Principal Doctrine 38

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Translation

Where, without any change in circumstances, things held to be just by law are revealed to be in conflict with the essence of justice, such laws were never really just. But wherever or whenever laws have ceased to be advantageous because of a change in circumstances, in that case or time the laws were just when they benefited human interaction, and ceased to be just only when they were no longer beneficial.

Analysis

Not only does people's sense of what is and what is not just vary according to geographical location (and, of course, its attendant cultural differences), as Epicurus had stated in Principal Doctrine 36; it also changes in time. Change may happen in one of two possible scenarios:

A. Assuming ceteris paribus, i.e. that circumstances have not changed, that "things around have not become new":

• Yet, when put into actual practice, a law that was previously considered just no longer fits our prolepsis (preconception) of justice.

This makes an important, although implicit distinction: most plausibly, Epicurus means to differentiate between a particular case where what is and what is not just is questioned, and our general (i.e. "proleptic") understanding of justice altogether, i.e. the preconception of justice as based on the fundamental principle of neither harming nor being harmed by others.

• In such a case, the particular law that has been found to no longer fit our general preconception of justice is not just after all.

This probably alludes to those cases where, on second thought (i.e. and not due to a change in circumstances), it is revealed that e.g. a law that was passed earlier was not well thought out to begin with, has been seen to work poorly in practice, and thus ought to be amended or repealed.

B. Assuming, au contraire, that circumstances have in fact changed:

• Some laws may then be found to no longer be beneficial; they are thus no longer just.

• Yet they once were just, while they were still beneficial to "the association of fellow-citizens"; they ceased to be just when they ceased to be beneficial.

This latter scenario alludes to those cases where a law that was originally just in the context of some earlier circumstances, has been rendered obsolete, irrelevant, or simply unjust due to new, different circumstances.