Mental pleasure is regarded more highly than physical, and the ultimate pleasure is to be free from anxiety and mental pain, especially pain that arises from a needless fear of death and of the gods. This leads to the priority of the self over the group. The Stoic antithesis of Epicureanism is to believe in virtue, the highest good. Stoicism asserts that the way to live is to have a firm self-control that allows the individual to overrule his emotions and to live for the good of the group firstly and his own good secondly. A major problem with Epicureanism in practice is that you cannot trust people to pursue pleasure without expecting a good number of them to take to food, drink, or drugs excessively. A major problem with Stoicism is that you cannot give persons the green light for an objective model of truth and reason without some of them creating intolerant, inflexible dogma. These are inevitable and unavoidable
Mental pleasure is regarded more highly than physical, and the ultimate pleasure is to be free from anxiety and mental pain, especially pain that arises from a needless fear of death and of the gods. This leads to the priority of the self over the group. The Stoic antithesis of Epicureanism is to believe in virtue, the highest good. Stoicism asserts that the way to live is to have a firm self-control that allows the individual to overrule his emotions and to live for the good of the group firstly and his own good secondly. A major problem with Epicureanism in practice is that you cannot trust people to pursue pleasure without expecting a good number of them to take to food, drink, or drugs excessively. A major problem with Stoicism is that you cannot give persons the green light for an objective model of truth and reason without some of them creating intolerant, inflexible dogma. These are inevitable and unavoidable