With Socrates, Plato and Aristotles work in mind the late antiquity liftet ethics to be the primary project of philosophy at the time. The prominent question is how humans should live and die, and what really makes a good and happy life. With the help of our reasonable mind we can break free from dominant opinions of our time. Socrates was a man who succeeded with this. We can call conscience the ability to differentiate justice and injustice. Thanks to reason every human is generally capable to do this. However, to do so we must actually use our good sense. Alternatively, we can simply learn what is right and wrong, adopt what is taught to us by the world. This can result in a conflict with our own good sense, and in that case this will become apparent sooner or later.
Different opinions were held at the time regarding the question of true happiness. Although Athens is now longer politically dominant in the late antiquity, the works of the Greek philosophers provide the foundation for the philosophical trends in the roman empire. Four of them are presented here.
The Cynics come to the conclusion that the ever changing and evanescent world is not important for happiness. Instead, happiness is found outside of this world, and power, wealth, even good health are no requirement for it. Happiness is independent of worldly, material things. That means we should not link our happiness to unnecessary objects that we may have or not. Additionally, we should avoid excessive worrying about things like money or health. Even the suffering of those who unsuccessfully or insatiably crave after those things should be kept at a distance, we should not make it our own for no reason.
The Stoics are convinced that all humans share a universal reason or good sense, which we can also call Logos. A human is a representation of the cosmos, a micro-cosmos of the same quality as the world in its entirety. They decline the concept of spirit and matter, for them only nature exists. This is a monistic worldview. The natural processes follow unchangeable laws of nature. Destiny unfolds in accordance with necessity and does not need to be complained about. It only needs to be accepted and endured calmly. It is noticeable that this opinion comes with a strict determinism and that a human can appear as an unfree victim of circumstances, as an inactive creature steered from the outside.
The Epicureans consider the enjoyment of as much sensual pleasure as possible and the avoidance of suffering and pain as the path to a good life. They already balance pleasure with what it takes to achieve it. They consider side effects and look for an optimal way to maximize joy. As a necessity for pleasure they also demand discipline, moderation and calmness. They recognize that a continuously dissolute and excessive way of living, for example in the style of a roman orgy, would give a poor overall pleasure balance. Desire must be restrained in order to maximize a life-long balance of pleasure. With death, the soul dissolves as Democritus describes in his atomic theory, and the existence of that individual being comes to an end.
Neoplatonism is build on the idea that a human is a dual being with body and soul, which experiences both a world of senses and a world of ideas. The world itself however is considered undivided, a whole unity that is lit up by a divine being. Where Plato separates the world of senses and the world of ideas, there is now only the light of life, which illuminates the darkness. The sensory world is not a separate world appearing on the wall of a cave, but is part of the reality that the light catches. This light does not get everywhere with the same intensity. The more alive something is, the closer it is to the light. Mankind can experience this with mountains, rivers and forests, with animals and fellow human beings. However, we can experience the light strongest within us. We can even unite with it, as Plato did when he experienced his world of ideas.
Each of these opinions is still relevant today. Especially popular today are the perspective of the Stoics, as it matches with the modern worldview of natural science, and the perspective of the Epicureans, which goes with the “American Way of Life” and is especially close to mind when we, as it is common today, are exposed to a lot of suffering, both as a consequence of fallacy and conflict as well as temptation and illness.
From todays point of view the perspectives of Cynicism and Neoplatonism seem a bit strange and less pragmatic. Who already accumulated some experience in this world may have noticed that there are no regular hot spots of happiness among rich people. The Cynics seem to have a valid point when they say that happiness is independent of worldly things. Knowing this, we can at least conclude that we will loose happiness out of sight if we only focus on consuming or owning stuff and ignore or reject everything else. Neoplatonism might help us find what else there is.