The Cyrenaics are ethical hedonists. Unlike their more famous cousins, the Epicureans, they favour bodily pleasure and the pleasures of the moment. Most scholars think they even reject prudence and eudaimonist concern for one's life as a whole. This book critiques that scholarly consensus and offers a wider perspective on Cyrenaic ethics. It is a welcome addition to the literature; anyone with a serious interest in ancient ethics should read it.
Because Cyrenaicism is a way of life, L. aims to recover not just beliefs and arguments, but also their practical and social contexts (Chapters 1–2). Thus, he uses ancient vignettes about the Cyrenaics to capture their way of life. (He knows these are often invented to illustrate or mock someone's views [p. 127], but he never addresses the problems this raises for his use of them.) A way of life must also appeal pre-theoretically to people of its time and place. So, L. describes the social context and argues that the Cyrenaics appropriate Homeric themes of heroic virtue. In making these points, L. uses oddly anachronistic language of ‘ethical intuition’ and ‘existential choice’. Still, the general point is well taken, and it opens up one of the book's most compelling claims: that Aristippus’ special concern for the pleasures of the moment should be understood as a therapeutic exercise (see below).
The balance of the book is organised partly by theme and partly by figure. Four thematic chapters address knowledge and pleasure, virtue, eudaimonism, and personal and political relationships (Chapters 3–6). Most of these are structured in turn by figures, starting with Aristippus and moving to the mainstream Cyrenaics. Two chapters discuss the heterodox Cyrenaics Hegesias and Theodorus (Chapters 7–8); Chapter 6 also contains some material on them and another heterodox Cyrenaic, Anniceris. A further chapter describes Cyrenaicism in the work of Walter Pater (Chapter 9). L. concludes by arguing that the Cyrenaics’ philosophical significance depends on one's interests. (It would have been better to hear L.'s own view of their significance, however idiosyncratic.) Two appendices discuss our sources and argue that the putatively mainstream doxography at DL 2.86–93 contains significant Annicerian interpolation.
The book's hybrid organisation is often frustrating. Aristippus’ rejection of politics, his concern for a virtue of ‘sociability’ and his attitude to social relationships are discussed in three different places (pp. 33–4, 61–2, 103–8), and nowhere synthesised. Chapter 3 focuses on Cyrenaic views of pleasure as the end, but ‘presentism’ and the end are also discussed in Chapters 4–5 and 7–8 (pp. 64–73, 83–91; 92–100; 121–3; 148–9). Cyrenaic appropriation of heroic tropes is also discussed in several places (pp. 62–4, 133–6, 142–6, 164–7). But perhaps no better organisation was possible for a book on Cyrenaic ethics, given the state of our evidence. I cannot discuss all of L.'s claims and arguments here. In what remains, I focus on his account of presentist hedonism in Aristippus and mainstream Cyrenaicism.
Aristippus sought pleasure, especially bodily pleasure, and he tried to avoid mental distress. Socrates led Aristippus to reflect on and argue for these commitments and others that stem from them, but he probably did not systematise his views. Still, Aristippus is puzzling. He cares about his future (e.g. he values education and cultivation of virtue), but both Aelian and Athenaeus say that he advised caring about the present alone. Aelian emphasises not regretting or fretting about the past or future, because only the present is ours. Athenaeus emphasises that only the present offers a basis for judging what is good, while future and past enjoyments are no concern of ours. Both reports explain that the past is no longer, while the future is uncertain (ἄδηλον).
L. argues that Aelian's report is closer to the original, both on linguistic grounds and because Athenaeus’ report seems to place Aristippus relative to the Epicureans. (One more reason for the latter claim: the language of judging the good by reference to what is present recalls the Epicurean insistence that we refer all goods to the body.) He reads this evidence as stating a prudential rule of thumb that underwrites therapeutic exercises similar to some described by Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Briefly, focusing on one's present activity makes it easier to enjoy that activity. Reflecting that the past and future are not ‘ours’ helps us to focus on our present activity. But this does not preclude concern for the future, any more than similar Stoic exercises preclude concern for one's life as a whole. Indeed, one might cultivate virtue in part to improve one's future ability to succeed at such exercises.
Later Cyrenaics articulated a general account of the πάθη as infallibly revealing themselves but not their causes. Among these are pleasure and pain, which infallibly reveal themselves as satisfying and repulsive, good and bad, and choice-worthy and avoidance-worthy. Though experiences do not reveal their causes, they guide action in something like the way that appearances guide the Pyrrhonist. Mainstream Cyrenaics, like Aristippus, care about the future and so seek education and cultivate virtue. But there are limits; trying to plan one's whole life is painful and self-defeating. (L. usually glosses this quantitatively: one should plan for the future, but not too much. A qualitative distinction might capture their position better: one should care about one's general future condition to ensure that one can enjoy pleasures then, but avoid making specific plans for the future.)
L. could have been clearer about some aspects of his view. For example, he takes the claim that ‘pleasures do not differ’ to mean they all have the same phenomenal character (p. 41). Elsewhere, though, he implies that different pleasures and pains are identical to qualitatively distinct experiences such as being cut and being burned (pp. 36–7). So, he could have been clearer about the relationship between pleasure and perception. This is reflected in his mentions of certain ‘purely informational’ experiences. His examples include being yellowed or reddened, being made salty and being affected by sound (p. 53). L. seems to have chosen these as examples of affectively neutral experiences. But earlier he calls being sweetened and burned informational states (p. 48), and again, he still earlier called these pleasures and pains (pp. 36–7). Perhaps this all coheres somehow, but we are never told how.
Further comparison with the Epicureans might also have been helpful, for example in the treatment of DL 2.90–1 (pp. 83–5). On L.'s reading, this passage first describes Cyrenaic future-concern. Because of their future-concern, they (i) avoid some things productive of pleasures (τῆς ἡδονῆς τὰ ποιητικά); and (ii) they say that the accumulation (ἀθροισμόν) of pleasures is troublesome. Finally, (iii) they say that the sage cannot avoid pain, but can live pleasantly for the most part; so, (iv) they advocate restricting one's prudential planning. L. compares (i) with Epicurus KD 8. But Epicurus next states a counterfactual about the accumulation (ἄθροισμα) of pleasure over the whole of our nature or its highest parts. If such a thing were possible, he says, then pleasures would not differ from one another – a standard Cyrenaic doctrine. Epicurus’ counterfactual in KD 9 thus seems to target them in some way. Indeed, this anti-Cyrenaic theme seems to continue into KD 10, which says that if things productive of the pleasures characteristic of the dissolute (τὰ ποιητικὰ τῶν περὶ τοὺς ἀσώτους ἡδονῶν) released one from fear and taught the limit of desires, then such people could not be blamed. Again, this is just one place where further comparison of the Cyrenaics with the Epicureans might have illuminated both.
I could mention other quibbles or puzzles about L.'s treatment of the Cyrenaics on pleasure, not to mention other topics in their ethics. But that is not meant as criticism so much as praise: L. has written a book that not only vastly improves our understanding of Cyrenaic ethics, but will also inspire further scholarship.
