This reminds me of the problem of undue denial of consent, which we have discussed at Society of Epicurus in relation to Principal Doctrine 32 but is also relevant here.
This arose from various case studies that we placed before our eyes. Africans who were captured centuries ago and enslaved would have been able and willing to enter into covenants, as much as the Africans and others who sold them into slavery and those who bought them. However, these individuals were denied consent and treated as children, or as wild beasts, as if they had neither the power nor the will to give consent. Women and other groups are often also denied consent in some societies.
Creatures who do not abide in social contract inhabit a sort of wild or pre-civilized state according to PD 32. But in cases such as these, the enslavers or oppressors are the ones who chose to remain in a wild state, insofar as they had the power, but not the willingness to make agreements with others.
These case studies have led some of us to consider inherently unjust the denial of consent.
Interesting idea. Based on PD 32, it seems that slavers (for instance) treated enslaved Africans *as if* they fell into the category of "tribes that are unable to form agreements," and would therefore be exempt from considerations of justice. If we specify that the enslaved were in fact able and willing to form agreements, then an *opportunity* to form mutually beneficial agreements in which justice would obtain was missed. And if we specify that the slavers were able but unwilling, the tightest extrapolation from PD 32 is that the Africans would have been reasonable in treating the slavers as exempt from considerations of justice (e.g. by fighting back). This much definitely seems consistent with Epicurus to me.
I am not sure, however, whether Epicurus would have said that refusal to enter into agreements is inherently unjust. The overall message of the PDs on justice seems to be that justice *only* applies when there actually is an agreement, and that the concept is not inherently meaningful in the absence of such agreement. In the modern world, we have many more laws and formally instantiated rights, and so I think Epicurus would certainly agree that slavery, or denial of legal rights to women, would be unjust today. But as a historical matter, we don't have any direct evidence of what contemporary political arrangements Epicurus did consider unjust (slavery? severely limited rights for women? highly restricted franchise? treatment of "barbarian" tribes?). Maybe he would have labelled all of these as unjust, and simply kept fairly quiet about such topics since he didn't see any likelihood of near-term change. But I'm inclined to think that the more parsimonious interpretation is that PD 37-38 are envisioning smaller changes on which the existing legislative bodies might agree to "revise their agreements," rather than a radical implication that the existing laws of society were hugely unjust.
Your interpretation is not impossible, but based on the overall 1) absence of direct evidence, 2) explicit restriction of "justice" to situations in which a contract *does* exist, and 3) the general orientation of the philosophy away from projects of political reform or conflict with the status quo, I'm hesitant to say that "denial of consent is inherently unjust" is a particularly Epicurean position. I do think Epicurus would find our modern expansion of our agreements to encompass more and more humans to be a good thing that improves society's overall hedonic outcomes, but he seems to me quite hesitant to make broad declarations about "injustice" in the world.
This reminds me of the problem of undue denial of consent, which we have discussed at Society of Epicurus in relation to Principal Doctrine 32 but is also relevant here.
This arose from various case studies that we placed before our eyes. Africans who were captured centuries ago and enslaved would have been able and willing to enter into covenants, as much as the Africans and others who sold them into slavery and those who bought them. However, these individuals were denied consent and treated as children, or as wild beasts, as if they had neither the power nor the will to give consent. Women and other groups are often also denied consent in some societies.
Creatures who do not abide in social contract inhabit a sort of wild or pre-civilized state according to PD 32. But in cases such as these, the enslavers or oppressors are the ones who chose to remain in a wild state, insofar as they had the power, but not the willingness to make agreements with others.
These case studies have led some of us to consider inherently unjust the denial of consent.
Interesting idea. Based on PD 32, it seems that slavers (for instance) treated enslaved Africans *as if* they fell into the category of "tribes that are unable to form agreements," and would therefore be exempt from considerations of justice. If we specify that the enslaved were in fact able and willing to form agreements, then an *opportunity* to form mutually beneficial agreements in which justice would obtain was missed. And if we specify that the slavers were able but unwilling, the tightest extrapolation from PD 32 is that the Africans would have been reasonable in treating the slavers as exempt from considerations of justice (e.g. by fighting back). This much definitely seems consistent with Epicurus to me.
I am not sure, however, whether Epicurus would have said that refusal to enter into agreements is inherently unjust. The overall message of the PDs on justice seems to be that justice *only* applies when there actually is an agreement, and that the concept is not inherently meaningful in the absence of such agreement. In the modern world, we have many more laws and formally instantiated rights, and so I think Epicurus would certainly agree that slavery, or denial of legal rights to women, would be unjust today. But as a historical matter, we don't have any direct evidence of what contemporary political arrangements Epicurus did consider unjust (slavery? severely limited rights for women? highly restricted franchise? treatment of "barbarian" tribes?). Maybe he would have labelled all of these as unjust, and simply kept fairly quiet about such topics since he didn't see any likelihood of near-term change. But I'm inclined to think that the more parsimonious interpretation is that PD 37-38 are envisioning smaller changes on which the existing legislative bodies might agree to "revise their agreements," rather than a radical implication that the existing laws of society were hugely unjust.
Your interpretation is not impossible, but based on the overall 1) absence of direct evidence, 2) explicit restriction of "justice" to situations in which a contract *does* exist, and 3) the general orientation of the philosophy away from projects of political reform or conflict with the status quo, I'm hesitant to say that "denial of consent is inherently unjust" is a particularly Epicurean position. I do think Epicurus would find our modern expansion of our agreements to encompass more and more humans to be a good thing that improves society's overall hedonic outcomes, but he seems to me quite hesitant to make broad declarations about "injustice" in the world.