Episode 205 - Cicero's On Ends - Book Two - Part 13 - The Nature of Morality
Date: 12/15/23
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/3582-episode-205-cicero-s-on-ends-book-two-part-13-addressing-cicero-s-contentions-on/
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Transcript (Unedited)
Section titled “Transcript (Unedited)”Thank you. I’m going to go to the bar.
Welcome to episode 205 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote On the Nature of Things, the only complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where you’ll find a discussion thread for each of our episodes. of our podcast episodes and many other topics. This week, we are continuing to discuss book two of Cicero’s On Ends. We’ve now made it up to section 15, which appears on page 48 and 49 of the Reed edition of On Ends. And where we left off last week was that Cicero was saying that he is now going to turn his attention less from comparing Epicurus to these other philosophers, which we’ve been doing for the last several weeks. and just focus on…
…on what is really one of the ultimate questions that’s involved. He cites Chrysippus as saying that this is the real battle between the philosophies, this issue between virtue and pleasure, and whether pleasure can have any role in the good, the ultimate good, the supreme good, or not. Chrysippus taking the position, of course, that it could not. And what Cicero says he’s going to do to try to get at the root of this question is he refers back… But Epicurus took the position that there’s nothing good and desirable in and of itself other than pleasure. And he says that if I can show you something, Turquatus, that is desirable in and of itself and not for the pleasure that it brings, then I will basically have destroyed your arguments in Epicurean philosophy. You will have shown something that is desirable for itself and therefore is competent and has the jurisdiction and is part of, or is the… the supreme good and.
Of course dethroning pleasure and the process. So what we’re going to be doing today, and as Joshua indicated last week, this is getting deeper than just a sort of a comparative survey of philosophers. What we’re going to be doing today is discussing the nature of morality and how Cicero is looking at it in distinction to the way Epicurus is looking at it. I think we will ultimately come to the root of the question that this is where the ultimate issue lies, the nature of morality. The section we’re starting on is around line 45, and Cicero says, by what is moral, we understand something of such a nature that even if absolutely deprived of utility, it may with justice be eulogized for its own qualities, apart from all rewards or advantages. That’s a long way of saying that virtue is an end in itself. It doesn’t need a reward. It doesn’t have anything to do with rewards and any reward that might be there is certainly not pleasure, but it’s desirable.
And what Cicero says is that, quote, Now the nature of this object cannot be so easily understood from the definition I’ve adopted, though to a considerable extent it can, as from the general verdict of all mankind, inclinations and actions of all the best men who do very many things for the sole reason that they are seemingly right and moral, though they see that no profit will follow. And that’s something that evokes Aristotle, the Nicomachean ethics. In the end, Aristotle comes up with, as his test of what people should do, look around to see what the best men of Athens do and use that as your guide, as if that were not circular and lacking in foundation. That’s exactly what Cicero says here, is that you may not be able to understand it from the definition I adopt, but what you should look to is the general verdict of all mankind and the inclinations and actions of all mankind. all the best.
Man. Yes, Cassius, you’re right to say first off that he’s employing an argument that is circular and redundant. He’s saying that we should look to the best men to understand morality, but how is he defining the best men? Of course he’s defining it by reference to his morality. So that doesn’t get us anywhere. That’s a terrible place to start. But it’s not unusual for Cicero to start there because one of his ongoing occupations is extolling the lives of eminent Greeks and Romans. In fact, as I mentioned previously, he complains about the Epicureans and their failure to do this in book one. For here’s the Epicureans extolling the lives of good people. But for the reason that it’s, as we’ve been saying here, a very circular approach to this problem. How did the best men themselves learn to do what they decided to do? Where did they get it from would be a part of the circularity. Exactly. At the very end of this paragraph, we’re going to get to his answer on that question but he starts out by.
Men are different from other animals but they most especially differ in this that they possess reason as a gift of nature and a sharp and powerful intellect which carries on with the utmost speed many operations at the same moment and is if I may so speak keen scented for it discerns the causes of phenomena and their results and abstracts their common features gets together scattered facts and links the future with the present and brings within its ken the entire condition of life in its future course this is not though you might be thinking so a consequentialist approach to morality he’s not saying that well we can see what’s going to happen in the future based on our actions in the present so we should act with that in mind he’s got a different foundation for morality but he is throwing a lot up here at the beginning and then he gets into his four as he calls them meritorious qualities or the.
Final virtues in Cicero’s mind I’m going to go over those quickly have translated them differently but I found a site that has the four virtues of Cicero as wisdom justice courage or fortitude and temperance and in this paragraph he gives a sentence to describe each one so the first virtue is described by this sentence he says and this same reason has given man a yearning for his fellow men and an agreement with them based on nature and language and intercourse but starting from affection for those of his own household and his own kin he gradually takes wider range and connects himself by fellowship first with his countrymen then with the whole human race and as Plato wrote to Arquitas bears in mind that he was not born for himself alone but for his fatherland and his kindred so that only a slight part of his existence remains mains for himself.
So wisdom as a virtue or prudence, this is sometimes called as a virtue, requires understanding your place in civilization and the duty that you owe to other people, to your family, to your country, so much so that when you take all of that into account, in Cicero’s view, there’s very little left for yourself. Your life is lived in the service of other people. That’s the first virtue. Before you go on, Joshua, I’ll make the comment that there’s a lot in there that Epicurus would agree with. These things that Cicero is talking about that reason does are important aspects of life, and Epicurus, as we know, endorses the use of reason and so endorses the use of your mind. That’s not the issue with Epicurus. It’s not that he denounces wisdom and reason by any stretch of the imagination. He’s simply questioning the foundation of whether reason alone will get you to the right end point. Yeah, and as we’re going to see later, I’m going to quote from Lucretius. In book five, we need.
To talk about the development of man from a condition not unlike that of the lower orders of animals until you get to a point where you have tribes and then towns and then kingdoms and civilization and all that comes later. And Lucretius does talk about where this stuff comes from. As Cicero says here, a yearning for his fellow men and an agreement with them based on nature and language. Lucretius talks about all of that, but he has a different understanding of how that takes place. It doesn’t come from God, in other words. What we’re going to find in a little bit is Cicero’s foundation for all of this, that it is a law of God which we live in accordance with. If we don’t, we get horribly punished. Right. It reminds me of Torquatus in book one talking about how people are beguiled by the glamour of the name of virtue. And as what you’ve read already in this first element for wisdom and what we’ll continue to read throughout the rest of the day, Cicero’s just throwing up these glorious terms, these wonderful.
Things that everybody admits are desirable and wonderful in themselves. And it’s almost as if he says he’s appealing to the reason and to logic, but in the end, he’s ultimately appealing to this emotional attachment that we do have for the good things that come from these virtues that he’s talking about. Again, Epicurus does not denounce the virtues. He simply makes the point that the virtues are tools for happy living. And that’s something we’ll say over and over. It just not ends in themselves. And Cicero’s attempting to evoke this emotional framework of, yes, the glory of wisdom and reason is so great, we must bow down to reason itself. That’s not the foundation. That’s not the logical starting point or the end point. The starting point and the end point, as Epicurus says, is pleasure. The feeling of pleasure that puts us on this course in the first place, and that is the reason we pursue the course. That’s a very important thing to say. Cicero here is at the end of his career as a lawyer.
As a statesman as a person who engages with crowds in a way to get them to do what he wants them to do if you read some of his orations in the court either defense orations or prosecutions what you get an appreciation for is that Cicero knows how to get people feeling the emotions he wants them to feel and you’re right to point out that in this whole long paragraph here there is a very lofty tone a very high-minded understanding of morale expressed in such a way that people will sort of instantly fall over themselves to agree with him it’s very effective this kind of an argument if expressed in the dry monotone computer-like voice of a Mr. Spock probably would not have the same effect but you get a lawyer statesman brilliant orator like Cicero and getting emotion in his voice as he’s saying all these things it’s the emotion in his voice the emotion of the argument that carries the persuasiveness of it.
Which is sort of contradictory to everything he’s saying. It’s not the logic of the argument. It’s the emotional pull of it that ends up being persuasive. Exactly, yeah. Who doesn’t want to do the best he can for his family or for his country or whatever? Everybody has the desire, I think, to act on their understanding of justice or morality. I shouldn’t say everybody because some people are just wired differently. But yeah, he is very good at rallying the crowd to get on his side. Which is very important. Which is very important. Which is very important. Which is interesting because the next virtue is justice or truthfulness. Cicero writes, And seeing that nature again has implanted in man a passion for gazing upon the truth, as is seen very clearly when, being free from anxieties, we long to know even what takes place in the sky, so led on by these instincts, we love all forms of truth, in things trustworthy, candid, and consistent, while we hate things it’s unsound.
Sincere and deceptive, for instance, cheating, perjury, spite, and injustice. By staking out his claim here that he has grasped morality as an objective or absolute truth, it’s very easy to stand on that eminence and look down on these pleasure-seeking hedonist philosophers like Epicurus and make them out to be moral lunatics, people who don’t love truth or who will, given the chance, cheat or perjure or commit injustice. It’s wrapped up in this package of, I’m Cicero, I’m so wise, I’m so great, I suffer so much in the service of my country that he takes the throne here from which to give his argument. And it’s so based on emotion and passion when he says that reason is his foundation. But it’s clear, clear that reason is not his foundation. He’s relying on the effect of powerful speech to get his views across. Joshua, each step along. the way, I think I’m going to end up.
Saying much the same thing, but it’s important to say, and it begins to irritate me as I listen to this current one as well, as if the Epicureans were not interested in looking up at the sky and wanting to know what takes place. And as if the Epicureans don’t themselves love all forms of truth and don’t value things that are trustworthy, candid, and consistent. And as if the Epicureans don’t hate insincere and deceptive and cheating and spiteful and unjust people. That’s not the point, Cicero. Everybody does, as you’re saying, have these positions. But the question is not have the positions. The question is where these positions came from, how do they arise, and where are they going? And you’re just ignoring the fact that there is no supernatural God, there is no central spot in the universe that has absolute truth in it. And you can reason yourself all day long down the path as far as you want to go, but you’ll never understand.
What Cicero you’re saying here unless you feel the good things that come from those benevolent aspects that you’re talking about and you feel the bad things that come from the painful aspects of it. Pleasure and pain is what makes it all go around. And you’re talking as if it doesn’t, but you’re using pleasure and pain as your motivation for your own discussion. It begins to irritate me. But go ahead. Yeah, Cassius. And as you said last week, or quoted last week, Cicero is very careful at the bottom of page 48 to say that the contest is not between me and Torquatus. The contest is between virtue and pleasure. When I go into all these crimes against humanity that I’m going to describe, I’m not accusing you, Torquatus. You’re just confused. If you only thought about this a little bit, you would come around to my side. You would see Epicureanism for the amoral monstrosity that it is. And I just need a little bit of time to to get you around to my view.
But I’m not criticizing you. I’m just criticizing Epicureans. And you’re right. It is kind of an infuriating approach to this stuff. So his third virtue is fortitude or indomitability. He says, reason, again, brings with it a rich and splendid spirit suited to command rather than obedience regarding all that may happen to man as not only endurable, but even inconsiderable. A certain lofty and exalted spirit. Which fears. Nothing bows to none and is ever unconquerable. Who doesn’t want a certain lofty and exalted spirit, which fears nothing, bows to none and is ever unconquerable? It seems like everybody wants this, right? Including Epicurus at the end of the letter to Herodotus. And Pythocles says basically the same thing. We agree on the objective. What we disagree on is the foundation. And we still haven’t gotten to that yet. That’s coming up in a little bit. He sets those three apart. Wisdom. Just. and four to two.
Is sort of like the three main classes. And then he adds that there is a fourth class. And I’m not entirely sure what the relationship is. This is like a lesser virtue or something. But anyway, it is orderliness or temperance, he says. And now that we have marked out these three classes of things moral, there follows a fourth endued with the same loveliness and dependent on the other three. In this is comprised the spirit of orderliness, and self-control. So in this one, it is dependent on the other three, I guess is what he’s saying. Sometimes you get the sense that if you just did one of these things, that would put you on the wrong course. You have to balance and weigh all of these moral qualities in their relation to one another in order to live the most moral life, the life of one of the best men. Yeah, it’s always been confusing to me and still is. Is he saying that you can be wise but not temperate? It’s always seemed to me that temperance.
Is kind of redundant over and against wisdom. But apparently there’s a distinction. And like you said, Cicero says the distinction is the temperance is dependent on the others. And again, once more to mention, it’s not like Epicurus does not advocate temperance and self-control. My gosh, half of Epicurean philosophy seems to be about the practical advice that he gives to people about how, in fact, to keep your desires under control. So again, there’s no difference in the appreciation for the tools. It’s just that we don’t appreciate the tool for itself. We appreciate the tool for what it brings to us. Yep, now this is the way that Cicero sums this up or brings it all together. And this is somewhat airy, and I’m not even sure what he’s trying to say here. But he says this, when the analogies of the spirit have been recognized in the beauty and grandeur of outward shapes, a man advances to the display of moral beauty in his words and deeds. for in consequence of the three.
Classes of meritorious qualities, which I mentioned before, he shrinks from reckless conduct and does not venture to inflict injury by either a petulant word or action and dreads to do or utter anything which seems unworthy of a man. Joshua, my reaction to that would be that this is just another example of this worship of the word beauty in the platonic background. There’s this issue that there’s something in the beautiful that makes it the same as the good, and that the good is always going to be beautiful. And I suppose they’re going for this emotional reaction of approval. Maybe beauty is their way of connecting with the feeling of pleasure, but they try to distance it from pleasure itself, as if beauty has a value aside from the pleasure it brings, which of course reminds us all of Epicurus saying that he spits upon the beautiful unless it brings pleasure.
It is this continuing issue. Does a thing in itself have value or is it valuable for the feeling that it brings to us, the pleasurable feeling that it brings to us? So the next thing I have here is a quote from Cicero’s other work, The Republic. It relates to the question of morality and it gives us an understanding of his foundation of ideas like justice and so forth. He says, There is, in fact, a true law, namely, right reason. Which is in accordance with nature, applies to all men, and is unchangeable and eternal. By its commands, this law summons men to the performance of their duties. By its prohibitions, it restrains them from doing wrong. Its commands and prohibitions always influence good men, but are without effect upon the bad. To invalidate this law by human legislation is never morally right, nor is it permissible ever to restrict its operation. and to annul.
It, holy is impossible. Neither the Senate nor the people can absolve us from our obligation to obey this law, and it requires no sextus ilius to expound and interpret it. It will not lay down one rule at Rome and another at Athens, nor will it be one rule today and another tomorrow, but there will be one law, eternal and unchangeable, binding at all times upon all peoples, and there will be, as it were, one common master and ruler of men, namely God, who is the author of this law, its interpreter and its sponsor. The man who will not obey it will abandon his better self, and in denying the true nature of a man will thereby suffer the severest of penalties, though he has escaped all the other consequences which men call punishments. This is talking here about justice and one thing I particularly hate, natural law as it relates to Christianity which was the.
Adopted more or less wholesale from Cicero here. But it’s very clear that he takes as his foundation of all of these objects, his foundation is there is a God. This is just what we were talking about in the past two weeks. What was man put here for? And there are a host of problems with this approach, but this is what Cicero is saying. There is a God that this God has authored a law, that this law is unchanging, eternal. It is incumbent on man at all times and in all places to follow this law. And anyone who fails to follow this law will be punished by this God. I’m very glad you brought this quotation up here. I first came into contact with this one 40-some years ago, and I’ve seen it reported in a number of legal decisions in the United States in the last decades. And I remember strongly at that time when I came across it, I was firmly in the Ciceronian camp admiring the things about Cicero row that I was reading in his.
Attempts to save the republic and so forth. And I thought that this was one of the best statements I had read of what would clearly be the appropriate understanding of the law and understanding of justice in general. But it also set me on the path that eventually led me to where I am today in studying Epicurus and taking the absolutely opposite position. It’s a good reminder that you have to be flexible and willing to revise your opinions when things change. But this encapsulates the heart of the issue of justice and the heart of the issue of much of the difference between Epicurean philosophy and all the other Greek schools. I’m sure that some would say that this is mostly stoic or mostly academic, platonic and that many of the other Greek philosophers didn’t really go along with all of it. I would suggest that this attitude of there being one true law consistent with reason and nature that comes from God and can’t escape it’s absolutely what’s been adopted in monotheistic Judeo-Christianity and it permeates.
The world and it’s where a lot of things stand and fall and if you accept that there is an absolute supreme being who emanates this kind of law out into the world then this is where you’re going to end up with Cicero’s Republic book two line 22 as you’ve just read but if you end up questioning that there is such a source of right and wrong all of it falls away and you end up seeing that Epicurus’s perspective is where everything does in fact follow from nature as opposed to this fictional form of nature that Cicero’s talking about I don’t have much I can add to the way you’ve described it because I think you did a great job of explaining what it means but I’ve always thought this is one of the best citations that you can come up with to show this authoritarian position there’s a divine order of things and if you believe there’s a divine order of things this is where you end up if you don’t believe there’s a divine order of things Epicurus shows the way to a productive life of happiness.
Yeah, and we’re still going to get into Lucretius here in a minute, but I do want to quote Paul’s epistle to the Romans. He says, For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, in other words, they don’t have the Hebrew Testament, they don’t have the life of Christ to guide them. Many of these people predated Christ. He says, When the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another. And a historian here in Wikipedia is quoted as saying, There can be little doubt that St. Paul’s words imply some conception analogous to the natural law in Cicero, a law written in men’s hearts, recognized by man’s reason, a law distinct from the the positive law of any.
State, or from what St. Paul recognized as the revealed law of God. A clear bridge. This is a clear bridge between virtuous pagan, the noble pagan, not allowed in paradise in Dante’s works, but is allowed to stand just outside the gates of hell. He doesn’t have to go into the inferno because he was a noble pagan. Most pagans are in the inferno, but he is allowed to stand just outside the gates. This is where you’ll find Cicero and Aristotle. Because of this approach to understanding the law, it’s founded on the instruction of a god, even if in the thinking of a Christian, it’s a god they didn’t even know existed, the Christian god. But this is where it takes us. It takes us right here, into the New Testament, into the letters of St. Paul. A universalist approach. Going back to the quote from Cicero, it will not lay down one rule at Rome and another at Athens, nor one rule today and another tomorrow. So it’s going to be the same everywhere all the time, no matter the.
Law never changes and if you violate it you are running from God, you’re running from yourself and you’re going to suffer the severest of penalties even if you escape what men call punishment because there’s this lofty universal truth that applies to everyone that we’re maybe struggling in the dark and not able to find but from Cicero’s point of view it’s there and our job is to get in contact with it and follow it. This is where so much of these philosophical issues comes down. Yeah, absolutely Now Plato had a dialogue called Euthyphro a Socratic dialogue in which if I remember, I haven’t looked this up recently, but if I remember the general plot well enough Socrates knows that he is going on trial very soon and one of the things he’s charged with is impiety, right? Corrupting the youth and he’s trying to get a better understanding of piety and he meets a man.
On his way to the court or to the forum or the Agora or whatever, he meets a man who is on his way to denounce his own father for impiety to the justice system of Athens. And Socrates thinks to himself, wow, this guy is willing to denounce his own father on the charge of impiety. He must understand piety really well, or he wouldn’t do this, which anyone who’s read any Socratic dialogue will know what’s going to happen next. Socrates is going to talk circles around this guy and get him to realize in the end that he knows nothing about piety. But what results from Euthyphro is the Euthyphro dilemma. And the dilemma is basically this. If we say that piety is what is loved by the gods, is it loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods? And whichever answer you take there, it involves you in a whole… whole raft of.
Problems. Are God’s commands moral because they come from God, or does God command them because they are moral? Moral absent God, in other words. And the problem is, if you take the first view, God’s commands are moral because they come from God, then you’re essentially saying that morality is arbitrary. That when God tells Abraham to sacrifice his own son, as he does in the Old Testament, moral requirement. For him to sacrifice his own son. And then when God says later in the text that, oh, child sacrifice, I didn’t know people were doing this. This is so horrible, it never would have crossed my mind. That child sacrifice is immoral, in other words. So people want to have this idea of God as an unchanging moral nature. But really, if you read that book, he changes quite a lot throughout it. So the dilemma is, is morality arbitrary, or is morality absolute, and God is merely.
A transmitter of this morality? God is merely a delivery boy, in other words, of this moral news. In either case, you end up with a lot of problems. Depending on how you answer that question, some people think they have solved this problem, I don’t think they really have. But depending on how you answer that question, you are involved in a whole raft of problems. Problems relating to God’s alleged omnipotence, questions relating to free will, questions relating to God’s alleged omniscience, and so forth. All of these problems are wrapped up in here. But it happens because you take the view that Cicero takes, that morality, justice, that these are unchanging moral laws that are the same everywhere, the same today and tomorrow, because they come from an absolute and unchanging authority, and that authority is God. Joshua, let me add some additional thoughts to that. I think what you’ve been talking about is really important and goes in a number of different directions that also include, the issues that.
Are out there today in terms of humanism because if we go back to what Socrates’ question was, is it good because God likes it or does God like it because it’s good? I would suggest that Epicurus would have a problem with both of the two major premises of that question because the question seems to presume that there is an absolute good on the one hand. At least that’s what people are talking about when they think about what good means. They’re thinking good has some absolute meaning. And of course, when we talk about God, they’re talking about some supreme omnipotent being that controls everything and knows everything and creates everything. Both of those premises are things that are rejected in Epicurean philosophy. There is no supreme God who’s creating and deciding things for the rest of the universe. And there is no absolute good. As you say, when you think there is an absolute good, it creates problems with your theology of God. But it also creates problems.
Just in practical living that there is not a way like the humanists would wish to do of finding an absolute good without God. One of their themes in some of their websites is good without God. And certainly Epicurus could define good in a way when you talk about pleasure. But if you stick with this idea that there’s an absolute good, but you try to just disjoin it away from God, you’re still going to have all sorts of problems that Epicurus, I think, would say, were caused by your inaccurate understanding of what good really is. Because in Epicurean philosophy, there’s nothing good except pleasure. There’s nothing bad except pain. And they are good and bad because of the feelings that nature has given to us and not for any other reason. So the additional twist I wanted to add there was that we’re hitting hard today on this issue that morality doesn’t come from God. I think it’s easy for us to focus on it doesn’t come from God without realizing realizing that the other side,
The other side of the equation is also important, that there is no single law at Rome and at Athens that is the same today and tomorrow. You can look as long as you like for a foundation for that, but ultimately, and when you check into it, Pecursus views on justice in the last 10 principal doctrines, it’s always based on the circumstances on the ground and the people involved at the particular time. What’s good and bad derives from pleasure and pain and what’s bad derives from pleasure and pain and it does not derive from any kind of absolute foundation, including reason, logic, or other speculation built on human reasoning. As Torquatus told us, Epicurus said, nature gives us nothing other than pleasure and pain to determine what to choose and what to avoid. Therefore, that’s the foundation, which we keep coming back to. This absolute rule that Cicero is talking about just doesn’t exist. Right, Cassius, and when you enter the Lucretian universe, it’s very clear that you want to be were entering a world in.
Which this absolute morality does not exist. This divinely ordained morality does not exist. And if I quote here from Lucretius, this is book five, he’s got this extensive treatment of the early history of mankind. How mankind learned to control fire. How he learned to build himself huts. How he learned to wrap animal skins around himself, to keep himself warm. Culmination of this process is this. He says, Then, once they had acquired huts, hides, and fire, and woman linked up with man had moved into one home and learned marriage customs, and they saw themselves creating offspring, at that point the human race first began to soften. Fire meant their freezing limbs could no longer tolerate the cold so well under heaven’s roof, and children soon shattered the stern character of parents with their endearing charm. And then neighbors, began to join.
In mutual agreements, seeking not to harm each other or to be harmed. And they entrusted children and the race of women to the care of all, pointing out with vocal sounds, gestures, and broken words that it was right for all to have pity on the weak. And though they could not create universal harmony, nonetheless, large numbers would faithfully keep their word, or else the human race would, even then, entirely killed off, and breeding could not have kept up their generations to this very day. You know, in the beginning of book one, Lucretius has this invocation to Venus, right? When he’s talking about go to Mars and quell the endless thirst for war in this country because I can’t do what I’m doing without peace. And then he says that Venus is the sole governor of all things with this sort of erotic energy. She causes the changes in nature and new species to come up and animals and plants and everything to propagate.
And grow and grow. And so, you know, that’s the kind of thing that’s happening. And so, you know, that’s the kind of thing that’s happening. And so, you know, that’s the kind of thing that’s happening. And so, you know, that’s the kind of thing that’s happening. And so, you know, that’s the kind of thing that’s happening. And so, you know, that’s the kind of thing that’s happening. And so, you know, that’s the kind of thing that’s happening. And so, you know, that’s the kind of thing that’s happening. And so, you know, that’s the kind of thing that’s happening. And so, you know, that’s the kind of thing that’s happening. And so, you know, that’s the kind of thing that’s happening. And so, it’s a great way of saying that morality does not come from on high. Morality is not absolute or objective. Morality develops out of the agreements that we make among ourselves. I’ve quoted recently Mr. Galloway from the Continental Congress in the American Revolution, who said, I have looked for our rights in the laws of nature and could find them only in the bonds of political society. I have looked for our rights in the constitution of the English government and I have found them there, right? There is no absolute moral, natural basis to this idea of rights.
So long as rights are protected and you have to look to the agreements that we make with each other for this source of justice and for our understanding of morality. To look to how that relates to pleasure, you have to look to how that relates to avoiding pain. That’s what, that’s this issue of I don’t want to harm or to be harmed. So when you get down, as you say, Cassius, to ground level and see how these things work out in practice, you know, we can point to what we would call moral behavior, in other species of animals. And we’ve talked about capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees and so forth in the various experiments that have been done. But it’s decisions that are made among individuals in groups that determines what their sense of justice is. It is not an absolute law that is written on man’s heart. It is not an absolute moral principle detectable in the universe. Charles Darwin recently, who seemed to think that really look at nature and you see.
As Alfred Tennyson said that nature is red in tooth and claw nature is barbaric. It’s impossible to look to nature and emerge with an understanding of absolute objective morality from that quarter. It does not exist there. It’s far too brutal an existence for that. I think you’re doing a great job explaining the defects in what Cicero is talking about here, Joshua. I can come up with an analogy to add on to it this way. Cicero is just loading on more and more of this glorious wording as if we’re talking about a salesman. It’s like a salesman giving a spiel on something is really what’s going on here. The violin salesman walks up to you and he shows you this violin and he starts talking about, look at the fine wood grain of the violin. Look at the way the strings are tight. Look at the beautiful finish, the roundness of the hole in the middle, the beautiful black winding keys for the strings. Look at all the detail Look over here.
Look around the back. Look at the bottom. Look at the top. Look at the sides. Isn’t it so beautiful, beautiful, beautiful? And he works up your enthusiasm for the violin. But in the end, a violin is valuable because it brings pleasure in hearing it play. Did it not bring pleasure? All of the rest of the detail involved in putting the violin together would be of no account and would be of no use to you whatsoever. It’s this technique. And I’ll have to pursue further the idea of how sales. And do these things. But it’s the bling, the gloss of glamour that a salesman is putting on that is what’s so attractive in the way Cicero presents it and is why he’s so successful. But in the end, it is the pleasure that it brings, which is the ultimate reason for wanting anything. So we always keep coming back to that. And yet it’s fascinating almost to see how effective this kind of an argument can be and why Dogenes of Ornowander ends up having to say on his inscription that he’s going to shout. all Greeks and non-Greeks.
That virtue is not the end in itself. It is pleasure that’s the end. It’s really interesting how arguments can be presented in a deceptive way. And I think that’s what Cicero is doing here. So Cicero goes on in section 15 as we come to the end of today’s episode. He says, Here you have a picture of morality, Torquatus, finished and complete on all sides, which is wholly comprised in these four virtues concerning which you also talked. Your friend Epicurus, And Epicurus says he is altogether ignorant of the nature and properties assigned to morality by those who make it the measure of the supreme good. For if, he says, they judge all things by the standard of morality and declare that in morality pleasure has no part, they raise a clamor of empty sound. These are the very words he uses. Without understanding or seeing what meaning must needs be put on this term,
According to the language of custom, those qualities alone are called moral, which are vaunted by the talk of the people. And these qualities, he says, although they are often sweeter than certain of the pleasures, are still desired for the sake of pleasure. Do you not see how extensive is this disagreement? Cicero is given a bit of Epicurus’ opinion here and he says, Do you not see, Torquatus, how utterly divergent his views, his view of morality is from my view of god-ordained natural law that is the same in all places and in all times? Epicurus is saying he doesn’t even understand morality absent an understanding of its effect or relation to pleasure. What are you gonna do, Torquatus? Are you still gonna stand by this man even though he professes that he does not understand morality or justice without reference to his own pleasure? And of course, we don’t know why. And of course, we don’t know why.
Or what’s the answer, Torquatus’ answer here. Maybe it will come later on. But this is the test that Cicero sets up. He said at the beginning of this part that we’re talking about today that if he can establish one absolute moral truth, one thing that is moral and is desirable in and of itself and not by reference to any other thing, then all of Epicureanism will be in shambles. It will have collapsed in on itself. And so this is his test here of Epicurean philosophy. Yeah, and Joshua, I’m fascinated by one of the synonyms, one of the key references that you read. Cicero says, for if he, meaning Epicurus, for if he says they judge all things by the standard of morality and declare that in morality pleasure has no part, they raise a clamor of empty sound. Those are the very words he uses. I find that very interesting. And I think we do have either Torquatus himself or maybe there’s other texts that say that, but that’s basically the accusation that Epicurus makes against the Stoics and the Platonists and all the rest,
Which is that the word morality, the phrase morality, just for its own sake, is a clamor of empty sound and that people who do that do not understand or see what meaning needs to be put on the term morality. As you said, you couldn’t get much more extensive a disagreement than that, but it’s really important to hit that home that Epicurus considers argument based on absolute morality to be a clamor of empty sound as if it says nothing at all. So, I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. And I think that’s a very interesting argument. been thrown into excitement.
Cicero declares that he does not understand what morality means if it does not lie in pleasure, unless perhaps it be some qualities extolled by the babble of the crowd. And then Cicero goes on to say that he does not only not hold such qualities to be moral, he actually holds them many times to be immoral. So again, looking at what Cicero says there when he says, quote, Do you not see how extensive is this disagreement? That’s one thing I think we can agree with Cicero on as we begin to think about closing today’s episode, is that this is an extremely extensive disagreement. And we can agree with Chrysippus as well, that this goes to the heart of the difference between these philosophies. You’re going to accept Epicurus and follow his advice and his understandings if you take the position that there is no central, absolute divine authority promulgating this virtue that Cicero keeps talking about, or you’re going to go with Cicero if you do.
So we’ll begin to close today’s episode on this question where we’re all agreeing that there’s an extensive disagreement involved here and rather than go further we’ll see if we have any closing comments from anyone so Martin any closing comments for today I have nothing to do thanks okay thank you Martin Calasini any thoughts on the subjects from today regarding the stance of Cicero compared to Epicurus it’s really tracing it down to the basic foundations of each of their worldviews that they’re really very different and it’s almost going to be impossible for Cicero to understand Epicurus because his worldview is just so different and if you had Epicurus and Cicero and some kind of mediator between them trying to get each of them to really see things the same way it would just be impossible because they’re not going to ever agree between the two of them yeah that’s a great point while Epicurus.
Focuses that his philosophy is true and therefore everybody could profit from it it’s clearly not going to be the case that everybody’s going to accept it and it goes back to the physics and to the canonics to a large degree this is not just a matter of preferences as to vanilla versus chocolate ice cream it comes back to these deeper questions of the nature of the universe and the nature of knowledge and how you arrive at conclusions of any kind so it’s a great example of the necessity of seeing Epicurean philosophy as a coherent whole and that’s what I’m trying to get at with this video. I’m going to go ahead and go through a couple of things that I think are really important to understand and I’m going to go through a couple of things that I think are really important to understand and that’s why I’m going to go through a couple of things that I think are really important to understand and that’s why I’m going to go through a couple of things that I think are really important to understand and that’s why I’m going to go through a couple of things that I think are really important to understand and that’s why I’m going to go through a couple of things that I think are really important to understand and that’s why I’m going to go through a couple of things that I think are really important to understand while I’m still living.
It’s a radically different approach. Now that I’ve said that, I’m going to have to go find that quote. It’s a radically different approach to understanding nature and human life, to start with God and the immortal soul as Cicero does, or whether you start with early man living in huts and making fire for the first time as Lucretius does. You start the conversation, gives an indication as to where you’re going to end up. And one final thing I can say is that last week, Cassius, I mentioned that you did a video on. Well, this week I have to mention your outline on Epicurean philosophy, which is on the forum. So this outline, it’s got the headings and the subheadings, and then under each subheading you have your citations. So you can basically click through down to the sort of foundational text for each section. I thought it was very good. I don’t know if you have anything more to say about it right now, but it’s been very interesting to see this project and how it’s unfolded. Yeah, thanks for mentioning that, Joshua. The main thing about it. is that it all just.
Stems from how Epicurean philosophy has to be seen as a whole and how many people will come through the forum, they’ll read the Epicurean philosophy pages on Facebook and other parts of the internet, just looking at the ethics because they’re just looking at their desire to be happy and they read some of Epicurus’ advice about attitudes to take and things to do and things not to do and so forth. And then they, in many cases, just move on because they don’t go further and examine the deeper foundations of the philosophies. Using an outline form is exactly what Epicurus recommends in the letter to Herodotus, that you don’t always need the details, but you do need the main headings of the philosophy. And ethics is only one of the three main headings, even if you start putting the major aspects of ethics in a list of subheadings. You’ve got major aspects of the physics and the canonics that feed directly into these questions that Cicero has been dealing with today. You cannot have Epicurean physics and Epicurean and arrive at the surface of the.
Conclusions that Cicero has reached here, because these positions about there being absolute laws and absolute morality that applies no matter where you are, no matter who you are, no matter when you are, you’ll just never even begin to consider anything like that if you understand the basics of Epicurean physics and Epicurean theories of knowledge. And as Calasini said very well in a very important point, you can put all the mediators in the world in a room with these divergent positions and you’re never going to come to an agreement because they start with such fundamentally different principles that one of the two sides is going to have to change its fundamental principles for there to be any ultimate agreement. That’s one of the things over the years we’ve talked about so many times, that people who come from Stoicism and start looking at Epicurus because they know that Seneca or Marcus Aurelius to.
Say, here are some good things with Epicurus and of course I’ll add them to the many good things I’ve already got from Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius and so forth. And to be charitable, it’s an effort that’s very difficult to do and come out with a coherent result because the foundations are inconsistent. You’ve got to decide where you stand on these foundation issues before you go further. That’s what the outline and everything we do at EpicureanFriends.com is really geared towards helping is to make sure that people understand where these issues come from and the reasoning behind the conclusions and we can help people sort through whether they’re going to want to agree with these conclusions or not. We try to always do that. I think Epicureans throughout history are noted for being friendly and upbeat and in good humor and so forth and that’s the way we attack these issues. It’s good to be able to discuss these things intelligently with people of good faith and that’s what we try to do. Okay, with that, we’ll close for this week. We’ll come back next week. In the meantime, join us at the forum.
And anything else you’d like to talk about regarding Epicureans. Thanks for your time today. We’ll see you next week.