Cicero's Evaluation of Epicureanism and its Political Influence

• In Event: Politics, Science, and the Art of Interpretation

Abstract

In his dialogues, the Roman statesman and political philosopher Cicero indicates that the politics of his day has begun to be influenced by a type of education that existed only on the margins of political life in ancient Greece. Whereas the ancient Athenians famously executed Socrates for corruption of the young and not believing in the gods of the city, in the years leading up to the death of the Roman republic, philosophical schools--especially that of Epicureanism and Stoicism--had become popular among leading political elites and ambitious young citizens alike. These schools not only offered moral and political teachings, but also claimed to found these teachings in accounts of theology and natural science that complimented and supported them.
Analysis of Cicero's dialogues thus offers the reader a window into perhaps the first attempt at broad popular rational enlightenment. This paper focuses on Cicero's evaluation of Epicureanism through an analysis of his works On the Ends of Good and Evil and On the Nature of the Gods. In these works, Cicero discusses morality and politics with an adherent of Epicureanism from a highly respected and deeply political patrician Roman family, and he addresses Epicurean natural science and theology with a member of the Roman senate. This paper argues that Cicero has two aims in presenting these conversations. First, Cicero evaluates the theoretical soundness of Epicureanism's hedonistic account of human psychology, the school's rejection of participation in a self-governing political community as significant for human happiness, as well as the school's attempt to ground its hedonism and anti-political teaching in an atomistic natural science. Because Epicureanism was increasingly appealing to leading Roman political actors in spite of its anti-political character, the second, crucial, aim of Cicero's project is to assess the political impact of Epicureanism: what effect its increasing popularity has on the political judgments and aspirations of the citizens responsible for the health and survival of their political community. Attention to these twin aims clarifies that although Cicero is ultimately critical of Epicurean hedonism and natural science, he takes it much more seriously than scholars of Cicero tend to acknowledge. Following this thread in Cicero's thought also allows us to begin to resolve the puzzle of Cicero's own understanding of the relationship between politics and philosophy.

Author

• Carly Tess Herold, SUNY Geneseo