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Handout #11: Epicurean Ethics: Hedonism, Death, and Justice

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Handout #11: Epicurean Ethics: Hedonism, Death, and Justice Draft of 10-29-15 PHIL 161; Fall 2015 David O. Brink Greek Ethics Handout #11: Epicurean Ethics: Hedonism, Death, and Justice Epicurean and Stoic ethical theories are part of more comprehensive philosophical systems that began life as the Hellenistic philosophical schools. The Hellenistic age is a period of Greek intellectual and social history usually dated from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE (Aristotle died in 322) to Octavian's defeat of Anthony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BCE. This period roughly begins with Macedonian rule and ends with the more or less complete incorporation of Greece into the Roman Empire. Philosophy during this period involves three main schools of thought: Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Skepticism. Much of the philosophical work done in this period is within one of these three schools. The founders of these schools literally established schools -- educational institutions -- that survived for many years and that perpetuated the doctrines of the school. These schools constructed systematic treatments of logic (e.g. semantics and epistemology), physics (e.g. natural philosophy and metaphysics), and ethics (including politics). These systematic theories were articulated against the background of earlier Greek philosophy -- the Pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle -- and of the other schools, sometimes borrowing from, sometimes criticizing, this background. Subsequent thinkers in each school developed their views both against this background and against that of the founders of the school. All three schools, but especially Stoicism and Skepticism, outlived the Hellenistic age and received important articulation by Roman intellectuals. It may help to fix the major figures in each Greco-Roman tradition. Among the Epicureans were Epicurus (341-270 BCE), Colotes (4th and 3rd centuries BCE), and Lucretius (1st century BCE). Among the Stoics were Zeno (of Citium) (335-263 BCE), Cleanthes (331-232 BCE), Chrysippus (@280-207 BCE), and Epictetus (@55-135 AD). And among the Skeptics were Pyrrho (@365-270 BCE), Carneades (@214-128 BCE), and Sextus Empiricus (@200 AD). Our evidence about the views of these schools, especially of the founders of these schools, is quite fragmentary. Though many of the figures in these traditions (e.g. Epicurus and Chrysippus) wrote quite a bit, little of that work survives intact. Most of our evidence consists of small quotes (sometimes out of context) and paraphrases by later writers, who often write out of a school opposed to that of the author they're quoting or summarizing. The most complete sources are quite late: the Roman Lucretius (the Epicurean) in his poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of the Universe), the Roman philosopher Cicero (106-43 BCE) in many commentaries on the Hellenistic schools, and Sextus Empiricus (the skeptic) with his account of skepticism and his criticisms of opposing schools. EPICUREAN HEDONISM The Epicureans are hedonists (e.g. De Fin i 54), who appeal to what we naturally pursue and shun (De Fin i 30, ii 31; Hellenistic Philosophy 21A2-3, 21B2). Torquatus, Cicero's Epicurean spokesman, describes the commitment this way. ... [A]s soon as every animal is born, it seeks after pleasure and rejoices in it as the greatest good, while it rejects pain as the greatest bad and, as far as possible, avoids it; and it does this while it is not yet corrupted, while the judgment of nature herself is unperverted and sound. Therefore, he says that there is no need of reason or debate about why pleasure is to be pursued and pain avoided. He thinks that these things are perceived, as we perceive that fire is hot ..., none of which needs confirmation by elaborate arguments; it is enough to point them out [De Fin. i 30; 21A2-3]. 2 They recognize that some painful things are pursued as good, and some pleasurable things are avoided as bad. However, they follow Socrates in Plato's Protagoras and argue that "bad pleasures" are those that cause greater pain in the long run and that "good pains" are those that prevent greater sufferings in the long run (De Fin i 32-3; 21A5, B3). KATASTEMATIC PLEASURE It might seem obvious what pleasure and pain are (De Fin ii 6, 12-17, 19-20). We would normally identify pleasure with a certain positive or agreeable sensation or feeling and pain with a certain negative or disagreeable sensation or feeling and conclude that there are intermediate, neutral states that involve freedom from both pain and pleasure (De Fin ii 6-7, 16, 19-20). We would expect hedonists to claim that agreeable sensations are good, disagreeable sensations are bad, and neutral states are neither good nor bad. But the Epicureans recognize katastematic pleasure (freedom from pain is a pleasure) in addition to kinetic pleasure (the positive sensation is a pleasure). Indeed, Epicurus seems to think that freedom from pain is the greatest kind of pleasure (De Fin i 37-38, ii 9-11, 17; 21A6-7, 21Q). So Epicurus did not think that there was some intermediate state between pleasure and pain; for that state which some people think is an intermediate state, viz. the absence of all pain, is not only a pleasure but is even the greatest pleasure [De Fin i 38; 21A7]. The doctrine of katastematic pleasure is closely associated with the Epicurean defense of tranquility and freedom from want (ataraxia). But the nature of katastematic pleasure and the value of ataraxia are not entirely clear. Sometimes they seem to think that the removal of pain is itself a source of (kinetic) pleasure (De Fin i 37). 1. Removal of pain causes kinetic pleasure. 2. The cause of pleasure is itself a pleasure. 3. The removal of pain is a katastematic pleasure. 4. The removal of pain causes more kinetic pleasure than other causes of kinetic pleasure. 5. Hence, katastematic pleasures are superior to other pleasures. 6. Hence, katastematic pleasures are superior to kinetic pleasures. But (2) is problematic. Though we commonly refer to activities that tend to cause pleasure as pleasures, as when we call sexual activities pleasures of the body or say that hockey is my greatest pleasure, it is a mistake to think that the causes of pleasure are themselves pleasures. Second, on this picture kinetic pleasure is the only thing having intrinsic value and katastematic pleasures are activities having extrinsic value, because they tend to cause kinetic pleasure. But then there's something very misleading about saying that there are katastematic pleasures alongside kinetic ones and that the former are superior to the latter. Rather, katastematic pleasures, according to this argument, are extrinsically more valuable than other extrinsically valuable things and only to the extent that they produce more kinetic pleasure. So, even if (1)-(4) were sound, the sense in which (5) would then be true would certainly not establish (6). Finally, (4) seems questionable. Not only is removal of pain distinct from kinetic pleasure; I'm not sure that the former causes the latter. Do I feel pleasure when my torture stops or when I stop banging my head against the wall? Moreover, even if removal of pain always produced kinetic pleasure, it must surely be an empirical question whether it always produces more pleasure than other sources. Indeed, it must surely be an implausible empirical claim. I get more pleasure from sex, drugs, or making philosophical progress than I do when I stop beating my head against the wall or slake my thirst. 3 Another possible rationale for the Epicurean claims about katastematic pleasures applies the initial argument for hedonism to katastematic pleasures (cf. De Fin i 56, ii 31). That argument, I said, appeals to our natural judgments and preferences and what we naturally pursue. Because I prefer the intermediate state to pain and pursue the former rather than the latter, it must be a good. But, first, this claim won't support the superiority of katastematic pleasures. As long as I prefer the positive state to the intermediate state, as it is surely natural to do, the katastematic pleasure must be a lesser good than the kinetic pleasure, contrary to the Epicurean view. However, the Epicurean might claim that, all else being equal, we pursue freedom from pain more ardently than we do kinetic pleasure. Perhaps I'm more eager to get rid of intense pains than I am to experience intense pleasures. But surely, this must remain an empirical issue and so is hard to square with their assertion of the categorical superiority of katastematic pleasure. Moreover, this seems to be a bad argument for even the weaker claim that katastematic pleasure is a (lesser) good. Comparative preference does not support noncomparative value. This should be clear from the fact that the same appeal to preferences would show that an evil that is smaller than another one is actually a good. A different idea is that kinetic pleasures tend to be mixed. Kinetic pleasures are often produced by sating desires. But the desires themselves cause disturbance and anxiety. We might say that this is even part of what it is to desire, namely to want the world to be in a way that it is not (at the moment). But if desire brings kinetic pain, then there is a way in which the life of kinetic pleasure must always be hedonically mixed. We avoid or minimize mixed pleasure if we desire less. By desiring less we achieve what Bentham would call “purer” pleasures, pleasures followed by pleasure, rather than pain. Indeed, one possibility might be that katastematic pleasures just are pure, rather than mixed, pleasures -- pleasures followed by pleasure, rather than pain. Though this interpretation has some virtues, it does not represent katastematic pleasure as fundamentally different from kinetic pleasure, mush less as superior to it.
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