Ethically Yours

Melden, A. I. (1967). Ethical theories; a book of readings (2d ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,: Prentice-Hall.

Epicurus

These quotes touch on many common themes we have seen in PHI101: 

• Philosophy as a spiritual or developmental quest
• Being careful to ascribe attributes to a thing
• Short term v. long term pleasures
• The “happy” life
• Friendship
• The Harm Principle
• Justice

 

"Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study. For no one can come too early or too late to secure the health of the soul. " (143)

"First of all believe that god is a being immortal and blessed…and do not assign to him anything alien to his immortality or ill-suited to his blessedness. " (144)

"And the impious man is not he who denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the many." (144)

"Become accustomed to the belief that death is nothing to us…the wise man neither seeks to escape life nor fears the cessation of life." (144)

""We must then bear in mind that the future is neither ours, nor yet wholly not ours, so that we may not altogether expect it as sure to come, nor abandon hope of it, as if it will certainly not come." (144)

"Sometimes we pass over many pleasures, when greater discomfort accrues to use as the result of them: and similarly we think many pains better than pleasures, since a greater pleasure comes to use when we have endured pains for a long time." (145)

"It is not continuous drinking and revellings, nor the satisfaction of lusts, nor the enjoyment of fish and other luxuries of the wealthy table, which produce a pleasant life, but sober reasoning, searching out the motives of all choice and avoidance, and banishing mere opinions, to which are due the greatest disturbance of the spirit." (145)

"A man cannot dispel his fear about the most important matters if he does not know what is the nature of the universe but suspects the truth of some mythical story. So that without natural science it is not possible to attain our pleasures unalloyed." (147)

"Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life, far the greatest is the possession of friendship." (148)

"The justice which arises from nature is a pledge of mutual advantage to restrain men from harming one another and save them from being harmed." (148)

"If a man makes a law and it does not turn out to lead to advantage in men’s dealings with each other, then it no longer has the essential nature of justice." (149)