People should be able to develop their abilities and interests and have access to such goods as friendship, artistry, and nature and a political voice. It's possible to be poor and yet have all this, but in a polarized society, and one where culture and adventure have been thoroughly monetised, it is a lot more difficult.
Catherine WilsonMaybe we will get to this point and reach a decision one way or the other with 'Human cloning is acceptable,' but I doubt that it is ever going to happen for 'It is morally permissible to eat shrimp' or with the general formula 'Adultery is wrong,' whose intended extension is again very unclear.
Catherine WilsonIt 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.
Catherine WilsonEpicurus thought that friendship and conviviality, which require present attention rather than being in an alcoholic stupor, as well as trying to understand and explain things, were the greatest sources of satisfaction in life, so there go most drugs.
Catherine WilsonEpicureanism did inspire libertine culture in isolated sects, but Epicurus himself rejected an ethics of sensory indulgence, and he would have disowned latter-day 'Epicureanism' as a fussy, expensive, unphilosophical approach to eating and drinking.
Catherine Wilson