The Relation between Pleasure, Virtue, and Happiness in the View of Seneca the Stoic and Imam Khomeini

A benevolent conception of insatiable pleasures as instances of happiness, on the one hand, and anti-hedonism as the only way of happiness, on the other, have always been two controversial sides of human interactions with pleasure. In pursuit of an answer to the question of the role played by pleasures in human virtue and happiness, this research deals with the nature and place of pleasure and its relation with virtue and happiness in the view of Seneca the Stoic and Imam Khomeini. Seneca believes value and goo in themselves can only be found in virtue, and happiness consists in the virtue of knowing the true nature of things, of the fact that events are outside of the scope of our wills, and then acting upon this insight and the satisfaction thus obtained. Imam Khomeini sees the good to consist in happiness resulting from rational and theological virtues. Both intellectuals considered psychological hedonism, but they went on different paths: Seneca adopts an anti-hedonistic position, taking pleasure-seeking to be fundamentally blameworthy, such that even the little good in it should be condoned but Imam Khomeini’s semi-hedonistic theory accounts for virtue in terms of the resulting rational pleasure. In this research, we find that neither of the two views can totally reject the role of pleasure, although they both consider virtue as a value. The instrumental value of pleasure has been extensively noticed, and Stoics have also admitted the necessity of desires affecting self-protection, and have paradoxically claimed that the result of achieving virtues is the peace of mind, which is very close to the notion of pleasure.