Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Author(s): T. H. Irwin
Source: The Monist, Vol. 74, No. 1, Morality and the Self (JANUARY 1991), pp. 55-82
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27903224
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS
L Cyrenaic Innovations
These reports attribute quite an unusual view to the Cyrenaics, and for
that reason are less likely to be simply the product of misunderstanding or
confusion in the sources.5 They do not, however, explain why the Cyrenaics
reject eudaemonism. An explanation is bound to be speculative, because of
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56 T. H. IRWIN
Those who adhered to the views of Aristippus and were called Cyrenaics held
the following view: They established two affections (path?), pain and pleasure,
taking one of them,pleasure, to be a smoothmotion, and theother, pain, to be
a roughmotion. In theirview, one pleasure is not superior to7 another, nor is
one at all pleasanter than another. One affection is welcome, and the other
repellent, to all animals. (DL ii 87)
He is not only a hedonist, but also a hedonist of the present. He claims that
past and future pleasures and pains do not count towards a person's good:
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS 57
The elder Aristippus was a disciple of Socrates.9 This fact does not
justify us in supposing that he must have agreed with Socrates' views on
ethics; still, Socrates' examination of pleasure and happiness might suggest
a starting point forCyrenaic arguments. For Socrates himself appears to de
fend hedonism in the Protagoras;10 and a disciple of his might intelligibly
believe that this is themost plausible account of the good from which to de
fend some of Socrates' other leading ethical claims.
Cyrenaic hedonism of the present differs sharply from the hedonism
defended by Socrates in the Protagoras. For Socrates, hedonism is firmly
subordinate to eudaemonism. He takes eudaemonism to be obviously true
(Euthd. 278e3-6, 289b5-6, 282al-2), and he defends hedonism by arguing
that we seek to maximize the surplus of pleasure over pain in our life as a
whole (Pr. 353c9-354e2). The assumed truth of eudaemonism determines
the sense inwhich pleasure is taken to be the end (telos, 354b7); it is not the
pleasure of themoment (en to(i) parachrema, 353dl), but pleasure summed
over one's whole life. Socrates argues that the science of measuring
pleasures and pains is needed for "the salvation of life" (soteria tou biou,
356d4-5); 'life' refers to one's life as a whole.
Both Plato and the Cyrenaics depart from the view of Socrates in the
Protagoras; and Plato's disagreement with Socrates helps to explain
Cyrenaic disagreement with both of them.
In the Gorgias Socrates argues that Callicles cannot consistently accept
both hedonism and his assumption that bravery is a virtue promoting the
agent's happiness. In assuming that an agent's virtues must promote his
happiness Callicles agrees with Socrates' position both in the Gorgias and in
the Protagoras. The Protagoras, however, sees no difficulty in reconciling
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58 T. H. IRWIN
acceptance of bravery with hedonism; for there Socrates claims that bravery
is the knowledge of what maximizes one's overall pleasure in life
(359d4-360a2). In the Gorgias, by contrast, Socrates replies that in fact the
coward seems to get more pleasure than the brave person gets, so that a
hedonist has no reason to count bravery as a virtue (Gorg. 498el0-499b3).
We might suspect that either Socrates is not being fair to hedonism or
he does not really reject the hedonism of theProtagoras. For theProtagoras
does not consider simply the short-term pleasure that seems to concern
Socrates in the Gorgias, but the long-term pleasure that is summed over the
agent's life as a whole; if this is taken into account, surely it is no longer true
that the coward gains more pleasure?
This reply, however, ought not to convince us, ifwe have understood
the Gorgias. For Socrates challenges the hedonist eudaemonist's claim that
the brave person gets more pleasure than the coward gets overall. Callicles
has agreed that we gain more pleasure if, say, we eat when we are very
hungry than ifwe eat when we are not especially hungry; but the coward is
far more afraid of danger than the brave person is, and therefore corres
pondingly more pleased if the threatened evil passes him by. Moreover, if
his cowardice exposes him to more danger in the future, he can look for
ward to greater pleasure if he is lucky enough to avoid the threatened evils.
Of course, he may be unlucky; but it is not clear that he isworse off, from a
purely hedonist point of view, than the brave person is. For even if the
brave person secures himself (again, not certainly) against some future
pains, he both exposes himself to pains that the cowardly person avoids and
denies himself the opportunity for the intense pleasures of the coward who
sighs with relief when the danger is past.
Callicles suggested a different reason for rejecting the coward's life.He
admires brave people because they "are strong enough to achieve what they
have in mind, and do not shrink back because of softness of soul"
(491b2-4). These strong and resolute people have plans for themselves and
want to carry them out; since fears and 'softness' deter us from carrying out
our own plans, agents who care about carrying out their plans will want to
restrain fear and prevent themselves from falling into cowardice. Callicles'
ideal person is the one who carries out his own plans, and satisfies his own
appetites (491e8-492a3), without fear of what other people will think
(492a3-bl).
It does not occur to Callicles at first that his admiration for this well
planned and resolute way of life conflicts with the particular content he
assumes itwill have?the unrestrained pursuit of the satisfaction of one's
appetites. But Socrates points out the conflict to him. For the sort of plan
ning and resolution that Callicles values must appear to a hedonist to be
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS 59
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60 T. H. IRWIN
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS 61
For with the body we can be aware of nothing except the present and what is
here now (quod adest), but with themind we can be aware of both thingspast
and things future.For ifwe assume that < in two cases > when we are inbodily
pain the < bodily > pain is equal, still there can be a great addition ifwe think
some limitlessand endless evil is coming to us. (Cicero, Fin. i 55)13
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62 T. H. IRWIN
The Cyrenaics say that the criteria are the affections; theyalone are grasped,
and are undeceivng, whereas none of the things that produce the affections is
graspable14 or undeceiving. For, they say, it is possible to say without being
deceived or refuted thatwe are being whitened or sweetened; but we cannot af
firmwhether the thingproducing the affection iswhite or sweet. (Sextus, AM
vii 190-91)
.. .Hence, if one must the truth, only the affection is apparent to us;
speak
the external thing thatproduces theaffection perhaps exists,but isnot apparent
to us. (194)
... It seems that what these people say about ends corresponds to what
they say about criteria. For the affections also extend as far as the ends. For
some affections are pleasant, some painful, others itermediate, and, in their
view, the painful ones are evil and theirend is pain, the pleasant ones are good
and their undeceiving end is pleasure, and the intermediateones are neither
good nor evil and their end is what is neither good nor evil, an affection in
termediate between pleasure and pain.
Of all things, then, the affections are criteria and ends, and, they say, we
liveby following these, relyingon obviousness15 and approval?on obviousness
in relation to the other affections, and on approval in relation to pleasure.
(199-200)
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS 63
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64 T. H. IRWIN
sense. Even ifwe consider a single perceiver at a single time, we cannot iden
tify Socrates, say, with just one perceived quality (for instance, his shape or
his complexion) that comes into being in a single perceptual encounter.
Socrates, as perceived by me at a single time, is the composite of a number
of such qualities. We have to "accumulate" or "bundle" these together if
we are to say that a man exists.
Further accumulations need to be added once we consider the com
monsense belief that Socrates exists outside a particular perceiver at a par
ticular time.We normally assume that he is not just thismomentary collec
tion of perceived qualities present to this perceiver. We suppose that he in
cludes the somewhat different qualities that are perceived by different
perceivers who perceive Socrates at the same time, or by the same perceiver
perceiving him at different times. In introducing two perceivers at one time,
or one perceiver at two times, we introduce two further 'accumulations' or
'collections' besides the collection that must underlie one perceiver's
recognition of Socrates at a particular time.
Questions about Socrates' existence at different times, and the sorts of
collections it involves, are raised just a little later in the Theaetetus. Socrates
argues (from a Protagorean point of view, 158e5-6) that the different
"Socrateses" perceived at different times are not stages of one and the same
continuing Socrates (158e5-160c5). In this case we are wrong to think that a
diachronic collection of qualities constitutes one and the same person.
Nothing is said, however, about any questions thatmight arise for the first
sort of collection, involving the application of 'man' to a number of
perceived qualities.
Now we cannot be sure that Aristippus knows this passage in the
Theaetetus or the theory itdescribes. Still, the passage allows us to focus on
a question that arises especially for him. For some questions about collec
tions arise for the Cyrenaic no less than for the Heracleitean.17
Since the Cyrenaics believe that only the affections are cognitively ac
cessible to us, and that these give us no rational ground for beliefs about the
properties of external objects or even for belief in the existence of these ob
jects, they are sceptics about the external world.18 But even before they raise
problems about external existence, the Cyrenaics face another question;
what grounds have we for recognizing the sort of collection in our im
mediate experiences that would give us reason for applying the concept
'man' to it (whether or not we thinkmen exist independently of our affec
tions)?
Fortunately, we have some evidence to show that the Cyrenaics are
concerned with questions abut this elementary sort of collection. Plutarch's
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS 65
discussion of the Epicurean Colotes suggests that when the Cyrenaics use
terms such as 'whitened' or 'sweetened* to describe the having of a certain
kind of affection, they do not intend a parallel analysis of our experience of
objects; they do not say we are "manned" or "walled."
'The Cyrenaics', according toColotes, 'do not say that there is a man or a horse
or a wall, but that they themselvesare walled or horsed ormanned.' First of all,
like those who bring vexatious accusations, he uses termsmaliciously. For ad
mittedly these consequences follow for the Cyrenaics; but he ought to have
presented what happens as they themselves expound it. For they say they are
sweetened, turnedbitter, chilled, heated, lightened,or darkened, and that each
of these affections has its own proper and unchallenged obviousness within
itself. (Col. 1120de)
Plutarch claims that the Cyrenaics do not actually use the terms that Col
otes thinks they must use to describe our experience of men and
walls?though he believes that they are logically committed to accepting the
legitimacy of these terms.
If we attend to the problems about collections, we can see why the
Cyrenaics might be entitled to the distinction that Plutarch agrees they
draw. They use 'whitened', 'sweetened', and so on to refer to the content of
affections that are evident and irrefutable; such affections are the basis of
judgments that never have to be retracted in the light of further experience.
But to say that I am having a "wall-like" impression is not tomake a judg
ment simply about one affection; it is to assert some connexion between this
impression of (say) roughness and solidity with other actual or possible im
pressions of a certain kind of shape and size. To say I am having a "man
like" impression commits me to claiming that this impression belongs to a
stillmore complex collection. To say thatmy impression of (as we suppose)
Socrates' height, complexion, snub nose, and bulging eyes constitute a
"man-like" impression is tomake a claim about the appropriate way of col
lecting different impressions; and this claim lacks the irrefutability and
unrevisability of judgments about particular impressions. Hence the
Cyrenaics have good reason to deny that we are 'walled' or 'manned';
Plutarch is wrong to claim that their denial is arbitrary and unjustified.
I have argued that to explain Plutarch's testimony (as opposed to his
verdict on the Cyrenaic position), we need to suppose that the Cyrenaics see
an epistemological difficulty in claims about awareness of collections, and
specifically that they think our awareness of collections cannot be evident
and irrefutable. If this is right, then we can see why the Cyrenaics accept
pleasure as the good and the end, but refuse to infer that happiness is the
end. Happiness is a collection of pleasures including past and future
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66 T. H. IRWIN
pleasures; it is therefore subject to the difficulties that arise for all collec
tions. Though particular pleasures and pains are evident to us, the belief
that we are achieving happiness requires us to bundle these pleasures and
pains in one particular way, so that our attitude to our present experience is
affected by our views about the past and future. Ifwe think about our hap
piness, we may forgo this particular pleasure now because itwill harm us in
the future, but we would have pursued the pleasure ifwe had not looked at
it in this way. According to the Cyrenaics, nothing about our affections
themselves warrants us in looking at our present experience one way rather
than the other. Hence the evident fact (according to the Cyrenaics) that
pleasure is to be pursued gives us no warrant for pursuing the particular col
lection of pleasures that constitutes happiness.
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS 67
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68 T. H. IRWIN
have conceded that itdoes?then it is not the same collection, and therefore
not the same person. Once we understand that the continuity of the same
person requires the continuity of a collection, we have no reason to believe
in a continuing Socrates who is healthy and sick at different times.
Now the Cyrenaics must agree with theHeracleitean view that the con
tinuity of a person over time consists in the continuity of a collection. If
they agree that the identity of a collection is determined by its composition,
then they have an argument for rejecting any belief in a persisting self.
Itmay be especially significant that Plato himself has sometimes been
taken to accept the growing argument. For in the Symposium Diotima
remarks that during an ordinary lifetime inwhich an animal "is said to be
alive and to be the same" (208d4-5), the creature constantly changes in
some respect or other, both bodily and mental. She infers: "In this way
every mortal creature is preserved, not by being always the same in every
way, as a divine being is, but by what goes away and gets old leaving behind
in its place some other new21 thing that is of the same sort as it was"
(208a7-b2). Both ancient and modern readers have supposed that Plato
argues from change to non-persistence, and therefore denies that any one
person persists through (what we ordinarily call) a lifetime.22
There is no good reason, however, for supposing that Plato must mean
to deny the persistence of persons through ordinary lifetimes. He may
equally well be taken to mean that persistence does not require any one
component of a person to stay qualitatively the same through a person's
lifetime, but only requires the appropriate causal and qualitative connex
ions between different stages.23 In fact itwould be a bit surprising, in the
light of our previous discussion, if Plato really rejected the persistence of
persons. For he has no doubt about the rationality of eudaemonism, which
is the basis of the desire for immortality; ifwe are not really beings that per
sist for a significant length of time at all, it is not clear why we should sup
pose that eudaemonist attitudes are rational at all.
None the less, even ifPlato means his remarks about change to explain
how persons persist, not to deny that they persist, some readers might easily
infer (i) that Plato denies persistence, and thereby (ii) undermines
eudaemonism without realizing it. Such readers might readily accept the
Cyrenaic position.
The argument derived from Epicharmus, and perhaps from Plato, does
not depend on Cyrenaic scepticism about anything beyond present affec
tions. But its compositional conception of identity and persistence should
seem especially plausible to a Cyrenaic. For ifwe are to reject the composi
tional conception of identity and persistence, we need to introduce some
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS 69
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70 T. H. IRWIN
Some further reasons for supposing that the Cyrenaics are sceptics
about personal identitymay emerge from their treatment of conceptions of
the good that go beyond the pleasure of the present moment. For if doubts
about personal identitymight reasonably be thought to explain some of the
Cyrenaics' criticisms of other views, we have further reasons for attributing
the doubts to the Cyrenaics themselves.
Though Aristippus is a quite extreme hedonist about the good, he is not
a psychological hedonist. He does not claim that everyone in fact pursues
only the pleasure of the present as the ultimate good; he regards other aims
not as psychological impossibilities, but as the products of groundless
beliefs, and in arguing against them he seeks to expose the groundlessness of
the beliefs underlying these aims. In particular he mentions four different
types of concern going beyond the present moment:
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS 71
(1) However, the bodily pleasure that they<the Cyrenaics > take to be the end
(according to Panaetius in his book on the philosophical schools) is not the
static pleasure taken in (or 'following on\ epi) the removal of pains?a sort of
undisturbed condition (anochl?sia), which Epicurus accepts and takes to be the
end." (DL ii 87)
(2) the removal of pain, in theirview, is not pleasure, as Epicurus < takes it to
be >, nor is the absence of pleasure pain. For both pleasure and pain are found
inmotion, whereas neither absence of pleasure nor absence of pain ismotion,
since absence of pain is the condition of someone practically asleep. (89)
(3) Further, theydo not thinkpleasure is achieved bymemory or expectation of
goods, as Epicurus believed. For they think thatmovement of the soul isworn
out by time. (89-90)
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72 T. H. IRWIN
From this point of view, it is easier to see what the Cyrenaics and
Epicurus really disagree about in their dispute over memory and anticipa
tion. Reports of their views sometimes make it look as though they are
disagreeing on some question of empirical psychology, about how much
people actually enjoy the pleasures of memory and anticipation. But this
may be a misleading way of presenting the issue. For Epicurus and the
Cyrenaics may not be conceiving the relevant pleasures in exactly the same
way.
The disagreeable things that produce pleasures can only produce future
pleasures; and so if a Cyrenaic is to think they are worth his while, the an
ticipation of these pleasures must be pleasant enough to outweigh the pre
sent pain. But theywill hardly give him so much pleasure that they count for
much against present pain. The same point applies tomemory. The memory
of some pleasure in the past may be a source of some pleasure; formerely
imagining a pleasure may be pleasant, and the thought that the pleasure has
actually happened may allow me to imagine itmore vividly.27 But we prob
ably do not expect a large hedonic gain from such memories of past
pleasure.
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS 73
The Cyrenaics think that pain is produced, not by every sort of evil, but by an
evil that has not been hoped for or expected. That indeed has no moderate
weight in increasinga pain; for all sudden thingsappear more serious. . . .This
anticipation (praemeditatio), therefore,of future evils softens the arrival of
those evilswhich one has seen coming fromafar. (Cicero, TD iii28-29; cf. 52)29
Epicurus, on the other hand, advises against dwelling on future evils, and
argues that the Cyrenaic strategymakes things worse; he thinks it is no more
sensible to dwell on future evils than to dwell on past evils (iii 32-33). Cicero
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74 T. H. IRWIN
does not explain why Cyrenaics and Epicureans take these different views;
but we may reasonably try to explain them in the light of their different
general views about pleasures and pains of memory and anticipation.
For the Cyrenaics, impersonal anticipation may be useful in reducing
the disturbance we sufferwhen something painful happens. If I believe that
an injection will be painful, the pain will be less of a surprise tome when it
comes, and if I am prepared for it, it will be less disturbing. Since the
Cyrenaics think that the goodness and badness of pleasure and pain consists
in the sort of change or disturbance it causes, theymight argue that the an
ticipation of pain produces a little disturbance in advance, and so the actual
pain causes relatively less disturbance when it comes.
Suppose, for instance, that at time tl I anticipate some painful injec
tion, and the anticipation causes a disturbance of force 1 (supposing that
disturbances can be measured as gales or earthquakes can); suppose that at
t2 when I get the injection, I suffer a further disturbance of force 2; and
suppose that if I had not anticipated the pain of the injection, I would have
suffered a disturbance of force 3 at t2. In this case the Cyrenaics will argue
that I am better off having anticipated the pain, since the disturbance at t2 is
less than itwould have been without the anticipation. The fact that the total
disturbance at tl and t2 is equal whether or not I anticipate does not matter
to the Cyrenaics; for we will be concerned about the total disturbance only
if we believe in our identity through time, and the Cyrenaics reject this
belief.
Suppose, on the other hand, thatmy anticipation at tl causes a force 2
disturbance, and the injection at t2 causes a further force 2 disturbance,
whereas the injection at t2 without the anticipation would have caused a
force 3 disturbance. Even in these cases the Cyrenaics will still say I am bet
ter off anticipating; for I have no reason to be concerned about the total
pain resulting from the comparison of two times, since I am not the same
person at these two times.
These precautionary uses of impersonal anticipation also make first
person anticipation reasonable for Cyrenaics. For once again they are free
to admit that if I imagine the future pain happening tome, I will imagine it
more vividly, so thatmy precautionary imagination may be more effective.
But my judgment about my welfare will not be affected by the belief that I
really will suffer the pain, since a Cyrenaic regards the underlying belief in
personal identity through time as groundless.
For an Epicurean, however, the first-person character of an anticipa
tion makes a vital difference. For if I do not just think of the pain happen
ing to someone, but believe that itwill happen tome, then I discover some
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS 75
7. Cyrenaic Attitudes
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76 T. H. IRWIN
Earlier I remarked that inEN i 7 Aristotle argues that since the good
must meet certain criteria, and happiness meets them, happiness must be the
good. We can now see where Aristippus disagrees with Aristotle's argu
ment. He has no quarrel with Aristotle's claim that the good must be com
plete; indeed the Cyrenaics claim as much for pleasure.31 Moreover, it is
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS 77
also the only thing that is chosen only for itself;Aristippus insists that virtue
is to be chosen purely for the sake of pleasure (DL ii 91), and suggests no
other good that might be chosen for the sake of anything other than
pleasure. It is also difficult to see why he should deny that pleasure is self
sufficient (autarkes), incapable of being added to or improved. Hence he
has no reason to reject Aristotle's criteria, since he thinks pleasure meets
them.
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78 T. H. IRWIN
pleasure in one's whole lifewould be the best good. For the Cyrenaics, the
most controversial part of Aristotle's argument from the good to happiness
is an assumption that Aristotle does not even mention?that we are con
cerned with the good for a temporally extended agent, and therefore with
the character of a whole life (as we normally conceive it). Even though we
have not found direct evidence to show that the Cyrenaics are sceptics about
personal identity, they seem to need some sceptical claims in order to
answer eudaemonism.
Aristippus shows that the eudaemonist assumption that a rational
agent's final good is happiness is neither trivial nor indisputable. He raises
an especially important question for Epicurus, who wants to argue for
hedonism from the Cyrenaic epistemological basis, but also accepts
eudaemonism. Epicurus does not seem to confront themost basic Cyrenaic
challenge to his position. For he does not seem to distinguish the claim that
immediate impressions show us that pleasure is the good from the claim that
they show us that happiness is the maximization of pleasure over our
lifetime (as ordinarily conceived), and that this is the good. The Cyrenaics
suggest that his epistemological basis shows both that pleasure is the good
and that happiness is not the good; they imply that eudaemonism cannot re
ly on his epistemological basis. If they are right about this, then their
epistemological basis is insufficient for the Epicurean version of hedonist
eudaemonism.
Epicurus does not seem to see this difficulty; but he ought to have seen
it, since it suggests that he must abandon the Cyrenaic epistemological
basis. And if he must abandon the Cyrenaic epistemological basis in order
to defend eudaemonism, how can he avoid being forced to recognize ir
reducibly non-hedonic goods?
Epicurus, then, seems not to have learned all he ought to have learned
from the Cyrenaics. For Cyrenaic arguments actually support Plato's claim
that the point of view thatmakes hedonism seem attractive is also a point of
view thatmakes eudaemonism seem unattractive. Whether we regard this as
an argument against eudaemonism (as the Cyrenaics suppose) or as an argu
ment against hedonism (as Plato supposes), the claim that we must choose
between hedonism and eudaemonism is not easily refuted.33
.H. Irwin
Cornell University
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS 79
NOTES
1. Gregory Vlastos writes: "I may now introduce the principle, frequently
termed 'eudaemonism', which, once staked out by Socrates, become axiomatic for
all subsequentmoralists of classical antiquity. This is thathappiness is desired by all
human beings as theultimate and (telos) of all theirrational acts." ("Happiness and
Virtue inSocrates' moral theory,"Proc. Cambridge Philol. Soc. 30 (1984), 181-213,
at p. 183.)
The extent to which Epicureans and Stoics accept eudaemonism also deserves
discussion; but the questions arising here are somewhat different from those that
arise with theCyrenaics.
2. One major difficultyabout theCyrenaic school arises here. It is difficult to
say how many of the characteristicCyrenaic doctrines should be ascribed toAristip
pus the Socratic, how many to his daughterArete, and how many to his grandson,
also called Aristippus, who was "taught by his mother" (m?trodidaktos). Some
believe that the philosophical theories associated with Cyrenaicism (as opposed to a
less theoretical commitment to hedonism as a way of life,associated with Aristippus
the Socratic) originate with the laterAristippus. This belief rests primarily on the
frail support of Eusebius, PE xiv 763d-764a. See E. Mannebach, Aristippi et
Cyrenaicorum Fragmenta (Leiden, Holland: Brill, 1961), pp. 114-17; G. Giannan
toni, /Cirenaici (Florence: Sansoni, 1958), pp. 74-115; W. K. C. Guthrie,History of
Greek Philosophy, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), pp.
494-94; Giannantoni, Socraticorum Reliquiae (4 vols., Naples: Ateneo, 1983), vol.
3, pp. 164-69.1 have not taken a position on thisquestion about thedevelopment of
Cyrenaicism. Still, ifmy argument is plausible, itmay indirectlysupport the view
thatCyrenaic philosophical doctrinesmay go back to theAristippus theSocratic; for
the fact that some Cyrenaic positions can be understood as reasonable reactions to
views put forward in thePlatonic dialogues reduces the improbabilityof ascribing
these positions toAristippus the Socratic.
3. The sources that I quote from on the Cyrenaics will be found reprinted in
Giannantoni, Socraticorum Reliquiae, vol. 1.
4. A similar view is described inAelian, VH xiv 6.
5. Aristippus the Socratic also appears inXenophon's Memorabilia; themost
importantpassage is the long conversation in ii 1,which includesProdicus' storyof
theChoice ofHeracles (ii 1.21-34). Xenophon's account assumes thatAristippus ac
cepts eudaemonism (see 1.11, 26). But it is interestingthat a largepart of Socrates'
advice and a major theme of the Choice of Heracles deal with the importance of
postponing immediate gratification for the sake of greater pleasure in the future.
Socrates concludes bywarning Aristippus to attend towhat concerns the futuretime
in his life (34). Xenophon may realize thatAristippus tends to neglect the long-term
prudential attitude that is characteristic of the hedonism in theProtagoras. Such
'neglect' has a special point ifAristippus accepts Cyrenaic objections to hedonistic
prudence. If that is so, thenXenophon might be taken to provide some indirect,but
early, evidence of anti-eudaemonism.
6. The threeAristotelian ethical works do not seem to treat the relation between
agathon and eudaimonia in exactly the same way. Here I confinemyself to theEN.
7. Or perhaps "different from" (diaphereiri).
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80 T. H. IRWIN
tually endorses the hedonism in theProtagoras or not; all thatmatters for under
standing Aristippus is the apparent fact that Socrates takes hedonism seriously
enough to formulate it quite carefully and to explore some of its consequences.
The connection between Aristippus and theProtagoras is stressedbyG. Grote,
Plato and theotherCompanions of Socrates (London: Murray, 2nd ed., 1888), vol.
1, ch. 3 (= ch. 38 of 1st ed.), pp. 199-201. Grote remarks thatAristippus does not
appear to emphasize the importance of practical wisdom in planning formaximum
pleasure in one's life as a whole. This silence inAristippus is intelligible if he has
doubts about eudaemonism.
11. The argument with Callicles is discussed furtherby N. P. White, 'Rational
prudence in Plato's Gorgias*, in Platonic Investigations, ed. D. J. O'Meara
(Washington: Catholic University Press, 1985), ch. 6.
12. Gosling, Plato's Philebus (Oxford, 1975), p. 183, takes Plato to be making a
hedonist point: "The admission that intelligence is needed ... is extracted on
straighthedonistic grounds, or can be interpreted so. Protarchus is not asked to con
template with horror a life inwhich he cannot do mathematics, but one where he
cannot rememberor recognize or predict his enjoyments. The first two could be seen
as adding to one's pleasures, the last as giving us assured means of obtaining them."
He renders logizesthai ta deonta, libi, as "calculation of your need." This is un
justifiablynarrow; 'calculating what is fitting' (R. Hackforth, Plato's Examination
of Pleasure [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945] ad loc.) or "reasoning
about what is right" are preferable.
13. This remark occurs in a series of Epicurean replies to Cyrenaic objections
(55-57).
14. Or perhaps "grasped" (katal?pton).
15. Or "evidence" (enargeia).
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ARISTIPPUS AGAINST HAPPINESS 81
16. See Part 7 below. The affections are irrefutableabout things that can be
grasped by "internal contact" (tactu intimo,Cic. Acad. ii 76). This Cyrenaic doc
trine is discussed by A. Laks, "Pathologie cyr?naique: quelques rep?res" (read to
Symposium Hellenisticum, 1989).
17. The connection between theHeracleitean theory and Cyrenaic scepticism is
noticed inAnon., in Tht. 65.18-39 (ed. H. Diels and W. Schubart [Berlin:Weid
mann, 1905]). I am not suggestingthat theCyrenaic position is actually alluded to in
the Theaetetus (on this question see Giannantoni, / Cirenaici p. 144f;Mannebach,
Aristippi Fragmenta, p. 114).
18. This is perhaps what Sextus means, PH i 215, in saying thatCyrenaics differ
fromSceptics in claiming that external objects have a phusis akatal?ptos. This isnot
the dogmatic claim that such objects exist (which would conflictwith AM vii 194,
tacha men estin on, with no commitment to its existence), but the dogmatic claim
that their nature is cognitively inaccessible in principle. The Sceptic, by contrast,
claims only thatwe have found no reliable cognitive access to external objects.
19. See A. A. Long & D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (2 vols., Cam
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987-88) no. 28A, B.
20. See J.Barnes The Presocratics (London: Routledge, 1979) vol. 1,p. 106f.The
referenceto the debtor comes from the reports inPlu. De Sera Num. 559a, Anon, in
Tht. 71.12-40. See DK 23 A 2.
21. Or 'young* (neon).
22. Evidence of ancient Platonists who attribute the growing argument toPlato in
the Symp. is found in Seneca, Ep. 58.22-24; Plutarch, De E 392c-e; Anon, inTht.
70.5-26 (= Long and Sedley no. 28 B). The thirdpassage refers explicitly to the
Symp.; the other two are clearly influencedby it.While Anon, inTht. suggests that
he Academics use the argument only for destructive purposes against the Stoics,
Seneca and Plutarch put it forwardas positive doctrine, and inparticular as a reason
for not fearingdeath ("Vis tu non timerene semelfiat quod cotidiefit" Seneca,
58.23).
23. 'Leaving behind' indicates the causal connection. "Of the same sort as it (sc.
the person at the previous stage) was" indicates the qualitative connection.
24. Perhaps "fall in love" (erari).
25. Epicurus: see DL 136 = Long & Sedley, p. 118.
26. The importanceof eudaemonism inEpicurean hedonism is stressedby P. Mit
sis, Epicurus' Ethical Theory (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), pp.
15-17, 55-56 (on theCyrenaics), and by J.Annas, "Epicurus on pleausre and hap
piness," Philosophical Topics 15 (1987), 5-21.
27. The Cyrenaics seem to recognize this sort of effect; see Plutarch, Non posse
suaviter vivere, 1089a.
28. This point about happiness supports the readingme poiounta inDL ii90; see
n8 above.
29. The last two sentences are Cicero's expression of agreement with the
Cyrenaics, rather than an explicit report of theirview.
30. See Part 4 above.
31. See Clem. Strom, ii 21, 178.43 (= H. Usener, Epicurea [Leipzig: Teubner,
1887], no. 450), teleionde agathon rnonen ten h?don?n.
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82 T. H. IRWIN
32. It is especially difficult in this case to know whether hairet?n (DL ii 88) should
be translated "choiceworthy" or "chosen."
33. I am grateful to Phillip Mitsis, Jennifer
Whiting, and Gail Fine, for helpful
comments. I believe some suggestions by Phillip Mitsis startedme thinkingon lines
that led to thispaper. Though I am grateful to him for the suggestions,he was sensi
ble enough not to endorse them, and so he isnot to be blamed for the results. I have
benefited from reading the careful discussion byAndr? Laks (see nl6 above), though
I have not tried to examine ithere.
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