Epicurus’ view of pleasure is different from the modern common-sense notion of hedonism—eat, drink, and be merry (Cahn & Vitrano, 2008; Keefe, 2018; Vitrano, 2014) According to Epicurus, a person can achieve happiness by avoiding unnecessary desires and luxuries in one’s lives, so human beings should enjoy simple pleasures by living a simple life By simple life, Epicurus meant that one should only satisfy those desires that are most important for one’s living, such as food, water, clothes, and shelter Epicurus believed that when one removes the pains caused by unnecessary wants and desires, a person experiences tranquility and a life full of health and enjoyment Although Epicurus’ strategy for a happy life is ascetic in nature, he emphasized the value of friendship to live a calm and tranquil life The hedonic views of the modern era moral philosophers, namely Bentham and Mill, emphasized utilitarianism Utilitarianism is the idea that a moral act is the one that produces the greatest happiness or pleasure for the largest number of people (Crisp, 2007; Vitrano, 2014) As for Bentham, happiness is having a right mental state, one of pleasure and not of pain, and his formula was the greatest happiness for the greatest number (Burns, 2005; McMahon, 2013) According to Bentham, pleasure was the final motive of every human action, and he related pleasure with sensations (Veenhoven, 2017; Vitrano, 2014) Pleasures are good and have the same quality, irrespective of their source Pleasures only differ in their quantity Bentham invented a “hedonic calculus” in that one can quantify pleasures by assigning a numerical value to pleasures, in terms of hedons, that human actions produce (Pawelski & Gupta, 2009, p 998; Vitrano, 2014, p 22) Bentham 12