Date of Award

Fall 1-1-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Classics

First Advisor

Inwood, Brad

Abstract

Although Epicurus was a highly systematic thinker, most discussion of his ethics has had too narrow a focus. To address this problem, I propose a unified account of pleasure, the absence of pain, and deliberation in Epicurus's ethics. I explain three puzzles which have plagued Epicureanism since Cicero and even before: why the absence of pain is called pleasure; why the absence of pain is the greatest good; and how the absence of pain governs deliberation, including about death. I develop a new view of Epicurean pleasure, and I argue against the standard framing of Epicurus's ethics as a "hedonistic calculus" that relies on the comparison of pleasures. Rather, Epicurus focuses on the goal of life as the reference point for ethical reasoning; my view innovatively integrates this claim into his ethical system, while applying insights from Epicurus's epistemology and physics to his ethics. With this view of Epicurus's ethics, we can resolve long-standing problems in Epicurus's philosophy of death which arise from faulty assumptions about how pleasures are to be compared in deliberation.

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