Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- PART I POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION
- PART II THE ETHICAL FRAMEWORK OF POLITICS AND SOCIETY
- 6 The Epicurean theory of law and justice
- 7 Two Stoic approaches to justice
- 8 Cicero's politics in De officiis
- 9 Politics and paradox in Seneca's De beneficiis
- Bibliography
- General index
- Index of Greek and Latin words
- Index of ancient names and philosophical schools
- Index of passages
6 - The Epicurean theory of law and justice
from PART II - THE ETHICAL FRAMEWORK OF POLITICS AND SOCIETY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- PART I POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION
- PART II THE ETHICAL FRAMEWORK OF POLITICS AND SOCIETY
- 6 The Epicurean theory of law and justice
- 7 Two Stoic approaches to justice
- 8 Cicero's politics in De officiis
- 9 Politics and paradox in Seneca's De beneficiis
- Bibliography
- General index
- Index of Greek and Latin words
- Index of ancient names and philosophical schools
- Index of passages
Summary
One of the most original aspects of the Epicurean theory of justice, and one which has not yet been adequately explained, is the distinction which it introduces between the concept of justice and that of law. In the philosophical tradition before Epicurus law itself constituted one form of justice, namely legal justice (dikaion nomikon), sometimes contrasted with a superior form, natural justice (dikaion phusikon). Some rejected the idea of natural justice, and simply equated just conduct with conformity to law. ‘Justice is not to transgress the laws (nomima) of the city in which one lives as a citizen’, says Antiphon (On truth, fr. 44B, col. 1). And Thrasymachus (in Plato, Rep. 1 338c–339a) repeats that justice consists in promoting the interests of your ruler, in other words, in obeying the laws imposed by your ruler in his own interests. On the other hand, when Plato maintained that laws which do not deserve the name ‘just’ are not real laws (Laws 715b2–6) — that is, when he identified law with just law — he was confirming that same Sophistic equation of nomos and dikaion at the same time as turning its meaning upside down. And closer to the time of Epicurus, we still find Aristotle asserting that ‘justice is conformity to law’ (Nicomachean Ethics 1129a34), and defining universal justice (as distinct from particular justice) as observance of the law.
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- Justice and GenerosityStudies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy - Proceedings of the Sixth Symposium Hellenisticum, pp. 161 - 190Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995
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