# Loeb Principal Doctrines print justice as a compact against harm, nothing in itself

Date: 1925

## The fact

Hicks prints KD 31–35: justice is a compact neither to harm nor be harmed, empty where no compact can be made. The dated English instrument is the Loeb. Independent natural-law courts are not this theory.

## Context

A compact theory can support treaties and also dissolve duties to those outside the bargain, including animals and distant strangers. Later legal positivism sometimes cited the heading. Do not upgrade it into a 1925 statute.

[Epicurus](/people/epicurus) is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Official edition, museum, archive, or agency page and an independent publisher independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Loeb / Hicks vol. 2 (https://archive.org/details/livesofeminentph02dioguoft; Internet Archive / Loeb Classical Library scan).

## Significance

Justice as mere bargain is a path that weakens claims of independent judicial principle.

Justice as mere bargain is a path that weakens claims of independent judicial principle.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Epicurus: https://factrail.ai/people/epicurus

## Drivers

- Judicial independence erosion (court capture): https://factrail.ai/drivers/justice-judicial-independence-erosion

## Sources

- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/
- https://archive.org/details/livesofeminentph02dioguoft

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ep-justice-mere-compact