Before leaving the story of Eve, let us revisit it with one change. Again she is denied tenure, embarks on a career in the law, and achieves major success. This time, though, her anger at the departmental head, her former colleagues, and the administration of Euclid University never subsides. Indignation permeates her outlook ever after.
The only difference from the original account lies in Eve’s attitude. Her accomplishments remain the same. Yet in this case most people would say that her life has not been well-lived, because it has been ruined by her reaction to events.
This point is crucial, so let us see the same principle exem plified in an entirely different setting. Imagine two swim mers, Sandy and Terry, who compete in the Olympics. Sandy wins a silver medal, while Terry finishes last. Thus Sandy is successful and Terry is not. But if Sandy looks back at the experience with disappointment because of failure to win a gold medal, whereas Terry is delighted merely to have com peted, then whose experience was the more fulfilling? Surely Terry’s, for while fond memories of the Games will forever warm Terry’s life, Sandy will find cold comfort by focusing exclusively on missing the gold.
To understand living well, you need to distinguish between a person’s achievements and that individual’s assessment of those achievements. Emphasizing this distinction goes back in the history of ideas most famously to the Greek thinker Epicurus (341–270 B.C.E.), who was about twenty years old when Aristotle died. Epicurus founded a philosophical community in Athens called “the Garden,” in which, remarkably for the time, men and women as well as free persons and slaves participated on equal terms. He was a prolific author, but unfortunately few of his writings survive.
Before examining several of his most crucial ideas that shed light on our subject, a brief overview of his thought is in order. Epicurus stresses that the gods are detached from us. They exist, but we are not their concern nor they ours. The fundamental structure of the world is that of atoms in motion, although persons have free will as a result of uncaused swerves in the atoms. Our knowledge is derived from sense experience. The ultimate aim of philosophy is to provide a guide to living well, maximizing pleasures and minimizing pains, but accepting such pains as lead to greater pleasures and rejecting such pleasures as lead to greater pains. The result is a tranquil life that avoids extravagance. Virtues such as temperance or courage are prized, because they lead to pleasure. So do friendships, which are therefore to be cultivated. Death is not to be feared, because while we exist, death is not present; when death is present, we are not. Our lives on earth are not followed by any afterlife.
Central to Epicurus’s thought is the distinction between a successful life and a satisfying life. As Julia Annas explains the view of Epicurus, “happiness is not to be identified with the course of our life as a whole, but with the inner attitude the agent has to that extended course, an attitude that is not dependent on the way that course goes on. Thus being happy is consistent with the collapse or reversal of the outward course of one’s life, and it is not curtailed when the course of one’s life is curtailed.”
1Our tendency is to judge a life by a person’s achievements, whether in terms of fame, wealth, or a variety of other accomplishments. By that criterion, the well-known person has lived more successfully than the obscure person, the rich person has lived more successfully than the poor one, and the academic who has published numerous books and articles has lived more successfully than one who has published little. This way of thinking leads to viewing life as a game, in which the winners and losers are decided by who at the end has more fame, more money, or, in academia, a more impressive curriculum vitae.
None of these accomplishments, however, is a sign of having lived well. To suppose so is to commit what we might call “the Richard Cory fallacy,” mistakenly reasoning that success implies satisfaction. Epicurus recognizes this error: “He who has learned the limits of life knows that that which removes the pain due to want and makes the whole of life complete is easy to obtain; so that there is no need of actions which involve competition.”
2 In short, life is not a contest. Anyone, regardless of wealth or fame, can obtain the contentment crucial to living well. The key is seeking pleasure with prudence.
