Pleasure and Social Utility: The Virtues of Being Epicurean
Pleasure and Social Utility: The Virtues of Being Epicurean
The Epicurean explanation for the origin of community life and laws was the utility of these institutions in facilitating people's natural and necessary desires for a secure life. In advising his followers to ‘live quietly’, Epicurus has at least three defences to advance against the criticism that such a lifestyle is politically irresponsible and morally complacent. First, he can argue that his ethical theory provides human beings, who are natural and persistent pleasure seekers, with the strongest of reasons for the peaceful cooperation that legal systems seek to promote. Second, he can argue that contemporary societies, even if they do provide some measure of security for their members, do so inadequately; and that they compound these failings by systems of education, competitive values, religion, and other practices which do great harm to their citizens. Third, he can argue that the Epicurean way of life, which threatens no one in its scrupulous adherence to justice and is positively philanthropic in its cultivation of friendship, provides society with a model of how to live best at the present stage of human culture. This chapter develops this set of arguments from three perspectives or bodies of material: the basic ethical theory, justice and friendship, and social evolution.
Keywords: Epicurean ethics, community life, laws, basic ethical theory, justice, friendship, social evolution
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
