Epictetus Discourses 1.23: Against Epicurus

The Discourses of Epictetus were recorded by his student Arrian during teaching sessions at Nicopolis in the early second century. Chapter 1.23 follows directly from chapter 1.22‘s argument about where the good lies. Place it in the spirit and social duties follow. Place it in the body and you arrive, as Epicurus did, at advising the wise person to avoid children and politics. View the full Book 1 commentary.

What Epictetus Is Arguing in Discourses 1.23

Is the wise person a social being? Can we remove ourselves from our duties because they might cause us distress? In this short but sharp discourse, Epictetus takes on Epicurus directly. The specific question is whether or not a wise person should raise children. But the real argument runs deeper: it is about where the good lies and what that location forces you to say about human life.

The Shell and the Spirit

The shell is the body. The spirit is the rational faculty. Epicurus knows we are social beings. He does not dispute this. But because he has placed the good in the body and its pleasures, specifically in the absence of pain and of trouble in the soul, he has no choice but to advise avoiding whatever might disturb that peace. Children disturb it. Politics disturbs it. Attachment disturbs it. Everything that connects you to others becomes a threat to the good once you have placed the good in the shell. Like the snail placing the good in its shell, as we saw in chapter 1.20.

Atoms Moving in Void

This follows from the physics of each school. The Epicureans believe that atoms move randomly and in solitude through the void. Nothing is fundamentally connected and there is no rational whole. The Stoics believe the opposite: everything is linked through the Logos, one string of cause and effect connecting the smallest to the largest. Sympatheia runs through everything. If you hold the Stoic physics, you cannot consistently withdraw from social life. If you hold the Epicurean physics, withdrawing is the logical conclusion.

Epicurus was not the crude hedonist that caricature makes him. He placed great importance on prudence and sober reasoning. He valued friendship highly. But he did advise the wise person against marriage, against raising children, and against political life. To Epictetus, each of these positions is a direct consequence of the error about where the good lies.

Social Beings Without Natural Affection?

Epictetus is pressing the self-contradiction, while Epicurus acknowledges that we are social beings. But social beings have a natural affection for their offspring. This is not a cultural convention: it is the extension of oikeiōsis, the natural self-appropriation that begins with the newborn recognising warmth as good and extends outward to family, community, and all of humanity. If you suppress this affection to protect yourself from distress, you have not become wise. You have become something less than the animals you live alongside.

The Mouse in the House

Epictetus then reduces the Epicurean position to its logical conclusion with deliberate comedy. Why does Epicurus dissuade the wise person from bringing up children? Because, on their account, he might be caused distress.

A crying mouse in the house disturbs the philosopher no more than a crying child would, if both are treated with equal indifference. The joke is to the point: Epicurus would not advise avoiding mice to protect the sage’s peace. The reason is that we do not form natural attachments to mice. The special difficulty with children is that we do form such attachments and cannot prevent ourselves from doing so. Epictetus’s point is that this inability is not a flaw. It is the most vivid expression of our nature as social beings. It is oikeiōsis working as it should.

No Longer in Our Power

This is the most honest moment in Epictetus’s treatment of Epicurus: he acknowledges that Epicurus knew this. He was not ignorant of natural affection. He was so aware of its power that he advised against creating the conditions for it to arise. His solution to the problem of attachment was to avoid the attachment. The Stoic solution is different: accept the attachment as an expression of your nature and locate your good in how you respond to it, not in whether you feel it.

It is, in my view, not a requirement to have children to live the good life. In our times, child mortality has dropped considerably and there are other ways to contribute to the upbringing of the next generation. Whether or not someone is a parent should not determine whether they can live well. But the Stoic argument is not about the obligation to have children. It is about what you do with the duties you find yourself in. Even as a parent, the good cannot be found in the child itself. It is found in being the best possible parent you can be, in how you execute the role.

Worse Than Sheep or Wolves

The argument moves from comedy to direct challenge. Even the animals we consider foolish, sheep, do not abandon their young. Even those we consider savage, wolves, do not abandon theirs. The philosopher who follows Epicurus’s advice and avoids children to protect their peace of mind would be doing something that no other creature in nature does. We hold ourselves to be higher than the animals by virtue of our reason. Epictetus asks what it means to use reason to arrive at a conclusion that no animal without reason would reach.

Your Father and Mother

This is the chapter’s final and best argument. Epictetus does not appeal to philosophy, logic, or the physics of sympatheia. He makes it personal and immediate. The philosopher who argues that the wise person should not raise children exists because their own parents did not follow that advice. They were loved and cared for before they could argue anything. Natural affection proves itself in the moment it would be denied. The very existence of the person making the argument refutes it.

The Exercise: What Are You Withdrawing From?

Disciplines: Action · Desire   |   Timing: When you are tempted to avoid a social duty · 15 minutes

The Epicurean argument is not only about children. It is about any social duty that might cause distress. Name one social duty or relationship you have been tempted to pull back from in order to protect your peace of mind.

Ask two questions. First: is the potential distress a reason to withdraw, or a signal that you are placing your good somewhere it does not belong? Distress at the suffering of someone you love is not a malfunction. It is oikeiōsis working as it should. The question is whether you respond to it by withdrawing or by fulfilling what the role requires.

Second: if you withdrew, who would be in the position of the child whose parent followed Epicurus’s advice? Name that person. Make the consequence specific.

The Stoic position is not that you must take on every obligation. It is that distress alone is not a valid reason to abandon the duties that are genuinely yours. Life is what comes. The question is how you respond to it.

This exercise is one of 30 drawn from the Discourses. See the full 30 Epictetus exercises from Discourses Book 1.

← Discourses 1.22: How Do We Know What Is Good or Bad? | → Discourses 1.24: How to Face Difficulties

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Epictetus Discourses 1.23 about?

Discourses 1.23 is titled Against Epicurus and addresses whether the wise person should raise children. Epictetus argues that Epicurus correctly recognises we are social beings but cannot follow through on that recognition because he has placed the good in the body rather than the spirit. This forces Epicurus to advise avoiding any social duty that might cause distress, including parenthood and politics. The chapter exposes this as a self-contradiction ending with the argument that the philosopher who says this was himself raised by parents who did not take the advice.

What is the difference between Stoic and Epicurean views on social duty?

For Stoics, the good lies in the spirit and the rational faculty. Because everything is connected through the Logos, social duties are expressions of our nature as rational beings and cannot be abandoned to protect our comfort. For Epicureans, the good lies in pleasure and the absence of pain and disturbance. Because social obligations can cause disturbance, the wise Epicurean avoids those that are likely to do so. Epictetus’s argument is that placing the good in the body leads logically to anti-social conclusions that contradict Epicurus’s own acknowledgment that we are by nature social beings.

What is the mouse argument in Discourses 1.23?

Epictetus reduces the Epicurean position to absurdity: if the wise person avoids children to avoid the distress of attachment, a crying mouse in the house would cause the same disturbance and should be avoided for the same reason. The joke is precise. The difference between a mouse and a child is natural affection: we form it for children and cannot prevent ourselves from doing so once a child is born. Epictetus argues this inability is not a flaw but the most vivid expression of oikeiōsis, the natural affection that extends from self-care to all of humanity.

What does Epictetus mean by placing the good in the shell?

The shell is the body and its pleasures. The spirit is the rational faculty and its virtue. Epictetus uses this image to describe the Epicurean error: Epicurus places the good in the body, which is the container of the person rather than the person themselves. Just as the good of the snail is not in its shell, the good of a human being is not in the body. Once you place it there, every social obligation that might disturb the body’s peace becomes a threat to the good rather than an expression of it.

What is the Stoic exercise from Discourses 1.23?

The exercise is to name one social duty or relationship you have been tempted to withdraw from to protect your peace of mind. Ask whether the distress is a reason to withdraw or a signal that you are placing your good in something external. Then ask who would be left in the position of the child whose parent followed Epicurus’s advice. Distress alone is not a valid Stoic reason to abandon duties that are genuinely yours. The question is not how to avoid what life brings but how to respond to it well.

Want to Apply This to Your Own Life?

Reading the Discourses is the beginning, not the end. If you want to work through what Epictetus is asking of you and apply it to what you are actually dealing with right now, I offer one-on-one Stoic coaching. Start with a free consultation. Listen to The Via Stoica Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Browse the Epictetus quotes collection for more passages from the Discourses.

About the Author

Benny Voncken is the founder of Via Stoica, a platform dedicated to making Stoic philosophy practical for modern life. He is a writer, podcast host, and Stoic thinking partner with almost a decade of daily Stoic practice. He creates articles, workshops, and reflections that bring ancient wisdom into everyday use.