It used to be that nobody would really argue with a woman, because what she thought (unless it was by way of providing helpful comments about one's own work) just didn't matter.

People's wants are not fixed; they generally want what others in their chosen comparison class appear to be enjoying and what advertising presents to them as attainable for them and as bringing happiness.

The Epicureans denied that the gods had created the world and also denied that they played any role in it.

Atomism had no absolute 'above' and 'below' and no such rulers, so favoured the undersranding of justice as an agreement amongst equals.

Some critics thought the ontology and theory of qualities absurd. No one had ever seen these little atoms, and furthermore, how could their mere arrangement produce a noisy, colourful, world in which day followed night and animals generated their own kind? Instead of a world created, cared, for and supervised by supernatural persons, the Epicureans appeared to the theologians to be assigning everything to chance. The latter were appalled by Lucretius's view of religion as cruel and oppressive and by the Epicurean insistence that death is the end of all experience.

You can find many philosophy papers on the themes of 'love' and 'friendship,' most of which are cheerful and somewhat anodyne; you don't find many on the loss of friends, relatives, and lovers from death or alienation, though it happens all the time.

I think we do have a better understanding now of how moral thought and discourse function.