Human beings can achieve happiness if our necessary desires are currently met and if we have reasonable confidence that those desires will be met in the future.
Remember also that necessary desires are not merely for food and shelter but also for a foundational understanding of the workings of the world and how to navigate it.
We need to develop and maintain reliable and caring friendships.
Cradle argument.
All our actions ultimately aim at our own pleasure — greatest pleasure is freedom from pain and anxiety.
We often pursue pleasure “directly” in the sense that our path to pleasure appears free and clear, and we choose the unimpeded pleasure of the moment — savoring the joys of pleasure is part of what distinguishes it from more austere philosophies.
— “indirectly” in the sense that we recognize that the only way to reach the city of pleasure is to pass through the hamlet of inconvenience or struggle.
Securing tranquility sometimes requires inconvenience, even pain in the short-term.
... we go wrong because we set out to get what we want in life – happiness – without art or strategy, often imprudently choosing whatever pleasure is closest and easiest.
— hedonistic prudence is the crowning art of living well.
epicurean prudence is a calculating art that conjoins a knowledge of human psychology and the natural world with a keen eye for the future consequences of competing options.
— they must show we can act entirely for altruistic, other-regarding reasons. — human beings cannot choose admirable or virtuoso actions for reasons not ultimately rooted in their own pleasure.
the most pressing challenge for ep. hedonism, then, might not be accounting for virtuous self-sacrifice, but that it leaves itself open to cases where it is prudent to choose smt not in our long-term best interest. such cases arise most often when we lack confidence in others, or when we face conditions of scarcity or poverty. that's why mutual trust among friends and members of a community has such importance.
...
getting a grip on our desires.