Law

From Epicurus Wiki

The value that Epicurus and his followers attached to the law(s) was relative, not absolute: (human*) laws are definitely neither god-given (unlike, e.g. the Mosaic law), nor are they immutable.

According to Epicurus, the purpose of the laws is to serve human well-being, and therefore their validity is conditional: if a law does serve its purpose, it should remain in effect; if, however (e.g. due to changing conditions, different situations, etc.), it ceases to do so, it should be repealed.

In this respect, the Epicurean notion of the laws lies at the heart of the legal system of all liberal democracies, and is foreign to that of political/religious fundamentalist regimes, as those rest on necessarily absolute values.

Laws were discussed by Epicurus and his followers in the context of society, social order, and the like; justice "proper", on the contrary, was discussed primarily on the level of the individual.

(* The only "laws" that Epicurus and his followers acknowledged as immutable and inescapable are the so-called laws of nature; in that case, however, the term "law" is used in a metaphorical, i.e. non-legislative sense, and applies to such natural processes as evolution, adaptation, habituation, etc.)