Epicureanism

**Epicureanism** is a system of
philosophy based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher
Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist,
following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism, combined with
the fact that he sought to fight against superstition and ideas that
miracles were a common occurrence lead many people in modern day to
use him as a representative of atheism, or represent him as an
atheist. However, he was not an atheist (and in some sense his views
are almost a deconstruction of the idea of atheism) although it is
true that his beliefs did differ very much from the traditional
religion of the time.

Epicureanism was originally a challenge
to Platonism, though ultimately for most of its lifetime it ended up
as the main opponent of Stoicism. In contrast to the stoics who
sought to radically transform the world, epicureans commonly shunned
both politics and evangelism, leading many to see it more as a
personally taken on ideal, which while it could cause value to spread
did not necessarily need to have it considered an imperative to do
so. A good epicurean was seen as one whose life was not noticed
substantially by others. They too had their own logic and
epistemology that I won't bother going into, and will only deal with
ethics and physics / theology.

In the Renaissance, a resurgence of
people trying to rebirth stoic and epicurean ideals as living
ideologies, and mix them with Christianity happened. There was
varying success for both. But stoicism as a living doctrine at this
time tended to fizzle back out a bit, leading to no real active
modern stoic philosophy except in smaller groups. Whereas
epicureanism remained around in a smaller key, eventually having a
wider influence (one way is by becoming part of the basis of utilitarianism), albeit one that is not always recognized. But the
applications are wide enough that it can easily be considered
inspirational from the perspective of every alignment, albeit for
different reasons.

## Physics and Theology

**Epicurean physics** was like the
stoics equivalent to their theology. Though theology in concept
played a smaller part to epicureans than to other groups.

**Atomism** was a word for the idea
that the substance that the universe was made out of was undivisible
atoms which could neither be created nor destroyed. Forms can change,
but not their inherent qualities, for change can only affect the
shape the atoms took. The idea of atomism in epicureanism came from
Democritus, who posited they have position, number, and shape. To
Democritus' differentiating criteria, Epicurus adds "weight",
but maintains Democritus' view that atoms are necessarily indivisible
and hence possess no demonstrable internal space. Epicurus says that
there are two kinds of motion: the straight motion and the curved
motion, and its motion traverse as fast as the speed of thought.

Although this concept may seem obvious
to people now, it was certainly not so at the time, where many people
assumed that substances were merely full mass with no empty space
between it.

**Clinamen** (or swerve) is the Latin name
Lucretius gave to the unpredictable swerve of atoms. Although
democritus who came up with the idea of atoms was a strict
determinist, the epicureans believed that some indeterminism was
inherent in physics itself. Something that would not be shown to be true (at least locally) until
the time of quantum
mechanics
(Albeit in quantum mechanics there is less indeterminism than the
epicureans believed).

**Souls** Epicureans believed that
everything in reality was made of matter, including the gods and
human souls. Human souls were made of matter and resided within the
body, but epicureans saw the soul as something frail, and which since
it was made as the same matter of the body, dissipated on death,
since it was too weak to exist without a body. As such, humans did
not exist past death, and were not saved from dissipation by the
gods. Note that at this time, and even now the word souls doesn't
inherently mean something supernatural or non physical.

**Gods**. Epicureanism emphasizes the
neutrality of the gods, that they do not interfere with human lives.
It states that gods, matter, and souls are all made up of atoms.
Souls are made from atoms, and gods possess souls as humans do, but
the distinction is that their souls and bodies are incorruptible and
deathless, so they live forever unlike humans which eventually
dissipate. Although Epicurus was against superstition, he took it for
granted that entities in some sense like the ones described in the
traditional religions probably existed “elsewhere” somewhere, due
to the immense scale of reality. His position on them was more that
that being the case doesn't necessarily have direct ramifications for
humans, which is the more direct question to address.

Some of the
more
humanistic
neutral endings are actually probably closer to this than to atheism,
since they obviously would concede that these gods exist in some
sense, but want the human focus to not be too directly on them,
seeing this as damaging and leading them away from their more primary
concerns.In iva especially, where the neutral approach to gods seems to be for them to represent ideal end points, but are not things which should be worshiped per say or interacted with, it draws a relevant comparison to epicurus' idea that the point of thinking of the gods is to reflect on and emulate their sublime nature. Combined with saying not to fear them.

The common quote about whether the gods
are willing to prevent evil likely does not come from Epicurus, as it
does not match well with his own beliefs (mainly, that he did not
consider it an imperative of any kind to prevent evils, especially
for the gods). Rather, he believed they were neither willing nor able
to prevent evils, as they existed in realms distant from earth, and
either do not know or do not care about it. This was not because they
were malevolent, but because they lived in a perfect state of
ataraxia, a state everyone should strive to emulate; it is not the
gods who are upset by the goings on on earth, but humans. Likewise,
these gods being already in this state had achieved perfect
existence, and so had no interest in humans. As such, humans should
not fear them, for judgment was something it would be nonsensical to
expect for them according to the ethical system of epicurus, as there
was no reason to punish evil, or in fact to seek out anything else
once one exists in this sublime state.

**The Metakosmia**, according to
Epicurean philosophy were the relatively empty spaces in the infinite
void where worlds had not been formed by the joining together of the
atoms through their endless motion. Epicurus held that the metakosmia
were the abode of the gods, far distant from interaction with humans,
perhaps even knowledge of them.

**Religion**. Epicurus saw sacrifice or
ritual to the gods as of little value, and the superstition of
worrying about their judgment to be harmful. However, as epicureanism
was a philosophy openly posited to be only for those who would seek
it out, worship of them was accepted as something to be expected from
others. Rather than direct worship, they were to be looked up to as
icons or representations of the perfect state of bliss that humans
should seek to emulate, and so the fact of their existence, and
pondering on their state still did have some use, albeit a limited
one. Beyond this, they were more or less not focused on at all.

## Ethics

**Epicurean ethics.** While epicurean
ethics may seem like an odd term for what their actual ethics were,
it should probably be noted that classical ethics corresponded more
to what we now call value theory. Namely, the question of what is it
that it is good for it to be in your life. Which is why even virtue
ethics is about saying its good for you to be virtuous. The shift of
the focus of ethics from how you should live, to what actions you
should do towards others came later on.

**Hedonism** is a term that is often
misunderstood in modern dialogue, in part because what people
associate it with is what the people who originally made the term
did, but not necessarily what they defined the term as. Most simply
the definition is simply that the only good is happiness, or rather
that all goods must be in some sense a type of happiness or tied to
it. This is obviously a vague statement, and can be taken multiple
ways into different moral systems.

The original
hedonists (the cyrenaics, described
below) were the ones who coined the term. They were the ones who the
term in most casual use is associated with. They believed that the
only good in life was your own happiness, and that this was all you
need concern yourself with. So they believed in constant indulgence
in order to maintain an elated state.

Epicurus had a different philosophy. He
believed that the best form of hedonism would be an ascetic form of
hedonism. Which if that sounds like an odd contradiction, its because
you probably associate the term with the cyrenaics. Epicurus divided
pleasures into two types. Higher pleasures, and lower pleasures. Of
these, lower ones were ones of pure sensation. Higher pleasures were
ones which were more meaningful and valuable. Ones of love,
friendship, and virtue, intellectualism, various things. Your
relationship with others was seen as especially valuable. He also
pointed out that the idea of constant indulgence making you truly
happy was non sustainable long term, and probably not the best way to
happiness. Rather that you needed to work on cultivating a long term
serenity that would stay with you without constant need for spikes
that trail off. He believed that these higher pleasures were the best
way to reach this, but that focusing on maintaining a more serene
mentality was the best way to accomplish this. He was also a negative
hedonist. He strictly speaking thought that pleasure was only the
absence of pain, and that there was a hypothetical zero point of 0
pain that was the absolute limit on best experience. Modern value
theorists consider this mistaken however. This does not mean that he
thought lower pleasures had no value, however, but rather that you
should focus on higher ones. And some which may be lower in some
instances may be higher in others.

however, Epicurus was still an
individualist hedonist. He thought the focus of your life was only
your own pleasure. Which from modern perspectives is obviously
considered selfish, but at the time this was in part since all of
ethics was about your own life. Technically virtue ethics was about
inner virtue as well, even though the definition of virtue is doing
good things for other people Because at the time greeks conflated value theory and ethics together, with ethics asking what the good life was. While in modern philosophy these things are divided, saying someone's life could be good but them immoral. Epicurus was not trying to say to be
openly selfish however, so he had to come up with a way to explain
why not to be. And he had varying success. In part, one of his points
was that virtuous pleasures are higher pleasures. So your own
happiness' value in some sense is tied to being virtuous towards
others. Like the stoics, he said that happiness would flow from
virtue, but here he says the goal is the happiness, whereas they said
it was the virtue. He also seems to have loosely bordered on a social
contract type idea, where people's happiness depends on arrangements
they make and comply with for mutual benefit, and so this is what the
existence of external rules of conduct are. The problem here is that
he insisted that you should not violate these external moral rules
even if you could benefit from it and no one would know. Which
opponents pointed out that technically nothing in his philosophy
explicitly had a rule against. So while he defined himself as purely
individualist hedonist, it seems he also implicitly thought that the
social contract had a loose binding force as well.

He summed up his version of the golden
rule as "It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living
wisely and well and justly (agreeing 'neither to harm nor be
harmed'), and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly
without living a pleasant life." His use of the word justly
implies that he believed some form of external morals existed that it
made sense to comply with. Making a seeming contradiction that was
noted even at his time. The point is that from his perspective, he
didn't think he was trying to say to be selfish, and argued against
the idea that he was. But based on what his philosophy was, you can
easily note that that content was there. (And the fact that he
advertised his philosophy as a personal thing rather than one to
transform the world for good like the stoics meant it was obviously a
little self focused). Which is why in the following centuries people
openly blasted him for selfishness. Jews said that epicureans were
those who would not have a place in the world to come. Christians
were the one who represented epicurus with the quote he is now known
for about rejecting monotheism, showing that they did not view him
highly. Even dante centuries later depicted epicureans in hell.

## Other Practices

**The Tetrapharmakos** or, "**The**
**four-part cure," is Epicurus' recipe for leading the happiest**
possible life. The "tetrapharmakos" was originally a
compound of four drugs (wax, tallow, pitch and resin); the word has
been used metaphorically by Epicurus and his disciples to refer to
the four remedies for healing the soul. Its lines were “Don't fear
god, (sometimes translated to as the gods, which is the more
accurate, but less direct translation) Don't worry about death; What
is good is easy to get, and What is terrible is easy to endure.”
This being because death was seen as something you don't experience,
merely a temporal border to you. So fearing it could be overcome. The
gods did not effect you, so fearing them was superstition. And the
last two being ideas similar to stoic ones, namely him saying that
your own happiness should be based on generating a serene mentality,
that cannot be effected by outside forces easily.

**Ataraxia** is a Greek term used by
Pyrrho and Epicurus for a lucid state of robust tranquility,
characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry, when one
managed to cultivate and maintain the proper persistent inner peace.
This is similar to the stoic concept of apatheia (and a few times was
even referred to positively by stoics) but is conceptually a little
different. This is merely a statement of being at peace and lacking
suffering and having happiness due to internal states. Whereas
apatheia was a term for lacking detrimental emotions. (With an
implied positive mentality stemming from it). So while the concepts
closely overlap, they focus on different areas, because they in part
were used to refer to different life goals.

**Aponia** means the absence of pain,
and was regarded by the Epicureans to be the absolute highest
happiness. Noting that they thought that happiness was the absence of
suffering, it was the state of zero suffering. Aponia as an absolute
was seen as unlikely to be achieved, and more unlikely to be
maintained. Ataraxia was good enough, but this was defined as the
absolute perfection. Unlike ataraxia, this term was rarely used
though. And the definition of happiness as only the absence of
suffering falling out of favor since then, the concept is not often
referenced now.

## Modern Inspirations

As for modern variants, there are
obviously a few. On the one hand, you have chaotic variants. Many
modern satanic
churches
and some groups actively interpret him by the selfish interpretation.
Many satanic churches say that you do not owe almost anything to
anyone other than that they, like you be allowed to work
individualistically for whatever they want, and if they get trampled
underfoot, so be it.
LaVeyans
often call themselves neo-epicureans. Since it is easy to see how
seeing only your own happiness as the value to shoot for in life, as
well as friends and the social contract to be something you do for
mutual benefit. They emphasize being realistic about how to achieve
your own long term happiness like he did, albeit them erring more on
the side of indulgence like cyrenaics. Of course, they don't actually
advocate moderation like epicurus did, so its a strained association.

However, the more interesting neo
epicureans are on the opposite side. In the Renaissance, a few people
tried to resurrect epicureanism to mix with Christianity. They
skirted away from individualist hedonism a bit, but they ultimately
said that they had a hard time arguing against an egoist to convince
them to be moral without appealing to God. Ultimately one's ultimate
highest happiness resides within God, and this is something one can
only achieve by living a life of virtue, since God will reward the
virtuous far more than any earthly rewards could be. However, these
Christians were more neutral or dark / law or whatever than light
law, since the people doing this most often were not trying to argue
for new reforms to benefit the improvement of the world, but rather
to explain the pre-existing ideology they already used with a new
value system. They did however say that God's laws were in place
since God too wanted people to be happy even on earth. So they
believed that the religious rules they already had were the best way
to maximize happiness.

## Inspiration on Utilitarianism

This leads into the formulation of
\*\*utilitarianism\*\* as a unique doctrine. The above christians did not
necessarily think they were creating a totally new type of moral
theory, but rather clarifying one that existed. Jeremy bentham took
the idea of happiness as a metric for morality, and used it as a tool
for political reform. And is considered the first modern
[utilitarian](http://i51.tinypic.com/2iaeotu.png). He openly referred
to this as hedonism, but with the distinction that he was making it a
universalist hedonism. Everyone's happiness was interchangeable, so
your actions now had to focus on life in general, and improving
happiness, rather than thinking you personally are in a unique place.
John stuart mill expanded on this even further, in more obviously
epicurean ways. He took epicurus' division of higher and lower
pleasures. saying that one should focus on higher ones. Like
epicurus, he said that virtue theoretically had no value of its own,
but that it was important to cultivate. However, from a universalist
perspective it is obvious why this is, because more virtue causes you
to be more willing to do more for others rather than yourself.
Something that epicurus saying that it was only your own
individualist happiness one should focus on had trouble arguing for.
Interestingly enough, he also pointed out that if you consider
individualist hedonism an ideology about how to benefit the self,
then the most direct interpretation of
Jesus'
command to love your neighbor as yourself would be universal
hedonism, (or some form of analogue to it) with it being neutral where you put the benefits.

The first utilitarians admitted that
they weren't sure how to put it into practice, but early utopian
socialists were inspired directly by bentham's work, some even
studying under him on how to arrange a society ordered to maximize
overall happiness. So a universalized idea of an epicurean value
theory suddenly jumps to law, whereas an individualist one closely resembles chaos.
(Bentham is also on record as saying that he would happily
take away free will from humanity, if the result was that all their
actions from then on maximized utility.) Other utilitarians like
sidwick divided morality into individualist hedonisms, intuitionist
morality, and universal hedonism. The middle one corresponding to
deontology mostly in his mind. And its easy to see a case for these
corresponding to the alignments, which makes it interesting that a
hedonist value theory based on that one adjustment corresponds to
both ends of the spectrum. Some forms of utilitarianism
since that time have moved away from pure hedonism, defining other
things as additional values, or changing the main one slightly, but
in general it has never strayed too far from being a generally
universalist hedonism.