The overcoming with the fear of death figures like a key element of Epicurean viewpoint.
Because the Epicureans valued above all other achievements, the living of a great life and that “pleasure is a end of morality which real satisfaction is attained through a lifestyle of prudence, honor, and justice” the acknowledgment in Epicurean idea that the fear of death intrudes upon individual happiness is not at all exactly like admission that fear of death is a great insurmountable condition, (“Epicureanism”). For the contrary, the epicurean beliefs seeks forts to identify the main causes of the worry of loss of life, which are: “1) The fear to be dead. 2) The fear that one will die, that one’s life is likely to end.
3) The fear of premature death. 4) The worry of the means of dying” and then for each of these factors, Epicurean idea provides a response. The intention of epicurean philosophy is to persuade their adherents that “death is definitely not bad to get the person who also dies although death is definitely inevitable and is also the total destruction of that person”; despite the belief in “total annihilation” Epicurus held not any regard for death alone. The basic middle of the Epicurean refusal to fear death is based on the appetitive belief that “God probably should not concern to us.
Death is never to be feared” and these kinds of facts are unchangeable despite one’s subjective, emotional reactions. since death means the end of consciousness as well as the total abolition of the individual, nothing exists past death that might cause dread at all, (Warren 4-7). It is only by admitting the fear of death and addressing that straight in through utilized logic rather than religion or mysticism that the fear of death can be overcome. The Epicureans regarded the overcoming from the fear of loss of life “at the heart of their ethical task. They discovered the goal of a good life because the removal of mental and physical pain.
Mental pain they will further characterized as worries and fears” because fear of death triggers pain to the individual it ought to be overcome this means you will be get over by reasonable acceptance of the fact that death contains no soreness for the individual who experiences it. (Warren 6) Just like the fear of death eliminated many individuals by achieving joy in life, rights (or absence thereof) supplies enmity to happiness in the Epicurean moral tradition. Pertaining to Epicurus, laws and regulations and rights are a matter of personal bearing and pride as well as cleverness and experience. Under a great Epicurean ethic, in a “world full of Epicurean sages there would be no need for crafted prescriptive laws.
Everyone in this case would be able to find and remember what contributes to the utility with the community and would take action accordingly” (Warren 183). The idea of breaking a rule of justice is wrong because it causes the eventual discomfort or menace of pain or disturbance to oters’ happiness as well as one’s own. Unlike Epicurus, St . Augustine sees the need for rigid law to control individual society and he anticipate this regulation emanating immediately fro the Divine.
In the distinction between the “City of God” and the “City of Men” he makes obvious that the “church is divinely established and leads mankind to everlasting goodness, which is God” and this in the ideal city, “The state sticks to to the virtues of politics and of your brain, formulating a political community. Both of these societies are obvious and strive to do great. ” (Bonner 54) In comparison, the City of Man is available to provide selfishly motivated needs and does not partake with the Divine soul of creation and Work Law. ” The idea of self-love against the like of Goodness separates the two cities a thought which “springs from what Augustine was afterwards to regard in The City of Goodness as the architect in the Earthly City–love of do it yourself to the disregard of God” (Bonner 54).
