Understanding which desires are necessary, natural-but-not-necessary, and groundless shows us what we need to aim for in life.

In the Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus begins by making a distinction among desires. Some desires are empty or groundless and others are natural; the natural are further subdivided into the merely natural and the necessary. Finally, the necessary are those necessary for happiness, those necessary for the body’s freedom from distress, and those necessary for life itself (Letter to Menoeceus 127). A helpful scholiast (cf. Principal Doctrines XXIX) gives us some examples; necessary desires are ones t