"Pleasure Is Happiness" and "Virtue Is Happiness"——Contrastive Analyses of View of Happiness of the Epicurean and the Stoic

The Stoics and Epicureans are two important schools in the history of western ethics.The Stoics declared Virtue leads to happiness and the Epicureans declared Pleasure leads to happiness.However,they agreed that men's true pleasure lies in the undisturbed peaceful mind.These two schools of thoughts,developed from Minor Socratic School,exert significant impact on western thoughts later on:the Epicureans influences utilitarianism while the Stoics,asceticism in the Dark Ages.