Aristippus As A Socratic

Voula Tsouna McKirahan - The Socratic Origins of the Cynics and Cyrenaics

- There are two categories of testimony on Aristippean ethics, one that attributes to him a straightforward hedonism and one that does not consider him a hedonist at all. According to the former, Aristippus was the first Cyrenaic to define the moral end as a smooth movement that results in a pleasure of the body, is confined strictly to the present, and is very short-lived. Pleasure must be distinguished from happiness (eudaemonia), which is the sum of particular pleasures, present as well as past and future ones, extended over one’s lifetime. It is pleasure and not happiness that is pursued for its own sake. 

- On the other hand, Aristocles denies that Aristippus defined pleasure as the only thing that is intrinsically good, and there is further information that he never lectured defending a particular moral end, whether pleasure of anything else — a piece of evidence that fits perfectly with Aristippus’ distaste for a didactic tone in teaching or speaking (Arist. Rh. 2.23). 

- Instead, Aristippus believes that pleasure is to be sought and enjoyed not unconditionally but only if it does not endanger our self-control. The latter is the result of philosophical education, together with the acquisition of internal freedom, self-awareness, and the promotion of the well-being of the soul by means of study and endurance. These goods are not instrumental to the enjoyment of pleasure but valuable in themselves. If one obtains them, one may securely savour bodily pleasures; if one does not obtain them, one presumably should not pursue bodily pleasures, for they would hinder promotion of virtue in the soul. 

- It is undoubtedly true that the Cyrenaics who came after Aristippus developed a hedonistic theory in which the moral end was the momentary present pleasure. Their ethics was backed by their epistemology that claims that the only knowledge accessible to us is the knowledge of our undergoings (pathē). The ethical claim that momentary pleasure is the good has an irrefutable character precisely in virtue of the fact that pleasure is an undergoing and therefore self-evident. 

- In the non-hedonistic tradition Aristippus’ ethical theory is firmly based on the beliefs common to the members of the Socratic circle, is coherent and intuitively persuasive. 

- …we infer that Aristippus and Socrates differ on the subject of pleasure with respect to its practical implications, not in their respective definitions of the moral end. For Socrates, control over bodily pleasure dictates a life of moderation, while for Aristippus it does not. 

- …regarding the passage from Xenophon. First, it provides direct evidence for the claim that Aristippus was a eudaemonist and not a hedonist. Second, Socrates’ argument leaves unscathed Aristippus’ belief that it is morally right for one to enjoy various pleasures. 

- …part of Aristippus’ answer [to Socrates] is that he aims at the easiest and pleasantest life and that he wishes to live a life of freeedom that leads to happiness. But this indicates that Aristippus does not seek pleasure for their own sake but presumably views them as a means to or a component of happiness. Also, he does not look at momentary pleasures of the present but at his life as a whole. 

- Independent evidence tells us that Aristippus indulged in pleasure but at the same time made sure that he was in control of his experiences and that pleasure did not master him instead. 

- We are left to wonder whether Aristippus is right: although pleasure is not the moral end, it is an important constituent of happiness. And one can be self-disciplined without abstaining from pleasure either partially or totally. 

- His [Aristippus’] primary interest was in ethical questions. It may be that he mostly dealt with practical ethics, but we are also allowed to glimpse a theoretical argument to the effect that every object is associated with a moral end, and therefore objects that are morally neutral do not exist. On account of this argument he dismissed the study of mathematics and perhaps also of natural science. On the other hand, some titles of his books indicate an interest in rhetoric. History and perhaps literature complete the list of his interests. 

- Nor can his knowledge… of[familiar topics of Greek intellectual tradition] have been complete superficial, for he taught in the competitive environment of Athenian culture for a substantial fee and fairly successfully. 

- Aristippus’ apolitical stance, “that leads neither through ruling nor through slavery but through freedom” to happiness. Aristippus’ disavowal of civic bonds appears like a means to the end of enjoying an easy and pleasant life. 

Source: 

Tsouna-McKirahan, Voula. (1994). “The Socratic Origins of the Cynics and Cyrenaics”, in Paul A Vander Waerdt (ed.), The Socratic Movement. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 367-91.