Stoicism vs. epicureanism: what are the differences?

In popular belief, a Stoic is a person who is insensitive and unemotional and an Epicurean is a person who enjoys all pleasures to the point of excess. Nothing could be further from the truth. Both the Stoics and the Epicureans have rich emotions and follow strict discipline in their desires and pleasures. The difference between these two schools, founded around 300 BC, is on another level.

Ethics: Epicurean pleasure vs. Stoic duty

Should we follow our duty or pleasure to be happy? For the Stoics, it is duty; for the Epicureans, pleasure. This is the fundamental difference between Stoicism and Epicureanism.

More precisely, an Epicurean follows mainly the natural and necessary desires :

• for happiness — philosophy, friendship, the suppression of pain…
• for ease — physical exercise, healthy housing, balanced food…
• for life — the satisfaction of vital needs…

Natural and unnecessary desires, such as the search for sex or comfort, are accepted as long as they are under control and do not dominate us. Unnatural and unnecessary desires, such as luxury, fame, or immortality, are to be rejected.

A Stoic, for his part, follows his duty and what preserves his constitution as a social and reasonable being: he seeks above all to act with justice, courage, moderation, and prudence. He does not make his happiness depend on ease, friendship or pleasure. Pleasures accompany the good life but are not necessary to his tranquility, which comes from virtue alone.

EPICUREANISM
And that is why we say that pleasure is the principle and the end of the good life. For it is pleasure that we have recognized as the first and most natural good, it is in pleasure that we find the principle of all choice and refusal, and it is in pleasure that we end up judging every good according to affection as a criterion.
Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus”, § 124

STOICISM
Virtue is sufficient for happiness, as Zeno and Chrysippus say in the first book Of Virtues and Hecaton in the second book Of Goods. If,” he says, “greatness of soul is enough to put a man above all else, and if it is only a part of virtue, then virtue will…