Three Common Fallacies about Epicurean Friendship

Epicurean philosophy is one of the most misunderstood of the Hellenistic period. Much of the misunderstanding is due to three common fallacies and their relationship to the Epicurean idea of friendship. This essay will explain these fallacies, and show how they can distort the extant Epicurean corpus.

 

The first fallacy we will look at is the summum bonum fallacy, which occurs because of the difficulty in translating from Ancient Greek to Latin. The second is the nominal fallacy of assuming metaphysical separation of virtue and pleasure. The third fallacy is a false dilemma, which assumes that no doctrine can be both egoistic and altruistic.

 

By exposing these three fallacies, I hope to defend Epicureanism from the polemics of Cicero's De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, and to show why contemporary arguments for a strict egoist reading of the Epicurean corpus that explains away the altruistic passages are unnecessary.

 

To this end, the essay will have the following six part structure:

1. The Received Dogma – Epicureanism as the classic hedonism
   

1. The Summum Bonum Fallacy - Conflating the highest good and the telos
   
2. The Nominal Fallacy - Metaphysical separation of virtue and pleasure
   
3. The False Choice Fallacy - Altruism and Egoism.
   
4. Contemporary Arguments for Strict Epicurean Egoism – Evans and O'Keefe
   
5. Reconstruction – Epicureanism without the three fallacies.
   

   
    

   
    

   
    

6. The Received Dogma – Epicureanism as the Classic Hedonism.
   

   
    

   It is easy to see why Epicureanism is so quickly dismissed in contemporary classical scholarship as the least tenable of the Hellenistic philosophies. According to the received view, which to be fair can be easily read into the extant Epicurean texts. Given the usual translations, and if one already has the received prejudices, Epicureanism is a Godless, heretical doctrine of pleasure seeking.
   

   
    

   It is seen as inferior to Aristotelianism because of its insistence on the over-arching importance of the pleasure part of virtue. Aristotle held that pleasure, while always present with true virtue, was accidental to it. Aristotle believes that we do virtuous acts for their own sake, that is, for the sake of being virtuous. Epicurus believes that we do virtuous acts for the sake of the pleasure they entail. For this reason, the Epicurean view was taken to miss the point of virtue entirely, placing emphasis on the baseness of pleasure, rather than the purity of virtue.
   

   
    

   It is seen to be Godless because it denies the personal involvement of the gods in human affairs, and it denies the immortality of the soul. Such denials were grounds for accusations of high heresy up until the 20^th century, and even then they were seen by many as dangerous until the rise of secularism in the last half century.
   

   
    

   It is seen to be an irrational doctrine because it places reason in a subordinate role to nature, which for Epicureanism, furnishes the norm and provides the original and best orientation for action. This is in flat contradiction with those philosophies that took reason to be the proper orientation for action and the determinate of the good.
   

   
    

   So according to the received view, Epicureanism takes pleasure to be the highest good, nature to be superior to reason, the gods to be absent and indifferent to the affairs of humanity, and the soul to be as mortal as the body. Moreover, the Epicurean account of friendship is inconsistent with the rest of the Epicurean philosophy, and since friendship plays such a central role in Epicurean ethics, the inconsistency wrecks the whole ethical system.
   

   
    

   This is a fairly charitable account of the received dogmatic understanding of Epicureanism. I have chosen to ignore the more blatant falsehoods which are usually attributed to it, such as the notion that Epicurean's believe in the infallibility of the senses, or that Epicureans advocate thrill seeking and pursuit of the peeks of physical pleasure. These falsehoods are quickly discerned as such upon actually reading the extant texts, so I will not deal with them here.
   

   
    

   
    

7. The Summum Bonum Fallacy.
   

   
    

   The summum bonum fallacy was identified in the first half of the 20^th century by the Canadian philosopher and classicist Norman W. DeWitt. In his broadly sympathetic book, Epicurus and his Philosophy, DeWitt argues that much of the received understanding of Epicureanism is based on flawed translations. The translation problems happen on two accounts: first from the Ancient Greek to the Latin, and then again from the Ancient Greek to English.
   

   
    

   DeWitt argues that since the Latin language "lacks the definite article, the Romans were unable to say "the good", which in Greek is an alternative was of denoting the end or telos of an art or activity. The Latin finis is inadequate because it means end in the sense of terminating point, and not in the sense of consummation or fulfillment. Thus, DeWitt argues, the Romans had to make do with the ambiguous phrase "summum bonum". This phrase literally means "the highest good", but does not necessarily mean "telos", or at least leaves no room for distinguishing between telos and highest good. DeWitt says that the problem this generates (and which provides the opening for Plutarch's and Cicero's attacks), is that for Epicurus, the highest good is not pleasure, but life itself. Pleasure is the telos, whereas the pleasurable life is summum bonum or the life of eudaimonia.
   

   
    

   Life is, for Epicurus, confined exclusively to the period of time from our birth to our death. He explicitly denies pre-existence or an afterlife, and that the body and soul are born and die together. He quotes Vatican Saying14 as evidence:
   

   
    

   We are born once and we cannot be born twice but to all eternity must be no more.
   

   
    

   Therefore, argues DeWitt, we can conclude that for Epicurus, "the supreme values must be sought between the limits of birth and death."
   

   
    

   The argument that life itself and not pleasure is the highest good is based on two passages. The first, like so much of the Epicurean doctrine, is made problematic by the popular translation. DeWitt cites Vatican Saying 42, which on his translation reads:
   

   
    

   The same span of time includes both beginning and termination of the greatest good.
   

   
    

   The problem of translation occurs with the change of a single letter, which if left out, renders the word "termination" as "enjoyment". This would be tempting for a translator to do, since it would seem to be in keeping with the popular understanding of Epicurean hedonism taking pleasure to be the highest good, and indeed almost all translators emend the text in just such a fashion, presumably thinking that that is what Epicurus meant to say. But unfortunately the emendation only confuses the issue and renders the corpus open to Cicero's, as well as many other subsequent authors', attack on the central role of friendship, which then brings down the whole system if the translation problem and subsequent summum bonum fallacy is not detected.
   

   
    

   The other passage that supports his idea that the highest good is not pleasure but life comes from Plutarch, on the Usener translation, which reads:
   

   
    

   That which occasions unsurpassable joy is the bare escape from some dreadful calamity; and this is the nature of 'good', if one apprehend it rightly and then stand by his finding, and not go walking round and round and harping uselessly on the meaning of 'good'.
   

   
    

   This, DeWitt argues, is evidence that for Epicurus the highest good is life itself, because "the strongest emotions are occasioned by the threat of losing it [life] or the prospect of saving it."
   

   
    

   The proof of Epicurus belief that the greatest good is life is that the escape from some dreadful destruction is the greatest joy. One could argue, though Epicurus does not, that the recovery of health is a positive pleasure when the individual has recently survived illness. It would be a positive pleasure also to be `freshly relieved from the fear of death and the gods through the discovery of the true philosophy.
   

   
    

   On this, admittedly fine point, Epicurus shows himself to be the most logical of the ancient teachers. The others defined the
   good or the
   telos as that to which all other goods referred. Epicurus' point, which consequently colours his entire philosophy, is that every good, even the greatest good, or the Aristotelian eudemonia, is only meaningful to the living. Goods are of no-consequence, are completely devoid of meaning, to the dead. Therefore, all goods, even the highest good, presume life. The reason Epicurus is the only one of the eminent philosophers to have claimed this is because he was committed to the idea of human mortality. All goods and all evils, everything of value whatsoever, occurs only between birth and death. Thus, since life necessarily includes all possible goods, it is the highest good, the true summum bonum.
   

   
    

   
    

8. Virtue and Pleasure – The Nominal Fallacy of Metaphysical Separation.
   

   
    

   Epicurus denies that virtue and pleasure are two metaphysically distinct and abstractly separable things. The belief that they are two separate things constitutes a nominal fallacy. Just because two things have different names does not mean that they must be metaphysically distinct. Virtue and pleasure are co-extensive. They are separable only in thought, by mental abstraction. But this abstraction on our part does not mean that they actually are separate things. For example, just because I can mentally separate the concept of number from things counted does not mean thereby that numbers actually metaphysically exist separate from things counted. To believe this is to populate the world with ghosts. This is an important part of Epicurean anti-Platonism, and it is in keeping with Epicureanism's Aristotelian influence.
   

   
    

   For Epicureans, pleasure is what is naturally good about virtue. To paraphrase the poet, "a thing of virtue is a joy forever; its good increases." Aristotle does not deny that pleasure is a natural good that always accompanies virtue, but he does not allow it the title of the highest good. For Aristotle, pleasure is not the telos of human life, the telos is the summum bonum: eudaimonia. For Epicurus, the telos of human life is pleasure, but the summum bonum is life. Nothing is good to a dead man. The highest good is the thing we most fear losing, the very ground of eudaimonia, our life. This highest of natural fears and the greatest source of anxiety, the fear of death, proves to be a source of pleasure when it is destroyed by knowledge of the true philosophy. This is the reason why the Epicurean slogan, which they engraved on many artifacts, was "Death is nothing to us." When you realize this truth, you are overcome by the relief of the greatest source of anxiety in your life.
   

   
    

   A similar pleasure is co-extensive with the Epicurean virtues: courage, honesty, temperance, suavity, patience, hope, gratitude, and above all friendship. All of these are explained in terms of, and done for the sake of the pleasure that they entail. Keep in mind this is pleasure understood as ataraxia and aponia, which in this case makes more sense as tranquility of body and mind. A Coward is always anxious; a liar is always anxious; when you are not patient you are anxious; when you have no hope you are in anxious despair; when you have no gratitude you are anxious because you cannot see, respect, and appreciate the good things in life; and a life without friends, Aristotle himself admits no one would want to live. The virtues are the ways of living that make your life worth living; that make life joyful; that make it a beautiful dream and not a nightmare. Virtuous acts are not done for their own sake, says Epicurus, they are done because they are the naturally good ways to live.
   

   
    

   
    

9. Altruism and Egoism – A False Dilemma
   

   
    

   Many detractors of Epicureanism point to what they say is a dilemma in the extant texts. The dilemma revolves around the problem of some passages seeming to espouse egoism, and some altruism. The argument is that the passages that appear to endorse altruism must be reconciled to apparent egoism of the wider Epicurean doctrine. The hidden premise of this kind of argument is that egoism and altruism are incompatible and contradictory.
   

   
    

   But for this to be a true dilemma there must be more than simply an endorsement of altruism in some places and endorsement of egoism in other places. There must be an explicit statement denying altruism or denying egoism for there to be any inconsistency, because altruism and egoism are not inconsistent of themselves. For instance, one of the most rational of philosophers in the entire western canon, Immanuel Kant, advocated a doctrine in which the moral law requires that we be both altruistic and egoistic. The Kantian categorical imperative is to never treat other persons as a mere means, but always also as ends in themselves. We are to treat them both egoistically and altruistically.
   

   
    

   As it turns out, Epicurus makes a very similar point to that of the Kantian categorical imperative. This is evidenced by Vatican Saying 39:
   

   
    

   Neither he who is always seeking material aid from his friends nor he who never thinks of such aid as possible is a true friend; for the one engages in petty trade, taking a favor instead of gratitude, and the other deprives himself of hope for the future.
   

   
    

   Nevertheless, the endorsement of altruism and egoism is taken by many to be problematic on pain of contradiction for the entire Epicurean ethical system. It is the main thrust of the attacks mounted by Cicero and Plutarch in the Ancient literature, and of Evans and O'Keefe in the contemporary literature. Cicero tries to expose Epicurean ethics as inconsistent, and Plutarch tries to show how the inconsistency means Epicurean happiness is impossible. They point to the passages which say to refer all decisions to the natural good, which if understood to mean one's own pleasure, is inconsistent with the passages that imply you should do some things not for your own pleasure but for the sake of friendship. But this as we have shown, pleasure is the telos, not the highest good. Besides, it is nowhere indicated that the natural good to be referred to is one's own personal natural good. Presumably then, the passage could be taken to refer to the natural good of either our self or of our friend, avoiding the inconsistency. To do so, to refer all our actions that influence our friends to not only our eudaimonia but theirs as well, would be to do as Kant says, to treat our friends as both a means and as an end.
   

   
    

   Furthermore, true friends share in pleasure and pain, not because they will it, but because this is just a natural aspect of true friendship. It is 'automatic', so to speak; it comes for free with friendship. Thus, if a friend's pleasure/telos/natural-good-life is truly shared, then it makes perfect sense to do things for the sake of the friend's pleasure. What's mine is yours and what's yours is mine. The inconsistency is avoided because my pleasure is the same as your pleasure. Therefore, to do something for the good of a friend is at the very same time to do something good for yourself. There is an old Buddhist saying:
   

   
    

   How do I care for others?
   

   Care for yourself.
   

   How do I care for myself?
   

   Care for others.
   

   
    

   In all this there is a deep meaning, reflected in the communities of friends the Epicureans formed. The good life is multiplied by friendships, like the cut of a diamond, its many facets reflecting and refracting each other's beauty until the whole community seems to shine with an inner, divine warmth. But the jeweler must be careful not to make too many cuts, because every time he does there is a risk of shattering the whole, and with each added face, the diamond losses a small measure of weight. That is why we must limit the number of true friendships in our life, because despite the multiplicity of joys they bring, they are in equal measure demanding. If you have too many friends then you cannot honor them all, and your friendships will eventually wither and die like plants in a garden too large to be properly tended and watered. This is why they called themselves the Garden School; because therein they sowed the seeds of friendship and cultivated the good, joyful life. In such a garden, death is not the end in the sense of termination, but rather it is the consummation of life, and a necessary part of it. Plants die, but in their decay they fertilize the soil and feed the next generation the nutrients they collected throughout their lifetime. Therefore they say we should not grieve at a friend's death, but simply remember them and be grateful for their life and friendship.
   

   
    

   
    

10. Contemporary Arguments for Strict Egoism in the Epicurean Corpus
    

    
     

    In Matthew Evans's paper, Can Epicureans be Friends? He says that Epicureans can be, but only if they are motivated by direct-egoism. They can neither be altruistic, nor indirectly-egoistic; and they must reject the so-called valuation-condition of friendship, on pain of contradiction. The valuation-condition obtains if when X is a friend of Y, then X values Y's well-being for Y's own sake.
    

    
     

    Evans argues that if this valuation-condition is not rejected, then a contradiction obtains in the textual evidence, wrecking the whole ethical system. Accepting the valuation-condition yields contradictions between two groups of textual evidence, the first supporting egoistic hedonism, the second supporting philophilia, or loving friends equally to yourself.
    

    
     

    Here is a breakdown of the textual evidence Evan's presents as conflicting (and contradicting in the case of a positive valuation-condition):
    

    
     

    
     

    Passages seeming to endorse egoistic hedonism:
    

• Cicero, De Finibus .i 42 – Pleasure and pain moreover supply the motives of desire and of avoidance, and the springs of conduct generally. This being so, it clearly follows that actions are right and praiseworthy only as being a means to the attainment of a life of pleasure
  
• De Finibus i 30 - 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.
  
• De Finibus i 54 – If then even the glory of the Virtues, on which all the other philosophers love to expatiate so eloquently, has in the last resort no meaning unless it be based on pleasure, whereas pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically attractive and alluring, it cannot be doubted that pleasure is the one supreme and final Good and that a life of happiness is nothing else than a life of pleasure.
  
• Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, 128 - Everything we do is for the sake of freedom from pain and anxiety.   Once this is achieved, the storms in the soul are stilled.  Nothing else and nothing more are needed to perfect the well-being of the body and soul.  It is when we feel pain that we must seek relief, which is pleasure.  And when we no longer feel pain, we have all the pleasure we need.
  

 

Passages seeming to endorse altruistic hedonism:

• Vatican Saying 23 - Every friendship in itself is to be desired; but the initial cause of friendship is from its advantages.
  
• Vatican Saying 52 - Friendship dances through the world bidding us all to awaken to the recognition of happiness. [or to awaken and give thanks.]
  
• Vatican Saying 78 - The noble man is chiefly concerned with wisdom and friendship; of these, the former is good for a lifetime, and the latter is good for all time.
  
• Principal Doctrine 27 - Of all things that wisdom provides for living one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.
  
• Cicero, De Finibus. i 66-68, i 82. (See below for reconstruction of first orthodox account of friendship.)
  

 

Altruism (accepting the valuation-condition), Evans argues, is rejected by textual evidence. He says that the only two sources that seem to endorse the valuation-condition are Vatican Saying 23 and De Finibus. i 66-68. He believes that neither of these sources are enough to support its endorsement.

 

Evans and O'Keefe deal primarily with Vatican Saying 23 and the Torquatus' orthodox argument from Cicero's De Finibus. Evans argues that the ambiguity of Vatican Saying 23 does not support the valuation condition, which, on the Usener translation reads:

 

Every friendship is choice-worthy in itself, but has its origin in benefit.

 

The translation is ambiguous because of the degraded state of the original papyrus source. With a change of only one letter, we obtain the alternate translation:

 

"Every friendship is a virtue in itself, but has its origin in benefit."

 

Evans dismisses the ambiguity, noting that with either translation, it says "friendship" not "friend". Valuing a friendship and valuing a friend can be two very different things. One could value a political friendship because of the benefit it secures for us, but this does not necessarily mean that we value the friend for their own sake. This ambiguity in the text leaves room for an egoistic reading.

 

The other passage Evans considers to be of central importance to the problem of Epicurean friendship is Cicero's De Finibus. In it, Cicero's Epicurean spokesman Torquatus gives an argument in for treating friends the same way we treat of ourselves, which Cicero then promptly attacks with the charge of inconsistency. O'Keefe says there are three reasons why the passage is worth looking at. It is an extended argument, not just aphorisms. It is one of the most altruistic of Epicurean passages. And perhaps most importantly, it is likely the original, orthodox view, and not revisionist.

 

Here is a reconstruction of Torquatus' argument for the orthodox account from De
Finibus i66-68, ii82:

1. Stable and lasting enjoyment of life requires friendship.
   
2. Friendship requires loving your friends as you love yourself.
   
3. Friendship leads to sharing equally in friend's pleasures and pains.
   
4. Therefore the wise will feel the same way about their friends as they do about themselves. They undertake the same effort to secure their friend's pleasure as their own.
   

 

O'Keefe points out that there appears to be internal contradiction in this argument. Mine and my friend's pleasure must be either equal or not equal, it cannot be both. So is it possible on egoistic grounds to cultivate a disinterested love of others? This would not strictly speaking be a contradiction, but it would certainly be, as O'Keefe puts it, "psychologically tricky". Nevertheless this option is ruled out because the egoistic motive undercuts disinterested love. It makes in not genuine. This is much the same as Cicero's objection, given in De Finibus ii 78:

 

How can one man be another man's friends, if he does not love him in and for himself? What is the meaning of 'to love'- from which our word for friendship is derived – except to wish some one to receive the greatest possible benefits even though one gleans no advantage therefrom oneself? "It pays me," you say, "to be a disinterested friend." No, perhaps it pays you to seem so. Be so you cannot, unless you really are; but how can you be a disinterested friends unless you feel genuine affection? Yet affection does not commonly result from any calculation of expediency. It is a spontaneous growth; it springs up of itself. "But," you will say, "I am guided by expediency." Then your friendship will last just so long as it is attended by expediency. If expediency creates the feeling it will also destroy it.

 

In other words, the Epicurean sage here suffers from a case of doublethink. Therefore, either the position describes inconsistent ends or inconsistent motives. In short: friendship cannot, according to Cicero, be based on utility.

 

O'Keefe gives reasons internal to the passage for the egoist reading. First, there is the principal of charity, which demands that we not attribute a blatant contradiction within the first two lines of the argument. Therefore we should consider the context. Just before Torquatus begins to offer his three accounts of Epicurean friendship, he says:

 

All that has been said about the essential connection of the virtues with pleasure must be repeated about friendship."

 

The comparison suggests that friendship, like virtue, is only valuable instrumentally. Friendship, however, cannot be divorced from pleasure. Therefore, says O'Keefe, there may be psychological other-regardingness, but not ethical other-regardingness. This account, which is identified as orthodox, stands in strong contrast with Torquatus' first account of friendship, which is identified as a later, less-orthodox account.

 

Therefore, O'Keefe argues, there must be reconciliation, but this begs the question: How can one love others equally to oneself on egoistic grounds? How do we reconcile equal valuing with non-equal valuing? The first demands other-regarding, while the second demands self-regarding. O'Keefe offers a psychological behavioral account. Indirect egoism. What is expressed in (2) and (4) is a policy of action, not desire. Desires are egoistically determined, but actions are determined by desires.

 

Evans believes that premises (1) and (2) of Torquatus' orthodox argument contradict direct-egoistic hedonism, and that therefore they must therefore be modified or else it wrecks the whole Epicurean ethical system, as is Cicero's charge. He references O'Keefe's proposed solution, that the word "love" in (2) and the word "feel" in (4) are to be read not in terms of evaluation, but of psychological behavior. He claims this reading is supported philologically. On this reading, (2) and (4) do not need to imply anything about what the wise-man values and therefore (2) do not create a conflict with the egoism. Therefore, the reconstructed argument from De Finibus i66-68, ii82, must be read behaviorally.

 

Evans agrees with O'Keefe's conclusion, that the passage requires a psychological behaviorist reading in order to maintain consistency, but he makes a further distinction between two kinds of behavioral readings:

1. Indirect Egoism - The sage adopts the friend's good as an ultimate practical end, independent of, yet equal to his own.
   
2. Direct Egoism - The sage adopts only his own good as an ultimate practical end, but discovers via deliberation that his own good stands or falls equally with his friend's.
   

   
    

   Evans says that Epicureans must be direct-egoists. But he also notes that the dispute between (i) and (ii) is merely over the content of the sage's principles. Both (i) and (ii) agree that the sage will behave so as to help his friends; what they disagree about is the practical reasoning that moves the sage to behave in this way. Thus (i) and (ii) are, objectively speaking, behaviorally identical.
   

   
    

   Evans goes on to assert that there is good reason to believe that Epicurus would not have endorsed any kind of indirect theory anyway, indirect-egoism included. The two passages Evans cites as evidence for this claim are Principal Doctrine 25 and Epicurus' Letter to Menoeceus 128.
   

   
    

   If you do not reconcile your behavior with the goal of nature, but instead use some other criterion in matters of choice and avoidance, then there will be a conflict between theory and practice.
   

   A clear recognition of desires enables one to base every choice and avoidance upon whether it secures or upsets bodily comfort and peace of mind – the goal of a happy life.
   

   
    

   Evans's argument to rule out indirect-egoism goes like this: 1. All action is directed by the "natural goal" of my own ego. 2. If action is not directed by my natural goal, then my actions will not accord with my reasoning. 3. Therefore, indirect egoism is ruled out.
   

   
    

   So up to this point, Evans has argued that if Epicurean friendship is to have any hope at all, and not be contrary to the whole Epicurean ethical system, then it must be understood in terms of strict direct-egoistic hedonism. Having negatively established this much, he offers a supporting positive justification for direct-egoistic hedonism in Epicurean friendship.
   

   
    

   However, Evans must still contend with the intuition that direct egoism reading seems to fly in the face of a great deal of textual evidence. Consider the following examples:
   

• Vatican Saying 28 - Those who are hasty in making friends are not to be approved; nor should you commend those who avoid friendship, for risks must be run for its sake.
  
• Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers x121 - And two sorts of happiness can be conceived: The one the highest possible, such as the gods enjoy, which cannot be augmented; the other admitting addition and subtraction of pleasures.
  
• Vatican Saying 56-57 - The wise man is not more pained when being tortured himself, than when seeing his friend tortured: but if his friend does him wrong, his whole life will be confounded by distrust and completely upset.
  
• Plutarch, Against Epicurean Happiness. 1097A = Usener 544 - And yet, Epicurus, who places happiness in the deepest tranquility, as in a sheltered and landlocked harbor, says that it is not only nobler, but also pleasanter, to confer than to receive benefits.
  
• Plutarch, Against Colotes, 8, p. 1111B,
  Usener 546 - Epicurus chooses friends for the pleasure he gets, but says that he assumes the greatest pains on their behalf.
  
• Vatican Saying 44 - The wise man who has become accustomed to the limits of necessity knows better how to share with others than how to take from them, so great a treasure of self-sufficiency has he found.
  
• Vatican Saying 15 - We place a high value on our characters as if they were our own possessions whether or not we are virtuous and praised by other men. So, too, we must regard the characters of those around us if they are our friends.
  
• Epicurus. Letter to Menoeceus. 135 - Practice these teachings daily and nightly.  Study them on your own or in the company of a like-minded friend, and you shall not be disturbed while awake or asleep.  You shall live like a god among men, because one whose life is fortified by immortal blessings in no way resembles a mortal being.
  
• Seneca. E.M 19.10 = Usener 542 - Epicurus says "you should be more concerned about inspecting whom you eat and drink with, than what you eat and drink.  For feeding without a friend is the life of a lion and a wolf."
  

  
   

  Evans admits that his positive account must insist that direct egoistic hedonists must treat each other in the ways described in all of this textual evidence. He says much of this behavior on the part of the direct egoistic hedonist can be understood in terms of security. This is because Epicurus distinguishes between the value of the goods themselves and the value of confidence in the availability of these goods. Evidence for this is in Vatican Saying 34:
  

  
   

  We do not so much need the help of our friends as the confidence [trust] of their help in need.
  

  
   

  It is the trust, the confidence that is the most important part. Without trust there is no friendship; and trust is based on Epicurean notion of justice, that is, the natural social contract to do no harm. In order to avoid a general collapse of trust among all of one's friends, one cannot be a free rider and cut and run from the obligations of a particular friendship, even when it means pain for you.
  

  
   

  The positive account must admit that friendships can survive a one-way breakdown of trust. X need not trust Y, X need only trust that by helping Y that X will be helped. This problem is solved by nesting particular friendships in a broader community of friends (to fall back on in case some friendships turn out not to be genuine). Textual evidence for this view comes from Vatican Saying28 and Vatican Saying 39 (see above):
  

  
   

  Epicureans therefore must, it seems, be emotionally engaged with friends. Yet Vatican Saying 66 indicates sympathy based not on "mournful lamentation", but rather, "practical reflection."
  

  
   

  We show our feeling for [deceased] friends, not by wailing, but by pleasant recollection.
  

  
   

  Trust is what is of essential importance in friendship, trust that is valued directly-egoistically for its hedonic property of engendering ataraxia. The sage feels not "pain" but "concern." Therefore, according to Evans, Epicurean friendship must, if it is consistent, be directly egoistically hedonic, and must reject the valuation-condition.
  

  
   

  O'Keefe is, like Evans, concerned with rectifying the apparently contradictory passages from the traditional Epicurean corpus. He says that many passages indicate and endorsement of psychological and ethical hedonic egoism. This view is in opposition to others such as Mistis and Annas, who say that the problematic passages indicate an inconsistency in Epicurean ethics, altruism being incommensurate (in their view) with egoism. O'Keefe rejects the diagnosis of inconsistency. He believes altruism is not implied by the passages and can be accounted for in terms of egoism alone.
  

  
   

  O'Keefe gives us an outline of the problem of Egoism and Altruism in Epicurus. He says the normal definition of altruism means some sort of psychological and/or ethical self-sacrificing, and that Epicureanism must reject this conception right away.
  
  

  
   

  Mistis defines Epicurean altruism as "showing disinterested concern for one's friends." O'Keefe rejects this reading. With respect to the notion of altruism, he asks this central question: Is Epicurean friendship purely self-regarding, or is there any other-regarding element in it? He notes that Aristotle has a ready way out of this problem. For Aristotle, friendship is a part of one's own happiness. Aristotelian friendship might be self-interested, but it is not purely self-regarding. By self-regarding, O'Keefe means compatible with egocentrism and egoism. By self-interested, he means there is no value beyond personal utility. Other-regarding is compatible with self-interest and egocentrism, but not with egoism, as it recognizes value beyond instrumentality. O'Keefe argues that unlike Aristotelian friendship, Epicurean friendship must be purely self-regarding.
  

  
   

  O'Keefe's argument can be seen as an attempt to answer Hume's criticism of Epicurean ethics:
  

  
   

  "…every virtue or friendship is attended by a secret pleasure; whence they conclude that friendship and virtue could not be disinterested. But the fallacy is obvious: The virtuous sentiment or passion produces the pleasure, and does not arise from it. I feel pleasure in doing good for my friends because I love him; but I do not love him for the sake of that pleasure."
  

  
   

  O'Keefe says that for Epicurus, I love the friend for the sake of the pleasure that I get from him. There is no immediate liking of the friend or desire for his own good. In support of this view, he points to the general egoism that runs throughout Epicurean ethics and psychology. In support of this egoist reading he cites Cicero's Torquatus in De Finibus 1 23.
  

  
   

  ...He lays the very greatest stress upon that which, as he declares, Nature herself decrees and sanctions, that is the feelings of pleasure and pain. These he maintains lie at the root of every act of choice and avoidance.
  

  
   

  Again, note that these are later, hostile sources. Nevertheless, says O'Keefe, the passages as they stand can be consistently reconciled with Epicurean, self-regarding egoism. Security (i.e. freedom, self-sufficiency, etc.), says O'Keefe, both physical and intellectual, as well as protection from danger are the main reasons why friendship is valuable; it aids in cultivating ataraxia and aponia.
  

  
   

  But is friendship intrinsically valuable? Now it is O'Keefe's turn to consider Vatican Saying 23. He says Mistis makes Vatican Saying 23 the cornerstone of his interpretation, and Annas takes it as evidence that Epicurean friends feel "genuine other-concern." O'Keefe rejects this "other-regardingness" because of the incoherence it introduces; incoherence which he thinks can be avoided on the strictly egoistic reading.
  

  
   

  He offers 3 ways of reconciling the text to avoid the incoherence: First there is the FIP thesis, which stands for "Friendship is Inherently Pleasant". He notes, along with Evans, that the passage says "friendship" not "friend." The problem with the FIP thesis is that it is not directly evidenced by the text. It does not fit will with the first account of friendship given by Torquatus in De Finibus 1. It fits better with the second account of De Finibus 1 (the distributed fondness account), but it does not fit with the orthodox account. Moreover, the objects of desire are, for Epicurus, not choice-worthy for their own sake; only ataraxia and aponia have that status. There is also the fact that for Epicurus, mental pleasures are based on physical pleasures (again, this is only evidenced in hostile sources).
  

  
   

  Then there is the FCA thesis – Friendship is a Component of Ataraxia. It is suggested to reconcile Vatican Saying23 with egoism, which is attributed to Evans. Ataraxia is intrinsically valuable, though it might depend on aponia. Ataraxia is a psychic state of an individual, says Evans, and security and trust are essential parts of this psychic state.
  

  
   

  The third option is that one could assign Vatican Saying 23 to the "timid" later Epicureans. While FIP and FCA are both plausible (FCA more so than FIP), it is nevertheless unnecessary to postulate these theses if Vatican Saying23 is not a legitimate part of the Epicurean corpus. This seems ad hoc, but we know not all the Vatican Saying are from Epicurus himself, and that many are from later Epicureans. Again, O'Keefe cites Cicero's Torquatus in De Finibus as evidence. Since attributing Vatican Saying 23 to Epicurus makes him inconsistent, and some Vatican Sayings are from writers other than Epicurus himself, and we in fact know that there was a group of later Epicureans who would have endorsed Vatican Saying 23, then we can justifiably say that it was likely not original to Epicurus.
  

  
   

  Therefore, O'Keefe argues, Epicurus is egoistic. There are three ways of reconciling Vatican Saying 23 to his Indirect-Egoist reading, all of which he thinks are more plausible than the altruistic reading. Vatican Saying 23 is most likely later Epicureans. And even if it is Epicurus, the charge of inconsistency is handled by the FIP thesis and/or the FCA thesis.
  

  
   

  
   

1. Reconstruction – Epicureanism without the three fallacies.
   

   
    

   We have identified three fallacies common to interpretations of Epicureanism. The first fallacy, that of the summum bonum, shows that for Epicurus pleasure is not the summum bonum, but rather it is the telos. The summum bonum is life itself. Pleasure is the natural good, pain is the natural evil; but this only means that the goal of the good life is to live pleasurably without pain, to cultivate ataraxia and aponia. Aponia is cultivated through the security afforded by living in community with one's friends, and the avoidance of public life. Ataraxia is cultivated by contemplation and discussion with friends of the true philosophy, that philosophy which is not empty but relieves human suffering. The central lesson to take away from identifying the summum bonum fallacy is that for the Epicurean, the tranquility of ataraxia is based on the knowledge of one's own mortality, and the proper understanding of death as the consummation of life. Nothing is good to a dead man, therefore this life, this opportunity to live in pleasure and friendship, is the highest good.
   

   
    

   We have looked at the reasons why Epicurus denies the assumption of the metaphysical separation of virtue and pleasure. For Epicurus, the separation is an abstraction only; it is merely a useful way of talking, but it does not reflect actual reality. Virtue and pleasure are, for Epicurus, two ways of looking at or understanding the same thing; namely, ways to live well. The reason he places the emphasis on the pleasure aspect is because it is what is naturally good about living well; and since Nature, not reason, furnishes the norm and is the proper guide to the right way to live well, that which is natural is the true telos. Thus, the pleasurable aspect of virtue is the telos, because virtue is a joy. We would not act virtuously if it were not.
   

   
    

   We have looked at the apparent conflict between passages that seem to endorse altruism and those that seem to endorse egoism. I have argued that these two attitudes are not contradictory, thus to hold them both in a system of ethics does not entail inconsistency. Even the great Kant would agree that it is right and proper that we always treat friends as both means and ends, never purely as one or the other; and we have looked at the Epicurean textual evidence that supports this.
   

   
    

   We have also looked at the arguments presented by Evans and O'Keefe in support of a strict egoist reading of the Epicurean corpus. O'Keefe argues that the problematic passages can all be reconciled to an indirect egoist reading, while Evans argues the point even further to say that it must be, and indeed can be, reconciled to a direct egoist reading. It is my belief that both of these accounts are overly complicated and unnecessary. They are unnecessary because given the proper understanding of Epicureanism we can see that the inconsistency Cicero and Plutarch base their arguments on is based on a misunderstanding of the original texts, and in many cases is distorted by the translation from the Ancient Greek to Latin due to the lack of a Latin definite article like the English word "the." In other words, once the three fallacies are identified, no complicated reconciliation to strict egoism is necessary.
   

   
    

   Therefore, given that we reject the three fallacies, and given the principle of charity and Ockham's razor, we can conclude that the Epicurean corpus, including only those passages written by Epicurus and Epicureans and not the problematic passages of Cicero and Plutarch, is consistent as is, without any recourse to a complicated psychological or behaviorist reading such as that proposed by Evans and O'Keefe. It is a doctrine that recognizes that true friendship involves a natural sharing of pleasure and pain, that true friends always treat each other as both means and ends, and thus is both altruistic and egoistic. Friends aid each other in cultivating a shared community, where they may grow old together according to the true philosophy; the philosophy which is not empty, but which is wholly devoted to the alleviation of suffering and a life of immortal joy.
   

   
    

   
    

   
    

   Works Cited:
   

   
    

   Evans, M. Can Epicureans Be Friends? Ancient Philosophy 24 (2004). Mathesis Publications. Available free online at: http://web.me.com/evansmatt/Site/NYU_files/epicureanfriends.pdf. Electronic.
   

   O'Keefe, T. Is Epicurean Friendship Altruistic or Egoistic? Apeiron 34 pp.269-304. Electronic.
   

   DeWitt, N. Epicurus And His Philosophy. Oxford University Press. 1954. Print.
   

   Rist, J. Epicurus: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. 1972. Print.
   

   Rist, J. Epicurus on Friendship. Classical Philology, Vol.75 No.2. April 1980. Pp.121-129. University of Chicago Press. Available free online at: http://www.faculty.umb.edu/adam_beresford/courses/phil_381/1_epicurus_on_friendship.pdf. Electronic.
   

   Cicero. De Finibus, Benorum Et Malorum. Available free online at: http://www.archive.org/stream/definibusbonoru00cicegoog#page/n205/mode/1up. Electronic.
   

   Usener, H. Epicurea. Available free online at: http://www.epicurus.info/etexts/epicurea.html. Electronic.
   

   Epicurus. Extant Texts – Principal Doctrines, Vatican Sayings, Letters, Fragments, etc. Available free online at: http://www.epicurus.info/etexts.html. Electronic
   

   Inwood, B. Gerson, L. The Epicurus Reader. Hacket Publishing Company Inc. 1994. Print.
   

   Long. Sedley. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Cambridge University Press. 1987. Print
   

The Modern Epicurean

Epicurean philosophy is often characterized as having for its motto, carpe diem, seize the day. Take what you can from day to day, and try to maintain a stable level of enjoyment and freedom from too much suffering. Live in the now.

This is a false characterization.

Epicureanism is not a carpe diem philosophy. Let me explain why:

Friendship is the first and most important ingredient in the happy life.

Epicurus bought a big house and asked a bunch of his friends to move in with him. It was not enough for him to see friends casually like we usually do. He thought that to be real friends you have to be more permanent companions.

This reminds me a lot of the eco-village impulse my wife and I and a few of our close friends have had in the past, and still do to some extent. This might be partly why Epicurean philosophy appeals to me so much. He even thought that you should never eat alone if at all possible. It is more important to have someone to eat with than to have something to eat. Eating alone is the life of a lion or a wolf (clearly Epicurus didn't have the discovery channel, since neither of these species tend to dine alone but almost always in packs).

Second ingredient is freedom, to be financially independent. This means leaving the polis, so they started a commune. The life was simple, but they enjoyed their freedom, and where emotionally and intellectually independent.

The Third ingredient is to do philosophy and examine our life. We should take time to think things through. This will not only be pleasurable in itself, but also helps us to avoid suffering from ill-conceived plans and self deceptions. We need to step back and have some quiet time to think about what we really want, to reflect, to contemplate our life.

So if its all so easy, since these best things in life come quite cheap, then why are so many people unable to see how easy it is and just be happy? Epicurus says that this is the effect of the business of the polis. The City takes over our life, and in this state we can never be happy. If you are poor, but you have true friends and are self-sufficient, then you can still be happy. But if you have lots of money but no friends and are not self-sufficient, then you will not every be happy.

It is because of the epicurean communities that were founded all throughout the ancient world and which were widespread for some four centuries that we have access to any writings by Epicurus whatsoever. All of his three hundred books are lost. But his philosophy was so influential to so many people, that it has been passed down to us like a folk creed. It is present in the Kibutz,

We must also be reminded of the proper philosophy of life or we will forget. We are creatures of habit, and if we only read the philosophical arguments once or twice then we are still likely to be distracted by the problems and glamour and glittering vanity of the city. We need to counteract the effect of the city business and its advertising by creating opposing advertising that remind us of what we really do need. Diogenes built a wall inscribing the tenets of epicurean philosophy in the center of his town for just this purpose. He built the wall right next to the agora, so that even while citizens were out shopping, with all the advertisements of the bustling marketplace tempting them, they could be reminded that shopping will not make them happy. That no amount of money or luxury or entertainment will produce happiness, only philosophy can do that.

So Epicureans did their own form of advertising. But it was a form of subversive advertising; like Adbusters producing and anti TV ad for prime time. The epicurean advertisements did not try and sell anything, so much as try and remind people to live philosophically, not politically. The polemics were necessarily opposed to the entire idea of the city politics, but still engaged with it in this way and so was not entirely a-political.

Don't get them wrong. You could be happy with great wealth, a big fancy house and all the rest. But happiness doesn't come included. It doesn't say you won't be happy if you are materially rich, but happiness is not a consequence of wealth. Thus the old adage, "money doesn't buy happiness" is fitting.

Happiness may be difficult to attain, but the obstacles are not primarily financial.

It is ironic that the word 'epicurean' has become somewhat synonymous in its usual use with 'hedonist'. Epicureanism isn't hedonism in the usual sense.

He did not feel that intense pleasure was the goal of life, but rather ataraxia, or freedom from stress and anxiety. This view has certain implications.

Mental pleasure is of greater duration than physical pleasure, and is therefore more valuable. Active pleasures are things like eating when hungry and drinking when thirsty and resting when tired. Passive pleasures are things like enjoying freedom from pain. This avoidance of pain is really the most important thing. The goal is seeking freedom from stress by seeking long term pleasures that can be sustained throughout life. Epicurus would rather discuss philosophy or listen to music or research a scientific question than have an orgy or a feast or any other pleasure of excess.

The just life is full of the most disturbance, but the unjust life is full of the most disturbance.

The Epicurean Virtues

1. Temperance – Epicurean Hedonism

2. Courage – The wise man will not falter under torture and will die for his friends if need be.

3. Justice – Anti-Platonic doctrines. Social contract conception of justice. "The Justice of Nature is a covenant of advantage to the end that men shall not injure one another or be injured." Emphasis on social contract over political contract.

4. Honesty – Greatest of all the virtues. Parresia – freedom of speech. Fundamental right, recognized in the Athenian democracy of every citizen to speak his true opinion in the public assembly. Opposite of flattery or sycophancy. Connected to epicurean notion of frankness of speech. Expressed in Vatican Saying 29: "As for myself, I should prefer to practice the outspokenness demanded by the study of Nature and to issue the kind of oracles that are beneficial for all mankind, even if not a soul shall understand, rather than by falling into step with popular opinions to harvest the lush praise that falls from the favor of the multitude."

5. Faith – First philosophy in which faith plays an important role. Response to the deep skepticism of Pyrrho. Happiness must be based on the certainty of knowledge, not the belief in the impossibility of knowledge. Epicurus thus refers to Pyrrho as "incapable of either learning or being instructed", and is unapologetically dogmatic, saying that "the wise man will dogmatize and not be a doubter."

6. Altruism, Universal Love – philiathropia. Root of philanthropy. Requires the rejection of social class systems. Demands that one treat all persons as having been created equal. Roots in Hippocratic medicine, with it's saying, "where there is love of mankind there will be love of healing." This is connected to Epicurus own saying, "Vain is the word of the philosopher by which no malady of mankind is healed, for just as there is no benefit in the art of medicine unless it expels the diseases of men's bodies, so there is none in philosophy either unless it expels the malady of the soul." This is probably the source of Epicurus' discontent with Democritus, whom he saw as merely a natural scientist. Also evident in Vatican Saying 52: "Love goes whirling and dancing about the whole earth veritably shouting to us all to awake to the blessedness of the happy life." But this does not mean that Epicureans must be evangelical.

7. Friendship, Personal Love – See rough draft of essay on Epicurean friendship compared to Aristotelian friendship.

8. Suavity – generosity toward others. Source of pleasure and cultivator of friendship.

9. Considerateness – Roots in Aristotle: "The magnimonius man will make it his aim to give pleasure or not to cause pain, referring his actions to the standards of honor and expediency, for, as it seems, he concerns himself with the pleasures and pains that are incidental to social contracts." For the Epicurean, "holds in high regard as many people as possible." Necessary for the working of the social contract. A part of the working of justice.

10. Hope – proper orientation to the future. Engendered by loyalty in friendship.

11. Patience – proper orientation to the present. Engendered by temperance and hope.

12. Gratitude – proper orientation to the past. One of the greatest sources of pleasure, especially in old age. Also engendered by friendship and philosophical conversations past.

A Comparison of the Philosophies of Aristotle and Epicurus on the subject of Friendship

Aristotelian and Epicurean philosophy hold much in common. Epicurus was a student to the Peripatetic Praxiphanes. The influence is clearly shown in his philosophy, and the similarities are striking. Of course there are many sharp differences as well. On the subject of friendship, Aristotle and Epicurus held strikingly similar, but at the same time distinctly (change word) different views. In this essay I will attempt to make the similarities and differences clear by presenting reconstructed Aristotelian and Epicurean answers to four questions. What is friendship? What are its benefits? What are its obligations? And what role does it play in the good life?

Question One: What is Friendship?

Aristotle –

In Books 7 and 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is demonstrating how a virtuous life means in many ways a life with good friends. There are three reasons why we like particular people. We like that they are good people, we like that they are beautiful (rather shallow, but I suppose you could read it as deep beauty), or they are pleasant to be around. Of course there will be much overlap of these categories for liking someone, and we are likely to think of our friends in all of these terms if they are true friends.

Aristotle says that the three ways of liking someone correspond to three types of friendships. The 'perfect' friendship for Aristotle is when you like someone for being good, then you hang out and do good things together, and you yourself are good.

So when good people are doing good things together, and they like each other for it, this Aristotle calls a 'perfect' friendship.

Imperfect friendship on the other hand is much more common, and much more complicated. The imperfect friendships Aristotle deals with are those where neither person is perfectly good or virtuous, and where they are in a position of mutual gain. Thus, Aristotle sees the imperfect friendship as based ultimately on egoistic grounds. He notes though that such imperfect friendships can engender a lack of trust, envy, and often end badly in some kind of fight or falling out. Such friendships are in this way, According to Aristotle, defective.

So friends are only true friends in the fullest sense of the term when they genuinely want to do things together. But this is only perfect when each is at an equal stage in moral development.

A friend is someone who loves the other person for that person's own sake, and not merely for their own ego. This kind of desire for the sake of another not oneself he calls Good Will. Friendship is a relationship where each has good will for the other. The feeling is mutual and reciprocal. He says friends need to have good will for each other, and they each have to know that the other has the same feelings. For Aristotle it seems that only a friendship based on virtue, that is based on liking someone for being good as opposed to liking them for being pleasant or beautiful or conferring upon us some other form of advantage (egoistic). Friendships must be based on reciprocal good will, and this can only truly be expressed if the good will is based on wanting that person to be good for their own sake. In true friendship, there is not only good will, but also advantage and pleasure.

Friends are never treated as mere-means, but neither are they for us merely ends in the selves. They are both, and this is a consistent and compatible attitude.

We can only realistically have a small number of true friends. He says that this would be true even if we lived in a big city filled with virtuous people. You can only truly be friends with someone by spending a lot of time with them and doing a lot of things with them.

Thus time is a limiting factor. There are only so many hours in the day. Sure, in a city filled with virtuous people we could have good will toward everyone, and in all our interactions with them. But it would still be true that friends, since they know each other so well and each other's individual circumstances, that they would know better just how to help. But this only shows that it is advantageous to have friends because they can help better help you than can anonymous good will (because they know you better). But that can't be the reason for having friends, according to Aristotle, because that reason is in terms of personal advantage, which is egoistic and NOT based on good will to another. So why, for Aristotle, is it good to be on the giving end of a true friendship, as opposed to an anonymous good will relationship? Aristotle's answer is that we are able to perceive true friends more closely than anonymous virtuous people who are not our friends. And it is good to perceive virtue in friends closely because they are like our other selves. Close perception of virtue in another is better than not as close perception of virtue in strangers or fellow citizens or mere acquaintances. Why does closeness of perception matter so much?

Aristotle might have said that one couldn't be as virtuous or have occasion for as many virtuous activities if one had few or no friends. But then he says that it is better to be able to help a whole anonymously populated city than to help just one person (needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few). He does not believe that the best place for virtuous activity is in the home or in ones small community of close friends. He says that losing family and the small community of close friends would be tragic. This might be defended from ideas he brings out in the Politics (book 2) where he talks about the tragedy of the commons, and that when everyone cares for something, no one really cares for it. But when one person owns and cares for something, it is usually better cared for because they take personal responsibility for it, because they know that if they don't, then no one will.

Epicurus might have an answer here in his recommendation to forgo the public life. He simply would assert a different answer to Sartre's question, and say that it is better to help one person that to vaguely help an anonymous group. This is borne out in his philosophy, which comes to us not from Epicurus himself, but rather through to us from his friends who he helped live their lives (the letters, the garden, etc).

Aristotle is egoistic (maximize self-love) but only when it is seen to be egoism in service of the greater good (paradox?), Epicurus is Altruistic, but this necessarily begins in egoism (opposite paradox?).

Aristotle places the community ahead of the individual. The political community is prior to the individual.

Epicurus – A special relationship between two persons such that each shares in the joys and sufferings of the other, each is loyal to the other, they help each other (etymology of compassion – to suffer with).

Friendship is an immortal good. It is good above and beyond any practical benefits it may afford us. The gods have friendships with each other, but they do not need their friends for any practical reason, being as they are above and beyond practical necessities. The gods don't need their friends to protect them, to make them feel safe. The gods, by virtue of being gods, are perfectly secure. Yet it is still a pleasure for them to have and be friends. The pleasure of godly friendship is in contemplating the good of the friend and in conversation. It is this 'extra' good that makes friendship an immortal good, for it is a good even to an immortal god.

But, while the gods do not need friends for any practical purpose, Philodomus tells us that without friendship their happiness would nevertheless be less complete. Not incomplete, but less complete.

Friendship is one of the ways we can be like gods, because we can participate in the same kind of pleasure that they do. The gods have friends and so can we, we are alike in that manner. This also helps us relieve some measure of anxiety toward our fellows.

But for Epicurus, friendship begins in a desire on the part of both parties to fulfill certain needs, in particular the need to have security. Having a certain amount of personal safety is an essential part of the good life, because a feeling of safety helps in cultivating a tranquil state of mind.

Question Two: What are the benefits of friendship?

Aristotle – Aristotle says that Friends are good, because as a matter of brute fact, no one would want to live without friends.

Epicurus – Most direct route to ataraxia. Tranquility of mind. Pleasure of being secure in the hope you have for the future which is engendered by your trust in your friend such that you have faith in the knowledge of their loyalty, you know you can rely on them in the future if you need to. This makes you calm. In the present, friends are pleasant to share experiences with, conversation, eating, celebrating, etc. More important to have someone to eat with than to have something to eat. Of greatest value at the end of life because of the ability to be grateful for the memories of the good times with friends. Thus friendship is a virtue that cultivates the virtues of hope, patience and gratitude with respect to the future, present, and past. Security is the immediate good of friendship. But the immortal good of friendship is in the community of love that it helps to cultivate.

Question Three: What are the obligations of friendship?

Aristotle – True friends, for Aristotle, are obligated to help each other pursue virtuous activity. They are moreover obligated to help each other in their moral development. A friend helps a friend in the same way that he or she would help him or herself. This is why the key to understanding Aristotelian friendship is in its relation to self-love and self-care. It is a practical necessity for the achievement of eudemonia that we care for ourselves enough to overcome our bad habits and strive to be better persons. We are not perfect, but we can work towards perfection, and this working toward presupposes that we care about making ourselves better. Care is essential. Thus, when we extend our form of self-care to include another self/subject, i.e. a friend, we take an active interest in their moral development. So the brave man helps his witty, but cowardly friend improve by showing him how to be brave; and the witty, cowardly friend helps his brave but boorish friend by showing him how to be witty.

Epicurus – Complete loyalty. This means you will suffer when your friend suffers. Be willing to give things up for their benefit. Epicurus himself was said to be ready to die for his friends. This is the fully cultivated meaning of friendship in the epicurean

Question Four: What role does friendship play in the good life?

Aristotle – Friendship is the relationship you have with other people such that you can pursue virtuous activities together. They are a form of pseudo-self-love, insofar as a friend is another subject, they become identified with you to a certain extent so that you come to appreciate their subjectivity (awkward wording).

Epicurus – Essential ingredient. Friendship is one of the three. The other two are Freedom and Philosophy.

Conclusion:

The essential difference between Epicurus and Aristotle on this topic seems to be this: what exactly they take to be the summum bonum. Aristotle thinks it is the activity of virtue is the summum bonum, and that while such virtuous activity is accompanied by pleasure, the pleasure is merely a happy accident or bonus. Epicurus on the other hand takes the pleasure of virtuous activity to be the whole point of doing the activity in the first place. Pleasure, for him, is not merely a happy accident; it is the highest good itself. For Epicurus there just is no point to virtuous activity if it did not engender the pleasure that accompanies it. They both agree that in a sense, virtuous activity is coextensive with pleasure, and that it is inconceivable that a person could be virtuous and take no pleasure from his/her virtuous activity, nor that a person could take pleasure in vice.

Gratitude – Etymological study

Gratitude -

c.1500, from M.L. gratitudo "thankfulness," from L. gratus "thankful, pleasing"

Grateful – ODEE –

Pleasing; thankful xvi. F. grate (xvi) – L. gratus (in the same senses), pp. formation corr. To Skr. gurtas welcome, agreeable, thankful, orig. approved, re. to words of Indo-Iran. And Baltic groups denoting 'praise' (cf. GRACE, GRATIS); the unusual formation with –FUL may have been suggested by It. gradevole pleasing.

Grace –

late 12c., "God's favor or help," from O.Fr. grace "pleasing quality, favor, good will, thanks," from L. gratia "pleasing quality, good will, gratitude," from gratus "pleasing, agreeable," from PIE base *gwer- "to praise, welcome" (cf. Skt. grnati "sings, praises, announces," Lith. giriu "to praise, celebrate," Avestan gar- "to praise"). Sense of "virtue" is early 14c., that of "beauty of form or movement, pleasing quality" is mid-14c. In classical sense, "one of the three sister goddesses (L. Gratiæ, Gk. Kharites), bestowers of beauty and charm," it is first recorded in English 1579 in Spenser. The short prayer that is said before or after a meal (early 13c., until 16c. usually graces) is in the sense of "gratitude." Verb meaning "to show favor" (mid-15c.) led to that of "to lend or add grace to something" (1580s, e.g. grace us with your presence), which is the root of the musical sense in grace notes (1650s). Gracious as an exclamation (1713) is short for gracious God, etc.

Thank (verb) –

O.E. þancian "to give thanks," from P.Gmc. *thankojan (cf. O.S. thancon, O.N. þakka, Dan. takke, O.Fris. thankia, M.Du., Ger. danken "to thank"), from *thankoz "thought, gratitude," from PIE base *tong- "to think, feel." For sense evolution, cf. related O.E. noun þanc, þonc, originally "thought," but by c.1000 "good thoughts, gratitude." The whole group is from the same root as think (q.v.). In ironical use, "to blame," from 1560. Thankful is from O.E. þancfulle; thankless "likely to not be rewarded with thanks" is from c.1547. Thank you is attested from c.1400, short for I thank you. To thank (someone) for nothing is recorded from 1703.

Think –

O.E. þencan "conceive in the mind, think, consider, intend" (past tense þohte, p.p. geþoht), probably originally "cause to appear to oneself," from P.Gmc. *thankjan (cf. O.Fris. thinka, O.S. thenkian, O.H.G. denchen, Ger. denken, O.N. þekkja, Goth. þagkjan); O.E. þencan is the causative form of the distinct O.E. verb þyncan "to seem or appear" (past tense þuhte, pp. geþuht), from P.Gmc. *thunkjan (cf. Ger. dünken, däuchte). Both are from PIE *tong- "to think, feel" which also is the root of thought and thank. The two meanings converged in M.E. and þyncan "to seem" was absorbed, except for archaic methinks "it seems to me."

Ataraxia – Oxford Etymology Dictionary

Disorderliness; (path). Functional irregularity (see locomotor). Xvii. –modL. Ataxia(also used) – Gr. Ataxia, f.a-A-4+taxis order; see TACTIC, -Y3.

Tact – sense of touch xvii; B. faculty of mental perception; C. sens fo propriety, faculty of doing the right thing at the right time xviii. – O.F. tact or L. tactus touch (see TANGENT). In sence C immed. After F. tact (Voltaire 1769)

Tactics – art of deploying forces in battle. Xvii. Repr. modL. tactica (1616 in title of tr. Of AElien's 'Taktike Theoria') – Gr. Ta taktika, n.ppl. of taktikos, f. taktos ordered, arranged, f. base of tassein set in order.

Roadmap – Tim O’Keefe – Is Epicurean Friendship Altruistic?

 

 

O'Keefe's paper is concerned with rectifying apparently contradictory passages from what he takes to be the Epicurean corpus. O'Keefe says that many passages indicate and endorsement of psychological and ethical egoism and hedonism. This view is in opposition to others such as Mistis and Annas.

Mistis and Annas say that the problematic passages indicate an inconsistency in Epicurean ethics, altruism being incommensurate (in their view) with egoism.

O'Keefe rejects the diagnosis of inconsistency. He believes altruism is not implied by the passages and can be accounted for in terms of egoism alone.

Basic Structure of the Paper

Six Sections

1. Sharpening the title question. What do we mean by "altruistic", and what are the problematic passages?
   
2. General argument for a strictly egoistic reading of the Epicurean corpus.
   
3. Explanation of why friendship is valuable in egoistic Epicureanism.
   
4. Textual reconciliation: SV23
   
5. Textual reconciliation: DF 1
   
6. Textual reconciliation: other problematic passages, especially "die for a friend".
   

 

 

Part 1: Egoism and Altruism in Epicurus

The normal definition of altruism means some sort of psychological and/or ethical self-sacrificing. Epicureanism must reject this conception right away.

Mistis defines Epicurean altruism as "showing disinterested concern for one's friends."

O'Keefe rejects this reading also. With respect to the notion of altruism, he asks this central question: Is Epicurean friendship purely self-regarding, or is there any other-regarding element in it?

He notes that Aristotle has a ready way out of this problem. For Aristotle, friendship is a part of my own happiness. Aristotelian friendship might be self-interested, but it is not purely self-regarding.

Self-Regarding: Compatible with egocentrism and egoism. Self-interested. No value beyond instrumentality.

Other-Regarding: Compatible with self-interest and egocentrism, but not with egoism. Recognizes value beyond instrumentality.

O'Keefe argues that unlike Aristotelian friendship, Epicurean friendship must be purely self-regarding.

He notes Hume's criticism of Epicurean ethics:

"…every virtue or friendship is attended by a secret pleasure; whence they conclude that friendship and virtue could not be disinterested. But the fallacy is obvious: The virtuous sentiment or passion produces the pleasure, and does not arise from it. I feel pleasure in doing good for my friends because I love him; but I do not love him for the sake of that pleasure."

But I don't see how Epicurus necessarily commits the fallacy Hume charges him with. Why do we assume, first of all, that the pleasure attended by friendship and virtue is "secret"? Why can't it be a shared pleasure? Pleasure for Epicurus is ataraxia and aponia, which do not necessarily have to be personal. Sitting quietly in the garden with a friend, my peace of mind is your peace of mind, we share in the tranquility.

O'Keefe says that for Epicurus, I love the friends for the sake of the pleasure that I get from him. There is no immediate linking of the friend or desire for his own good.

 

 

Part 2: Why to Presume that Epicurean Friendship is Egoistic

O'Keefe begins by pointing to the general egoism that runs throughout Epicurean ethics and psychology. Cites Cicero's Torquatus in DF 1 23. Again, note that these are later, hostile sources. Nevertheless, says O'Keefe, the passages as they stand can be consistently reconciled with Epicurean, self-regarding egoism.

 

Part 3: Why is Friendship Valuable for Epicureans?

Security (freedom, self-sufficiency, etc.), both physical and intellectual. Protection from danger.

Helps to cultivate ataraxia and aponia.

 

Part 4: Is Friendship Intrinsically Valuable?

This section deals with SV23.

O'Keefe says Mistis makes SV23 the cornerstone of his interpretation, and Annas takes it as evidence that Epicurean friends feel "genuine other-concern."

O'Keefe rejects this "other-regardingness" because of the incoherence it introduces; incoherence which he thinks can be avoided on the strictly egoistic reading.

He offers 3 ways of reconciling the text to avoid the incoherence:

1. FIP thesis – Friendship is Inherently Pleasant. Notes that the passage says "friendship" not "friend." Friendship can be both a kinetic and a katastematic pleasure. The problem with this view is that it is not directly evidenced by the text. FIP thesis does not fit will with the first account of friendship given by Torquatus in DF 1. It fits better with the second account of DF 1 (the distributed fondness account), but it doesn't fit with the orthodox account. Moreover, the objects of desire are, for Epicurus, not choice-worthy for their own sake; only ataraxia and aponia are. There is also the fact that for Epicurus mental pleasures are based on physical pleasures (again, this is only evidenced in hostile sources).
   
2. FCA thesis – Friendship is a Component of Ataraxia. Suggested to reconcile SV23 with egoism. Attributed to Evans. Ataraxia is intrinsically valuable, though it might depend on aponia. Ataraxia is a psychic state of an individual, says Evans, and security and trust are essential parts of this psychic state.
   
3. Assigning SV23 to the "timid" later Epicureans. While FIP and FCA are both plausible (FCA more so than FIP), it is nevertheless unnecessary to postulate these theses if SV23 is not a legitimate part of the Epicurean corpus. Seems ad hoc, but we know not all the SV are from Epicurus himself, many are from later Epicureans. Again, O'Keefe cites Cicero's Torquatus in DF as evidence. Since attributing SV23 to Epicurus makes him inconsistent, and some SV are from writers other than Epicurus himself, and we in fact know that there was a group of later Epicureans who would have endorsed SV23, then we can justifiably say that SV23 was likely not original to Epicurus.
   

So Epicurus is egoistic. There are three ways of reconciling SV23. All of these ways are more plausible than the altruistic reading. SV23 is most likely later Epicureans. And even if it is Epicurus, the charge of inconsistency is handled by the FIP thesis and/or the FCA thesis.

 

Part 5: DF 1 – Egoistically loving your friend as much as you love yourself.

First O'Keefe looks at the first account of friendship given by Torquatus in DF 1. Three reasons why the passage is worth looking at:

1. Extended argument given, not just aphorisms.
   
2. One of the most altruistic of Epicurean passages.
   
3. Original, orthodox view. Not revisionist.
   

 

The argument runs:

1. Friend's pleasures are not desired by us as much as our own, but
   
2. Friendship is necessary for attaining the greatest pleasure for ourselves.
   
3. Friendship requires us to love our friends equally to ourselves, on egoistic grounds.
   
4. Therefore, the wise man will feel exactly the same toward his fiend as toward himself, exert as much for his friend's pleasure as his own.
   

 

1. Seeming problems:
   

• Appears to be internal contradiction
  
• Must be either equal or not equal, cannot be both (LNC).
  
• So is it possible on egoistic grounds to cultivate a disinterested love of others?
  
• This would not strictly speaking be a contradiction, buyt it would certainly be psychologically tricky.
  
• No, says O'Keefe. The egoistic motive undercuts disinterested love. It makes in not genuine. This is Cicero's objection, given in DF 2 78.
  
• The Epicurean sage here suffers from a case of doublethink.
  
• So, either the position describes inconsistent ends or inconsistent motives.
  

  
   

1. Reasons internal to the passage for egoism.
   

• Principal of charity demands that we not attribute a blatant contradiction within the first two lines of the argument.
  
• "All that has been said about the essential connection of the virtues with pleasure must be repeated about friendship." Says Torquatus, DF 1 68.
  
• Comparison suggests that friendship, like virtue, is only valuable instrumentally.
  
• Friendship, however, cannot be divorced from pleasure.
  
• There may be "other-regardingness" psychologically, but not ethically.
  
• Strong contrast with first account.
  

 

1. Reconciliation: How to love others equally as oneself on egoistic grounds.
   

• How do we reconcile equal valuing with non-equal valuing? The first demands other-regarding, while the second demands self-regarding.
  
• O'Keefe offers a psychological behavioral account. Indirect egoism. What is expressed in (2) and (4) is a policy of action, not desire.
  

Desires are egoistically determined, but actions are determined by desires.