Epicurianism vs. Aristotle

Both Aristotle and Lucretius try to pin down what makes a human life truly human. Aristotle makes a distinction between the good, virtuous, human life and presumably the bad, unvirtuous, human life. For him, this distinction was necessary because he believed that the quality of human life determined the nature of the afterlife. A virtuous life was rewarded with a happy afterlife, and vice versa. Everybody wishes to be happy, and being happy typically includes things or experiences considered pleasurable. Descriptions of pleasurable and unpleasurable things involve an appeal to emotions. Being kissed by a girl is pleasurable, and may be associated with emotions of love or lust. Getting punched in the face is not pleasurable and may be associated with emotions of hatred, fear, anger, resentment. Emotions tend to affect our reaction to events that happen. Aristotle writes in the Rhetoric, “The emotions [pathe] are those things through which, by undergoing change, people come to differ in their judgements.”(pg 121) The emotion of hatred felt after getting punched in the face, affects one’s judgments in that they might punch back or never speak to that person again. In other

Some topics in this essay:
Aristotle Lucretius, Ultimately Aristotle, Earth”Lucretius Book, fear death, human life, aristotle believed, book 1, Lucretius Epicurianism, emotional response, pleasurable associated emotions, getting punched, soul emotions, person words, motion atoms, atoms void,