Epicurean teaching is designed to combat two key cults that dominated the ancient world: the fear of the gods and the fear of death. Epicurus’s appreciation of physics dispels these anxieties, by arguing that the universe consists of atoms in a void, thus bearing no effect on us. Epicurus’s ethics follows from this naturalistic approach, as we reflect on these conditions and then cultivate our wisdom on the basis of our discoveries. This allows us to attain a more authentic life, entering a state of ataraxia, shunning our empty desires. I will argue that although the relation is intuitive, when considered in light of Nussbaum’s medicine model there are some problems.
Epicurus is typically portrayed as a hedonist, as his teaching centres on
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Instead, the elementary sensations of pleasure and pain are the fundamental guides for us, as this is what we are attracted to and repelled by. He argues that this is manifest empirically as we can observe it in the animal world where pleasure is pursued and pain is avoided. Therefore, nature and intelligence are not in conflict with one another, as pleasure is the natural end. This is “our first innate good, and this is our starting point for every choice and avoidance… we come to this by judging every good by the criterion of feeling.” (Epicurus, 1994:30) Epicurus focuses on the good in the sense that pleasure is the good of all goods because we desire it. This is clear through our immediate experience as we cannot desire or fear anything that would not invoke a feeling of pleasure and pain. Although Epicurus uses intuitive reasoning, his argument could be seen as problematic, as it doesn’t show us why we ought to follow pleasure. However, this isn’t detrimental, as the only sense of the desirable we have is the one that we observe and is therefore necessary to see what people actually do desire. As Mill notes “the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.” (Mill,
Hedonism is a theory of morality. There are several popular philosophers who support hedonism; some of whom offer their own interpretation of the theory. This paper will focus on the Epicurean view. Epicurus, a Greek philosophers born in 341 B.C., generated a significant measure of controversy amongst laymen and philosophical circles in regards to his view of the good life. Philosophers whom teachings predate Epicurus’ tended to focus on the question of “How can human beings live a good, morally sound, life?” Epicurus ruffled feathers and ultimately expanded the scope of philosophy by asking “What makes people happy?”
On February 2nd, 2016, in trial of the Odysseus, the jury found the defendant guilty of both counts of unjustifiable first degree murder. While both sides of the trial had differing points, the defense had an overall weak and unconvincing case while the prosecution provided strong evidence of these unjustifiable murders using a variety of persuasive techniques.
Epictetus started his life as a Roman slave who was owned by a man named Epaphroditus. He became a free man after his master was killed. During the years of his slavery he was allowed to go to philosophy lectures and as such, became a philosopher himself. Epictetus followed what is called Stoic tradition. A man going from a slave to a philosopher in the course of his lifetime is no small feat. His time as a slave surely gave Epictetus a different and unknown picture into the human condition.
Epicurus’s Death argument is very simple, and thus can be hard to refute. The basic premise is that is that no one feels any pain while they are dead, thus being dead is not a painful experience, so being dead is not bad for the one who is dead. My goal for this paper is to prove how those premises fails. In section 1 I will explain in greater detail Epicurus’s argument, in section 2 I will attack those arguments citing various theoretical examples, and in section 3 I will defend my attacks against potential rebuttals.
However ,the hauntings stopped once an old friend of Sethe’s from Sweet Home, Paul D, shows up on her doorstep one afternoon. Paul D plans on a new beginning with Sethe vowing to take care of her saying, “We can make a life” (55). Things do not go as planned when a girl shows up on their doorstep named Beloved. The name Beloved has significant meaning because when Sethe buries her daughter that was all she was able to get on the headstone. The life Paul D has in mind is disrupted as the the ladies begin to put together connections that Beloved just might be the baby who is murdered in the past. Sethe and Denver become attached to Beloved because of her absence from their life for so long. However, Beloved is only obsessed with the thought
The 1966 Supreme Court case of Miranda v. Arizona marked a watershed moment in American legal history, centering on the rights of the accused and the protection of individual liberties. The cause of this case was the story of Ernesto Miranda, a twenty-four-year-old Hispanic man who was accused of kidnapping and raping an eighteen-year-old in Phoenix, Arizona on March 3, 1963. Following his arrest on March 13, 1963, Miranda found himself enduring interrogation for two hours without being made aware of his rights. This ignited a debate throughout the Arizona Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. The creation that emerged out of this case altered the landscape of the criminal justice system; the creation of Miranda Rights.
Epicurus. The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1994. Translated and Edited by Brad Inwood and L.P. Gerson.
For millennia, human beings have pondered the existence of supreme beings. The origin of this all-too-human yearning for such divine entities stems in part from our desire to grasp the truth of the cosmos we inhabit. One part of this universe physically surrounds us and, at the end of our lives, consumes us entirely, and so we return from whence we came. Yet there is another, arguably more eternal, part of the cosmos that, in some ways, is separable from the transient, material world we so easily perceive, but that, in other ways, is inextricably linked to it by unexplored, divinable forces. The argument of Aristotle’s Metaphysics is not that this worldview is provable or disprovable; the mere fact we are able to reason about abstract objects without having to perceive them is evidence enough of this order.
Mill understands the Utilitarian principle to the full of it 's extent, he also understands why a person would disregard the theory, and there goes on to unravel the seemingly missing puzzle pieces to connect the theory completely, and correctly. His argurment reflects that of his own thoughts and opinions on the philosophy of the overall good of the population, concerning what is considered good by the measurement of happiness and pleasure. This in turn is where the second term for Utilitarianims comes from, as it is call the Greatest Happiness Principle. In his text, Mr. Mill states that this principle "holds that actiosn are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness" (96). Following this idea, he explains that happiness holds the absence of pain and the reverse of that, there holds the "privation of pleasure" (Mill 96). John Mill says that this is exactly what happiness and pleasure consist of. What is considered controversial on this particular theory is the simplicty of the definind words. The greatest happiness principle concerns happiness and pleasure, to the simple or closed minded this sounds degrading to humans or anyone who believes in it. John Mill argues for this principle and against the simple minded people that would judge the Epicureans for practicing
Everyone knows the famous Herakles also known as Hercules the hero. I believe Hercules is a great hero for many reasons. Let me sum up his history, Hercules is the son of Zeus and Alcmene. However, Zeus has a wife named Hera & he cheated on her with Alcmene who got pregnant with his baby. So Hera found out & was very angry, she vowed to make Hercules life dreadful since she couldn't make Zeus's life horrid. Hercules that married a beautiful woman of the name Megara they had two children, Hera took advantage of that & sent him a fit of rage in which he murdered his wife & children. He wanted forgiveness from Apollo to get rid of his pollution. Apollo told him to do 12 request for 12 years I which he will assist an
What makes a good person good? According to WikiHow, "We should learn to define our own morals ourselves. One of the simplest ways to do so is to love others, and treat them as you would like to be treated. Try to think of others before yourself. Even doing small things daily will greatly enrich and improve your life, and the lives of others around you." This quote shows us what we need to do in order to be what society thinks as, “good". In order to be a good person, you have to do good and moral things in your society consistently. However people might think that by doing one good thing once in a while will automatically make you a “good person”, but in reality it doesn’t.
Explain why Mill distinguishes between higher and lower pleasures and assess whether he achieves his aim or not.
Mill begins his essay on Utilitarianism by explaining his Greatest Happiness Principle, stating actions are right in that they promote happiness and actions are wrong if they take happiness away (Mill, “What Utilitarianism Is,” para 2). Following from this idea, happiness is pleasure, and unhappiness is pain and the privation of pleasure (Mill, “What Utilitarianism Is,” para 2). In defending the equivalence between happiness and pleasure from his critics, Mill makes the claim that there is “the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, etc., of the former” (Mill, “What Utilitarianism Is,” para 4). He claims that pleasures can differ both in quality and qua...
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2001) Retrieved February 2, 2002 from the World Wide Web: http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/a/aristotl.htm
When talking about pleasure there needs to be a distinction between the quality and the quantity. While having many different kinds of pleasures can be considered a good thing, one is more likely to favor quality over quantity. With this distinction in mind, one is more able to quantify their pleasures as higher or lesser pleasures by ascertaining the quality of them. This facilitates the ability to achieve the fundamental moral value that is happiness. In his book Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill offers a defining of utility as pleasure or the absence of pain in addition to the Utility Principle, where “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Mill 7). Through this principle, Mill emphasizes that it is not enough to show that happiness is an end in itself. Mill’s hedonistic view is one in support of the claim that every human action is motivated by or ought to be motivated by the pursuit of pleasure.