This is the first monograph published by the philosopher and Epicureanism expert Jan Maximilian Robitzsch. Some of Robitzsch’s articles published between 2020 and 2024, such as “The Presentation of the Epicurean Virtues” (Apeiron 53/4, 419-435) or “Epicurus on Justice ‘In Itself’ (καθ᾽ ἑαυτό) (Kuria Doxa 33)” (Apeiron 55/3, 443-453), already announced some of the theses defended in the present publication. As Robitzsch explains in several places, first in general terms (p. ix) and later in particular (e.g., p. 81 n. 3), the book is based on lectures given “at various professional meetings and universities” as well as on previously published articles. But despite the impression of a cumulative effort, the parts of the book work together excellently, providing the reader at any time with the information needed to understand the train of thought and the main argument. This is first clearly formulated on pp. 54–55 as a reconstruction of the complex Epicurean view of justice between conventional and natural (i.e., within the nomos-physis debate). With his close comments on well-known sources, from Epicurus’s Kyriai doxai (KD, esp. 31-38) and Letter to Menoeceus to Lucretius’s De rerum natura (DRN), Robitzsch offers a genuinely unified study, supplementing missing arguments with brilliant associations without lapsing into excessively speculative thinking.
The book is very well written and easy to follow. It focuses on a significant revision of the concept of justice in Epicurean philosophy, contextualizing it within Hellenistic philosophy, and especially between the positions taken by Aristotle and the Stoics. The book is divided into six chapters, each dealing with a crucial issue in Epicurean justice: the origin of justice, contractual justice, “aretaic” justice (i.e., justice as a virtue), moral psychology, justice and law, and ethical naturalism. Of these chapters, only the fourth, on justice and moral psychology, has a speculative dimension since it mainly relies on Plutarch’s account of the sage who violates a law. Here, Rubitzsch attempts to provide an alternative view to those of Robert Philippson, Sara Diaco, Paul Vander Waerdt, Raphael Woolf, and David Gill (as reported by Julia Annas, since Gill’s work was never published). In summary, the author devotes two chapters to the political dimension of justice, two to specific ethical issues related to justice and virtue, and two more to legal perspectives. The book also includes a comprehensive bibliography, a general index, and an index locorum.
Each chapter bases its main argument on the analysis of specific sources; e.g., for the chapter on the origin of justice, Robitzsch focuses on Lucretius’s DRN (especially book 5) and Epicurus’s Letter to Herodotus §75. For the chapter on contractual justice, i.e., on natural justice and convention, he comments on the Kyriai Doxai (especially 13, 14, 28, 31, 32, 37, 38). Regarding agreements with animals, the focus is on sources such as Hermarchus Fr. 34, Epicurus’s lacunose On Nature XXV and Lucretius DRN 5.855–72. In the chapter on aretaic justice, Robitzsch mainly relies on Letter to Menoeceus 131–132. Sometimes, Robitzsch reverts to fragmentary sources or papyri such as PHerc. 1251 to supplement the list of virtues present in the Letter to Menoeceus and Philodemus (e.g., On Property Management) to confirm Torquatus’s account in Cicero’s On Ends.
The book is helpful for both researchers and students, for several reasons: it uses Greek sources both in the original and in translation, and structures each chapter with short introductions and conclusions, even if these sections are not explicitly presented as such. The concluding chapter gives the whole book remarkable coherence. However, it could be a little longer and make more evident the differences between Robitzsch’s analysis and earlier studies, such as those that emphasize the notion of physis by Robert Philippson, Reimar Müller, Anthony Long, and Antonina Alberti or those by Victor Goldschmidt and Paul A. Vander Waerdt that mainly focus on the conventionalist aspect of justice (nomos).
Also, the effort to provide a coherent account leads to results meant to support a general Epicurean theory of justice at the cost of distinctions between Epicurean voices, such as the different views of the capacity of animals to engage in agreement taken by Hermarchus (via Porphyry), Philodemus, and Lucretius (see e.g. p. 71). Robitzsch shows his critical awareness when he explains differences among the Epicurean sources, something necessary when using lacunose and fragmentary texts as evidence (e.g., on p. 92–94 as he refers to Torquatus’s unorthodox thinking in Cicero’s On Ends 1.50–3). But he never deviates from the primary goal, which is to support a general Epicurean theory of justice. It would have been beneficial for the advanced expert to have a chapter or a particular section within each chapter summarizing or even elaborating on differences among the Epicurean sources.
Two particular topics—the Epicurean answer to Stoic oikeiōsis and to the honestum-utile debate based on the ‘Ring of Gyges’ legend from Plato’s Republic as retold by Cicero in On Duties—are wisely offered as appendices. However, these topics also have a place in the body of the book, in discussions of the origin of justice (Chapter 1) and of moral psychology (Chapter 4), respectively.
Given the extent to which the Epicurean idea of justice is interwoven with ideas of pleasure and freedom from mental distress, it is surprising to see that Robitzsch gives only a brief treatment to the concept of happiness. He does introduce the notion of pleasure and harm into his discussion on the naturalistic origin of justice in Chapter 2 (2.2. Benefit, Harm, and Security, pp. 55-64), and into his treatment of justice as a virtus in Chapter 3 (3.1 The Epicurean Virtues and 3.2 Justices as an Epicurean Virtue, pp. 82-91). However, the overall analysis of the connection between justice and happiness is somewhat marginal. The same applies to the central concept of philia (friendship), which appears, e.g. on p. 62, as a means to achieve security, underscoring its relevance for agreements (based on KD 28). Friendship is briefly mentioned on p. 30 in relation to the “bonds of friendship” (desmoi philias) in Plato’s Protagoras (322c3), but there is no extensive discussion. This partial omission could be due to excessive reliance on secondary literature in English and German. Even though the author mentions publications by such Italian and French scholars as Guido Garbo, Alberto Grilli, Francesco Valente, Julie Giovacchini, and Pierre-Marie Morel, most of the Spanish and Portuguese scholarship on Epicurean justice and the social contract is missing. Some well-known scholars with significant contributions to Epicurean philosophy are omitted, such as Emilo Lledó, Carlos García Gual, and Agustín García Calvo, as well as recent works on the Epicurean concept of justice and its relation to hedonism and happiness by, for example, Domingo Fernández Agis, Juana Orozco-Mangú. An especially glaring omission is a 2021book by Jorge Fernando Navarro which has a generally similar argument to Robitzsch’s but a stronger focus on the role of pleasure and happiness.[1]
Aside from these omissions, the book is well balanced and suitable for scholars and advanced students of ancient philosophy. Among its clearest merits is the recognition that the Epicurean idea of justice embodied a middle position between conventional, i.e., sophistic, theories of justice (based on nomos) and theories of physis associated with the most significant philosophical schools (Aristotelian, Stoic) within the framework of the physis-nomos debate. A genuine Epicurean signature in the treatment of justice is discernible in the insight that even if there is no point in being unjust, Epicureans seem not to have seen any harm in violating a law in certain circumstances. Furthermore, the Epicurean theory goes beyond the usual naturalistic approaches of ancient ethical theory in that it not only rejects supernatural explanations but also includes non-moral entities, such as animals, thus fulfilling ontological and epistemological requirements beyond binary thinking (e.g. the human / nature dichotomy).
Epicurean Justice is a short but solid piece of scholarship that brings together essential academic discussions of a fundamental Epicurean question on the origin and the characteristics of justice. To a lesser extent, the monograph also offers valuable insights on the early modern and contemporary reception of the social contract, especially as concerns Pierre Gassendi and Thomas Hobbes but also the neo-Hobbesian account of the social contract by David Gauthier. Even if the book does not offer new textual interpretations based on recent editorial or philological efforts, its approach to the evidence is generally convincing, and the result is much more than a well-documented introduction. Advanced students and specialized scholars will benefit from this overall attempt to unify the Epicurean theory of justice.
Notes
[1] J. Fernando Navarro, El concepto de justicia en la filosofía de Epicuro. Naturaleza y convención, Buenos Aires, 2021.