Epicurus, pleasure coincides with the satisfaction of desires. Thus, he divides the types of desires as follows:

1. Natural and necessary desires.
2. Unnecessary natural desires.
3. Desires neither natural nor necessary.

One of the types of desires according to Epicurus that refers to the wishes that ease pain. In essence, these wishes identify with basic needs. Here are some examples:

• Eat when you are hungry.
• Drink when thirsty.
• Sleep when he is tired.

They must always be satisfied, since they are closely linked to the preservation of the life of the individual. Otherwise, the very existence would be severely compromised, therefore, these pleasures must always be satisfied, given the precise natural limit that allows the elimination of pain.

Within the non-necessary natural desires are included the pleasures that, even being in accordance with the natural instincts, can be removed of existence without it suffering. For example, preferring tasty and refined foods and sleeping comfortably is certainly natural, but it is absolutely not necessary. Also included in this category is sex, which Epicurus does not condemn, but does not consider necessary except for reproductive purposes.

These types of wishes may or may not be satisfied, depending on the individual temperament. Each one must judge himself/herself. Let's look at some examples to understand it better:

• Gluttony of eating refined foods.
• Have sexual instincts.
• Not being able to sleep if it is not in a comfortable bed.

If an individual is not able to control these and other unnecessary natural desires, it is better that he refrain from these pleasures, because they are meant to create in him or her a form of dependency. This means that the day he is deprived of them, the pleasures will become a source of suffering.

Within the types of desires according to Epicurus, these are what we define as pleasures, but they are nothing more than false needs induced by social conventions. Clear examples of neither natural nor necessary desires would be power, wealth, social prestige, luxury, beauty, culture or love.

For example, he claims that love, understood as overwhelming passion (èros) is above all a lie. There is nothing real about it other than the sexual drive from which it is born and as a function of which it exists. In essence, it is a "strategy" of matter to perpetuate itself through reproduction. Everything else derives from the imagination of man and is totally negative for the individual, since he wraps him in a inextricable web of dependencies.

In this sense, all forms of dependency means suffering, if not in the present certainly in the future, when we are deprived of the source of our illusory happiness. From this point of view, love is one of the most insidious false needs, as the pain that feels the abandoned lover and the extreme difficulty he feels in returning to a "normal" mood.

This suffering is the clear proof that love is not a source of happiness. True happiness never depends on something external, but always and only on our inner disposition. Definitely, desires of this third category should be avoided, because the embarrassment they cause is always greater than the satisfaction they give. In other words, they are destined, sooner or later, to become a source of pain.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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• Tresguerres, A. F. (2007). Desires and pleasures. The Catoblepas: Critical Magazine of the Present.