The (atomic) soul is mortal, and the best life is the one with the least pain and the most pleasure.

The (atomic) soul is mortal, and the best life is the one with the least pain and the most pleasure.

We call 'Slavery is wrong' a moral truth because there is a specific history of theoretical investigation of a particular kind of slavery. We discussed it for centuries in metaphysical, economic, biological, and philosophical terms; we listened to all the arguments pro and con, we read all the testimonies of slaves and witnesses, and we decided. Though this 'we" is not everybody on earth, or even most people, who've never thought about slavery much.

Order can arise from chaos without anyone or anything directing the process when unstable combinations of atoms perish and others persist. In the 17th century, Descartes applied this insight to cosmology, and long before Darwin presented his more rigorous ideas about variation and selection, people began to speculate more openly about the origins of life and the species in Epicurean terms.

There's nothing a priori good about equality. One person has three televisions, the other has two, so what?

A moral rule is essentially 'advantage-reducing.' It prohibits you doing something you could do that would serve your interests at someone else's expense.

We have to gamble, and sometimes lose as George Ainslie argues; this keeps the appetite for life sharp.