It is curious that the imperial Stoics, following a precedent of Diogenes the Cynic, employ so many wide-ranging examples of animal behavior. For example, what are we to make of the rigid dichotomy Seneca and Epictetus draw between rational and nonrational beings in relation to the diverse comparisons they make between human virtues and vices on the one hand and animal excellences and "bestial'behaviors on the other? Why are the most potent, diverse, and philosophically significant animal exempla found in Seneca (...) and Epictetus? I argue that it is because such exempla serve a variety of protreptic purposes. While appeals to the over-arching rationality of the cosmos may provide some theoretical understanding for the place of human beings in nature, from a pedagogical and rhetorical standpoint animal exempla provide particularly effective guidance for human conduct.Cleverly deployed animal exempla help cultivate aretaic affective dispositions. (shrink)

An overview of Epicurus' thoughts about politics and society, including his attitude toward political engagement, his account of friendship, and his account of justice.

Overview of the Epicurean views on why humans are rightly held responsible for their actions. Includes a discussion of the role the atomic 'swerve' plays in preserving our freedom, bivalence, our responsibility for how our character develops, and human reason and freedom.

The orthodox reading of Sententia Vaticana (SV) 23 emends the sentence and attributes to Epicurus the view that every friendship is choiceworthy for its own sake. I argue that this reading should be rejected, because it singularly contradicts all our evidence about Epicurus' view, according to which only pleasure is choiceworthy for its own sake. I defend the manuscript reading, that every friendship is in itself a virtue, and I argue that anyone who rejects the manuscript reading should attribute the (...) emended sentence not to Epicurus but to one of his followers who altered the Epicurean account of the value of friendship in response to Academic criticism. (shrink)

Epicurus strongly discouraged sex, marriage, and the rearing of children. This paper looks at some of the primary evidence for these claims, clears up a translation of one passage, and emends another passage. (The emendation has been accepted into Dorandi's new edition of Diogenes Laertius).

This paper outlines the Epicurean conception of rationality and then tries to assess the merits of the notorious contention of the Epicurean philosophers that it is irrationalto fear death. At the outset, I talk about the nature of harmful emotions or passions, of which the fear of death is an outstanding example: their dependence on one‘s disposition, their cognitive and non-cognitive components, the ways in which these elements may be related to each other, and the healthy counterparts of the passions, (...) namely the ‚bites‘. Next, I distinguish different kinds of fears involving the thought of death and I examine the Epicurean arguments against each one of them: fears about the state of being dead, others about dying prematurely, yet others concerning the dying process and especially the moment when the soul leaves the body and, finally,the fear that we must die sometime. Much of the discussion focuses on the writings of Philodemus . Philodemus offers the most sustained discussion of the fear of premature death and of the fear of dying that survive in the Epicurean literature. In addition, in the peroration of his treatise On Death, he gives a brilliant example of how we can reconcile ourselves with the fact that we shall die sometime and accept our own mortality. My provisional conclusion is that although the Epicurean philosophers often succeed in appeasing our fears about death, for the most part they fail to prove that these fears are irrational. (shrink)

This study examines various inconsistencies in Epicurus' ethical theory and attempts to trace them to a common source, namely, his claim that eudaimonia is entirely up to us and invulnerable to outside intrusions. The first chapter discusses his hedonism and shows the effect of this claim on his conception of pleasure. In attempting to equate ataraxia, a pleasant state entirely up to us, with eudaimonia, Epicurus fails to capture central intuitions which locate happiness in states and activities not always in (...) our own control. The second chapter shows how this claim underlies his theory of responsibility and describes his attempt to accommodate it in the framework of his physical theories. Various indeterminist theories of action and character needlessly have been attributed to Epicurus. We need to ascribe indeterminism to his theory only at the microscopic level of explanation, since he thinks that macroscopic explanations are not strictly reducible to explanations at the micro-level. ;Two subsequent chapters describe Epicurus' attempt to account for other-regarding features of morality. Epicurus endorses a Socratic view of the virtues. He argues that all the virtues are species of knowledge and infallibly secure ataraxia. Surprisingly, he attempts to give a contractual defense of justice. It seems, however, that an agent has reasons for being just which are independent of the contract. Moreover, if eudaimonia is entirely up to us and invulnerable to outside interference, there would be few compelling reasons for contracting with others. Similar difficulties arise in his account of friendship. Epicurus concedes that friendship is choiceworthy for itself regardless of instrumental benefit. He also argues that friendship requires valuing others for their own sakes. This is inconsistent with the claims of his hedonism. If happiness is entirely up to us and friendship is an external good not always in our control, Epicurus should weaken his commitment to friendship. By refusing to do so, he is forced into an inconsistency. ;These inconsistencies in Epicurus' thought are of historical interest, in that we see a hedonist attempting to return to Socratic conceptions of happiness and rational agency. Of philosophical interest is Epicurus' inability to give a plausible account of happiness without valuing states and activities not entirely subject to our own control. (shrink)