The Stoics are in our language. We all grew up with them, whether we realise it or not. The eponymous idea that one should (under certain circumstances) be ‘stoic’, or that it is admirable to bear something ‘stoically’, is so ordinary it is practically common sense. And as with all common sense ideas, it is challenged by every generation. We now question the value of the traditional ‘stiff upper lip’. We think it is healthy to show some emotion, to let it out, to acknowledge your feelings. Perhaps it is true that showing emotion is healthier than suppressing it, but if that emotion is based on a misunderstanding then the Stoics would say it is healthiest to work against the cause of the emotion. And focussing on the causes of your emotions has a tendency to soften their impact. Acknowledging the emotion, giving it legitimacy, when it is based on falsehood, is only giving strength to an error; and why would you want to do that? The Stoics are not anti-emotion – emotions are natural and the Stoics believe we should align ourselves with Nature – they are anti-irrationalism. And most negative emotions, it turns out, are based on irrationalisms.
You are angry. Is your anger rational or irrational? Why are you angry? Because your boss does not give you the credit you deserve. Why does this make you angry? Do you deserve the credit? Yes. And do you think it matters more that you deserve it, whether or not you get credit, or that you get credit whether or not you deserve it? If you are honest and virtuous and wise, you would say it is better to deserve it and not get credit than get credit without deserving it. And so deserving credit is what really matters. And you do deserve the credit. So you have what really matters. You have the thing of greater value and lack only what is of lesser value. So why are you angry?
Is it because you expect something more from your boss? You expect them to have a better opinion of you. And is their opinion something you can control? No, of course not. They will think what they will think; they judge things as it seems to them, in their ignorance; all you can control is your work. And you deserve credit for your work; this much we have already established. So you are angry about something over which you have no control? That is about as rational as getting angry at the weather and expecting it to change. You can shake your fist at the sky and shout and scream your lungs out but the rain will still fall.
Is your boss correct in their opinion? No, this much we’ve established. So they have a false belief. You have a true belief and they have a false belief: who is worse off here? It is them. They are ignorant, you are not. Would you rather be ignorant? Are you angry at them for being ignorant? Should you not rather pity them for their ignorance? They ought to be ashamed of themselves.
And so should you, because you know all this and yet you are angry. Who is in control of your emotions? Are you a slave? Are you in control of yourself? Are you governing yourself by your own judgement? If not, you are a slave to something other than yourself. Is the value of your boss’s opinion so great to you that you would sell your self-control at its petty cost? Do not value yourself so cheaply.
Practical Stoicism is a matter of governing yourself by your own judgement. So you need to, first, make a sincere attempt at having good judgement; and then, second, try to govern yourself by it.
Remember your logic
Stoicism-in-practice follows directly from Stoicism-in-theory. If you remember your Stoic theory, you will recall that there are three essential parts to philosophy: Logic, physics, and ethics. Let’s start with logic. For the Stoics, coming to greater knowledge or understanding is a matter of clarifying your ideas. And you do this through logic.
It helps to learn some basic logic, if you can. (Sadly there is no practical introduction to logic, yet. I plan to write that book when I have the opportunity.) Logic helps you to understand your own lines of reasoning and more clearly see which are strong and which are weak. Ultimately, you want to be following the strong lines of reasoning and rejecting the weak, and a grounding in logic can make this much easier. But even if you don’t have a grounding in logic, you can pay some reflective attention to your inferences, to ‘what follows from what’, and work against the weakest of them.
As thinking things, human beings make all sorts of different inferences, and logicians make it their business to study them all, but a simple example (familiar to any student of logic) is the ‘conditional’ inference or what is sometimes called ‘material implication’. These are ‘if…then’ statements. They state that if one thing is true then another thing must be true; it is to say that one thing follows from another thing. For example, if it is a fish then it follows that it lives underwater. If I am human then it follows that I am mortal. If I am shorter than my brother then it follows that my brother is taller than me. If I throw a hammer at a window then it follows that the window will break.
We make these kinds of inferences all the time. It’s perfectly natural, and intuitive, and so you might be forgiven for thinking that there’s not much reason to pay close attention to them. But what is important (and interesting, for logicians) about this rule of inference is not so much what it says but what it rules out. For example, to say ‘if it’s a fish then it lives underwater’ is to rule out the possibility of it being a fish and not living underwater. It leaves open the possibility that there are things living underwater that aren’t fish, because the inference only goes one way: just because it lives underwater doesn’t mean it’s a fish, but if it’s a fish then it lives underwater. Likewise, to say ‘if I am human then I am mortal’ is to rule out the possibility of an immortal human. This leaves open the possibility that there might be immortal beings, but rules out the possibility that human beings are that kind of thing.
It’s difficult to talk about in abstract terms but easy enough to illustrate. (It’s even easier to illustrate in a formal language, but we won’t go into that here.) It’s about coming to understand what you can infer from what. Say we accept the conditional claim: ‘If it’s a fish then it lives underwater.’ Now I present you with a box with something in it, and I say ‘the thing in this box is not a fish’. On the basis of our conditional claim – ‘if it’s a fish then it lives underwater’ – and with no other information to go on, can you answer this question: Where does the thing in this box live? No, you can’t. You have no idea where it lives, because you have no idea what it is. You only know it isn’t a fish. It could be anything else – spider, beetle, daisy, crab, spider crab…the list of possibilities is very long – so on that basis it could live anywhere. Nothing follows from knowing that the thing in the box is not a fish.
Now I present you with another box and say ‘the thing in this box lives underwater’. On the basis of our conditional claim and with no other information to go on, could you answer the question: Is there a fish in this box? No, you can’t. It could be anything that lives underwater. Crab, shrimp, seaweed…the list of possibilities is very long. Nothing follows from knowing that the thing in the box lives underwater.
But what if I say ‘the thing in this box is a fish’, and then ask: Where does the thing in this box live? Now it’s different. On the basis of our condition claim and with no other information to go on, you can answer correctly: ‘The thing in the box lives underwater.’ It must do, because it is a fish, and if it’s a fish then it lives underwater. You already know this, so it’s a matter of inferring what you know from what you already know.
And if I said ‘the thing in this box does not live underwater’, and then ask: Is there a fish in this box? You could, on the basis of our conditional claim and with no other information to go on, answer correctly: No, there is no fish in that box, because whatever is in that box does not live underwater, and if it were a fish then it would live underwater. The conditional claim – ‘if it’s a fish then it lives underwater’ – rules out the possibility of whatever is in that box being a fish.
And because of this ‘ruling out’ effect of the conditional inference, we can infer some other variations of these claims that say the same thing. Since ‘if it’s a fish then it lives underwater’ rules out the possibility of there being a fish that doesn’t live underwater, we could just as easily say ‘no fish live out of water’. And likewise, to say ‘if I am human then I am mortal’ amounts to saying ‘there are no immortal humans’. But to say that there are no immortal humans is the same as saying that all humans are mortal. And to say that no fish lives out of water is to say that all fish live underwater. All of these variations capture the same meaning. This can be shown, logically, by coming to understand that the ‘if…then’ inference is logically equivalent to (meaning ‘it means the same as’) saying ‘all these are that’, or ‘none of those are this’, or ‘if it’s those then it’s not this’, or even ‘either this or not that’.
Trivial logical details, you might think, to understand the many different ways you can say the same thing. But learn them and become familiar with them and put that learning into practice and you will more clearly see how many faulty inferences people draw. ‘If you have more money then you are better off.’ Would you say this claim is intuitively, obviously, and perhaps trivially true? This is a ‘conditional’ inference, a claim about ‘being better off’ following from ‘having more money’. Does it follow?
Recast it into its logically-equivalent statements and you might see it for what it is. Saying ‘if you have more money then you are better off’ would seem to be logically equivalent to saying ‘all people who have more money are better off’. Is that true? There are too many cliches that say otherwise. The lottery winner who loses all their friends; the business tycoon who is universally hated and despised; the successful criminal who is ruled by paranoia and fear. Could we say these people are better off? Would any of us choose to be them, for the sake of having more money?
A logician would call these counterexamples: they are something actually true that shows an inference to be false. And because of these counterexamples, we know (because we can show) that the inference does not follow. There are people who have more money and are no better off. Surely that is obvious. And so we must reject the inference that says ‘if you have more money then you are better off’. Why, then, let yourself be ruled by a faulty inference? Why chase more money in the expectation that it will make you any better off?
Apply it to your comparative judgements. ‘She has more money than me, therefore she is better off.’ It does not follow. ‘If I have more money, then I will be better off.’ It does not follow. You know it is a faulty inference. Reject it and move on to what really matters.
Perhaps you think we should only weaken the inference, rather than reject it. ‘Most people who have more money are better off.’ Are they? This is an empirical claim, rather than a conceptual claim; it’s something we could ask a social scientist to look into. They have already done so. If by ‘better off’ you mean ‘happier’, then the answer would seem to be ‘yes’: most people who have more money are better off, but only to a point. Studies indicate that you need to have enough money, but any more than enough is not necessary and adds little. And other studies indicate that people always think they need more than they have. That is, even if you already have enough money to be ‘better off’ (according to science) then you will probably always think you need more. You have enough, but you don’t realise, and so you are not as happy as you could be. A philosophical education could of course correct this error. If you come to understand that ‘enough’ is less than you realise, not more than you have, then you will be better off with what you have, because it is certainly enough. This can be shown by example, which is why the Cynics offer their living, breathing, barking counterexample: something actually true that shows an inference to be false. The Cynics are happy with nothing, and still you say that you need more money to be happy?If you come to understand what really matters, you will reject the inference that says that money makes you better off. It isn’t having money but living well that makes for a good life.
And besides which, there is what a scientific survey will never show: just because we find that money does make people happier, that doesn’t mean it ought to. A philosopher could say that money makes people happier only because people are generally ignorant about what matters. A Cynic might say this is exactly what we would expect to find amongst the opinions of ‘ordinary ignorant people’. Of course people think that having more money makes them better off, and because they think that they become pleased with themselves when they have more money. But this comes with its own dangers. What will you do when your money is lost: will you be lost without it? What will you do when your neighbour has more money than you: will you be envious? What will you do with your endless sense of not having quite enough: are you content to be endlessly frustrated? Are you happy to make your happiness dependent on market forces beyond your control?
A philosopher avoids these dangers and can remain content in relative poverty, regardless of fortune or misfortune. They are better off with less money, having broken their dependence on it, and certainly not better off only with more. Understanding what really matters, a philosopher rejects the inference ‘most people who have more money are better off’. It is a faulty inference and should not govern a life.
How many other inferences like this do we habitually make without thinking? ‘He is better looking than me, therefore he is a more desirable person than me.’ It does not follow. Is no one better looking yet less desirable? The good-looking psychopath, abusive and violent, is hardly a good catch, and neither is the pretty boy who tells ugly jokes. Looks are something, but they are not everything; character is more important, ordinarily. That much is obvious. So why let yourself be ruled by a faulty inference that says you should try to make yourself better looking in order to be more desirable? Try to improve your character instead, because that is probably the stronger inference.
A personal example: My wife hates it when I take it upon myself to get in better shape. I get it in my head that I ought to look better and so I diet and exercise. But exercise takes time, so I have less time to spend with her. I stop cooking fun foods, I stop drinking alcohol. I become disciplined, sometimes a little obsessive. This is not someone who is fun to have around. It works, of course, and I lower my body fat percentage and become ‘better looking’, but I am certainly less desirable as a result of what is required to achieve it. (At least as far as my wife is concerned, which is the only opinion I really care about.)
‘They are higher up in the company than me, therefore they are more important.’ And you think a title or rank makes someone important? ‘They have a title, therefore they are important.’ How absurd! It does not follow. Everyone who has a title is important? Of course there are counterexamples to this. What matters is what the title represents; but if you have that, then what difference can a title make?
‘They have a title, therefore there is a piece of paper with some words on it.’ That is true. ‘They are higher up in the company, therefore they have a different title to me.’ That is true, but nothing follows from it. ‘He is better looking than me, therefore he is better looking than me.’ That is all you can say because nothing else follows from it; that is the correct inference. ‘She has more money than me, therefore she can buy more things.’ That is a fair inference, but does having more things make you a better human being, or happier? That does not follow. There are plenty of good happy people who have very few things, and plenty of bad miserable people who have more things than they could ever need.
‘They do not value me, therefore I have no value.’ ‘They think badly of me, therefore I am ashamed.’ Pay attention to the inference. Are there instances in which people are thought badly of but have no reason to feel ashamed? Of course there are. Lots of people thought very badly of Muhammad Ali. Ought he to have felt ashamed, on that basis? Of course not. Nothing follows from people thinking badly of you. All that matters is whether you are right to feel ashamed, and that can’t be determined by their opinion alone. You know this already, so why let yourself be ruled by an inference that you know to be faulty?
I am ugly. I am poor. I am disgraced. I am without a place or status. I have few possessions. My house is small. My car is old. My clothes are tatty. I am bad at maths. I can’t spell. My hair has fallen out.
On and on it goes. Nothing follows from any of it. What really matters? Goodness and happiness. And are there no good ugly people? No humble happy people? Counterexamples abound. Pay attention to what really matters and you will free yourself from these faulty inferences.
You feel ashamed because you are poor, or ugly, or without a place or status? That is shameful, because you are allowing yourself to be governed by inference that you know to be faulty. Do not feel ashamed about being poor or ugly; feel ashamed about being the kind of person who lets themselves be ruled by faulty inferences! And what is just as shameful, if you understand these things correctly, is to feel proud because you are rich, good-looking, and high status. These are expressions of a life lived by faulty inferences; they only advertise your ignorance. It is admittedly difficult to reject these inferences when they seem to be serving you so well. But this is only a seeming, and you are at the mercy of fortune whether you realise it or not: you will think again when bad fortune hits. You are high, but you are catastrophically vulnerable, and all the more vulnerable because you don’t realise how vulnerable you are.
How do you realise? How do you protect yourself? By remembering your logic. You should investigate your thoughts and put them to the test. You should reject any faulty inferences that say you are better because you are rich, or good looking, or high status. You should study philosophy until you see no difference between generals and donkey drivers. Then you will be invulnerable to misfortune, and what’s more: you will have true beliefs about what really matters.
Accept physics
To be a real Stoic, you must accept material determinism. You must commit to the idea that everything that happens must happen exactly as it happens and cannot happen any other way. In a sense it was all decided by the initial conditions of the universe. Nothing you do, or choose to do, can make any difference to what happens in the material world. You cannot change it, and so you must learn to live with it. It will go as it will go and you are just along for the ride, like a dog tied to a cart, or a passenger in a car being driven by forces beyond their control.
The only thing you can control is your own will, perspective, opinions and judgements, desires and aversions. These things are in your power, even in a determined material universe. Since these are the only things over which you can exert some control, these are the only things for which you can be held accountable. And therefore virtue, or ‘living well’, will only be found in the exercise of these faculties. It’s not what you do that makes you virtuous, but how you are as you go along with things as they happen. And so you should strive to be more good, not do more good, and certainly not have more good things.
And because what is ‘good’ is only found in the exercise of your own will and judgement, you should desire anything that facilitates the proper exercise of judgement and be averse to anything that inhibits it. Want the truth and be fearful of having false beliefs. Want education, to learn, to cultivate your judgement: you should want to learn logic; you should want to learn philosophy. Free yourself from the distractions of desires for things that you know are no good, which is: anything other than your own will and judgement. Do not want material things or bodily pleasures, and be averse to the desire for these things, because you know that they are a matter of indifference to you. To allow yourself to be ruled by a desire for something that you know to be indifferent is to be a slave to your own errors.
Pursue a life that allows you to exercise your judgement soundly. This suggests a life of moderation, avoiding obvious things like getting too tired, or emotional, or drinking too much alcohol and getting drunk, because these kinds of things impair your judgement. But of course as a real Stoic you understand that ‘drinking alcohol’ and so ‘getting drunk’ are both physical events, fated to go as they will go since the initial conditions of the universe. You are just along for the ride. What can you control? When you are drunk, you can try to keep your will subject to your unimpaired judgement: you can try to not lose your head. You can do what you can to manage your emotions. You might be drunk, but you don’t have to be a drunken fool.
But of course this is where the paradox of compatibilism starts to bite. As mentioned, I find a commitment to material determinism to be practically impossible. I can’t help but think that it is up to me whether to drink alcohol or not. And if I think it is important to retain my unimpaired judgement then the most obvious solution is to avoid drinking too much alcohol in the first place. I find that to be the more therapeutically helpful thought: If you want to avoid the effects, avoid the causes.
That is not an option for a real Stoic, who must accept that the causes of our material effects are already decided. I can’t change them, and so I can’t avoid them either. All I can do is manage myself as I go along with them. As unhelpful as that might sound to the person who wants to avoid the causes of what troubles them, there is a therapeutically helpful insight in this approach too.
Consider what a Stoic would say about depression or anxiety. They might say: Do not allow yourself to be depressed or anxious, because these distort your judgement. Work against these things as you would work against other distortions of your judgement, like drunkenness: first, avoid the causes of them; second, rectify them as soon as you are able; and third, do not go along with what your impaired judgement suggests.
But a real Stoic must understand that depression and anxiety are, in part, material events, and as such their causes are unavoidable. Adopting any kind of biomedical model of these conditions makes it easier to see their material nature: serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline and cortisol, genetic predispositions and life events; these are material things that take their place in the unbreakable chain of cause and effect that stretches back to the initial conditions of the universe. You, poor saturnine soul, are just along for the ride.
What can you control? You cannot control your genes, your life events, your body. You can control your judgement, your perspective, your will. You can try to understand the causes of your emotions and in that weaken their impact. You can understand depression and anxiety to be distortions of your judgement, as errors to be corrected. You must not allow yourself to be governed by them or by the effects that they have on your judgement. You must be genetically predisposed, yes; you must be subjected to triggering life events, yes; you must be flooded with adrenaline and cortisol, yes, and on that basis you must sweat and tremble, yes; but must you be anxious? What is in your power? You can come to see these things for what they are – material events in a determined material universe – and you can look to align your will with them. Want things to go only as they will go. And so if you must sweat and tremble, then align your will with that and want to sweat and tremble. It is a material event and so beyond your control, and because of that not something for which you can be held accountable. It is a matter of indifference to you, so be indifferent to it. It does not harm you unless you form the opinion that it is harmful. Do not endorse that opinion; reject it. It is the anxiety distorting your judgement. Anxiety makes you think that the visible signs of anxiety are very important. But this is an error to be corrected. Exercise your judgement and correct the error.
Depression and anxiety distort your thinking. They lead you to believe things matter when they don’t really matter, or that things don’t matter when they really do. Depression and anxiety lead you into false beliefs about what really matters. There is, therefore, an absolute philosophical duty to overcome them.
Of course, ironically, adopting this approach of being indifferent to or even wanting the physical symptoms of anxiety invariably causes those symptoms to subside. I used to be terribly embarrassed by my red face: a self-perpetuating problem if ever there were one. I still find myself naturally falling into embarrassment about it, such is my contradictory nature, but it has never been as much of a problem since the day I took a Stoic approach: I accepted it as my nature and understood that I should align myself with my nature and want things to go exactly as they will go. I tried to want what I had hitherto feared; and in that, the fear disappeared. It showed itself to be empty and dependent only on my own opinion. And because the fear disappeared, the cause of the effect was removed (somewhat), and the effect subsided. The anxiety did not spiral as it once did. Ironically, the problem resolved itself only when I stopped seeing it as a problem. The change was in my judgement and a product of the exercise of my judgement – using reason to govern my desires and aversions, like a good Stoic – and it made a material difference.Whether or not that acts as a counterexample to the Stoic’s commitment to material determinism, I leave to your judgement. Or perhaps this too was fated since the initial conditions of the universe.
A real Stoic must accept their physics and not waver in their commitment to material determinism. As materialists, this is what separates the Stoics from the Epicureans. As virtue ethicists, this is what separates the Stoics from Aristotle. If you waver in your commitment to material determinism then the Stoic approach will quickly collapse into one or other of those views. Remove the idea that you can affect no material change in the world and you will find good reasons to do different things. Returning to my personal example: If I keep myself cool, wear light clothing, drink iced water, find some air movement, and take some medication, I am less likely to sweat and go red in the face. Of course these things help – they make a material difference – and that in itself makes me feel better. Or else, perhaps more virtuously, I could train myself to be more confident; or, perhaps less virtuously, I could avoid the situation entirely. The choice is mine. The point is only that: if I can affect a change, why should I accept what I can change? But this is not the Stoic way. This is the way of Aristotle or Epicurus.
Return to our classic examples of the desire for ‘externals’ like reputation, wealth, or health, and see how these look without a commitment to material determinism. Someone has a bad opinion of you. You can change their opinion, if you can persuade them. So study rhetoric and learn how to persuade them. You are poor. You can make more money, if you can succeed in business. So set yourself to task on succeeding and work hard and you can make your fortune. You are ill. You can change your vulnerability to ill-health by living in a healthier way. So eat well and exercise and get enough sleep, avoid the sources of infection, wash your hands and don’t go to big cities, don’t smoke or drink alcohol, etc., etc. These things will make a material difference. And so if you think it’s possible to make a difference, why on earth wouldn’t you do so? Only a fool would choose not to do what they can to improve the situation.
If you believe you can change it, what reason do you have to accept it as it is? If you are clever and determined, and habitually make the right choices, you will find that you have far more power to affect change than you ever thought possible. Do this and you will find that you are a Peripatetic – a follower of Aristotle – and a poor one at that, for having been so defeatist and ignorant of yourself. Or if you just want to be calm and content then choose to pursue only what you already have or can easily acquire and avoid the rest, like a good Epicurean. But if you would be a Stoic, a real Stoic, then you must accept your physics and in that understand that all of these things are beyond your power to affect. In your power are your own will, perspective, opinions and judgements, desires and aversions, and you can use your reason to govern these things. That is all you can do, and so that is what you must do.
Do ethics
Remember your logic, accept physics, and do ethics. For all their interest in logic and physics, Stoicism is first and foremost an ethical school of thought. This is a Socratic inheritance. Ethics is why we do philosophy: it is its final cause, philosophy’s ultimate purpose, because it is our ultimate purpose. The purpose of philosophy is to heal your soul. You study logic in order to clarify your thinking, so that you can think in a way that is right and good. You study physics in order to understand the world and your relation to it, so that you can align yourself with it. Thinking in a way that is right and good and aligning your will with nature: this is what a healthy soul does. This is what it looks like to live well as a human being, according to Stoicism.
Understanding how to actually do that is the aim of ethics, and Stoicism is packed full of useful ethical lessons. Only remember that these lessons do not come from nothing: they are inseparable from their philosophical foundation.
Too often nowadays I see them separated, with the ethical lessons detached from their proper context. They are weaker as a result; a shallow shadow of their former self. Stoicism has become very popular, but the ‘popular’ version of it has lost its philosophical authenticity (and with that, for me, respectability). I can’t blame the people consuming these popular versions of Stoicism, because you can’t know what you are not shown. But what the people creating ‘content’ about these things don’t seem to realise is that if you detach these lessons from their foundations then they float free, shaky, precarious and untethered, and either collapse or else take flight into fancy. Removing the foundations, you remove the logos: the rational account that explains why something is true. What’s left is only mythos: fancy stories that sound pleasing to the ear but tell us nothing but the author’s opinion. Having dispensed with the attempt to offer a serious rational account that stands up to scrutiny,you fall on the wrong side of the divide between knowledge and opinion. That’s not a mistake any philosopher would make, so that these content-creators fall into it only shows that they are not really philosophers. Dispense with the rational account and you deny yourself (and anyone listening to you) the possibility of knowledge. You are left with nothing but opinions, and these opinions, flying free, become faulty and lead people astray.
They forget their logic and so make faulty inferences. To the trained eye, this isn’t subtle: I read two sentences and see three mistakes. They waver in their commitment to material determinism, whether wittingly or unwittingly (and that they waver unwittingly is another sign of their lack of philosophical understanding). They can’t help but think that they can control their bodies and have some causal impact on the world. When they write, they write as libertarians, not compatibilists. They are free to think what they will, of course, but it’s not Stoicism. And that they sell it as Stoicism only goes to further show how little they understand of it. Perhaps that is only an image, not a reality, and only a symptom of the need to put on a show. But I fear they don’t really know what they are talking about. I’ve seen little to suggest that they do.
We can do better. Remember your logic, accept physics, and do ethics on the basis of these things. Then you will be a Stoic worthy of the name.
What is ethics, for a Stoic? Remember what it is not: it is not a matter of doing the right thing. What happens in the world must happen exactly as it happens and cannot happen any other way. Nothing you can do can change this; it has been fated since the initial conditions of the universe. All you can do is govern yourself – your will, your judgement, your opinions, your desires and aversions – as you go along for the ride.
Popular writers on Stoicism seem to misunderstand this. They seem to think that Stoic ethics is about doing or not doing certain practices, actions, or behaviours, and that these choices make a difference to what happens in the world. ‘If you do these things, then you will be more successful/happy/rich/etc.’ It’s a fine line, a fine-grained distinction, and I can understand why they might be confused. Sometimes, in reading the Stoics, you might get a sense that they are encouraging you to do or not do certain bodily actions or to make different choices. But often these are only ways to get you to affect a change in yourself – in your perspective, your will, your judgement – but not and never in the material world because that is impossible.
And remember that you are reading these works in translation, at nearly 2,000 years’ distance. Sometimes things get lost in that translation. And so, if you really want to understand these things, it can be helpful to do the scholarly thing and learn a little bit about ancient languages and the translation issues that come with dragging them into the English language of the 21st century. I am no expert in translating ancient languages, far from it, but I know enough to recognise what’s important. For example, the opening lines of Epictetus’s Enchiridion (or ‘handbook’)look like this, in a widely-available translation:
Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.
The important phrase that might lead people astray is: ‘in one word, whatever are our own actions.’ Alarm bells ought to be set ringing by the obvious contradiction there: whatever is said ‘in one word’ in ancient Greek is something that takes five words to say in English. But to what ‘one word’ does this phrase refer?
In the original, the phrase ‘whatever are our own actions’ is represented in these two words: ‘hemetera erga’. ‘Hemetera’ is equivalent to ‘our’, which is an important modification but in itself says little. It’s worth a brief reflection on, though: who is Epictetus talking to? Who is ‘us’ in this scenario? Philosophers? Human beings? Are there some things in the control of a philosopher that wouldn’t be to an ordinary ignorant human being? Does having more knowledge give us more power? Or does Epictetus mean his message to be universal and applicable to all? I leave it to your judgement.
The other word is ‘erga’. This is a very important word in philosophy and particularly important in the world of philosophy that the Stoics inhabited. This is the ‘one word’ to which Epictetus’s phrase refers, the one word that captures what is ‘in our control’.
‘Erga’ (a case of ‘ergon’) does not directly translate to the modern English word ‘action’, in my opinion. The philosophical connotations are different. We think of ‘actions’ to be ‘active’ – something that you do, rather than not do, since ‘action’ is opposed to ‘inaction’, ‘activity’ to ‘inactivity’, and ‘active’ to ‘passive’ – and for this reason you might be inclined to read Epictetus’s opening line, in English translation, as a call to take action and do certain things. Moreover, we tend to think of ‘actions’ as being physical, rather than mental, insofar as we might contrast someone who ‘takes action’ to someone who only sits around thinking about things. But ‘ergon’ can be passive or mental. Aristotle, for example, says that the ‘ergon’ of the eye is to see, and whilst the eye certainly ‘does’ this, it does so passively: it has no choice in the matter, it just does what it is. And the ‘ergon’ of rhetoric is not to persuade people (an activity that makes a material difference) but only to understand how to persuade people: a mental activity.
A more accurate translation of the philosophical meaning of ‘ergon’ would be ‘function’ or ‘task’ or ‘work’. To say ‘the function of an eye is to see’ or ‘the task of rhetoric is to understand the means of persuasion’, for example, seems to capture Aristotle’s intended meaning more accurately. And just to add to the confusion, ‘ergon’ can sometimes refer to the product of work: so the ‘ergon’ of a sculptor is a sculpture. The ‘task’ or ‘function’ or ‘work’ of a sculptor is to sculpt sculptures, and so the sculpture that results from their activity is their ‘work’ or ‘ergon’. The sculpture is a ‘work of their art’.
‘Ergon’ has a distinct meaning that we come to understand by seeing the various ways that ancient Greek philosophers (like Aristotle) use the word. The ‘task’ or ‘function’ or ‘work’ of an eye is to see, and so seeing is the ergon of the eye. The ‘task’ or ‘function’ or ‘work’ of a plant is to grow, and so growth or growing is the ergon of plants. The ergon of a stomach is to digest food, for the purpose of providing nutrition to the rest of the body: it fulfils its purpose when it performs this function and it fails when it doesn’t. The ergon of archery is to shoot arrows straight. The ergon of rhetoric is persuading people or understanding how to persuade people. The ergon of sculpture is a sculpture. Etc., etc. Some of these are what we would nowadays describe as ‘actions’, but in many instances that word would seem to be a poor fit.
Exactly what the Stoics understood by ‘ergon’ is an open question, but what is clear is that ‘hemetera erga’ means our work, our function, our task, our proper business as human beings (or philosophers).
And what is our proper business as human beings? Is it to digest food? Surely we are more than a stomach. Is it to grow and reproduce, like plants? No, because we are not like plants; we are more than that. Is it to grow and reproduce and move about, directed by our instincts and urges, like animals? No, because we are not like animals; we are capable of other things.
Many philosophers at the time of the early Stoics would have understood the ‘ergon’ or ‘task’ or ‘work’ or ‘function’ or ‘proper business’ of human beings to be what defines us as human beings: our capacity for rational thought. What we are is ‘thinking things’. Just as ‘growing’ is what a plant does, and ‘seeing’ is what an eye does, ‘thinking’ is what we do: it is our ‘ergon’, our ‘work’ or ‘task’ or ‘function’ as human beings (and especially as philosophers). And so, to my mind and with these philosophical connotations in mind, a better translation of Epictetus’s opening lines might be: Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, our capacity for rational thought.
That sends a very different message. I think it sends the correct message, a more accurate message, more consistent with the complete Stoic picture. Stoic ethics is not about doing anything other than thinking well.
And so what is in our control? Our task. And what is our task? To think well. As thinking things, and especially as philosophers, that is what we do. And in a materially-determined universe, that is all that we can do.
And what is not in our control? In a word, anything other than this. We are what we do, and you can only do what you are capable of doing. What human beings are capable of doing, that other beings aren’t, is think. And therefore we are thinking things, essentially. We share many other functions with non-human animals, but our function is most fully realised when we think: and in a materially-determined universe, that is all that we can do.
Stoic ethics is about governing your will by your reason. Time and again Epictetus will remind you that you are a mind or a will or a perspective – a ‘thinking thing’, as a philosopher would term it – equipped with the powers of reason and desire and aversion, and you can use your reason to govern your desires and aversions. This is what Stoic ethics is about: aligning your will with nature. Wanting things to go as they will go. It is not about doing anything other than this, because it is not in your power to do anything other than this. When you govern your will by your reason, you do all that you should do, because there is nothing more that you can do.
Why should we do this? Firstly, because it is in your interest to do so. If you do not exercise your ‘ergon’ as a thinking thing and exert some control over your judgement, opinions, desires or aversions, if you do not clarify and understand your thoughts, if you do not understand the world enough to go along with it, then you will always meet with trouble, frustration, and suffering, and you will live in constant and catastrophic vulnerability to these misfortunes. One way or another you will end up living in contradiction with yourself or with the world, and that can only lead to ruin: you will suffer the consequences of your own lived inconsistencies. You are like a blind eye or a stomach with indigestion: you go against your ‘ergon’. It is not a healthy state.
And so as a simple act of self-preservation and self-protection you should learn to be a philosopher and make yourself invulnerable to these misfortunes. The Stoics would say that, whilst it might seem like we’ve been condemned to live in a world of suffering, we have been equipped with everything we need to protect ourselves from it. We have been given the gift of reason, and with the power of reason we can govern our opinions and desires and aversions, and with this take control of the world of ‘appearances’. You have everything you need to protect yourself from suffering: why wouldn’t you do so?
Natural self-interest
Over the ages, many philosophers have looked to ground ethics in our natural and apparently innate tendency towards self-preservation. It is often termed ‘self-love’: we have a deep need to look after our own interests. An infant cries when its needs are not met; an adult wants what pleases it. This would seem to be a truth so universal that we would call it a natural law, like gravity.
The Stoics fall in with this analysis. They say that all life begins with the need to pursue its own interests: initially survival, then simply getting what you want. They don’t challenge this natural law but go along with it. They assume that you want to look after yourself and get what you want, and what you want is to be free from suffering. They point out that a philosophical education can give you what you want, and it is the only thing that can give you what you want. The only way that you can protect yourself from suffering is to learn (through logic and physics) to go along with the world as it is and not how you want it to be. Learn to govern your opinions and desires and aversions by your judgement and you will never suffer again. You can be happy now or you will never be happy, because happiness depends only on the proper exercise of judgement.
But they will further point out that once you begin down this philosophical road, you begin to understand things differently. You start from the motive of self-interest and for that reason look to become wise. But once you become wise, you come to recognise different motivations, different reasons for or against certain judgements. You come to understand that you ought to think in a particular way, not necessarily because it is in your interests to do so (even though it is), but because it is the right way to think. And once you understand that, then you only want to think rightly: to think well becomes your motivation, because you understand that that is what it is to live well, and that desire can overrule even the will to self-preservation, as Socrates demonstrates when he chooses to suffer the sentence of the court rather than inconsistently go against it.
You begin with the natural desire for self-preservation, self-protection, and self-interest. Learning the lessons of philosophy, you learn to pursue what is in your interest (wisdom, good judgement, self-control) and reject what isn’t (ignorance, faulty inferences, being a slave to your bodily appetites). You decide to choose on the basis of this rule: choose wisdom, reject ignorance; choose to be a philosopher. You choose this repeatedly, until it becomes a habit, a second-nature. Finally, this second-nature becomes your nature. You are no longer ruled by your ‘first nature’ of self-interest, like a child or an animal; you are ruled by your ‘second-nature’ as a philosopher, and you are better off as a result.
But by the point at which you have become a philosopher, it is not done because it makes you better off. It is done because it is right, and you recognise it to be right, and in recognising it as something that is right then you recognise it as something that you ought to do. You have a different understanding of what it means to be ‘better off’: not ‘getting what you want’ but ‘wanting what is right’. And in wanting what is right, you have a healthy soul. Your basic animalistic ‘self-love’ is no longer ruling you: you have freed yourself from that tyrannical ignorance. You rule yourself, as yourself and by yourself and for yourself, by your own good judgement, according to rules of your own choosing. This is what it means to be truly free, and a powerful lesson of Stoicism is that it is possible to be this truly free even in a materially-determined world of suffering. You can be happy now or you will never be happy: it is always entirely in your hands.
And to combat the already-mentioned misunderstanding – the apparent danger of becoming an emotionless monster – this also explains why a philosopher would still suffer and choose to suffer, even though they have equipped themselves with the ability to avoid all suffering. Consider the grief we experience when our children die. Isn’t this suffering unavoidable? There is no unavoidable suffering, says the philosopher. If you are so overcome with grief that life has become like a smoke-filled room, then leave it: that door is always open. But if you will stay then don’t complain. Did you want to be free from any vulnerability to that suffering? Then do not have children, or else have them but do not care for them. Do you think that would be right? No. You choose to have children and you choose to love them. You know they will die. You will grieve when they die. It is right and proper for you to do so. You chose this, and you cannot complain for getting what you choose. So grieve, only do not lose yourself to your grief.
A philosopher suffers in grief, but understands that they are better off suffering in grief than not suffering at all, because it is right to grieve.Grief is the price we pay for love; we can protect ourselves from it only by becoming shallow. It is clearly ‘in our interests’ or ‘preferable’ not to suffer, but it is not always right that we shouldn’t suffer. A philosopher wants to follow what is right, according to good reason, and not what is pleasant. So they will suffer their grief. But philosophy is a bitter medicine.
A new aim
What begins from the motive of self-interest sends you down a road that leads to a new aim. You no longer want to get what you want; you want to want what you get. This is what it takes to align your will with nature: to want what is, not what you think ought to be; to want things to be as they will be, not to want things to be as you would like them to be. That is Stoicism.
Stoicism works, not because it gets you what you want, but because it changes what you want; it changes what you understand you should want. You should not want to be rich, you should not want to be successful, you should not want to be good looking, you should not want to be popular, you should not want to be physically healthy, because if you understand these things properly then you would understand that they have no real value. They might seem nice, but they do not really matter; they are ‘preferred indifferents’, as a Stoic would say.
You should want what actually matters and has value, which is only to have good judgement and to live in accordance with that good judgement; you should want only to be wise. And in being wise, you recognise that you should want things to go only as they will go. If you are a real Stoic then you will understand that there is no other way that they can go: it has all been fated since the initial conditions of the universe and you are just along for the ride, like a dog tied to a cart. And you can go along contentedly or not; that is your choice. But that is your only choice, because everything else is beyond your power to affect.
The only thing you can control is your internal self: your opinions, your desires, your aversions, or, in a word, your activity as a thinking thing. You can only do what a thinking thing does, which is: think. And you can do this well or badly, that is up to you, and it’s the only thing that is up to you in a world where everything else is materially determined. So choose to think well or badly. If you want to think well, then follow the Stoics, but all they can offer you is wisdom. If you want anything other than that then you are a fool and they cannot offer you foolish things.
What they offer is inestimably more valuable than the childish games of make believe that say that if you get this or that then you will be happy. They offer you happiness that depends only on what you already have: your capacity for rational thought. In this, they offer you an absolute freedom and an invulnerability to misfortune. They can liberate you from a slavery that you have chosen for yourself. You choose to want things that have no value, then get frustrated when they don’t satisfy; you choose to suffer the consequences of your mistakes. You have bought yourself debts and burdens and by your ignorance you have forged your own chains. Free yourself from these chains. Understand yourself as you are (a thinking thing), understand the world as it is (materially determined), and align yourself with these things. Then you will be as free as you can be, as wise as you need to be, and you will be happy with this and nothing more.
Your new aim is only to be wise and to live by that wisdom. It no longer matters if this appears to be ‘in your interest’ or not, because wisdom has changed what you understand to be ‘in your interest’. In this they repeat the Socratic lesson: ethics does not serve our purposes but judges them. Ethics doesn’t get you what you want, it teaches you what you should want. And what you should want is to be wise.
To illustrate this change in aim, later Stoics offer a modification of Aristotle’s ‘archer analogy’. To explain Aristotle’s goal-oriented approach to ethics, we said that being virtuous is like being an archer. You have a target, something you want, a purpose, a goal, which is happiness, eudaimonia,or ‘living well’. You want to hit your target. In order to do this you must understand yourself and your nature and your circumstances – whether you are strong or weak, whether the bow is heavy or light, whether the target is far or near, which way the wind is blowing, etc., etc. – and you must adapt your efforts and adjust your aim depending on your nature and circumstances. You must find and choose what is ‘just right’ in order to hit the middle of the target; not too much not too little, not too high not too low. The wise archer is able to make the right choices and adapt to what is required to hit the target, to achieve their purpose. But it’s clear that, for Aristotle, ethics is all about hitting targets. That is the ‘Chief Good’ or final purpose of ethics.
The Stoics take a different view. They say that, whilst you certainly might start off by wanting to hit targets, as you make progress in your understanding of archery the individual targets themselves become less important. You come to understand that ‘being a good archer’ is more important than ‘hitting that target’. Your purposes change, and your aim changes with them. You work to improve your archery, however that is done, and that is not always about hitting the target in front of you. Hitting the target is a product of being a good archer, but it is not the function of archery. The function (or task or work) of archery is to be a good archer: to shoot straight, at targets of your choosing, regardless of the particular target in front of you. You might choose not to shoot at all.
Contemporary sports psychology seems to have fallen in line with the Stoic view. It’s common nowadays for athletes to focus on ‘processes’ rather than results. This constitutes a change in fashion, and perhaps it is only a fashion, because not so long ago competitors were encouraged to ‘keep their eyes on the prize’ and ‘not lose sight of their goal’ and ‘visualise winning’, etc. But now it’s more likely that they will be encouraged to not think about winning, or results, or the prize, and focus on what they are doing. Control the controllables of their particular situation: focus on their technique, or even specific parts of their technique. Focus on what you have been working on in training, do what you do well, and the results will follow. Your goal is not to win; your goal is only to do what you do to the best of your ability.
And so we offer a new archer analogy, with a Stoic update.
The Archer Analogy (Stoic edition)
You stand on the archery range with a target in front of you. Say it stands at 30m distance. You take aim and shoot. You miss. You are disappointed. You shoot again. You miss again, but closer this time. You adjust your aim and shoot again. You hit, but not the centre. You keep practising. Soon you are hitting the centre of the target and you are satisfied.
But now the target stands at 50m. You take aim and shoot, and you miss, you fall short. You are disappointed. You adjust your aim, and you shoot, again and again, and over time you come to be hitting the centre of this target too. You return to the 30m target and find this easy. It isn’t satisfying.
You approach the 80m target. It seems far away. You consider how high you need to aim in order to make the distance. You are not sure. Can you calculate it somehow, based on your experience and success at the 30m and 50m distances? Must it be a matter of trial and error? You take aim and shoot, making your best guess at the appropriate height. You fall short. You aim higher and still fall short. You find you cannot make the distance. What is wrong? You need a heavier bow, something that can make the distance.
You find a heavier bow and return to the range. You take aim, but the bow is heavy and your arms are shaking. You miss wildly; you can barely shoot straight. You are too weak. You must become accustomed to the weight of the heavy bow.
And so you work on your strength. You still take some practice at targets that you can reach, to keep your eye in, but these are easy enough for you now. Your main goal is to get strong enough to handle the heavy bow. You pull the heavy bow, again and again, not shooting any arrows but only to build yourself up.
Over time the heavy bow becomes manageable. You return to the range, take aim at the 80m target, and shoot. You make the distance. You have become a better archer.
Now the wind gets up and blows the arrow off course, or the arrow loses a fletching (stabilizer), or the target moves, or is bigger and now smaller, or nearer and now further away. The world is always changing around you: what can you do? What can you control? Only yourself. You can focus on your technique. You can aim straight. You can become a better archer.
And this becomes your aim: to become a better archer. Your only goal is to control yourself, to improve yourself. Your goal is not to hit the target but only to do what is required to hit the target: to aim straight, to pull a heavy bow, to know what you are doing and have the self-control to do it. Perhaps you will hit the target – and certainly you will have more success than someone who hasn’t improved their archery – but perhaps you won’t, because the world is not always fair or kind. The world will be as it will be; you can only do what you can do. And what you can do is try to be a good archer. Being a good archer is about more than just hitting the target in front of you. It is a matter of knowing how to hit targets. It is a matter of being able to hit any target of your choosing. It is being the kind of person who hits targets and who knows which targets to hit. If all you wanted was to hit targets, you should stay indoors, set the range at 30m, and want nothing more than to plug away at this meaningless repetition, like an Epicurean.
Preferred indifferents
This new aim is what prompts the Stoic distinction between what is ‘preferred’ and what is ‘good’, or what is ‘chosen’ and what is ‘desired’. (We are obviously dealing with words in translation here. You will have to read between the lines and take my word for it that the conceptual distinction is captured accurately.) The archer ‘prefers’ to hit the target, and ‘chooses’ to do so, but what they ‘desire’ is only to be a ‘good’ archer. Their main aim or primary purpose is only to be a good archer. It happens that the good archer, here today standing on the range in front of this target, will aim straight and try to hit the target. They would ‘prefer’ to hit the target, but what they ‘desire’ is to be a good archer. Hitting the target is, for a Stoic, an external: a material event in the material universe, the outcome of which has been fated since the initial conditions of the universe. It is uncontrollable and a matter of indifference to the Stoics. And so it is, as they would say, a ‘preferred indifferent’. But being a good archer, governing themselves by their own judgement and trying only to be virtuous, that is really ‘good’ and rightly ‘desired’.
It seems like hair-splitting wordplay, perhaps. But however it is captured, the conceptual distinction stood the test of time and became important to the Stoics. I think it is an important distinction. The Epicurean aims for pleasure, because pleasure is ‘preferable’. That is true, agrees the Stoic, but it remains ‘indifferent’ to anyone who understands the value of hitting harder targets.
Imagine you are a perfected archer. It is a hypothetical, because it is unachievable, but only imagine. You know you are a perfected archer. You can hit any target of your choosing, under any circumstances, as fate allows. You understand that the true purpose of archery is only to be a good archer and that hitting targets is only a subsidiary part of that; a sign of good archery, but only a sign. You can hit targets if you choose, but you do not need to hit targets in order to demonstrate your worth.
Now you are in a competition. Does it matter to you if you win? Why should it matter? You have achieved all that matters: being a good archer. Winning competitions, by hitting targets, is a sign of good archery, but only a sign. Hitting targets is what tends to happen when you are a good archer. But you are a good archer; you know this already; you are not in any doubt about that. You already have what the sign signifies, so why would you need it to be shown? Winning competitions might be ‘preferable’ to losing them, but whatever the result on the day, it wouldn’t change your perfected ability. Say there is a rank amateur in the competition, and by sheer luck they fluke a perfect score. You choose to match their score. Does this make you equals? Of course not. The score can only show the results of hitting targets, and you know that good archery is more than that. They have fluked the result, today, but tomorrow it might be different. You know your worth.
What difference can it make to you, and your perfected archery ability, whether you win or don’t win the competition today? None; it can make no difference. And you understand that your archery ability is all that really matters, not winning competitions. And so you understand that winning competitions can make no difference to what really matters: it is, therefore, a matter of ‘indifference’ to you whether you win or not. It cannot help you to win, so how can it hurt you to lose?
And so ‘choose’ to hit the target and win the competition if that is ‘preferable’ to you, but you understand that it is a matter of ‘indifference’ and not really ‘good’. Paradoxically, the more you understand about archery, the less it is about hitting the target in front of you.
Clearly it is ‘preferable’ to act in your own interests, and you will often ‘choose’ to do so, but it is not always ‘desirable’ because it is not always ‘good’. What is really ‘good’ is rightly desirable and the only thing that really matters. But our preferences do not often align with what is ‘good’ unless and until we investigate the question of what ‘goodness’ really is. Do you think it is winning competitions? Do you think it is pleasure? Do you think it is other people thinking well of you? These are open questions, but sincere investigation will expose any false or inconsistent answers.
The Stoics offer their answers. Gain knowledge and understanding by clarifying your ideas, through logic. Understand the world as it is, through physics, and accept material determinism. Now do only what you can do, which is govern your activity as a thinking thing. Do this well and you will be doing good. That is what goodness is, and only that, and what that tells you is that everything else is not-good. It is not necessarily bad, only not-good. It is ‘indifferent’. It might be ‘preferable’, meaning you have a preference for it, because it is more pleasant or attractive, etc. But regardless of its attractiveness, it is not properly called ‘good’. Hence, those things like winning competitions or experiencing pleasure or having other people think well of you, they are ‘preferred indifferents’. Choose them if you like but understand that they don’t really matter. Do not lose yourself in the pursuit of them. Do not value them above what really matters.
Remove the opinion, remove the harm
A Stoic understands that the only thing they can control is their activity as a thinking thing: their will, their judgement, their opinions, their desires and aversions. What can they do to protect themselves from suffering and misfortune? Only change their will, their judgement, their opinion, their desires or aversions. They can change nothing beyond this. This might sound like they are powerless in the face of misfortune, but the truth is that, in being struck down by misfortune, they are more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
What the Stoic understands is that the harm we experience depends not on what happens to us, but on our opinions or judgements about what happens to us. If we judge that we are harmed, then we suffer; if we judge that we are not harmed, then we do not suffer. If you remove the opinion, you remove the harm.
Ordinary ignorant people think that we have no choice but to suffer when we perceive ourselves to be harmed, but this is not what the Stoic understands. The Stoic knows that they are a will and a perspective, equipped with the powers of reason and desire and aversion, and they can use their reason to govern their desires and aversions. If they understand the situation properly, they can understand that whatever has happened to them is beyond their control. Someone has insulted or slandered them, and so they suffer in disgrace and shame. You cannot control what other people say about you. What you can control are your opinions, your desires, and your aversions. Investigate the matter; clarify your thoughts. Is it in your power to control other people’s opinions about you, and what they say about you on that basis? No, it is not. And what is good? Only what is virtuous; everything else is indifferent. And where is virtue found? Only in what you can control. And so, being beyond your power to control, other people’s opinions are a matter of indifference to you. All that matters to you is governing yourself by your own good judgement. And here you are suffering from something that you judge to be indifferent? You form the opinion that it is bad even though you judge that it is not? Can’t you see how inconsistent you are with yourself?
You have it in your power to correct your faulty opinion. So exercise your judgement, perform your proper activity as a thinking thing, and bring your opinion and desires and aversions into alignment with your good judgement. Want only to have a correct opinion about this issue: it is a matter of indifference. Be averse only to carrying on with the false belief that says you ought to suffer if someone says mean things about you. You can change your opinion, and if you take away the opinion that you have been harmed, you take away the harm. It has no power to affect you unless you let it.
You can run the same line of reasoning for any and every misfortune you could care to think about. Investigate the matter as a good Stoic and you will see that it is beyond your power to control; and because of that it is a matter of indifference to you. To form the opinion that this misfortune is ‘bad’ is to go against your good judgement, and in that you are inconsistent with yourself. Correct this error. Bring your opinions into alignment with your good judgement, and you will form the opinion that this misfortune is ‘indifferent’. Align your desires and aversions with that opinion and you will be indifferent to the misfortune. Take away the opinion and you take away the harm. It has no power to affect you unless you let it.
There is so much power in this, so many problems that we can solve simply by exercising our capacity for rational thought. If only we could solve other problems so easily. If only we could satisfy our hunger by changing our opinions about food. What sort of fool would complain about being hungry if he could only think his way fed? And yet here we are with the ability to govern ourselves and our opinions by reason and good judgement, and still we complain about things and suffer from problems that we can solve only by changing our minds. The solution is readily at hand; the Stoics have given it to you. Before you were aware of the solution, you were a victim of circumstance and a slave to yourself: you must suffer then because you have no choice. But now you are no longer ignorant. If you continue to suffer after this then it is your choice to do so. It’s like suffering from an illness that can be cured with medicine, and someone has given you the medicine, and you are standing with medicine in your hand, refusing to take the medicine, and then complaining about being ill. You cannot complain for getting what you choose.
Pragmatic Roman Stoicism
How would a Stoic live? If we look to the examples of notable Stoics, there seem to be different answers, reflecting the different eras of Stoic popularity. This is no accident: the Stoic aligns their will with their circumstances, as nature allows. And so if the circumstances around them change, it stands to reason that they will change with them. If they are a slave then they will be a Stoic slave; if they are an emperor then they will be a Stoic emperor. But whilst these are both expressions of Stoicism, they are clearly very different ways of living. If you only ever saw Stoic slaves or Stoic emperors, you might get the impression that Stoics were inclined to live only as slaves or emperors, but this would be to miss the point entirely.
In the early Greek days, Stoic philosophy has its feet firmly in the other great Greek schools of thought that we have covered in this book. There is a direct lineage from Socrates to Antisthenes and the Cynic school of thought; from there to Diogenes, then to Crates, and finally to Zeno and the origins of the Stoic school. Zeno draws on many different influences and makes them his own, and what results is a kind of hybridised culmination of the best bits from the preceding schools. They take logic from the Dialecticians, materialism from the Epicureans (and other common ancestors), and ethics primarily from the Cynics. But whilst the Cynics were openly hostile to society’s rule and norms, the Stoics were not.
The Cynics understood ethics to consist in ‘living in accordance with nature’, and they saw society’s rules and norms as going against our natural way. As a result the Cynics are openly hostile to society and resistant to taking any place in it. But the Stoics understood that ‘to live in accordance with nature’ means to go along with the world as it is, however it is, and society’s rules and norms are no less a part of ‘the world as it is’ than anything else. And this means that, as a good Stoic, you should go along with society’s rules and norms or whatever is ‘appropriate’, that being the way the world happens to be. The Stoics say that you ought to behave appropriately. This marks a marked difference between the Stoics and the Cynics. But if you will behave appropriately and go along with society’s rules and norms then you must play your proper part in it, and that means going about your business as a money-maker, or parent, or politician, or soldier, or whatever the universe appoints to you as your role, and you should go along with this contentedly and perform your tasks to the best of your ability.
In the earliest days of Stoicism, this instruction to ‘play your part’ doesn’t seem to amount to all that much active engagement with society or politics. Most early Stoics take up their universe-appointed role as ‘philosopher’ and so occupy themselves with making fine-grained conceptual distinctions about logic and physics. They debate, they write, they reason, and they do what is necessary to make a living from these things, but they don’t aspire to much more than this. By their example it would seem that a Stoic ought to live the life of a philosopher, going along with society for the sake of appearances but actively engaging only in contemplation and debate. They do not actively engage in political life. They are no philosopher-kings and do not aspire to be so.
By the time of the Romans, however, Stoicism seems to have taken a different tone. I’m inclined to suggest that this appearance could be a product of a kind of selection bias on our part. Most of what we know about the Roman Stoics comes from a select few sources, and these are (of course) the outputs of educated and literate people. As it happens, these happen to be educated and literate people who were also heavily involved in Roman politics, in one way or another, and this might skew our sense that the Roman Stoics were inclined to be involved in politics. But how many Roman Stoics weren’t involved in politics, or didn’t bother to write about it, or weren’t famous enough to have their writings recorded for posterity? It’s not as if Seneca, Cato (as a character in the writings of Cicero), and Marcus Aurelius were the only Stoics in town. But our impression of Roman Stoicism is formed by these people. Seneca, Cato, Cicero, and the emperor Marcus Aurelius were each occupied with universe-appointed roles that took them far beyond the withdrawn life of the philosopher. They all return to writing philosophy only in later life, after they had done their political work and in many cases having been disgraced by it. They withdraw to philosophy in order to seek solace from it and consolation in it, sometimes only as a brief break before throwing themselves back into the melee of political life. Most of them live and die in this political life, not in the life of a philosopher.
Epictetus is the exception to this rule. He is a Roman Stoic of a different kind. He lives and dies as a philosopher. He is born a slave; he remains poor; he does not involve himself with politics. He wishes only to understand himself and live in accordance with reason. He reads and discourses about philosophy, like any philosopher; but like Socrates, he doesn’t write any philosophical works. He talks to people and he teaches by his lived example. Fortunately for us these teachings were captured and preserved by a literate student.
In spite of the withdrawn simplicity of his philosopher’s life, Epictetus’s influence is extraordinary. People go to him to be taught; he doesn’t have to shout about it. And if they will not come then he won’t go chasing them, because that is their choice and their loss. Epictetus constitutes a return, I think, to the lived ideals of Cynic and Socratic philosophy. He lives according to the principles that he professes.
It’s difficult to say the same of the other great Roman Stoics. (Read their biographies and you will see what I mean.) They take Stoicism and make it their own, finding it to be a school of thought particularly suitable for the pragmatic ‘Roman’ mindset. As Zeno steps away from Crates the Cynic, early Stoicism is a step on from Cynicism, not rejecting society but taking a place in it; and the Roman Stoics (with the exception of Epictetus) go one step beyond this.
It seems like a reasonable progression. The Cynics begin by understanding that Nature has given each form of life a way to be. Plants and non-human animals do this naturally, without thinking, because they cannot think. Human beings, however, have the power to think, and this leads them astray. Rather than living ‘like a dog’, we project and makes plans and preparations for ever more elaborate desires and fears. We are then troubled or frustrated when our imagined version of the world does not become reality. This is a curse on the thing-that-thinks, and one that non-human animals avoid. The Cynic response is to reject the curse and live like a non-human animal, or as close to one as you can get. Live ‘naturally’, like a dog. The Stoic response, however, is to prioritise the human capacity for reason and make that the natural way for a human to be. Living in reason allows you to see the mistakes of reason that the Cynics identify. But rather than rejecting those mistakes, like the Cynics, you make it your Stoic purpose to correct them. To live fully human is to live aligned with Nature and perform your distinctively human activity: thinking rationally. In the earlier Greek version of this ideal, this means governing yourself and your activity as a thinking thing, going along with the world as it is. But in the later Roman world, it takes on a more pragmatic approach. Because they understand that human activity is not limited to thinking. As human beings, we govern empires, not only ourselves. We build things. We make money. We have families. We conquer the world.
And so the Roman Stoic considers it their natural place to pursue these activities. We ought to build great buildings, amass great wealth, participate in politics, conquer nations, perfect your science and medicine, and achieve all those things that the paragon of animals is capable of, because to do so is exactly what Nature intended. The earlier Stoic philosophy of governing your activity as a thinking thing is a kind of amendment or afterthought to these activities: go about your business in command of yourself, aligned with Nature, without the errors of wanting what cannot be.
I struggle to go along with this Roman mode of Stoicism. There seems to me to be an inconsistency in it, and in that an ignorance. Seneca amasses tremendous wealth, often ruthlessly; he uses philosophy to serve and defend his purposes, not to judge them. Marcus Aurelius is called one of the ‘good emperors’, and historians will debate whether or not he is worthy of that title. I would say the bar is set pretty low by the behaviour of some of the ‘bad’ emperors, and that any contemporary sentiment against imperialism would hesitate to praise the use of excessive force to crush rebellions, along with any number of the other standard procedures of Roman rule. And though Cicero is no Stoic, the less said about him, as an embodied example of a philosopher, the better. He philosophises like a lawyer, eloquent and exact, because he is one. His version of Roman Stoicism is not his own but as if a client’s, and whilst he clearly respects it more than Epicureanism, he is only telling stories and making the case for the prosecution. For each of these great representations of Roman Stoicism, I am eternally grateful for their writing, but I will not follow their example. I will do as they say but not as they do. I think I can do better (even if I will never write as well). But I’d rather succeed as a philosopher than as a writer of philosophy, so if I fail as the latter I can still have what’s of greater value.
Epictetus sets a better example, and in that he is a better example. He calls out the hypocrisy of the so-called ‘Stoics’ of his Roman time:
Why did you assume plumage not your own? Why did you call yourself a Stoic? Observe yourselves thus in your actions, and you will find of what sect you are. You will find that most of you are Epicureans; a few are Peripatetics, and those but loose ones.
If you were to imitate the Roman Stoics (with the exception of Epictetus), you would look like a follower of Aristotle. Why not call yourself as such and be done with it?
Consider yourself lucky
One final translation issue. I have left this one until the end of the chapter because it is speculative and not entirely clear, and for that reason might be unhelpful. It is easier to just say ‘happy’ and trust that people understand more or less the right thing by that. But consider this passage from Epictetus, in translation:
Show me a Stoic, if you have one. Where? Or how should you? You can show, indeed, a thousand who repeat the Stoic reasonings. But do they repeat the Epicurean less well? Are they not just as perfect in the Peripatetic? Who then is a Stoic? As we call that a Phidian statue which is formed according to the art of Phidias, so show me some one person formed according to the principles which he professes. Show me one who is sick, and happy; in danger, and happy; dying, and happy; exiled, and happy; disgraced, and happy. Show him to me; for, by Heaven! I long to see a Stoic.
The word to focus on here is what is commonly represented in translation as ‘happy’. I think it is an important word, and I’m not sure ‘happy’ is good enough. Just as we understood a difficulty in translating Aristotle’s ‘Chief Good’ of eudaimonia as ‘happiness’ because it contained more than just ‘feeling good’ or ‘being content’, so too I think this word – in the original a case of ‘eutukhéō’ – conveys more than a feeling. It is a feeling, but also a judgement.
This word, in other contexts, would mean something more like being ‘lucky’ or ‘fortunate’ or ‘successful’ or ‘prosperous’ or ‘having had things turn out well’. The root of the word is ‘good luck’. And so in this case, it seems to me that a phrase like ‘show me one who is sick and considers themselves lucky’ would capture the original meaning more accurately.
But I might be wrong. I am no expert on translating ancient languages, and I am overwhelmingly in favour of respecting a translator’s informed opinion and taking their word for it on most matters. But I also know that sometimes words do not directly translate, and in those cases it’s useful to have some insight in order to understand this, or else you might be led astray. I pay close attention to these words, when they matter, but go along with the rest. For me, it doesn’t much matter what ‘sick’ means, or ‘in danger’, or ‘dying’, or ‘exiled’, or ‘disgraced’. There might be some connotations in these original words that I’m missing, but they won’t make a significant difference to how I understand the Stoics. The word ‘happy’ is different. If I understand ‘happy’ to mean ‘feeling good’, then that is one meaning, and I might ask how one can reasonably expect to ‘feel good’ whilst sick or dying. But it is different if I understand ‘happy’ to mean ‘considers themselves lucky’ or ‘fortunate’. I can sit in illness (as I do, currently writing this, as it happens) and consider myself fortunate because I understand that it is a minor illness and it will soon pass (because I have a healthy immune system) and if not then things go as they will go. Illness is a natural part of life, but only a part. And my wife and daughter are upstairs and well. It is very intuitive to describe this with the phrase: ‘sick, but considers himself lucky.’ But I don’t ‘feel good’ and would struggle to describe myself as ‘happy’ in that sense, because I would rather feel better. I ‘consider myself lucky now’, but I do not consider myself ‘happy’ now; there is a difference there. And if a Stoic would say that I can be happy now or I will never be happy, then that would seem to mark me as a failure of a philosopher.
Change the word, though, and it’s a different story. You can consider yourself lucky now, or fortunate, or well off, or you will never consider yourself lucky/fortunate/well off. That is true, and it can always be true, if you follow the Stoics’ reasonings. This can be true even in grief; for whilst you would struggle to describe yourself as ‘happy’ in grief, you can still consider yourself ‘fortunate’ for having known and loved the person you have lost.
For me it’s a very important change, but I leave it to your judgement. I think it’s morally impossible to consider myself ‘happy’ when my loved ones suffer, or ‘happy’ when I experience remorse, or ‘happy’ when I hear about terrible injustices in the world. If Epictetus asks me to be ‘happy’ with these things then I will reply that he asks me to do something that I cannot, and that puts a block on any acceptance of Stoicism on my part. But change the word to ‘fortunate’ and it starts to look different.
My loved ones suffer, and I am sad about this and certainly not ‘happy’, but I am fortunate to have people that I love so dearly that I suffer when they suffer. And of course I know that suffering is an inevitable part of life, so I accept my good fortune to have the privilege of suffering with them. Suffering is inevitable; me suffering with them is not. But would I rather not be there? Would I rather not care?
I am not happy to learn that I have done something morally wrong, but I am fortunate to have at least recognised the error of my ways and have some opportunity to make amends; better that, and suffer in remorse, than continue in blissful ignorance. I know it is better to suffer evil than to do it.
I am not happy to hear about terrible suffering and injustice in the world, but I am fortunate to be someone whose soul is healthy enough to recognise and be affected by these things. Would I rather dismiss them as if they are nothing to me?
Once again I have found a way to explain to myself why a philosopher would choose to suffer, even though they have equipped themselves with the ability to avoid all suffering. It makes sense to suffer, sometimes. It might not feel good but it feels right. And for a philosopher that is more important. But I accept that this idiosyncratic explanation puts me at odds with some Stoics, and especially with later expressions of Stoicism (such as Spinoza), and for that reason I probably would not consider myself to be one of them.
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