Epicurus

Question 1

Epicurus: Background

Answer 1

• happiness is the absence of pain
• concerned with living a happy life
• his advice is to minimize pain
• unfulfilled desires are painful so it’s best to have simpler desires
• any desire for something beyond your control is painful because you cannot be assured of getting it and fear potentially losing it

Question 2

Desires Can Be:

Answer 2

i. Natural (e.g. food or love)
ii. Groundless (e.g. wanting a sports car, latest fashion)

Question 3

What Consists in a Good Life?

Answer 3

a good life consists in cultivating only the necessary natural desires and eliminating the rest

Question 4

Deaths and Desires

Answer 4

desiring not to die (and hence fearing death) is a natural but unnecessary desire

Question 5

No Sense Experience Argument

Answer 5

1. Death is the absence of sense-experience
2. All good and bad consist of sense experience (mental/physical)

Therefore, death cannot be either good or bad (so death is not something to be feared)

Question 6

No Subject Argument (Epicurus and Lucretius)

Answer 6

1. Good and bad must be good and bad for someone
2. Since we cease to exist at death, there is no one for whom death is good or bad

Therefore, death cannot be either good or bad