abstract:In his dialogue, Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, Plutarch of Chaeronea criticizes Epicurus for not believing that the gods are provident over human affairs and for not believing that our souls survive death. However, Plutarch's arguments are striking in that they do not offer any theoretical justification for believing either of these religious claims to be true; rather, they aim to establish that we are practically justified in adopting them if we follow Epicurus's rule that the goal of belief is not truth in its own right, but mental tranquility. I argue that this form of argument assumes a novel justificatory theory of religious belief, based in Epicurean thought, that I call 'strong doxastic hedonism.'

中文翻译：

---

普鲁塔克对宗教信仰的伊壁鸠鲁辩护

摘要：在他的对话，Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum，Chaeronea 的普鲁塔克批评伊壁鸠鲁不相信众神对人类事务的保护，也不相信我们的灵魂会在死亡中幸存下来。然而，普鲁塔克的论点令人震惊，因为它们没有提供任何理论依据来相信这些宗教主张中的任何一个是真实的。相反，它们旨在证明，如果我们遵循伊壁鸠鲁的规则，即信仰的目标不是真理本身，而是精神安宁，那么我们实际上有理由采用它们。我认为这种形式的论证假设了一种基于伊壁鸠鲁思想的新颖的宗教信仰辩护理论，我称之为“强烈的doxastic享乐主义”。