After that brief excursion into some oriental philosophies, I'd like to return to traditional Greek philosophy. Epicureanism is a philosophy that is somewhat misunderstood today. I looked up epicurean in the dictionary, and it described someone with a fondness for sensual pleasures, luxury, fine wines, and gourmet foods.
But this isn't quite right. Epicurus (the guy the school was named for) believed in seeking modest pleasures, to attain a state of freedom from fear and pain. But he thought that overindulgence was wrong. If you eat too richly, for example, this can lead to dissatisfaction later. He also believed in abstinence. See Epicureanism, for more on this.
The Roman poet Lucretius wrote an epic poem called "On the Nature of Things", where he presents the main ideas and arguments of Epicureanism (see Nature of Things). The Epicureans had a materialistic world view, thinking that the universe was composed of atoms. Even the Gods were made of atoms. They also thought that the Gods were unconcerned with people, so there was no such thing as divine intervention, and no superstition either.
Knowledge (in their view) can come from either the senses or from reason, but reason might be mistaken, so it needs to be verified by the senses. This seems a lot like the scientific philosophy of creating hypotheses and testing them with experiments.
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Returning to the pleasure principle, Epicurus did believe in living in a way that maximizes pleasure. But the pleasures that Epicurus was talking about were things like friendship, conversation, and learning. He believed that the way to maximize pleasure was to pursue things that yield lasting contentment and satisfaction, not momentary highs.
This idea was generalized to include a theory of justice and social contract. The point of living in a society with laws and punishments is so that you can be protected from harm. Then you are free to go after the things that will bring you pleasure. Laws that don't serve to promote human happiness in this way are unjust.
This could be the basis for a general theory of ethics, but I see some problems with this. For one thing, how do you resolve conflicts between individuals? Two people, pursuing their own idea of happiness, might want the same indivisible object, and how can it be determined which one should get it?
A similar problem exists with laws. How can a law be said to promote happiness, if people disagree about what makes them happy? For example, a law like prohibition might be considered pro-happiness by people who think that alcohol brings unhappiness and misery. But not everyone will agree with this.
Break
13 years ago
