The Epicureans advance a distinctive social contract theory of justice. With the Sophists, they insist that justice is a human invention, an agreement about how to treat one another. But they do not conclude that justice is entirely conventional. Epicurus says that the justice of nature is a mutually useful agreement neither to harm nor be harmed (Principal Doctrine 31), and laws that are not useful are not just (Principal Doctrines 37 and 38). The Epicureans insist that the wise person would not commit injustice, aligning themselves with Plato and Aristotle.
Epicurean Justice is the first monograph in English on its topic. It gives an overall account of the Epicurean theory, dealing with various topics such as the origin of justice, justice as a virtue of character, and the ontology and epistemology of justice. R. has a sure command of the ancient sources on Epicurean justice and the scholarly literature. Without fail, his arguments are careful and reasonable. The volume is aimed at specialists, and anybody working in this area will need to take account of this book. Although I will highlight below some places where I disagree with R., his arguments are always well-informed and worth taking seriously. Non-specialists could profitably read Epicurean Justice for an in-depth introduction to the Epicurean theory of justice and the philosophical issues it raises.
Leaving aside the introduction and conclusion, the volume has six substantive chapters. The first, ‘The Origin of Justice’, lays out the various stages in the creation of communities, justice and law, based largely on Lucretius’ account in DRN 5. R. distinguishes three stages: (i) an original, pre-communal state of people in individual families; (ii) a phase where the men heading these families agree to form a community and not hurt one another; and (iii) the formation of a political state with law. Justice is created at stage (ii), with the initial agreement, and this agreement is elaborated and enforced at stage (iii).
This seems entirely right. However, R.’s labelling of stage (ii) as the ‘phusis’ (‘nature’) phase and stage (iii) as the ‘logismos’ (‘reasoning’) stage is dubious. R.’s idea is that Lucretius’ account is modelled on Epicurus’ obscure assertion in Ep. Hdt. 75 that human nature was taught some lessons by the facts themselves, which reasoning then elaborated and made more precise. So, human beings in stage (ii) were taught by nature that forming communities and not harming one another was beneficial, but in stage (iii) wise people made this natural insight more precise by promulgating detailed laws and punishments that more effectively allowed humans to live together. But I am unsure in what sense the stage (ii) agreement is ‘natural’ – the humans making this agreement would need to engage in some reasoning about the benefits of living in community and the need for an agreement not to hurt one another. And the context of Ep. Hdt. 75–6 is the Epicurean theory of language: certain noises are elicited ‘naturally’ in response to stimuli, for example a bellow of pain, and these utterances form a ‘proto-language’, which is the basis for later languages, where people invent linguistic conventions allowing for more expressive power. The ‘natural’, automatic production of sounds by early humans is disanalogous to early humans discerning the benefits of community and agreeing not to harm one another.
The main focus of Chapter 2, ‘Contractual Justice’, is how justice is natural for the Epicureans. Although justice is created by the agreement about how to treat one another, human nature constrains the justice agreement, because there are facts about what is beneficial for humans, and these facts are not determined by these agreements. R. argues that the agreement not to harm one includes not indirectly harming one another, for example depleting the food supply or leaving others vulnerable to animal attacks. R. looks at how the justice agreement covers those who are not parties to the agreement, such as children and animals. R. argues that, among the Epicureans, Lucretius comes closest to extending justice to animals such as dogs and cattle, but that even in his case the relationship falls short of full justice.
Chapter 3, ‘Aretaic Justice’, investigates justice as a virtue of character and how it relates to justice as a social institution. R. argues that justice as a virtue exists and is necessary for living well, but that it depends on the existence of contractual justice, which is more fundamental because it ‘specifies the content of the personal virtue of justice in different places and at different times’ (pp. 95–6).
Chapter 4, ‘Moral Psychology’, concerns the motivations of an Epicurean for obeying the law and when they would violate the law. R. argues that an Epicurean would never violate a just law, but they would violate unjust laws when obeying them would prevent them from satisfying their natural and necessary desires. (This is supposed to distinguish Epicurus from Plato and Aristotle, but I do not believe that Aristotle’s position requires obedience to all positive law or that Socrates’ arguments in the Crito for why he is obligated to accept his unjust execution imply that all citizens are obligated to obey all positive law.) Epicureans would violate the law to save ‘the institution of friendship’ (p. 112), because having a network of friends is necessary for happiness, but not to benefit a particular friend, because friends are fungible – losing one friend would not threaten your tranquillity. But here R. overlooks the difference between losing your friend and betraying them by failing to help them when you could.
Chapter 5, ‘Justice and Law’, considers the relationship between morality and legality in Epicureanism, comparing their theory to natural law and legal positivism in current philosophy of law, and argues that Epicurus’ theory ‘more closely resembles a natural law theory, although in certain ways it also prefigures elements that are associated with legal positivism’ (p. 119).
Chapter 6, ‘Ethical Naturalism’, looks into the ontology and the epistemology of justice. Justice, R. plausibly argues, is an accidental property. We come to know what justice is in the same way in which we come to know other properties, such as being black: through sense-perception. R. explores the Epicurean empiricist theory of concept-formation and argues that it is through ‘direct perceptions’ (p. 148) of just things that we form the prolepsis (preconception or basic concept) of justice. R.’s discussion is fruitful, but he admits that his position has a serious weakness: ‘it is difficult to imagine what a preconception, perception, or even eidolôn [image] of justice will look like and so to provide a more detailed account of what it means for a perceiver to perceive what is just via images’ (p. 158). R.’s puzzlement, I believe, arises from assimilating the preconception of justice to preconceptions like ‘black’ or ‘cow’. Individual instances of ‘black’ or ‘cow’ share a visual similarity, and this allows people to acquire these concepts. But Epicureans also admit preconceptions of usefulness (DRN 4.853–7), human agency (On Nature 25) etc. While we acquire such preconceptions empirically, noting what instances have in common by observing them, individual instances of useful things or of exercises of human agency cannot share a visual similarity. (Epicurus says that we acquire the preconception of our own agency by noticing phenomena like being able to do something even though we do not want to.) The preconception of justice should be in the latter camp, acquired via perception, but not by noting a visual similarity among the things perceived.
Although I have spent some time describing my disagreements with R., I hope that my discussion shows the range and importance of Epicurean Justice. It is a fine piece of work.
