Is the Natural and Necessary Question Objective or Subjective?

One of the topics that came up in our zoom discussion of 11/20/22 was how Emily Austin sets forth the "detective" question in chapter 3 of "Living for Pleasure." Part of the issue discussed there is whether the question of whether someone is happy should be answered "subjectively" or "objectively."

In my mind I relate this to the "natural and necessary" question as to the desires. Is the question of "natural and necessary" to be answered "objectively" (everyone should shoot for the same things in life) or "subjectively" (the question of whether a think is natural or necessary for that person is largely subjective to be answered by that person alone and not by reference to a pre-existing list that applies to everyone.

One thing that bears on this is how Epicurus qualifies the question in the letter to Menoeceus:

Quote

We must consider that of desires some are natural, others vain, and of the natural some are necessary and others merely natural; and of the necessary some are necessary for happiness, others for the repose of the body, and others for very life.

So while it might be tempting to say that things like air, water, food, etc. are what he is referring to as the "natural and necessaries" it is not at all clear whether those are necessary and sufficient for happiness as well as life itself.

Another thing that bears on this for me is how this is expressed in Torquatus:

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Hence only the Wise Man, who prunes away all the rank growth of vanity and error, can possibly live untroubled by sorrow and by fear, content within the bounds that nature has set. Nothing could be more useful or more conducive to well-being than Epicurus's doctrine as to the different classes of the desires. One kind he classified as both natural and necessary, a second as natural without being necessary, and a third as neither natural nor necessary; the principle of classification being that the necessary desires are gratified with little trouble or expense; the natural desires also require but little, since nature's own riches, which suffice to content her, are both easily procured and limited in amount; but for the imaginary desires no bound or limit can be discovered.

I used to focus on the "nothing could be more useful or conducive" as a meaning "this was a unique and innovative idea of Epicurus - to analyze things according to whether they are natural and necessary - that no one had suggested before.

Now I am thinking that we ought to consider at the same time (1) the question Austin has raised about the subjective or objective measures of happiness, and (2) the observation that Aristotle (and presumably others) had apparently been talking about an objective lists of things (including money, etc) that are necessary for a happy life.

And if we combine those two observations then maybe what Torquatus was referring to as innovative and important about Epicurus was not that he was the first or most important person to suggest that we needed to think about the categories of "natural and necessary," but that instead he innovation was that Epicurus was saying that the "natural and necessary question itself is largely subjective rather than objective." If so, that would help explain why we don't seem to have Epicurus (or other later Epicurean writers who are better preserved) dwelling on list of specific and objective "things" that are needed for happiness. Maybe the point we need to understand in the natural and necessary question is not that we need to prepare a specific checklist like Aristitotle and be sure we check the boxes, but rather we need to recognize that "the principle of the classification" is not looking to gods or to ideal forms for the list, but simply looking to whether the "desires [can be] gratified with little trouble or expense or ... are easily procured and limited in amount ... or whether they are such that .... no bound or limit can be discovered."

Which would not be to say that we should only pursue the desires that are easiest to obtain, but which would be to say something like:

When deciding what to pursue, don't look for an objective list that applies to everyone as such a list existed and was handed down by God or by Platonic forms. Look instead simply to your own circumstances, evaluate how hard it is going to be to obtain those desires, and measure your decision on whether to pursue them by asking whether the reward to you will be worth the cost to you.

As it is, many of us seem trapped in the Aristotelian model and think that there must be a list that everyone has to check off in order to be happy. The way out of that trap is to realize that no such single list exists. And so we should reject the "objective" natural and necessary analysis that Aristotle and other pre-Epicurean Greeks had suggested, and instead substitute the Epicurean natural and necessary model, which is primarily subjective.

I agree Charles.

Also, glancing back at my first post in the thread I want to add make clear that part of the reason for posting is to note that as people here get time to read Nichomachean ethics or works by Plato or others, it would be bring out and discuss any discussions that sounds like "natural and necessary" to which Epicurus could be responding / commenting.

Quote from Don

I would say the "list" has both objective and subjective aspects.

I agree. The takeaway is probably that even though Epicurus' list can be looked at as having both objective and subjective qualities, the way the list is described and developed Aristotle's (and the others") list takes on a much more "objective" quality, while Epicurus' viewpoint is weighted toward pointing out the "subjective" qualities.

This would be one of the many differences that flows from Aristotle/Plato/Stoics seeing the universe as divinely ordered with everything emanating from a prime mover or god or divine fire. In contrast, Epicurus sees the universe as arising from the properties and qualities of the individual atoms and void, without a superimposed central intelligence creating it and ruling over it.

Do living beings need to look to a superior being higher than themselves for commandments on how to live life? Epicurus says "no" - there are no commandments, but it's also not "anything goes." There are "objective" facts of nature which we have to take into account in deciding how to live, such facts including:

1. No supernatural beings exist.
2. No consciousness / life / reward / punishment after death
3. No guidance from Nature as to what to choose or avoid other than (very broadly stated) the feelings of pleasure and pain.
4. No Platonic forms or Aristotelian essences or absolute virtue / right / wrong exist in the abstract that apply to everyone all the time and in all circumstances. ("Yellow" does not have an eternal unchanging existence apart from "things that are yellow.")

Those are among the facts that can be thought of as De Rerum Natura (or Humphries' "The Way Things Are") that no one can change, while most other "facts" are "subjective" - they are individual to our circumstances and are subject to constant change and have to be reevaluated every step along the way.

Quote from Godfrey

He determined the virtues by having a team study philosophies from around the world and from various eras for commonality, and from that compiled a list of "universal" virtues.

That is exactly the kind of method of determining a standard that I have heard attributed to Aristotle.

I may be posting this in the wrong place but I remember that at the very least Don and/or Godfrey and I were asking what precedent might have existed for the natural and necessary distinctions before Epicurus. A friend has today pointed us toward the following excerpts from Plato, for which I am very appreciative!

Republic 8: 558d-559d

Here's the Perseus.tufts.edu link for the full context: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/…book%3D8%3Asection%3D558d

[558c] if only he says that he loves the people!1” “It is a noble2 polity, indeed!” he said. “These and qualities akin to these democracy would exhibit, and it would, it seems, be a delightful3 form of government, anarchic and motley, assigning a kind of equality indiscriminately to equals and unequals alike!4” “Yes,” he said, “everybody knows that.”

“Observe, then, the corresponding private character. Or must we first, as in the case of the polity, consider the origin of the type?” “Yes,” he said. “Is not this, then, the way of it? Our thrifty5 oligarchical man

[558d] would have a son bred in his father's ways.” “Why not?” “And he, too, would control by force all his appetites for pleasure that are wasters and not winners of wealth, those which are denominated unnecessary.” “Obviously.” “And in order not to argue in the dark, shall we first define1 our distinction between necessary and unnecessary appetites2?” “Let us do so.” “Well, then, desires that we cannot divert or suppress may be properly called necessary,

[558e] and likewise those whose satisfaction is beneficial to us, may they not? For our nature compels us to seek their satisfaction.

[559a] Is not that so ?” “Most assuredly.” “Then we shall rightly use the word ‘necessary’ of them?” “Rightly.” “And what of the desires from which a man could free himself by discipline from youth up, and whose presence in the soul does no good and in some cases harm? Should we not fairly call all such unnecessary?” “Fairly indeed.” “Let us select an example of either kind, so that we may apprehend the type.1” “Let us do so.” “Would not the desire of eating to keep in health and condition and the appetite

[559b] for mere bread and relishes1 be necessary?” “I think so.” “The appetite for bread is necessary in both respects, in that it is beneficial and in that if it fails we die.” “Yes.” “And the desire for relishes, so far as it conduces to fitness?” “By all means.” “And should we not rightly pronounce unnecessary the appetite that exceeds these and seeks other varieties of food, and that by correction2 and training from youth up can be got rid of in most cases and is harmful to the body and a hindrance to the soul's attainment of

[559c] intelligence and sobriety?” “Nay, most rightly.” “And may we not call the one group the spendthrift desires and the other the profitable,1 because they help production?” “Surely.” “And we shall say the same of sexual and other appetites?” “The same.” “And were we not saying that the man whom we nicknamed the drone is the man who teems2 with such pleasures and appetites, and who is governed by his unnecessary desires, while the one who is ruled

[559d] by his necessary appetites is the thrifty oligarchical man?” “Why, surely.”

“To return, then,” said I, “we have to tell how the democratic man develops from the oligarchical type. I think it is usually in this way.” “How?” “When a youth, bred in the illiberal and niggardly fashion that we were describing, gets a taste of the honey of the drones and associates with fierce1 and cunning creatures who know how to purvey pleasures of every kind and variety2 and condition, there you must doubtless conceive is the beginning

[559e] of the transformation of the oligarchy in his soul into democracy.” “Quite inevitably,” he said. “May we not say that just as the revolution in the city was brought about by the aid of an alliance from outside, coming to the support of the similar and corresponding party in the state, so the youth is revolutionized when a like and kindred1 group of appetites from outside comes to the aid of one of the parties in his soul?” “By all means,” he said. “And if, I take it, a counter-alliance2 comes to the rescue of the oligarchical part of his soul, either it may be from his father