I’ll consider Warren’s main claims about Epicurus’ predecessors and my reasons for doubting some of them before turning to an assessment of this study’s impact on our thinking about Epicurus’ ethics.Īfter a general introduction to his project and an opening chapter devoted to explaining who the ‘Democriteans’ are, why they are part of a common tradition, and what his main sources are, Warren turns to Democritus’ ethics. And in the end, Epicurus and Democritean Ethics doesn’t succeed in its larger aim of improving our understanding of Epicurus’ ethical system. However, some of its most important claims about the Democriteans are dubious. People interested in the ethics of Democritus, Anaxarchus, Pyrrho, Timon, or Nausiphanes should certainly take a look at this book. Hence, much of Warren’s archaeology involves trying to piece together ethical theories from scattered, variable, and unclear sources.Įpicurus and Democritean Ethics has many worthwhile things to say about Epicurus’ predecessors. One reason that the influence of the Democriteans’ ethical thought on Epicurus has not been much studied is because the information in this area is so sketchy. Anaxarchus and Pyrrho develop moral anti-realist positions, where values exist only ‘by convention’ and not ‘in truth,’ whereas Nausiphanes, the reviled teacher of Epicurus, does not deny the reality of values but reduces ethics to physics, claiming that knowledge of phusiologia-natural science-is sufficient for knowledge of ethics, politics, and rhetoric. In particular, Democritus’ assertion that only atoms and the void exist in truth, while qualities like sweetness and heat exist only ‘by convention,’ has important consequences on the ethical theories of Democritus’ followers-although not on that of Democritus himself-that Epicurus feels the need to resist. However, Warren concentrates his attention on the ways in which Epicurus is hostile to this tradition and seeks to overcome its failings. Warren acknowledges that Epicurus appropriates aspects of Democritean thought: its stand against teleology, its rejection of meddling deities, and its advocacy of peace of mind. Epicurus and Democritean Ethics is a study of the ethical tradition of the Democriteans and how Epicurus responds to it. Warren claims that we can better understand Epicurus’ eudaimonistic hedonism if we see its relationship to the ethical views of Democritus and those thinkers influenced by him. Ancient critics of Epicurus claim that the Cyrenaics’ hedonism is the inspiration for his ethics, and in modern times, Epicurus’ ethics is usually viewed in the context of Aristotle’s eudaimonism.

The situation is quite different in ethics. Even where Epicurus feels the need to modify Democritus’ metaphysics because of its skeptical or fatalist implications, he is working within Democritus’ general framework. Epicurus’ debt to Democritus’ metaphysics is obvious.

Democritus atomic theory model