Classifying desires before pursuing them

Before pursuing a desire, classify it: is it natural and necessary, natural and unnecessary, or vain?

Why it works

Epicurus categorised desires into three types: natural and necessary (food, shelter, friendship, basic comfort — satisfiable and reliably pleasant); natural and unnecessary (luxurious food, physical beauty — satisfiable but with diminishing returns); and vain (fame, unlimited wealth, power — insatiable and anxiety-producing). Pursuing insatiable desires produces the anxiety they promised to relieve, not its resolution. The classification is a pre-commitment device that stops unsatisfying desire-chains before they start.

How to do it

1. When a significant want arises, write it down and classify it honestly: does satisfying it reliably produce tranquility, or does it reliably escalate to wanting more?
2. Ask: "Has getting more of this type of thing historically made me more or less anxious?"
3. For vain desires, identify the natural and necessary desire they imperfectly proxy (e.g., status-seeking as a proxy for genuine belonging).
4. Redirect energy toward the natural-and-necessary desire the vain one was attempting to satisfy.

Evidence

The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci) maps closely onto the Epicurean taxonomy: intrinsic goals produce more sustained wellbeing than extrinsic ones; hedonic adaptation research shows that luxury goods satisfy less than their pursuit suggests. (observational)

The Epicurean taxonomy is ancient practical philosophy, not an empirical construct; the mapping onto SDT and hedonic adaptation research is the author’s alignment, not a studied claim.

Sources

• Kasser & Ryan (1993), intrinsic vs extrinsic goals and wellbeing, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Common mistake

Classifying desires in a way that ratifies what you already want to pursue — using the taxonomy to confirm rather than examine. The classification should be uncomfortable at least occasionally.