Rosenbaum(1996), "Epicurean Moral Theory", History of Philosophy Quarterly

(서론)

 

문제제기

- 도덕 철학자들은 옳고 그른 행동을 무엇이 구성하는지에 관한 에피쿠로스 이론에 대개 친숙하지 않다

- 나아가 그들은 에피쿠로스가 도덕에는 별 관심이 없고 life of pleasure의 추구에 큰 관심이 있어 윤리학적으로 적합하지 않을 것이라는 인상을 가진다

 

에피쿠로스 도덕 이론에 관심 가질 이유

- 서양 철학을 오랫동안 지배해왔던 도덕 전통의 대안으로서 철학적으로 더 완전하게 발전되고 있는 Aristotle과 Stoics의 이론들과 마찬가지로 ancient aretaic tradition of eudaimonistic theories들의 전통 내에 있는 도덕 이론이다

- 나아가 다른 덕 이론과 차별점을 가진다. Epricurus associated the virtue of justice with rules of behavior, [...] also combines utilitarian and contractarian elements

 

글의 목적

- explicate and interpret Epicurus’s moral theory

- suggest how the diverse and paradoxical elements of his thinking offer helpful erspectives for contemporary theorists

 

(1장 덕윤리, 계약론, 쾌락주의)

 

Epicurus’s idea of morality, ‘justice’

- spoke both of 1) justice as a virtue and of 2) justice as a contract

- 1), 2) can be best be thought of as reflecting principles of proper and improper conduct (identifying obligation) → related to behavior harming others and about motivation to follow such principles

- 3) human eudaimonia, well-being, lies at the foundation of justice and that living well consists in living a life of hedone (pleasure) (desire for hedone is natural and basic for humans, hedone is the basic good of human life)

- 3) a life of hedone was not only compatible with the 1) virtue of justice, but actually required it ← regarded phronesis (practical intelligence, or practical wisdom) as the foremost virtue (it teaches the impossibility of living pleasurably without living wisely, honorably and justly, and the impossibility of living wisely, honorably and justly without living pleasurably)

 

1) justice as a virtue

- thought of justice as trait of character, an habitual inclination to just behavior, which would motivate people to act justly and which would help them live well

- however, nothing is said about how a person with the virtue of justice will behave [...] do not reveal specifically what the just person will do

⇒ “We must look further for the content of justice.” (→ 2))

 

2) justice as a contract

- he was explicit in saying from where the content of justice comes, or at least how it is expressed and made public → contract!

- justice is nothing in itself, but simply a contract among people about not harming or being harmed (KD 33)

- 일반적으로, “justice is the same for all, since is it something useful in people’s social relationships,” 그럼에도 불구하고 “in light of what is peculiar to region and to the whole range of determinants, the same thing does not turn out to be just for all” (a kind of cultural relativism with respect to justice)

⇒ justice as a “trait related somehow to principles of conduct governing how people treat one another” (←principles in some sort of contract useful in helping people in society achieve the good)

 

3) living justly as a means to happiness

- he identified happiness with tranquility

- thought that the just enjoy tranquility of spirit while the unjust suffer great disturbance

 

(2장 공리주의적 해석의 유혹)

 

도덕률에 관한 유사-공리주의적 관념(quasi-utilitarian conception of morality)

- took justice to be an institution originating in social utility

- justification of the institution in instrumental terms, in relation to how well it contributes to social relationships → how well people within those relationships were capable of achieving the good ⇒ justice as a human institution was for the sake of promoting human welfare, happiness

 

“Justice, or morality, was for Epicurus a set of constraints on human behavior, developed at some time (or times, for different groups of people) for the purpose of creating social conditions in which people are best able to be happy”

 

정의의 발명

- created by wise when they realized that circumstances of social life were not conducive to human well-being (state of nature – harming one another) + must develop a system of rules constraining human behaviors to promote well-being

- desire to be happy + having employed phronesis ⇒ adopted rules constituting the artificial institution of justice

- to the extent that they(rules) were not successful → adjustments

 

공리주의적 해석의 유혹

- the idea of moral rules related essentially to the production of human happiness or well being → rule utilitarianism

- the apparent Benthamic calcus sitting obtrusively in the middle of the Letter, coupled with hedonism → act utilitarianism

- see the generation of pleasure to have been an overriding goal of his ethical theory + link his account of justice to the production of pleasure ⇒ utilitarianism

 

“In order to appreciate his view as the unique theory it is, it is crucial to understand why it is different from any common utilitarian view, why it is not really utilitarian, in the modern sense of that term.”

 

“Several considerations constitue insuperable barriers to a hedonistic utilitarian account of Epicurean moral theory, whether an act or rule utilitarian view.”

 

공리주의적 해석의 난점

 

(1) hedone는 sensory pleasure가 아니다. (hedone은 양적으로 평가되고 합산되고 서열화될 수 있는 별개의 단위로 주어지지 않는다.)

  (1)-1 행복을 산출하는 인생의 좋음은 “kinetic” hedone과 구별되는 “katastematic”(static) hedone이다. 그것은 ataraxia와 aponia, 즉 걱정없음 혹은 만족스러움(untroubledness or contentedness)과 신체의 고통의 부재(absence of pain in the body)이다.

  (1)-2 (katastematic) hedone와 고통(pain) 사이에는 중간 지대가 없다(no middle ground). 그러므로, hedone는 고통이 없는 상태이다. 자신과 고통 사이의 중간 상태가 있는 sensory pleasure가 hedone일 수 없는 것이다.

  (1)-3 에피쿠로스적 인생의 목적(telos of life)은 향상되고 증가될(enhanced or augmented) 수 없는 것이지만, sensory pleasure은 그렇게 될 수 있는 것이다.

 

(2) eudaimonia는 개별적 행위나 규칙 따르기로 획득되지 않는다.

  (2)-1 eudaimonia는 특정 종류의 사람됨, 즉 덕스러운 사람(a person of virtue)됨에 있다. (그 사람은 phronesis를 가진다.) 그것은 개별적 행위나 행동을 제한하는 규칙들의 사회적 수용을 통해 산출될 수 있는 것이 아니고, 따라서 straightforward utilitarian good이 아니다.

  (2)-2 eudaimonia는 단순히 정의롭게 행동하는 것 이상의 것이라 정의의 규칙을 따른다고 해서 획득할 수 있는 것이 아니다. 그를 위해서는 virtue of just와 phronesis와 같은 다른 덕들을 가져야 하며, right kinds of desires, necessary and natural desire와 함께 살 필요가 있다. 정의는 인간의 잘 삶(well being)을 용이하게 하는 것으로 사회에서 기능하지 그것을 산출하는 것으로 기능하지 않는다.

 

(3장 정의의 계약적 요소와 덕적 요소)

 

“the contractarian element supplies an expression of the content of morality, and the aretaic element supplies at least part of the motivation for behavior in accord with the principles of the contract”

 

어떻게 규칙이 사회에서 발생하는가? → 정의의 내용(content of justice)

- the agreement generally consisted in principles about “not harming or being harmed”

- those wise persons who made the agreement realized that without the agreement, neither they nor any others would readily be able to live well, because they realized that fear of somehow being harmed by others would diminish the quality of life → allayed only by the assurance of institutions

- force : does not depend on the agreement of everyone to whom the rules of the compact apply + not depend on whether the principles of the contract would be agreed to by ideal contractors, operating under ideal principles of juctice as Rawls would have it

- malleability : justice would not necessarily be the same in all societies + changing depending on shifting circumstances in a give society ⇒ conceived of the possibility of continual moral development and evolution, guided by practical wisdom

- qualification : the contract supplies the nomoi(laws) of public justice, but practical wisdom, in its quest for the conditions of human well being, is the ultimate source of the rules, the basis of the compact(syntheke)

 

정의의 덕적인 요소 → 규칙을 따르는 행동의 동기(motivation for behavior)

- one can act from the virtue without ever thinking of the rules of any contract (not require one think prior to acting in accord, not require one be motivated by thoughts about the rules, or by “reverence” for the rules)

 

↔ excludes moral reflectivity, and ignore the significance of rational deliberation in moral life?

⇒ completely virtuous person will be not only just, but will also be wise, and a part of wisdom involves the power to comprehend the “rational” basis for having an institution of justice

⇒ circumstances in which the rules of the contract will not apply determinately → decide how to act, based on one’s assessment of the circumstances and one’s reasoning about what would be best to do (with phronesis)

 

↔ is it quite right to see the virtue of justice as quite so distinct from the virtue of phronesis as this explanatory remark?

⇒ No, the virtues are unified with the life of hedone

 

“It seems likely that Epicurus may have taken the virtue of justice to have involved a disposition to employ phronesis rightly in situations in which neither one’s inclinations to act nor one’s awareness of the rules of the contract would determine one’s behavior”

 

계약(contract)의 역할

- without a contract, there would be no justice in a society, even if there were some individuals habitually inclined to act justly

- people lacking the virtue of justice can be moved to follow the rules of the contract, because the contract includes compliance-inducing sanctions associated with the nomoi of the contract

⇒ From the point of view of whether a person behaves justly, the question of motive appears to have been for Epicurus unimportant → What then is the importance of justice as a virtue?

 

덕(virtue)으로서 정의의 역할

- 가장 믿을만한 동기(the most reliable motive) (more reliable than the fear of sanction)

- 개인적 잘 삶에 본질적으로 기여함(contributes essentially to individual well being) a) alleviates the need for constant and frequently distressful deliberation about what to do b) sustain the likelihood of not being harmed by others in reaction to what one does

 

(4장 실천적 지혜)

 

정의에 관한 덕윤리적 설명과 계약론적 설명의 결합에 대한 비판적 의문

 

A) 도덕률(morality)의 내용을 계약이 결정한다면, 덕이 도덕률의 내용에 기여하지 않는 것인데, 정의를 덕과 연결시키는 의미가 도대체 무엇인가?

B) 그런데 정의의 덕이 행동을 인도하는 그런 원칙들의 내용을 결정한다고 하면, 어떠한 계약이든간에 이론적으로 불필요한(superfluous) 것 아닌가?

 

⇒ 에피쿠로스는, 적절한(adequate) 도덕 이론이라면 도덕률의 근본적 원천을 덕 혹은 계약으로 식별함(identifying)으로써 도덕률을 단순화할 수 있어야 하거나 그러해야 한다는 비판적 의문들 뒤에 가정, 그 가정을 거부할 것

⇒ Phronesis is the basis for Epicurean morality (인간 사이 갈등이 가능한 사회적 상황과 특정한 행동 제한이 잘 삶의 조성을 위해 유용할 것을 인지함) (정의의 덕을 발전시키고 사회적 정의를 설립하는 계약 또한 발전시킴)

 

실천적 지혜(phronesis)의 역할

- identify hedone as the goal of living, as the core of eudaimonia, after appraising the various possible ends of life

- implements the means of attaining the good life (distinguishes good desries, regulates one’s motives, discovers virtues which would contribute to happiness, discovers how to instantiate the virtues in oneself and in others, reasons about how to organize a society of individuals)

- linked to the virtue of justice, for it operates to decide specific courses of actions in cases in which an individual’s inclinations to just behavior are not indeterminate in particular cases

 

(결론)

 

“Epicurus nudged classical Greek ethical ideas in novel directions. He saw justice, morality, not only as a virtue of character, associated closely with the natural goal of living well, but also as conformity to principles external to the moral agent, principles about how to treat others.”

 

“Whether ultimately plausible or not, it is not the simple hedonistic ethical egoism or naive utilitarianism history has made it out to be.”