EpicureanFriends Net Pleasure Maximization WorksheetNPM Worksheet
Life Perspective
Decision Matrix
This worksheet was prepared by Cassius Amicus with the assistance of others at EpicureanFriends.com.
Questions, suggestions, and corrections are welcome at the EpicureanFriends.com forum.
Please keep in mind that pleasure and pain are not reducible to standard units. Jeremy Bentham and the English Utilitarians are associated with the idea that units of “hedons” and “dolors” can be used to calculate a general scale of pleasure, and thereby derive a “greatest good for the greatest number.” While it is possible that the Utilitarians did not actually do this and the accusation is unjust, the bottom line is that individual differences between people and circumstances doom such a “group ethics” approach to failure.
For the individual, however, it is highly useful to review the many aspects of pleasure, pain, and happiness identified by Epicurus. Once identified, those factors can be used to evaluate your own personal context. Regularly stepping through the process consciously allows you to train yourself to consider these factors instantly and intuitively.
Of course, the calculations made by this worksheet are hypothetical, and not intended as specific advice for any person or situation. Use of this worksheet is entirely a matter of your own free agency and responsibility for the outcome — just as Epicurus taught in opposition to those who embraced “hard determinism.”
Quotations are given in the translations named with each one. Wherever possible these are older translations no longer under copyright, chiefly Cyril Bailey for Epicurus and Lucretius and H. Rackham and J. S. Reid for Cicero.
Answers and decisions saved with the earlier version are carried over automatically.