Epicurus and the Politics of Fearing Death

Austin, Emily A.

doi:10.1515/apeiron-2011-0003

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…It seems that the desire for friendship should be listed as a natural and necessary desire, because friendship fulfills one of the criteria for the object of such a desire: it is necessary for 6 Philodemus On Anger XXXIX 29-31, as noted and discussed in Annas (1993a) 194-5. For more on Philodemus on anger, see chapter 9 of Voula Tsouna (2007), 195-238. A controversial example of a natural emotion that can be managed but not eradicated is the fear of violent death at the hands of others, as argued for in Austin (2012). Although I do not agree with her specific proposal that the fear of violent death by others is natural, her discussion of managing but not eradicating disturbing natural desires is insightful.…”

Section: Friendship and The Natural Goods Of Wealth And Political Powermentioning

confidence: 90%

The Normativity of Nature in Epicurean Ethics and Politics

O'Keefe¹

2021

State and Nature

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Appeals to nature are ubiquitous in Epicurean ethics and politics. The foundation of Epicurean ethics is its claim that pleasure is the sole intrinsic good and pain the sole intrinsic evil, and this is supposedly shown by the behavior of infants who have not yet been corrupted, "when nature's judgement is pure and whole." Central to their recommendations about how to attain pleasure is their division between types of desires, so that we know which desires we should seek to satisfy and which ones to reject: the natural and necessary ones, the natural but non-necessary ones, and the vain and empty ones. Elsewhere, the Epicureans talk about the "natural goods" of political power and fame, and they contrast "natural wealth" with wealth as "defined by empty opinion." Finally, in their politics, Epicurus claims that the "the justice of nature is a pledge of reciprocal usefulness, [i.e.,] neither to harm one another nor to be harmed."We may usefully raise two questions regarding these various appeals to nature. The first is: what is it for these things to be natural, i.e., what notion of "natural" or "nature" is at play here? (Furthermore, is there a single notion being used across these appeals, and if not, how are they related?) The second is: what normative work does a thing's being natural do? That is, what reason, if any, does a desire's being natural give me for pursuing the object of that desire and trying to fulfill that desire, as opposed to not doing so and trying to eliminate it, and similarly for the other appeals to nature? This paper will have four main parts, each associated with one of the appeals to nature mentioned above: (1) the cradle argument and the appeal to our natural pursuit of pleasure as proof of pleasure's goodness, (2) the division between natural and non-natural desires, (3) the

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Section: Friendship and The Natural Goods Of Wealth And Political Powermentioning

confidence: 90%

The Normativity of Nature in Epicurean Ethics and Politics

O'Keefe¹

2021

State and Nature

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Epicurean Wills, Empty Hopes, and the Problem of Post Mortem Concern

Wringe

2016

Philosophical Papers

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Many Epicurean arguments for the claim that death is nothing to us depend on the 'Experience Constraint': the claim that something can only be good or bad for us if we experience it. However, Epicurus' commitment to the Experience Constraint makes his attitude to will-writing puzzling. How can someone who accepts the Experience Constraint be motivated to bring about post mortem outcomes? We might think that an Epicurean will-writer could be pleased by the thought of his/her loved ones being provided for after his/her death. Warren has argued that this does not dissolve the puzzle, since it involves a hope which the Epicurean should take to be empty just as the fear of death is empty. However, if it is a necessary condition of an emotion's being empty that it involve accepting a claim which is not only false but also harmful it is not clear that this hope is indeed 'empty': there is a crucial disanalogy between fearing death and hoping for the prosperity of one's children here. And if emptiness does not require harmfuless, an Epicurean has no need to rid themselves of the emotion. 3 Cicero On Moral Ends translated by Raphael Woolf (Cambridge 2001) p 60. 4 There is, therefore, no need for me to take a stand in the recent debate between Woolf 2004 and Cooper 1998 as to whether we should take Epicureans to be committed to psychological hedonism, or only to a form of ethical hedonism. That said, I take Woolf's reading of the disputed passages in On Moral Ends to be more plausible than Cooper's.

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Recalcitrant Fears of Death

Hine

2017

International Journal of Philosophical Studies

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Epicurus and the Politics of Fearing Death

Cited by 5 publications

References 4 publications

The Normativity of Nature in Epicurean Ethics and Politics

The Normativity of Nature in Epicurean Ethics and Politics

Epicurean Wills, Empty Hopes, and the Problem of Post Mortem Concern

Recalcitrant Fears of Death

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