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Toward A Better Understanding of Epicurean Justice And Injustice (With Examples of "Just" and "Unjust")

  • Don
  • March 21, 2021 at 9:34 PM
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  • Matt
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    • April 11, 2021 at 7:59 AM
    • #101

    Wow! This is a long interesting thread.

    I’m just going to comment on the latter part of “doing no harm”.

    In my opinion the doing of harm relates to intention. But purely the intention of harming someone outside of personal self-defense or preservation. As in assaulting or murdering an innocent person, defrauding them, slandering them...basically hurting the other for the sake of it or for your own benefit.

    Any act of self defense and the intention of defending yourself would fall outside the realm of doing harm, since defending yourself or a loved one is a “natural” act that is in accord with nature. So having a .38 in your nightstand and training to use it is intentional to DO HARM, but since the intention is based in self-defense and that act is natural it would seem to be entirely just.

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    Cassius
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    • April 11, 2021 at 8:36 AM
    • #102

    Yes I agree that parsing the meaning of "harm" by looking to see what words Epicurus used is an important part of this discussion.

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    Don
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    • April 11, 2021 at 1:02 PM
    • #103

    Matt Your comments highlight exactly the points I'm trying to wrap my brain around. It seems to me that Epicurus is making the distinction you're looking at but taking the opposite tack:

    He seems to consistently use βλάπτειν (blaptein) to convey "harm" but that seems to be not wilfully http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?do…8:entry=bla/ptw

    That word appears to be the opposite of αδικέω literally "not act unjustly" or to do wrong http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l…ptw&i=1#lexicon

    Epicurus seems to be trying to take the motivation out of it from my reading. That's why he has to define "justice" as "not doing harm and not being harmed" regardless of the motivation of the actor.

    Still struggling... Open to ideas!

  • Godfrey
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    • April 11, 2021 at 3:55 PM
    • #104

    Reading Matt's post #101 brings to mind PD14 and how that might relate to this discussion. I'm not sure how that might be, just putting it out there :/

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    Cassius
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    • April 11, 2021 at 4:12 PM
    • #105

    Yes I DEFINITELY think it's relevant. Two notes:

    (1) I edited Godfrey's post to put a link to make PD14 a link to the text.

    (2) And that reminds me that it would be very easy to add the PD's into the "lexicon" feature so that every time someone rights PDXX the text is converted into a link into that exact text. That would be a neat use of the Lexicon that had escaped me! I'll test that out and we'll see.

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    Don
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    • November 2, 2021 at 10:47 PM
    • #106
    Quote from Godfrey

    Reading Matt's post #101 brings to mind PD14 and how that might relate to this discussion. I'm not sure how that might be, just putting it out there :/

    One reason I'm posting here is to bump this back up the list of active threads. I don't think we're anywhere near exhausting this issue. I also wanted to refer back to my own interpretation/translation of PD14 to reply to Godfrey 's post above. Here's the link to the thread and my translation (click the phrase).

    If you look at Nathan's translation compilation, you'll see DeWitt uses "dynastic protection" but I think that is just incorrect (Sorry, Norman). The Greek is δυνάμει but dynastic seems to be more related to δυνάστης with a sigma after the alpha (noted). I have great respect for DeWitt's scholarship, but I'm not convinced of his "dynastic protection" here. It seems to be more related to an individual's power to repel aggression/harm. Which, I agree with Godfrey, related to the idea of "neither harm nor be harmed" in some way... and that is related to the idea of what it means to be "just" in Epicurean philosophy. We really have to wrestle with PD31 through maybe the end and PD40. There a LOT to sift through there!!

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    Don
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    • November 3, 2021 at 10:01 PM
    • #107
    Epicurean Justice and Law
    This dissertation concerns a cluster of related issues surrounding the Epicurean conception of justice. First, I show that the Epicureans defend a…
    repository.upenn.edu

    I certainly haven't read this entire PhD dissertation, but I was intrigued by the title in light of this thread

    I also hadn't heard of the author before: Jan Maximilian Robitzsch

    Epicurean Justice and Law

    Abstract

    This dissertation concerns a cluster of related issues surrounding the Epicurean conception of justice. First, I show that the Epicureans defend a sophisticated kind of social contract theory and maintain a kind of legal positivism, views that are widely held today and so are of continuing interest for contemporary readers. In doing so, I argue that thinking about justice and law forms an integral part of Epicurean philosophy (pace the standard view). Second, I take up some neglected issues regarding justice and so provide detailed accounts of the metaphysics of moral properties in Epicureanism as well as of Epicurean moral epistemology.

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    Cassius
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    • November 4, 2021 at 9:15 AM
    • #108

    Yes that does sound interesting. I gather "legal positivism" refers generally to the view that laws are created by people and not thought to be "natural law" or "absolute" so that would seem right to me, as would the view that justice is an integral part of the philosophy.

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    Don
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    • November 4, 2021 at 9:33 AM
    • #109

    Legal Positivism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

    I found it interesting that Bentham is mentioned in the history section.

  • Cassius August 19, 2023 at 6:04 PM

    Moved the thread from forum Justice In Epicurean Philosophy to forum Justice.
  • Pacatus
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    • November 14, 2024 at 2:02 PM
    • #110

    On re-reading this whole thread, I have some (possibly disjointed) thoughts:

    1. Maybe we should allow all the meaning possibilities of δίκαιος, and allow our translation/understanding to rest on context (such as “justice” or “civilized behavior” or …). The same for the concept of justice itself: it is not synonymous with broader terms such as “rightness” or “moral” (which I generally take in a social context, as opposed to ethics – but sometimes they are treated as synonymous). And I think the appropriate limits of that term, in line with Epicurean philosophy, are well-delineated here.
    2. Along the lines of Cassius reference to “malum in se” (or “bonum in se”), I think there can be some provisional Epicurean affirmation of something like those notions (excluding idealisms such as Plato’s or Kant’s). And I suggest appeal can be made to prolepsis.
    3. We have talked about prolepsis as an innate ability for pattern recognition. But I think that is too narrow. I have used “intuition” – as “a. the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference; and b. immediate apprehension or cognition.” (Merriam-Webster)
    4. Although that faculty will vary individually, I take it as an innate hereditary ability across humanity – as much as the other criteria for knowledge: sensation and feeling. Perhaps evolutionarily. And I think there are broadly common (though not absolute or universal) prolepseis (which themselves may give rise to pathe) including moral questions – e.g., the raping of an infant. Even in a group that had no “justice compact” regarding that behavior. And I don’t think that is strictly a matter of an individual’s proclivity for pleasure or choice-worthiness.
    5. Therefore, prolepsis could provide a natural foundation for some common perspectives on what people might think of as “malum in se” or “bonum in se” – without any appeal to idealisms. Universal/absolute? No. But a broad generality based on a commonly evolved faculty.

    All of this really came in a rush of mental “hypertexting,” so might not be so carefully laid out … :P

    _________________________

    Aside: There was some discussion about how broad a community/society might be appropriate to consider – e.g. the polis, the nation, etc. I would suggest that, in our highly connected modern world, the old Stoic idea of kosmopolites is not totally out of bounds: trying to hide out with your select group of friends – or even a metaphorically walled-in nation state – may not, ultimately, offer all that much security. And I’m not much into being a bread-and-water-in-a-cave survivalist. X/

    "We must try to make the end of the journey better than the beginning, as long as we are journeying; but when we come to the end, we must be happy and content." (Vatican Saying 48)

    Edited 4 times, last by Pacatus (November 14, 2024 at 4:50 PM).

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    Don
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    • November 16, 2024 at 2:48 AM
    • #111

    I think I've mentioned this before in this thread, but to update:

    The apparent innate ability in psychological experiments of babies and animals to identify fairness seems to me to be connected with the idea that there is a prolepsis of justice or just behavior.

    PD31 through PD33 have always seemed to me to emphasize the fact that the book Principal Doctrines was not divided into tidy "sayings" but rather topical sections. 31-33 to me have always read as one unit (Saint-Andre translation with my own edits):

    31. Natural justice is a covenant for mutual benefit, to neither willfully harm one another nor to be willfully harmed. With regard to those animals that do not have the power of making a covenant to neither harm one another nor to be harmed, there is neither justice nor injustice; similarly for those peoples who have neither the power nor the desire of making a covenant to not harm one another or be harmed. Justice does not exist in itself; instead, it is always a compact to not harm one another nor to be harmed, which is agreed upon by those who gather together at some time and place.

    τὸ τῆς φύσεως δίκαιόν ἐστι σύμβολον τοῦ συμφέροντος εἰς τὸ μὴ βλάπτειν ἀλλήλους μηδὲ βλάπτεσθαι. ὅσα τῶν ζῴων μὴ ἐδύνατο συνθήκας ποιεῖσθαι τὰς ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ βλάπτειν ἄλληλα μηδὲ βλάπτεσθαι, πρὸς ταῦτα οὐθὲν ἦν δίκαιον οὐδὲ ἄδικον· ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ τῶν ἐθνῶν ὅσα μὴ ἐδύνατο ἢ μὴ ἐβούλετο τὰς συνθήκας ποιεῖσθαι τὰς ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ βλάπτειν μηδὲ βλάπτεσθαι. οὐκ ἦν τι καθʼ ἑαυτὸ δικαιοσύνη, ἀλλʼ ἐν ταῖς μετʼ ἀλλήλων συστροφαῖς καθʼ ὁπηλίκους δήποτε ἀεὶ τόπους συνθήκη τις ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ βλάπτειν ἢ βλάπτεσθαι.

    To me, there is an inherent connotation of willful harm being done to or by people. I realize that's maybe common sense but Epicurus is not saying we should never come to harm, either by chance or accident or neglect or something else. Δίκαιος to me conveys the need for intentionality by either party involved within a social context. If a wild animal attacks you, there is no justice or injustice. If you are hurt in a hurricane, there is no justice or injustice. However, if a person lies in wait or plots hurting you and carries that out, that's when Justice can be brought into the discussion.

  • Pacatus
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    • November 18, 2024 at 4:31 PM
    • #112

    Don

    From Aioz and Boeri:

    “The normative or regulative function of the Epicurean political model is embodied in the preconception of the just.”

    [I’m nearly ¼ through the book. So, much more to wade through.]

    "We must try to make the end of the journey better than the beginning, as long as we are journeying; but when we come to the end, we must be happy and content." (Vatican Saying 48)

  • Pacatus
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    • November 20, 2024 at 4:35 PM
    • #113

    I have finished Aioz and Boeri’s Theory and Practice in Epicurean Political Philosophy: Security, Justice and Tranquility. These are my personal thoughts:

    Despite the extensive lacunae in the received Epicurean literature; despite the anti-Epicurean slanders of such as Cicero, Plutarch and Epictetus; and despite those slanders having been accepted by many modern scholars – even those sympathetic to Epicurean philosophy, even those attracted to it – despite all that, there is an identifiable, if bare-bones and subject-to-personal-adaptation, foundation for socio-political activity in Epicureanism based on social compacts against harm, with considerations of justice and equity.

    And, for me, that brings some “peace of mind” (ataraxia). Here’s why –

    It made me realize that there is a cogent philosophical, socio-ethical counter to (a) Platonic illusionism, (b) Stoic virtue-flogging, (c) divine-command superstition and (d) perhaps especially in my case, Kantian duty-mongering (his metaphysics of morality) other than the “moral noncognitivism” that I briefly embraced.

    My socio-political activities now are much reduced, compared to my years before retreat-to-the-country retirement – or subsequent late-life move back to more urban environs – mostly voting and occasional voice. I can look back on those years without thinking they are wedded to delusive aberrations vis-a-vis Epicureanism. Or reflecting an unrecognized moral noncognitivism. Although I certainly didn’t know it at the time, they seem perfectly in accord with Epicurean notions of social justice/equity – rooted, perhaps in prolepsis, but also subject to rational analysis.

    And, as I say, that brings me some peace of mind.

    I recommend Aioz and Boeri unreservedly (though it is a bit of a scholarly slog).

    Thank you for bearing with me … :)

    _________________________________

    LATE ADDENDUM: I want to add that, far from any criticism (express or implied) for those who choose lathe bios and general escape from the political vicissitudes and social turmoils, I heartily affirm that choice. It has been mine for much of my post-middle-age life – and mostly still is. I am not anti-social, but do live much of the time as a quasi-recluse. <3

    "We must try to make the end of the journey better than the beginning, as long as we are journeying; but when we come to the end, we must be happy and content." (Vatican Saying 48)

    Edited 2 times, last by Pacatus (November 20, 2024 at 5:50 PM).

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