Empty opinions about the just
For the most part, those who refer to the political philosophy of the Epicureans start by quoting PD 33, in which Epicurus claims, apparently against Plato:
(i) Justice was not a thing in its own right, (ii) but [exists] in mutual dealings in places of any size whenever there [is] a pact about neither harming one another nor being harmed.
trans. Inwood and Gerson modified
Ουκ ην τι καθ' εαυτo δικαιοσυνη, aλλ, εν ταις μετ' aλληλων συστροφαις καθ' 6πηλtκους δηποτε aεi τoπους συνθηκη τις υπερ του μη βλaπτειν η βλαπτεσθαι.1
Nevertheless, the presence of the expression ‘a thing in its own right' [τι καθ' εαυτo] in proposition (i) of PD 33 does not oblige us to focus exclusively on Plato's idea of justice. Epicurus himself uses the expression ‘in its own right' [καθ' εαυτo] in other passages (such as in PD 8 and LH 68, 71), without its understanding requiring, at least directly, an appeal to Plato's Forms. In the passages from LH, Epicurus distinguishes the way of being of bodies and their properties [συμβεβηκoτα], whether permanent or accidental. Epicurus calls bodies ‘[existing] natures in themselves' [φυσεις καθ' εαυτας] and their accidental properties συμπτωματα (LH 40).
Lucretius calls permanent properties coniuncta and accidental properties eventa and insists that nothing exists beyond the entities existing by themselves - bodies and void - and the permanent and accidental properties.2 Slavery, freedom, poverty, wealth, war and peace do not have the same type of existence as bodies, but represent, according to Lucretius, mere eventa of these (RN 1.455-456). Lucretius states that these things can be called eventa, accidents, or ‘accidental properties' of matter and of space in which all things happen ( corporis atque loci, res in quo quaeque gerantur, RN 1.482).Now, the exclusion of justice from the category of existing natures in themselves presented by proposition (i) of PD 33 could lead one to think that Epicurus assimilates justice to the properties of bodies. Lucretius' emphasis on the space-time instantiation of the eventa (RN 1.482) and the examples he offers (RN 1.455-456) suggest that justice should be included among the accidental properties.3 However, the presence of the word ‘conglomeration' [συστροφη], a technical term in Epicurean physics (see LH 73, 77, and Diogenes of Oenoanda; fr.14 Smith) in proposition (ii) of PD 33 could also suggest that justice possesses the status of permanent properties [coniuncta].i Both attempts at classification face the same interpretative problem: of which body is justice the permanent or accidental property?5 Proposition (ii) of PD 33 states that justice exists in the mutual dealings in territories where a particular pact takes place. This statement does not seem to refer to a bodily property but rather to something like the ‘property of properties' of a body that is certainly not easy to specify.
The only mention of something similar in the Epicurean literature is the contention in the definition of time (attributed to Demetrius of Laconia; see Sextus M 10.219-220) as an accidental property of accidental properties.
Nothing similar is found regarding justice. In fact, the Epicurean literature contains no analysis dedicated to specifying whether justice is a permanent or an accidental property. Yet Epicurus, Hermarchus, the successor of Epicurus as head of the school, and Polystratus, the third head of the Epicurean school, do all write about a topic which reveals the status they attribute to justice, since they all argue against those who deny that justice exists or claim that it is merely conventional. Polystratus' On the Irrational Contempt of Popular Opinions contains the most detailed argument in this vein. He directs the Epicurean study of nature toward dissipating the confusion generated by what he takes to be a vain impression of the non-existence of the noble and shameful (τα κotλα καt τα αiσχρα; col. xxii 23-24, xxiv 3-5, xxv 9-10, xxvi 22-5, xxviii 10). This vain impression, he asserts, is caused by the geographical and historical variability of the noble and shameful, and by the fact that animals do not possess a notion of ‘what is noble and shameful'.6 This confusion about the noble and shameful seems to be a matter with which the Epicureans were concerned. Hermarchus refers to those people who state that all that is noble and just [παν τo καλoν καt δfκαιον] exists according to certain individual beliefs [κατα τας iδtoς υποληψεις]; such beliefs or suppositions, he thinks, are full of a most profound stupidity (ηλιβατου τινoς γεμειν ευηθεtας; Porphyry, Abst. 1.12, 2). At the end of PD 37, Epicurus also stresses that the existence and temporality of the just are manifest for those who do not allow themselves to be disturbed by empty assertions but who keep strictly to the facts.On his part, Polystratus refers to a Hellenistic reformulation of the traditional theories of the categories which is different to the physicalist reformulation developed by Epicurus [φυσεις καθ' εαυτας∕συμβεβηκoτα].7 In such a reformulation, the distinction between what exists by itself and what is relative [τα πρoς τι κατηγορουμενα] takes on an epistemological orientation and a sceptical perspective. In fact, such a distinction is intended to emphasize that what really is everywhere and for everyone, while the relative instances, because they are not the same everywhere and for everyone, are not.8 Polystratus seeks to refute those who deny the existence of relative properties because they do not satisfy the same predicates as the existing entities by themselves. Stone or gold, they claim, is everywhere and for everyone the same, while a relative property ‘producing health' does not satisfy these predicates. In Polystratus' view, one can only conclude from this argument that the mode of existence of things such as stone or gold is not identical to that of relative entities (and vice versa), not that some exist and others do not. Likewise, from the fact that the relative properties do not constitute natures in themselves, it does not follow that their existence is conventional, since they represent real properties of the bodies and not mere opinions.
Although Polystratus does not include the just among his examples of relatives, his list incorporates the traditional expression ‘the noble and the shameful' (τα κotλα καi τα od,σχρα; col. xxii 23-24, xxiv 3-5, xxv 9-10, xxvi 22-5, xxviii 10) and concludes with the indefinite expression τα δμοια τουτοις (xxii 6).
As a matter of fact, the just could be taken to be implicit there. There is an additional argument for its inclusion: among the relational properties that Polystratus considers are ‘producing health' and ‘being useful'.9 Hermarchus refers to both in criticizing those who claim that justice exists according to individual beliefs. In Hermachus' view, it is not possible that what is noble and just can take place in any other way than that in which the other modalities of usefulness such as matters of health and thousands of others exist (επi των λοιπων συμφερoντων, οiον υγιεινων τε καi ετερων μυρ(ων εiδων, Porphyry, Abst. 1.12, 2).10 Hermarchus and Polystratus reiterate Epicurus' conception of what is just. In the Principal Doctrines the just [τo δ(καιον] is presented as the useful (or ‘the advantageous', τo συμφερον ) in mutual associations, i.e. what contributes to neither harming one another nor being harmed (PD 31, 33, 36-38).Polystratus' remarks (in addition to helping clarify PD 33) show that the consideration of the ontological status of the just is not necessarily oriented to the questioning of the laws through their confrontation with nature, as had already happened many times in the Greek tradition. Demetrius of Laconia, apparently a meticulous connoisseur of Epicurus' work,11 underlines a semantic connection between nature and utility that complements Epicurus', Hermarchus' and Polystratus' remarks about what is useful and what is just. In Pap. Herc. 1012 (col. lxvi-lxviii), Demetrius attributes three possible meanings to the adverbial dative φυσει: αδιαστρoφως, κατηναγκασμενως, and συμφερoντως.
These adverbs can be translated respectively as ‘without distortion' (in the sense of ‘by natural instinct'), ‘by necessity', and ‘by usefulness'.12 Despite holding that the just, which constitutes a modality of the useful, does not possess the mode of existence proper to physical bodies (the only entities that exist in themselves), the Epicureans do not therefore argue that the just is conventional. On the contrary, they stress that the just is not conventional because it is constrained by conformity to the purpose established in human communities' first pacts (‘neither harming one another nor being harmed'). Indeed, these pacts make possible the security and survival of human beings. The fact that these pacts are inexorably concretized in determined circumstances secures their unwavering conformity to serving the just purpose of the pacts. Demetrius of Laconia seems to refer to the inexorable nature of these circumstances when he notes that one of the meanings of the adverbial dative φυσει is συμφερoντως.Since the means of accumulating and conserving food in the ancient city were rudimentary, we can imagine a situation somewhat akin to the following. If a drought led to a poor harvest and consequent poor health amongst livestock, the situation in the community would require reduced food consumption; it would therefore be fair to consume smaller rations, since this would prevent harm and being harmed. This simple example allows us to see that, in a desperate situation of food shortages, no member of the community could claim to have privileges over another and consume more food than was permitted. That would be the same as damaging others, and it would follow that the others would also feel that they had the right to harm the one who had ruined the rest of the community, in turn destroying the pact and the wider community that is grounded on it. Anyone who breaks the agreement based on not harming or being harmed would be threatening the security of the other individuals as well as their own freedom. If in this situation of food scarcity, the State, or the wise people of whom Hermarchus speaks, determines the quantities of food to be ingested per day, and a person ingests more than he is allowed, he threatens not only the preservation of other citizens but also their freedom to continue being persons. This example helps point out that justice, understood as a modality of what is useful, is valid for the specific time and circumstances in which the law is established for the preservation of the community and, at the same time, the integrity of its citizens. The relevance of circumstances is especially stressed by Epicurus in PD 38-39.
2