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... I shall show how there is a problem with this modus operandi: that it offers no assistance when putting pleasure before myself, in an Epicurean fashion, as I cannot certainly know which course of action I will take. Pleasure is the absence of pain (see Doctrine #3, above), and: All desires that do not lead to pain when they remain unsatisfied are unnecessary, but the desire is easily got rid of, when the thing desired is difficult to obtain or the desires seem likely to produce harm. (Principle Doctrines #26) Since this pleasure depends on an outcome, all actions are premeditated - or at least should be (in the Epicurean society). Epicureanism is the best-known form of ancient hedonism. Epicurus identified pleasure with tranquility, and emphasized the reduction of desire over the immediate acquisition of pleasure2: "since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose ...