Epicurus: Psychological or Ethical Hedonist?

Epicuro: ¿Hedonista psicológico o ético?

Larry J. Waggle

Illinois State University Normal – Estados Unidos

Abstract

This article proposes that the type of hedonism found in Epicurus’ ethics is ethical, not psychological, hedonism. This paper also objects to using doxographical reports as the basis for developing an interpretation of Epicurus philosophy when primary source materials are available. Doxography should be used to clarify the primary source materials, not the other way around.

Key words: Epicurus, psychological hedonism, ethical hedonism, Cicero, Lucretius.

Resumen

Este artículo sostiene que el tipo de hedonismo que se encuentra en la ética de Epicuro no es de tipo psicológico sino ético. Asimismo, este ensayo se opone a la utilización de reportes doxográficos como una base para desarrollar una interpretación de la filosofía de Epicuro si existen materiales de referencia primaria disponibles, y afirma que la doxografía debe ser utilizada para clarificar esos materiales de referencia primarios, y no al revés.

Recibido: 25-05-07 Aceptado: 07-11-07

Over the last twenty years, there has been an explosion of interest in and work on the Hellenistic philosophers. In particular, there has been a renewed interest in Epicurus’ writings. I hesitate before continuing, because although there is intense interest in Epicurus’ writings, we, in fact, possess very few of the more than 300 texts attributed to him. In the absence of original manuscripts, philosophers interested in understanding Epicurus must seek out the scattered remains and coherently reconstruct his views while reading amongst the ruins. A concern central to our purposes is how one ought to consider the existing materials. Should a doxographical report of an author’s views set precedent over an actual manuscript or should the author’s manuscript take precedent over a doxographical report? In what order and in what degree of importance should we take these ruins? These and other such questions need to be addressed, especially when attempting to construct a coherent account of Epicurus’ ethical position. It is my contention that such questions are crucial, and for the purposes of this paper, critical.

In a recent paper, Raphael Woolf has challenged the notion that Epicurus was an ethical hedonist. Woolf contends that he does not attempt to settle the issue of whether the form of hedonism in Epicurus is psychological or ethical. However, he does argue that John Cooper’s claim that Epicurus should be read as an ethical hedonist is incorrect. It is my contention that although Woolf casts some reasons to doubt Cooper’s claim, Cooper is substantially correct in his assertion that Epicurus is an ethical hedonist. Further, I shall argue that we should, in fact, understand the type of hedonism found in Epicurus to be ethical not psychological. In support of this claim, I shall address the methodological question of how we ought to take these source materials, because it is critical to the issue at hand. I shall also take up the implications of why we should take Epicurus as an ethical not psychological hedonist. In the end, I shall conclude that the ethical hedonist reading of Epicurus is the correct one.

Let’s commence by clarifying some terms. By psychological hedonism, I mean, a descriptive theory that holds that human beings are always motivated by pleasure. Human beings, by nature, pursue pleasure and avoid pain broadly construed. By ethical hedonism, I mean, a prescriptive theory that holds that human beings ought to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. Typically, ethical hedonistic theories attempt to clarify what is meant by pleasure and what is meant by pain.¹ There are some immediate implications we should take note of prior to continuing. If Epicurus’ ethical theory, in fact, turns out to be solely one of psychological hedonism, then this is not an ethical theory. It is a descriptive theory about human motivation, and nothing more. Often psychological hedonism entails psychological egoism, the result of which turns out to be such that the moral “ought” is precluded. In other words, human beings seek pleasure and avoid pain by nature. Human beings are always motivated by self-interest. So, human beings are determined to seek pleasure which turns out to be to the advantage of the agent in question.

On the other hand, if Epicurus’ ethical theory, in fact, is an ethical hedonistic one, then human beings ought to seek pleasure, properly construed, and we may in fact deny ourselves immediate gratification for the sake of either some greater future pleasure or for the sake of some one else. In other words, the burden on the ethical hedonist is to demonstrate that the content of the term ‘good’ in pleasure, and by ‘pleasure’ understood in terms prescribed by the theory. Further, ethical hedonism does not necessarily entail egoism.² The ethical hedonist should avoid specific or entire classes of pleasures in accordance with the agent’s conception of what ultimately will provide satisfaction. The agent, likewise, is not determined to always act within the hedonistic framework.³ This will have important implications on our understanding of the claims found in the surviving Epicurean materials. If Epicurus is solely and simply a psychological hedonist, then we should not find him arguing that agents can act contrary to the criteria provided by the theory. Should we find such arguments, then we should conclude that he is advancing an ethical hedonist theory.

Before examining the textual remains in order to address the issue of which type of hedonist Epicurus is, we should address the question of the manuscripts and the methodological issues. As was alluded to in the beginning of this paper, the issue of methodology, that is, how are we supposed to understand the remaining fragments is critical. In the case at hand, Woolf first considers whether there is any evidence in a doxographical report of Epicurus’ ethical views, in this case the one found in Cicero’s De Finibus, and then turns to Epicurus’ own writings. Cooper starts with Epicurus’ Letter to Menoeceus and then turns to Cicero’s De Finibus in order to make the case of ethical hedonism. If all of the evidence is equally important, then it should not matter whether we take the primary evidence to be a doxographical report or a surviving manuscript. However, this presupposes that all of the evidence is in fact the same. In the case of a contemporary philosopher, we might find it odd to examine a commentator’s views as being on the same footing, i.e., equally relevant, as that of the actual written text. Sure, there might be reasons for looking at a commentator for clarity, especially if the original author was obscure, vague or overly technical. However, even in this case, we would want to know whether the commentator accurately portrayed the views of the original author.

In the case of doxography in the ancient world, there is one important difference. It is assumed in contemporary philosophy that if the commentator grossly misunderstood or misrepresented the original author’s views, the original author would object in print, or the editor of the journal or book would object to publishing this. We might even disregard a commentator who grossly misrepresented another philosopher as failing to properly comment. In short, there is the expectation in contemporary scholarship to accurately represent the views of another thinker. This is important because in the ancient world, there was no such expectation. An excellent example of this in the case of Epicurus is the doxography of Plutarch. Plutarch was a scholarly and hostile critic of Epicureanism, and is well known for using all of the devices of argument, some legitimate, others not so, at his command. Plutarch, although he quotes more from Epicurus than other commentators, distorts and ridicules this way of thinking. Plutarch’s approach is to take element by element of Epicurean thinking and subjecting it to belittlement. Hence, the bias of the commentator must be taken into consideration in the use of doxography.

In the case of Cicero, we also must be cautious about bias. What I mean here is perhaps something more subtle. It is known that Cicero was not an Epicurean. So, one must examine what source materials he used to construct his reports on Epicurus’ views.⁴ Cicero wrote De Finibus in 51 BCE and Epicurus died around 271 BCE. Some 220 years separate these thinkers. In Cicero’s youth, he studied philosophy in Athens and encountered Phaedrus and Zeno from the Epicurean school.⁵ We also know that Cicero relied on handbooks, or summaries, from the Epicurean school, and that he did not think very highly of it.⁶ In De Finibus, Cicero starts his investigation of the nature of the final end by addressing the “easiest school”, namely the Epicureans.⁷ The principal Epicurean speaker in De Finibus is Torquatus, who, although well versed in Greek literature and a member of the Roman Epicurean school, was a minor associate with this school. Little, if anything, is known about his philosophical training or background, except what Cicero claims for Torquatus. It is surprising that Cicero passes over more well known and important Epicureans in his discussion since Philodemus and Lucretius were active at this time. Likewise, as a committed Academic skeptic, Cicero would have had ulterior motives in accurately presenting the views of competing schools.

In short, there are many reasons for being suspicious of taking Cicero’s doxographical account as authoritative for founding an interpretation of Epicurus’ views on hedonism. Had we no manuscripts from Epicurus himself, then we would have to solely and simply rely on the doxography. However, we do have primary sources materials from Epicurus on these matters. As a methodological concern, we ought to use the primary materials as the starting point and basis for interpreting a philosopher, and then using the doxography or commentary to supplement the primary materials. In fact, Woolf does just the opposite. He starts with Cicero’s account of Epicurus’ hedonism, claims that psychological hedonism is the type Epicurus advances, then turns to Epicurus’ own work and claims that there is no definitive evidence for ethical hedonism there. Most of the arguments Woolf advances in the initial section of the paper rest on grammatical, not philosophical, grounds. True, Cooper, likewise, uses grammatical arguments to support his overall analysis. However, these grammatical arguments are intended, in Cooper’s case, to orient the reader to the nature of the document at hand. Woolf discussed some of this, yet dismisses it tout court.

We are now in a position to examine the evidence in the textual remains concerning the type of hedonism Epicurus advances. Our primary source for Epicurus’ ethical views comes from the Letter to Menoeceus found in Diogenes Laertius Lives of Eminent Philosopher Book 10. Diogenes Laertius informs us that the fuller treatment of Epicurus’ ethical views was found in three other works, namely On Choice and Avoidance, On the Ethical End, On Human Life. Only very short fragments survive of On Choice and Avoidance and On the Ethical End. Diogenes Laertius also informs us⁸ that he had copied three of Epicurus’ letter in which Epicurus has summarized his whole system so that the reader may be in a position to study him.⁹ Epicurus himself says, in the Letter to Herodotus that

“for those who are unable to study carefully all my physical writings or to go into the longer treatises at all, I (Epicurus) have myself prepared a summary of the whole system, Herodotus, to preserve in the memory enough of the principal doctrines to the end that on every occasion they may be able to aid themselves on the most important points.”¹⁰

From the scholion found in the manuscripts, we know that Epicurus himself also prepared a summary of the entire Epicurean system, and that these letters found in Diogenes Laertius are further summaries of this work. It is important to remember that the letter in question is a summary written by Epicurus to a member of his community so as to aid the memory of the longer discussion found in the other ethical, now lost, works. There is language in the Letter that suggests Menoeceus was struggling with his Epicurean training. “Do and practice what I (Epicurus) constantly told you to do, believing these to be the elements of living well.”¹¹ Hence, this letter was written to remind a wavering Epicurean “convert” of the central doctrines of the Epicurean school.

The nature of this manuscript is important, because we are not going to find the richest account of the full system. In its place, we are going to find the central tenets of Epicurus’ ethical position. Likewise, the arguments found in the Letter serve to remind Menoeceus of the fuller training he would have received in the Epicurean Garden. The context of the Letter is important, because many of the references to the term “we” have been the subject of the Cooper-Woolf debate. Cooper claims that when Epicurus uses “we” he means “we Epicureans”, whereas Woolf claims that the reference to the term “we” can mean “we Epicureans” but also implies “we humans”. How we understand the reference to the term “we” is critical because in Epicurus’ statement of the end or goal of human activity he uses this term. The passage in question is as follows:

“And this is why we say that pleasure is the starting-point and goal of living blessedly. For we recognize this as our first innate good, and this is our starting point for every choice and avoidance and we come to this by judging every good by the criterion of feeling.” ¹²

Cooper would have us read this passage by inserting the word “Epicureans” after each occurrence of the word “we”. Woolf, I take it, would have us insert “Epicureans” after the word “we” when it appeared that Epicurus was making some claim about the school’s doctrines. The second occurrence of the word “we” in the passage above, Woolf claims should be “we humans recognize pleasure as our first innate good.”

The elliptic nature of this passage has caused philosophers to seek out a longer treatment of this passage, which can be found in Cicero’s De Finibus. Torquatus claims he will present the theory in the manner approved by Epicurus. Torquatus presentation is as follows:

“We are inquiring, then, what is the final and ultimate good, which as all philosophers are agreed must be of such a nature as to be the end to which all other things are means, while it is not itself a means to anything else. This Epicurus finds in pleasure; pleasure he holds to be the Chief Good, pain the Chief Evil. This he sets out to prove as follows: Every animal, as soon as it is born, seeks for pleasure, and delights in it as the Chief Good, while it recoils from pain as the Chief Evil, and so far as possible avoids it. This it does as long as it remains unperverted, at the prompting of Nature’s own unbiased and honest verdict. Hence Epicurus refuses to admit any necessity for argument or discussion to prove that pleasure is desirable and pain to be avoided.”¹³

So far, the doxography fundamentally agrees with the primary source. The real issue is how to take the force of the so-called cradle argument used to support the position that pleasure is the ultimate end?

Second, Epicurus himself claims that acknowledgment of pleasure as the final good is the criterion for judging actions to be good or evil. If he intended psychological hedonism in this case, this would be like claiming the following: All things are mutually attracting. This mutual attraction is what we call gravity. So, we ought to be attracted by gravity. This last claim makes little sense given the notion of mutual attraction at work here. So, again, there must be at least two different notions of what pleasure means, otherwise the position is incoherent.

In fact, I think the only work this argument is intended to establish is that pleasure, yet undefined, is the final good. In the Letter to Menoeceus, prior to the claim about pleasure being the final good, Epicurus announced what he means by the final goal.

One must reckon that of desires some are natural, some groundless; and of the natural desires some are necessary and some merely natural; and of the necessary, some are necessary for happiness and some for freeing the body from troubles and some for life itself. The unwavering contemplation of these enables one to refer every choice and avoidance to the health of the body and freedom of the soul from disturbance, since this is the goal of a blessed life.¹⁴

Health of the body and freedom from disturbance in the soul are the katastematic pleasures Epicurus claims are the ultimate good. Epicurus is well-known for distinguishing between two general types of pleasure: the katastematic and the kinetic.¹⁵ The former is understood as the lack of pain in the body and the lack of disturbance in the soul aponia and ataraxía). The latter is generally understood to be those pleasures taken “in motion”. The katastematic pleasure is the goal or end of human activity.¹⁶ The implication of this analysis is that if Epicurus’ hedonism is an expression of psychological hedonism, then whether we realize it or not, we are always pleasure seekers. If we understand Epicurus as advocating a normative or ethical hedonism, then when making choices about a course of action, we ought to seek pleasure, now properly understood. This second mode of thinking then would demand a proper understanding of pleasure. Hence the need for rational decision to search out the reasons for every choice and avoidance, and for driving out the opinions which are the source of the greatest turmoil in men’s souls. Positive evidence that Epicurus advocated a form of ethical hedonism comes from Kyriai Doxai 25.

“If you do not, on every occasion, refer each of your actions to the goal of nature, but instead turn prematurely to some other (goal) in avoiding or pursuing (something), your actions will not be consistent with your principles (logoi)”.¹⁷

This saying appears to be an excerpt from some writing of Epicurus in which he was admonishing some Epicurean for failing to maintain the school’s doctrine. In this saying, the case is presented that someone has actually adopted some other goal different from that advocated by Epicureanism. This would not be possible if, indeed, Epicurus advocated psychological hedonism.

Further, if Epicurus were advocating psychological hedonism, there would be little point in his claim that there are some pleasures one ought to avoid. Strictly speaking, if he is, in fact, advancing a psychological hedonist theory, we would not be able to choose pain and avoid pleasure. In fact Epicurus makes it clear that we, in fact, ought to avoid some pleasures and choose some pains.

“And it is just because this is the first innate good that we do not choose every pleasure; but sometimes we pass up many pleasures when we get a larger amount of what is uncongenial from them. And we believe many pains to be better than pleasures when a greater pleasure follows for a long while if we endure the pains. So every pleasure is a good thing, since it has a nature congenial [to us], but not everyone is to be chosen. Just as every pain too is a bad thing, but not every one is such as to be always avoided. It is, however, appropriate to make all these decisions by comparative measurement and an examination of the advantages and disadvantages. For at some times we treat the good thing as bad and, conversely, the bad thing as good.”¹⁸

Vatican Saying 71 reiterates the point “One should bring this question to bear on all one’s desires: what will happen to me if what is sought by desire is achieved, and what will happen if it is not?”.¹⁹

Epicurus was aware of this problem, namely the problem of determinism. A portion of Epicurus’ On Nature, Book 25²⁰, discusses how we are responsible for what we do. Julia Annas has pointed out that the ending portion of this passage discusses the causes of atomic motions, distinguishing those that are “through us” from those that are “through nature and the environment”. Annas maintains that this passage is a discussion of the concept that we are responsible for what we do.²¹ Annas is correct in noting that the references to our practices of praising, blaming, and influencing people that are found in this fragment focus on our responsibility as moral agents. Let us look at portions of this fragment that bear on the issue at hand.

“From the first beginning we have seeds directing us some towards some things, others towards others, others towards both - in every case seeds, which may be many or few, of actions, thoughts, and dispositions. Thus it depends on us at first absolutely what becomes of what is already a development, whether of one or another kind, and the things which necessity flow in from the environment through the pores depends on us when they come about at some time, and depend on our beliefs that come from ourselves.”²²

As we can see from this passage, Epicurus is distinguishing between certain natural tendencies we have to act based on our initial constitution from those that depends on us that we are responsible for. The former are identified by “seeds” that direct us to act in certain ways. The latter are identified by thoughts and dispositions that are subject to development. These developments (apogegenneménon) are the characteristics an agent acquires through agency. These developments are subject to reason’s ability to “mold” ourselves through our choices. If agents were without this ability, then we would not be able to understand praise or blame. Epicurus makes this point in the following:

. . . to admonish and quarrel with each other and try to change each other’s character, as though they had in themselves the responsibility for [their characters] and [such responsibility lay] not just in the original [condition of] the compound, and in the necessity which comes mechanically from the environment and the influx [of atoms]. For if one were to attribute to admonishing and being admonished the mechanical necessity of what always on any occasion [happens to] affect oneself, one would never in this way come to an understanding [a lacuna of a few words] by blaming or praising. ²³

This passage is the beginning of Epicurus’ argument against determinism. What we can grasp from it is, in the final analysis, we are responsible for our characters, and we are held accountable for how we develop. In conjunction with this passage, we see a similar position taken in the Letter to Menoeceus.

“As to [Fate], introduced by some as the mistress of all <is scornful, saying rather that some things happen by necessity>, others by chance, and others by our own agency, and that he sees that necessity is not answerable [to anyone], that chance is unstable, while what occurs by our own agency is autonomous, that it is to this that praise and blame are attached.”²⁴

One additional problem remains. If the seeds, on account of our atomic natures, predispose us in some ways, then how does reason mold our developments? Here we are reminded of a passage from Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, Book 3, where he talks about the differences between different kinds of animals and between differences in individuals due to their atomic make-up.

“It is the same with human beings. Although education may give certain people equal refinement, it cannot obliterate the original traces of each individual’s natural disposition. We must not suppose that faults in character can be extirpated, and that it is possible to stop one person from being excessively prone to sudden fits of rage, another from succumbing a little too readily to fear, and a third from accepting certain situations more meekly than one should. And in many other respects people must differ in character and consequently in behavior. But for the moment, I cannot explain the secret causes of this variety or find names for all of the atomic conformations that give rise to it. What I see that I can affirm in this connection is that the surviving traces of our natural dispositions, which philosophy is unable to erase, are so very faint that there is nothing to prevent us from living a life worthy of the gods.” ²⁵

Annas correctly states that the general idea expressed by Lucretius here fits well with Epicurus’ Book 25. She notes that one the one hand, we are constrained by our atomic natures. These predispose us in some ways, so that our general tendencies are already laid down to some extent by our constitution. On the other hand, since we are rational, we are agents. We cannot get rid of the tendencies that our nature has given to us, but we are not driven by them. We can alter them and adapt our world in ways that are not predetermined by our natures.²⁶

In sum, given the methodological considerations discussed above, I find that there is ample evidence in the surviving remains of Epicurus’ thought that the type of hedonism he advocates is ethical hedonism. Contrary to the positions taken by other schools, notably the Stoics, he does think that our lives and what we do with them are up to us. This would be impossible if he were advocating some sort of psychological hedonism. Clearly, he was concerned about the problem of determinism, and he carefully shaped his discussion of pleasure to take this into account.

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