Depression, Ataraxia, and the Pig

Abstract

What would happen if we succeeded in ‘turning down’ our emotional reactions? In this paper I compare two conditions that play out the answer to this question in very different ways—the lived experience of flattened affect characteristic of depression, and the idealised emotional restraint of the tranquil Epicurean ataraxic. I use this comparison to develop a new proposed source of value for the presence of emotion in our ordinary lives: it feels good to feel like oneself, and there are facts about our reflexive relationship to our emotional lives that provides one explanation of when and why we get to feel that way.