It Is Impossible To Live A

Principal Doctrine 5 is Epicurus's clearest statement that pleasure and virtue are not in tension but are mutually entailing. Against critics who caricatured Epicureanism as a license for debauchery, this doctrine insists that the pleasant life requires wisdom (prudence), justice, and honorable conduct — because a life of injustice generates the constant fear of punishment, which is itself a severe pain. Epicurus saw wisdom as the most valuable of all goods precisely because it is the master art that makes all other pleasures possible.