Epicureanism Read online

  But at this point, it looks as though the sceptic can reinstate his challenge. The Epicureans insulate sensations from the possibility of error by sharply distinguishing sensations themselves and the judgements made on their basis. But what criterion will we use to distinguish true from false opinions? Simply to reply blandly that we confirm or disconfirm opinions on the basis of further observations, as the Epicureans do, will not work, because the judgements based on those further observations are themselves always liable to error. For instance, I see somebody in the distance and think, “Hmm, looks like Plato”. Then I approach him and, seeing his distinctive and wonderful physiognomy up close, I think, “Aha! Yes indeed, clearly that’s Plato”. But unknown to me, Plato has an evil twin brother Schmato, who recently disposed of Plato and is impersonating him as head of the Academy.3 The Academic Sceptics raised these sorts of objections against the Stoics, and the two schools had a long and fruitful exchange regarding them. But we do not have any record of how the Epicureans responded, if they did at all.

  The Epicurean account of the confirmation of physical theories is a little more complicated. The Epicureans think that the basic principles of their system are entailed by the phenomena, as only these hypotheses are (supposedly) consistent with phenomena such as compound bodies moving around. Without void, there would be no motion, but that there are bodies in motion is obvious. Likewise, spatial minima are necessary for motion. Without the swerve, there would be no compound bodies, but that there are compound bodies is obvious. Even in these cases, however, the Epicureans do try to show that their hypotheses are at least possible: for example, by showing that the notion of absolutely empty space is coherent by analogizing it with the “empty” space in our experience and that the notion of an absolutely smallest spatial minimum is coherent by analogizing it with a minimum in our visual field.

  The situation is quite different when it comes to the explanations of cosmological and meteorological phenomena, such as eclipses. We can be absolutely confident that they do not occur because of the wills of the gods, and that the heavenly bodies themselves are not divine, as these are inconsistent with the blessedness of the gods. That is fortunate, because having this knowledge is crucial for attaining a blessed life (Ep. Hdt. 76–8). But once we have excluded divine purpose, knowing the precise explanation of these phenomena in atomic terms does not much matter, as long as we know that there is some such explanation.

  So the Epicureans are content to go through these phenomena and list bunches of possible explanations, saying that it could be caused by A, or B, or C, and so on (Ep. Pyth. 92–115; DRN V 592–770). This reticence is partly due to an admirable intellectual humility. Epicurus says that a person who insists on accepting one theory while others are equally consistent with the phenomena has blundered from physics into mythology (Ep. Pyth. 87). Lucretius draws an analogy with seeing a dead body in the distance. We should list all of the possible causes of death – cold, disease, poison and so on – and we can be confident that his death has some physical cause. But we should not presume to know which one in particular caused his death without more information (DRN VI 703–11). But it also reflects a deep incuriosity. The only purpose served by knowing the causes of cosmological and meteorological phenomena is securing freedom from disturbance. So once we have some plausible-sounding possible naturalistic explanations of the phenomena that do not invoke the gods, that is good enough, and there is no point in trying to find out which explanation is the actual one (Ep. Hdt. 79–80; Ep. Pyth. 85–8). Of course, given the infinity of time and space, if some phenomenon admits of multiple explanations (that are physically and not merely epistemically possible), then each of those explanations will be the correct explanation in some world, if not in ours (DRN V 526–33; LS 18D).

  PART III

  Ethics: introduction and overview

  Epicurean ethics does not follow directly from their metaphysics and epistemology, but it has close connections to both. For almost all Greek philosophers of the time, the fundamental questions of ethics were (i) what is the highest good and (ii) how do you attain it, with the highest good being what is desirable for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else. Epicurus declares pleasure to be the highest good. In a world without purpose and plan, we can still observe the behaviour of animals and see that all of them (including human beings) pursue only pleasure for its own sake and likewise shun pain, establishing the intrinsic desirability of pleasure and badness of pain. The goodness of pleasure and badness of pain are also supposed to be evident in our experience (Chapter 11).

  From this simple starting-point, however, Epicurus quickly develops a distinctive version of hedonism by asserting that mental pleasures and pains are greater than mere bodily pleasures and pains. Furthermore, lack of bodily pain and freedom from mental turmoil are not neutral states, but themselves pleasurable: indeed, the highest sorts of pleasures. So Epicurean hedonism turns out to be the pursuit of tranquillity, attained primarily by shedding the vain and empty desires that lead to anxiety and by leading a moderately ascetic life (Chapter 12).

  Mainstream Greek ethics also stresses the central place of developing the virtues – excellences of character and thought – in attaining a happy life, and Epicurus is no exception. Epicurean hedonism is an enlightened hedonism, which recognizes that one must be brave, temperate and wise in order to live pleasantly. But Epicurus is unusual in insisting that the virtues are only instrumental goods, good only for the sake of the pleasure they produce, instead of being good for their own sake. Likewise, philosophy itself is needed to attain pleasure, but has no intrinsic value (Chapter 13).

  Epicurus also wishes to include prominent places for justice and friendship in his hedonism. He develops an original version of a social contract theory of justice. Justice is a human artefact, created by our agreements about how to behave in our communities, but an artefact that is natural for us to create. Because the purpose of justice is to help members of the community live free from trouble, laws that are not useful for fulfilling this purpose are not just. The wise Epicurean recognizes the usefulness of justice for everybody and has no reason to behave unjustly (Chapter 14). Friendship is even more important for happiness. More than anything else, knowing that you have a network of friends you can rely on to look after you when you are in need gives you peace of mind. But in order to develop such friendships, you must be absolutely trustworthy as a friend yourself, helping out your friends when they are in need, even when it causes you great troubles. Indeed, the Epicureans say some things about friendship that appear to conflict with their egoist hedonism (i.e. their view that what one desires for its own sake is one’s own pleasure): for instance, that the wise man will love his friend as much as himself and will be willing to die for his friend (Chapter 15).

  Epicurean physics is largely devoted to dispelling any traces of divine influence from the workings of the world, because fear of the gods is one of the main impediments to happiness. However, Epicurus does not concede that denying that the gods have anything to do with our world makes him impious or an atheist. It is the opinions of the many, of gods meddling with the world, that are impious and that cause turmoil. Instead, true reverence consists in worshipping gods who are ideals of the most blessed life, a blissful life free of anger, jealousy or trouble (Chapter 16). The other great fear that Epicureanism promises us liberation from is the fear of death. Once we realize that death is annihilation, we should also realize that, as simply an eternity of nothingness, death cannot be bad for us, as we no longer exist to be harmed. And with nothing to fear in death, we can concentrate our energies where we should, on attaining blessedness here and now, in the only life we have (Chapter 17).

  ELEVEN

  Pleasure, the highest good

  Teleological ethics in a non-teleological world

  Epicurus’ ethics operates within the framework articulated by Aristotle, a framework that systematizes the ethical thinking of Aristotle’s predecessors and was accepted
by almost all later Greek philosophers.1 The central question of ethics is: what is the highest good? The good of something is its telos, its goal or purpose. This teleological analysis of the good extends quite widely; we can ask what the good is, not only of human life, but also of actions, artefacts, crafts such as medicine and so on. And in each case, we discover the item’s good by discovering its goal or purpose.

  But some goods are instrumental goods, that is, goods desired for the sake of some further good. I may go to the medicine cabinet in order to take some nasty cherry-flavoured cough syrup. So taking the cough syrup is the goal, and the good, of that action. But the nasty cough syrup is not desired for its own sake; instead, I pursue it in order to quell my awful hacking. Aristotle says that the highest good must be an intrinsic good and not an instrumental good: something that is desired only for its own sake and not for the sake of something else.

  Aristotle believes that there are a multiplicity of intrinsic goods, such as pleasure, honour, virtue and friendship, each of which is worth pursuing for its own sake even if no other benefit results. However, each of them is pursued also because we think that by obtaining them we will help make our lives happy, and we do not pursue happiness for the sake of something else. So Aristotle proclaims happiness as the highest good. “Happiness” (eudaimonia) is not a matter of having an elevated mood at some moment (“I was happy when I heard that George Michael was finally releasing his album of Abba covers”), but of one’s life as a whole going well.

  Epicurus accepts Aristotle’s teleological analysis of the good, his contention that the highest good is what is sought for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else, his designation of happiness as the highest good and his idea that happiness is a matter of one’s life, considered as a whole, going well. But this may seem incongruous. After all, one of Epicurus’ main goals in his physics is to expel teleological explanations of natural phenomena, including the sorts of teleological explanations of biological phenomena favoured by Aristotle. For Aristotle, the eyes have a purpose (seeing) no less than does a knife (cutting), so that we can say that eyes fulfil their purpose when they see well. Likewise, our reason has a purpose (attaining the truth). And since reason is the highest part of human beings, the happiest life – that is, one that best fulfils the purpose inherent in our nature as human beings – will largely consist of reasoning well, and acting in ways that are rational.2 (In particular, it will largely consist of contemplating the truths of theology and ontology.) Epicurus would reject all this argument. Human beings, and their organs, have no inherent purpose. Our minds were not made in order to think, and our hands were not made to grasp, even though our minds can think well and our hands can grasp well, and we can use our minds and hands to get what we wish. Each is useful, but not designed, unlike artefacts.

  However, even though animals may have no purpose, they still have purposes. That is, they have desires and strive to attain the objects of those desires. So we do not need to discern our inherent telos in order to discover the purpose of life. Instead, in order to find the highest good we simply have to observe what, as a matter of fact, people desire and pursue for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else.

  So Epicurus accepts Plato’s thesis that the good is the ultimate object of desire, but with a twist. For Plato, we desire what is good because it is good, whereas for Epicurus, pleasure is the good because we desire it. Furthermore, Epicurus would reject the notion of a Form of the Good whereby all good things are good, and not only for the obvious reason that it is a metaphysical extravagance inconsistent with materialism. Epicureans think that the whole notion of something being good per se (which the Form of the Good is supposed to be above all else) is a category mistake. Just like “healthy”, “good” is a relational property. Peanut butter is healthy for me, although it would be deadly for my son with the peanut allergy, and it cannot be healthy as such, without filling in for which organism or other it is healthy. And my pleasure is good for me, although it is probably indifferent for George Bush, and it cannot be “good” as such, without filling in for which agent it is good.

  Epicurus’ arguments for psychological hedonism

  The Epicureans give two arguments to try to establish the thesis of psychological egoistic hedonism: the thesis that the only thing we desire for its own sake is our own pleasure (Cic. Fin. I 30).3 The first is usually dubbed the cradle argument. The easiest and clearest case to look at in order to find what ultimately drives us all is the behaviour of infants, who clearly obey the pleasure principle. A baby feels the pangs of hunger and cries out. She is picked up and sees the bottle nearby. She eagerly latches on and sucks, feeling the gratification of the milk rolling over her tongue, sliding down her throat and quieting her pangs, until she is content. It is worth noting that the infant is pursuing her own pleasure and shunning her own pain.

  The second argument we may dub the argument from immediate experience. The goodness of pleasure and badness of pain are simply supposed to be obvious in our experience of them. Are you really wondering whether pleasure is good? Well, then think of some pleasure, for example the pleasure of receiving a really good shoulder rub after a long and stressful day. The goodness of this pleasure is evident in our experience of it, just as is the heat of a nearby fire. In neither case is any long argument required; one simply needs to point out what is the case (Cic. Fin. I 30). Likewise, if you were curious about whether pain is bad, a swift kick to the shin (followed by the question “Was that bad?”) should quell your doubts.4

  We can derive ethical conclusions from psychological premises. Once psychological egoistic hedonism has been established, on this basis the Epicureans infer ethical egoistic hedonism: that the only thing that is intrinsically valuable is our own pleasure. This inference can be challenged by questioning either its validity or the truth of its premise.

  Many people influenced by Immanuel Kant (and others besides) may assert that it does not follow from the mere fact that we all desire pleasure that we ought to desire pleasure. As a matter of fact, we desire many things we ought not to desire, and the ethically relevant question is not what we do desire, but what we ought to. But Epicurus (once he puzzled out what was meant by “ought” here) would probably not be very impressed by this challenge and side with John Stuart Mill against Kant that the only way to establish what the desirable is is to see what people, as a matter of fact, desire, and that there is no other sense of “desirable” apart from this that is relevant for deciding what to choose and avoid.5

  Epicurus does believe that we desire many things we ought not to, and that there are many pleasures we ought not to pursue. However, these determinations can be made only after it has been established, by looking at what we ultimately desire, that pleasure is the highest good. Given that pleasure is the highest good, we can criticize my son’s desire to play with matches by saying that, even though it is fun, it will lead to painful burns and possibly skin grafts, so that he will not be getting what he ultimately wants. Likewise, says Epicurus, all pleasures are good, but not all are choiceworthy, and all pains bad, but not all such as to be avoided. That is because some pleasures lead to more pain in the long run, and vice versa, so we have to think about the long-term consequences when choosing among pleasures and pains to make sure that we make our life overall as pleasant as we can (Ep. Men. 129–30). The pleasure of shooting up heroin is good, but not worth choosing, and the pain of getting an abscessed tooth drilled is bad but worth undergoing.

  But it is far from obvious that the one thing we desire for its own sake is our own pleasure. The Stoics argue directly against the Epicurean cradle argument, offering an alternative explanation of infant behaviour. An infant’s first impulse is towards not pleasure but self-preservation. An infant has an instinctive awareness of its own bodily constitution and what is natural to it. So the hungry infant is not seeking pleasure. Instead, she is aware of the disruption of hunger and wishes to get milk in order to restore herself to a full, healt
hy state. And as they develop, babies have an instinctive awareness of the proper use of their limbs and other bodily parts, and they wish to use them and develop them, even when it causes pain. Seneca gives the example of an infant struggling to stand up (presumably, just to do so, and not to get food or the like), who persists in the effort, even through repeated falls and tears (Sen. Ep. 121.6–15, LS 57B; see also DL 7.85–6, LS 57A).

  Aristotle would attack the whole procedure of looking at infants to find out what people ultimately desire. After all, infants are immature members of the species, and as such should not be used to find out what human beings desire by nature. Infants are limited, with a limited range of desires, and we should look to fully functioning adults to find out what human beings naturally strive for. And adults strive for a much wider range of things than merely their own pleasure: things such as their friends’ welfare, honour and knowledge of the workings of the cosmos. All human beings by nature desire to know (Metaph. I 1), but this desire is not yet evident in infants.

  Epicurus would reply that the real root cause of our behaviour is easiest to see in infants, whose following of the desire for pleasure is relatively uncomplicated. Adults have much more complicated belief structures, so telling what is motivating them is more difficult. Furthermore, they often have been corrupted by society, learning to desire pointless things in the false belief that getting them will bring pleasure. (“I want that Botox injection because it will make me so much prettier, and then people will finally like me more!”) Even in these complicated, corrupted cases, however, the same basic natural desires present in infants are also fuelling our behaviour.