In the philosophical history of Ancient Greece, seeking for happiness always become the first primary thing of a person, which symbols the direction of the person’s moral philosophy or just thoughts. In a word, you should instal your moral orientation if you want to make your philosophical dreams come true.
From excellence to happiness
As we all know, Plato and Aristotle both have moral and ethical thought about what a guy should do, and which life should be chosen for each person. Furthermore, they all thought the most important thing in the country for most people is, that to be evolved in the life of city-states, as a component of country; that to live a moral life with virtue and happiness; and that to continue the process from potential to achievement, of nature. However, if we compare the 「excellence」 in Aristotle with 「happiness」 in Stoicism and Epicureanism, the differences are directly distinct. The excellence means 「to be what you should be」, and the happiness is 「to find a way to make yourself happy」 or 「to live a happy life」, especially the enjoyment of body and mind.
As far as Late Greek Philosophy’s concerned, Skeptics, Stoicism and Epicureanism Provided almost all of viewpoints, including logics, physics and ethics. The common ideas of them are three on the whole:
△First of all, the meaning of moral-practices has been thought higher than before, and the studies of philosophical theory have been putted aside.
△Secondly, all of the ethics of them have a common trait: individualism and self-interest. For them, the only thing we need to concern is to seek the mental peace. Therefore, the business in society or stuff of body-about are just irrespective.
△Last but not least, as the offspring of Ancient Greek philosophy, they all have theoretical inclination, with plausible arguments, the logical methods of deduction and induction, and the endeavor of clear definitions, which made them occupy the center of philosophy in Late Greek.
The differences between Stoicism and Epicureanism
The differences are as clear as the similarities, such as the method of demonstration, the conclusions in ethics, the attitudes toward society and conventional life. However, in order to draw a more proper conclusion, I will choose a narrow perspective, comparing their division between: the demonstrations of happiness; the positions of freedom.
Stoicism
The direct derivation of it is Cynicism, created by Antisthenes, from which the most of thoughts the Stoicism held were derived. For example, they all suggest that people should control their appetite about body, that set virtue itself as the highest goodness, and the most desirable life is live by nature.
The happiness: Stoicism’s moral philosophy is related with their physics, whose relation between them is TREE and FRUIT, growing on the ground of philosophy. Stoics think that the universe is a whole of substance, a self-sufficient, interrelated, keeping moving and united entity, every component belongs to this entire 「home」, with simple regulation and rule, named Logos. However, this logos is not a transcendental concept without perceptibility, but a conceivable matter with material shape, flowing all over the universe. Actually, this view is monism, apparently, suggesting that the universe is an unity, and people are parts of it, swimming in the same law. In a word, human is just a little universe, with the same logos. Thus, the happiest life is to live by nature, and the harmony among the worlds could be displayed.
We can construct a short argument to discover the internal relations of those sentences, which is useful for us to understand the center point of their ethics, and the reason why we need to obey the law of nature and control our appetite:
Premise 1: The universe is an unity; all things of the world moving with the same law.
Premise 2: Logos is the law of the universe, also the law of human.
Conclusion 1: As a part of the universe, human must obey the Logos.
Premise 3: Logos of the universe circulates in itself, ordering the universe itself, letting the creatures work as what they are.
Conclusion 2: Human should activate according to the logos internal.
Premise 4: Living a life by nature is the aim of our moral activities; subject to our own nature is equal to subject to the law of the universe.
Premise 5: Logos is the law of nature, and reason is the law of human.
Conclusion 3: We must obey our reason in order to live a better life.
Premise 6: The properties of the universe are peaceful, harmonious and stable.
Conclusion: The best and happiest life for human is the rational and peaceful life.
This demonstration is a typical deduction. Argument starts from an assertion—「the universe is an unity」—and the conclusion is contained of premise 1, we just deduct a concept and gain no more knowledge at all. Moreover, the outcome of this demonstration indicates that people should use reason against their sensitive desire, that the best virtue is indifference. In a word, 「keep mind stable」.
Epicureanism
Hedonism and Epicureanism always have same sense for most people. When people talk to epicureans, bias, discriminations and prejudices occupy the dominant area of attitude immediately. But according to Diogenes, extreme hedonism might be a wrong label for epicureans, because the mental-happy is better than body-happy. Stoicism and Epicureanism have many similarities in moral philosophy, such as individualism and rational life. However, obviously, there are differences between them: because of the law of nature, Stoics hold a holistic individualism, claiming that person gain the peace of spirit by assimilating into the universe; but the epicureans insist an extreme individualism, which claims people can only act as self-governed and never be decided by something, stripping individuals from the dependence of the universe.
We could find that, the beginning of Stoicism is physics, on the contrary, the origin of Epicureanism is ethics. Describing the panorama of it is useful for our next passages:
l First of all, in epistemology, they hold different views about reason—intellect is higher than sensation in Stoicism, but for epicureans, individual’s feel is of most importance;
l secondly, the atomism is an auxiliary argument of moral philosophy, derived from Democritus; and then, they construct an extreme individualism in morality, possessing from epistemology, physics to ethics.
With the help of propositions, we can notice the interrelations among these sections, and the structure of them:
Premise 1: Morality is posteriori, in the beginning, and the sense of us is most important, which we can use to judge our behavior, induct our activity.
Premise 2: Sensation is the teacher of behavior, and the only truth.
Premise 3: Sensation could be divided into two parts: pleasure and pain.
Premise 4: Moral judgement could be divided into two parts also: just and unjust.
Premise 5: Morality is a thing about personal behavior.
Conclusion 1: Sensation is the rule of morality: pleasure is just, pain is unjust.
Premise 6: Pleasure is accepted and aspired by everybody.
Conclusion 2: The very direction of life is the way of seeking happiness.
Premise 7: According to Democritus, the world was consisted of atoms and the vacuum, the parts of the universe are built into a harmonious unity by vortex-motion.
Conclusion 3: Premise 2 and premise 7 are incompatible, so should be modified.
Premise 8: Atoms have weight, so they can collide with each other, spontaneously.
Conclusion 4: For each person, to live a pleasuring life is most important.
Conclusion 5: The way of seeking happiness is unrestricted also.
The modification about Democritus atomism is crucial, which allows liberty originate from atom(person). It is obvious that Democritus atomism is different with Epicurean atomism: Original atomism is inclined to Stoicism, which claims the whole world is governed by a marvelous necessity, and person has a strong relation with the universe; but epicurean atomism has a propensity to extreme individualism, providing possibilities of people’s liberal behaviors. In a word, Stoicism is ex-atomism, Epicureanism is post-atomism.
The incompatibility between pleasure and freedom
By making human associate with the universe—that is, either human act as parts in nature or act as atoms in the universe—stoicism and Epicureanism both claim liberty is a natural capacity, which allows a person to creat the meaning of life and judge the moral behavior. In Stoicism, persons, as a parts of the universe, obeys the identical Logos, which is the law of nature and human. And for epicureans, every atom must move under the vortex-motion, symboling the necessity of the whole world, and the question could always be asked, about atom’s freedom, even though they put weight into the atoms.
So we shall find in their system a very strange division of philosophical views, so to speak. We shall find the law of nature determine every consequence; but also that people have their own choices about moral life and mental direction.
It is difficult to provide a comprehensive picture of their whole philosophy, and not only because of their demonstration with many assertions and metaphors. It is also because there are to many components in their philosophical garden, lacking a coherent structure of each part.
Stoicism』 freedom
The implication of fatalism is 「determination」 in stoicism’s philosophy, which is derived from their metaphysics—every creature have to obey the power of Logos, which is the primary law of the universe. However, people have their own capacities of making a decision among moral choices.
The only resolution of this problem is to redefine the significance of 「freedom」: on the one hand, making liberal decision is the primary meaning of it, just like the will; on the other hand, following the law of the universe must be an inherent attribute of freedom. Considering two properties above, we shall result the new definition of freedom: to freely choose the life in accordance with Logos.(That is so kantian! The only difference of them is replacing the Categorical Imperative with Logos.)
So the real significance of freedom is a kind of self-discipline—that is, we need to find a life consistent with the law of the universe, which is peaceful, harmonious, stable and desire-lacking life. By the way, the best moral life has been drawn.
Epicureanism’s freedom
So talk to epicureans, the freedom for them is a kind of extreme concept, because of the weight of atoms. That is to say, atoms spontaneously collide with other atoms, capture a certain position and appear in the real world. As the correspondence of atoms, people have their own desire and will, which induct the behavior and activities of them. But the incompatibility come from an idea of Lucretius』 book: Bias-motion can not happens in our perception. This means the reason of motion cannot be caught by our reason or sensation. In a word, the implication of freedom is a kind of unconceivable contingency, instead of liberty.
The difference of them is subtle and interesting: If the contingency cannot be conceived by our own absolutely, the concept cannot be used for it, and we have no competence to catch the next position of atoms, the contingency is just inevitable necessity. We need to extend the interpretation of this concept: Contingency means that the whole activities of us is uncontrollable and unpredictable, the causes and the effects, so everything has been putted into a huge dicebox, we will never know which point could be thrown; And if we can neither percept nor change the destiny, contingency slips easily to fatalism.(which is the basic concept of Stoicism.)
As we all know, the innermost skeleton of universe and the innermost skeleton of human being are one and the same: The atoms are governed by necessity, which is the law of humans』 behavior, too. Thus, two distinctive attributes have been built into the nature of human beings: as liberal atoms of the universe, people have their competence to interact with each other; but as components settled on the circle of necessity, people lose their capacities to choose freely.
Conclusion
All in all, for Stoicism and Epicureanism, seeking for the most proper and meaningful life is not only the pramiry mission of people, but also the most honorable attitude of moral life. However, the division between happiness and freedom is obviously an inveterate problem. It hard to say that we or them can find a smooth resolution to overcome it, which follows the demonstration of moral direction at the very beginning. And in fact, to some extent, we can name them 「dualism」 in morality.