Much of Stoicism involves stripping externals of illusion and gaining detachment from them. But of course Stoicism has an affirmative side as well, which many would regard as its most central and important idea: the pursuit of virtue. This topic could have come at the start of the book. It appears here instead because the Stoic meaning of virtue follows in part from lessons that by now we have considered. Virtue is the natural result of an accurate use of reason; reason is the distinct gift that sets humanity apart from animals, so the purpose of human life must be found there. Earlier chapters have shown us much of what reason means to the Stoics. For one thing – and most relevant here – it should cause us to accurately see our individual insignificance (a theme of Chapter 3); and from this we might infer our corresponding place in the world, which is to function faithfully as parts of a whole.
Stoics regard virtue as sufficient to produce happiness on all occasions, and also as necessary for it. The happiness centrally valued by the Stoic is eudaimonia, or well-being – the good life rather than the good mood. But the Stoic believes that virtue gives rise to joy and to peace of mind as well. Virtue produces these good consequences as side effects. The primary mission of the Stoics, in other words, is to be helpful to others and serve the greater good, and they don’t do this to make themselves happy. They do it because it is the right and natural way to live. But doing it in that spirit, as it turns out, makes them happy.
The Stoics, as we have seen, have various ways of advancing their views and making them persuasive. They attempt to base their ideas about virtue mostly on logic; the Greeks in particular sought to establish their ethical conclusions by a coherent system of deductions. They held that nature commands us to live in obedience to reason and designed us to gravitate toward virtue. These often are viewed as among the less enduring arguments the Stoics made. That is partly because their view of nature as rational and providential is now shared by few. Critics have also complained of circularity in some of what the Stoics said. I don’t propose to chase down those issues here, but will venture that the efforts of the Stoics to prove that we should pursue virtue, as they define it, are not likely to be compelling to anyone who is not already sympathetic to their claims.
And yet the Stoics’ view of virtue is attractive in ways that can be separated from those doctrinal problems. Their belief about the relationship between virtue and happiness contains a good deal of psychological insight. Some states of mind are difficult to acquire directly; they come about only as byproducts of effort applied in other directions. Many have found that happiness is this way. Efforts to acquire it by direct pursuit don’t work well; happiness has to be found while looking for something else. (This is a point often rediscovered in modern times with much fanfare.) The something else proposed by the Stoic consists primarily of a dedication to reason and a commitment to others – to service, to justice, to helping in the ways one can. These are appealing values to live by whether or not they are accompanied by a logical guarantee of their correctness. They also may be found a dependable path to happiness, or a more reliable one than any other. But recall that putting happiness aside just in order to find it later is cheating; happiness is not supposed to be the Stoic goal, not even covertly. The Stoic view, rather, is that one should embrace virtue for its own sake, and that doing so is necessary to get the good side effects of it. The interested reader can reflect and experiment.
This chapter, consistent with the rest of the book (and much as in Chapter 9, on emotion), does not attempt to set forth the theoretical framework and taxonomy of virtue that the early Stoics developed. It shows in outline form, rather, the applied teachings of the late Stoics on the meaning of virtue, the benefits of pursuing it, and the value and cultivation of a few virtues in particular: honesty, consistency, and kindness. We also will see the importance that the Stoics assign to involvement in public affairs and to being of service to others.
1. Definitions. The Stoics view virtue, first, as the use of sound reasoning and judgment.
Virtue is nothing else than right reason.
This may be taught quickly and in a few words. Virtue is the only good, or at least there is no good without virtue; virtue itself is situated in our nobler part, that is, the rational part. And what will this virtue be? True and steadfast judgment. From this will spring the impulses of the mind; by this, every external appearance that stirs such an impulse will be reduced to transparency.
Sound reasoning and judgment will in turn produce some specific qualities, or virtues, that the Stoic seeks, many of which have been discussed in earlier chapters.
They’re not going to admire you for your quick-wittedness. So be it! Still, there are many other qualities about which you don’t have to say, “I just wasn’t born with it.” So show them those qualities that are entirely up to you: sincerity, dignity, endurance of hardship; not pleasure-seeking, not complaining of your lot, needing little; kindness and generosity; being modest, not chattering idly, but high-minded. Don’t you see how many you could display immediately – having no excuse on account of lack of natural capacity or aptitude – yet you still willingly fall short?
Examples of the virtues that Marcus Aurelius valued can also be found in thanks he gives to others, such as his grateful entry about Claudius Maximus – a Roman consul, judge, and Stoic philosopher who had been one of his teachers.
From Maximus I learned self-government, and not to be led aside by anything; and cheerfulness in all circumstances, as well as in illness; and a just mixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity, and to do what was set before me without complaining…. He had also the art of being humorous in an agreeable way.
Seneca saw the value of studying the liberal arts, among which he counted literature, music, and mathematics (there is a note about this in Chapter 7, Section 5). But he said they were all less important than philosophy because none of them taught its students the meaning of virtue. His exposition of the point provides an inventory of many virtues valued by the Stoics.
Bravery is a scorner of things which inspire fear; it looks down upon, challenges, and crushes the powers of terror and all that would drive our freedom under the yoke…. Loyalty is the holiest good in the human heart; it is forced into betrayal by no constraint, and it is bribed by no rewards…. Kindliness forbids you to be overbearing towards your associates, and it forbids you to be grasping. In words and in deeds and in feelings it shows itself gentle and courteous to all men…. Do “liberal studies” teach a man such character as this? No; no more than they teach simplicity, moderation, and self-restraint….
2. Benefits of virtue. Stoics regard virtue as the only source of true eudaimonia, a word that sometimes is translated as “happiness” but (as noted at the start of the chapter) means something closer to well-being or the good life. Virtue gives rise to it as a side effect, and brings about pleasure and joy as well.
If virtue promises good fortune, peace of mind, and happiness, certainly also the progress toward virtue is progress toward each of these things.
Seneca, in turn, elaborated on the tranquility, or peace of mind, associated with virtue:
What we want to discover, then, is how the mind may always maintain an even and favorable course, may be well-disposed toward itself, may be happy in contemplating its own condition, and may have this happiness without interruption—how it can stay calmly in that position, never carrying itself off and never cast down. This will be peace of mind.
Here is the result of wisdom: a constant and unvarying kind of joy. The mind of the wise man is like the heavens beyond the moon: the sky up there is always clear…. This joy is produced only by a consciousness of the virtues.
Marcus Aurelius:
You know from experience how far you have wandered without finding the good life anywhere: not in logic, not in wealth, not in fame, not in pleasure – nowhere. Where is it found, then? In doing what human nature wishes. How is that done? By having principles that govern your impulses and actions. What principles? Those concerned with what is good and evil – that there is nothing good for man except what makes him just, moderate, brave, and free, and nothing evil except that which produces the opposite.
The Stoics emphasize, though, that in their view virtue is not pursued for the sake of the good consequences it brings. Those consequences are welcome and prized, but nevertheless are incidental.
“But you too cultivate virtue,” he replies, “only because you hope to gain some pleasure from it.” First of all, even though virtue will assure pleasure, it is not on account of pleasure that virtue is pursued. It is not pleasure that it assures, but pleasure as well; nor does virtue exert itself for pleasure, but its effort – though it aims at something else – achieves this too…. Thus pleasure is not the reward or cause of virtue, but the byproduct of it.
Compare the general conclusion of John Stuart Mill, which he thought was an accurate account of how most people work.
Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.
Mill elsewhere described the writings of Marcus Aurelius as “the highest ethical product of the ancient mind.”
3. Honesty. Various Stoic virtues, such as moderation, have been examined in other parts of the book. We now consider some that have not, beginning with honesty – not just speaking the truth, but living without hiding anything. On openness of action:
When you have determined that something should be done and are doing it, do not hide it from others even if most of them will not approve. If it isn’t the right thing to do, then don’t do it; but if it is, why be afraid of those who will criticize you wrongly?
Count yourself really happy when you are able to live in public, when your walls protect rather than hide you – though for the most part we regard our walls as around us not so that we may live more safely but so that we may sin more privately. I’ll tell you a fact by which you can judge our conduct: you will scarcely find anyone who could live with his door open.
See also:
Let nothing be done in your life that will cause you fear if it is discovered by your neighbor.
It is a rare life that maintains its good order even in private. Everyone can play his role and act the honest man on the stage; but to be well-managed within, in his own breast, where everything is allowed and where everything is hidden – that is the point. The next closest thing is to be this way in your house, in your ordinary behavior, for which you are accountable to no one, and where there is nothing studied or artificial.
On openness of mind, or keeping to thoughts that one wouldn’t be embarrassed to admit:
A person should accustom himself to think only those things about which – if someone should suddenly ask, “What are you thinking about?” – he might answer this and that, frankly and without hesitation.
The madness of men these days! They whisper the most shameful prayers to the gods; if anyone is listening, they fall silent. What they don’t want anyone to know, they tell to God! See if this wouldn’t make a wholesome rule: Live among others as if God were watching; speak with God as if others were listening.
I have enjoined myself to dare to say all that I dare to do; I am displeased even to have thoughts that I would not publish. The worst of my actions and qualities do not seem to me as vile as the vile cowardice of not daring to own them.
4. Consistency. The Stoics had a test for virtue, and perhaps a shortcut to it: consistency. Consistency sounds like a quality that has nothing to do with substance; it might seem as easy to be consistently bad (or wrong) as consistently virtuous. But consider the relationship between consistency and the openness of thought and action described in the previous section. True consistency would mean always thinking the same thing is right and never deviating from it. It also would mean acting and thinking the same way in all settings – in public, at home, and alone, never phony; for phoniness may accurately enough be described not only as dishonesty but as a form of inconsistency. Someone who managed to be consistent in the senses just described would, the Stoic suggests, inevitably be virtuous.
To abandon the old definitions of wisdom and use one that covers the whole range of human life, I can be content with this: What is wisdom? To always want the same things and reject the same things. No need to add that little qualification, “so long as what you want is right” – since one could not always be pleased with the same thing if it were not right.
This is how a foolish mind is most clearly shown: it appears now as one thing, now as another, and – worst of all, in my opinion – it does not appear as itself. Believe me, it is a great thing to act as just one person.
It is a hard matter, from all antiquity, to pick out a dozen men who have formed their lives to one certain and constant course, which is the principal design of wisdom.
5. Love, kindness, compassion. These are underestimated themes in Stoicism and so are worth illustrating at some length. What follows will be instructive in its own right and also as something to show to those who think of Stoicism as a cold or sour thing. Marcus Aurelius:
Adapt yourself to the circumstances you have drawn; and the men among whom your lot has fallen, love them, and truly.
Further characteristics of the reasoning soul are love of its neighbors, truth, compassion, and valuing nothing above itself, which is also the property of law. Thus there is no difference between correct reasoning and just reasoning.
Kindness is invincible, if it is genuine and not insincere or put on as an act.
Epictetus:
I should not be unfeeling like a statue; I should care for my relationships both natural and acquired – as a pious man, a son, a brother, a father, a citizen.
Seneca:
Our common life is founded on kindness and harmony; it is bound in a compact of mutual assistance, not by fear, but by love of one another.
This is the first promise that philosophy holds out to us: fellow-feeling, humanity, sociability.
Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.
The translation of the passage just shown is attractive but liberal. The original shows more clearly that Seneca was thinking about how people live with their slaves.
Keep an eye on one man to avoid being hurt; on another, to avoid hurting him. Rejoice in the happiness of all, and sympathize with them in their misfortunes; remember what you should take upon yourself, and what you should guard against.
So long as we draw breath, so long as we live among humans, let us cherish humanity. Let us not cause fear to anyone, nor danger; let us rise above losses, outrages, conflicts, and taunts; let us bear our short-lived ills with magnanimity.
If we were able to examine the mind of a good man, what a beautiful sight we should see: how pure, how astonishing in its noble calm – bright with justice and strength, with moderation and wisdom. In addition to these, thrift and moderation and endurance, kindness and affability, even humanity – a quality, hard as this is to believe, rarely encountered in humans – would add their own brilliance.
People object that the Stoic school does not allow the wise man to be compassionate or forgiving. These propositions are detestable on their face. They would seem to leave no hope for human failings, but to make all transgressions lead to retribution. And if that were so, what kind of theory is it that commands us to unlearn our humanity and blocks the mutual assistance that is our surest refuge from ill fortune? But in fact there is no school more kind and gentle, none more affectionate toward humanity, none more concerned with the common good, to the point that its avowed purpose is to be of service and assistance, to have regard not only for oneself but for each and for all.
We have seen Seneca and Marcus Aurelius refer to the value of compassion. That is a nuanced topic for the Stoics. Their philosophy calls for a felt sense that all of humanity are their relations. It also calls for help to those who need it. But the Stoic does not favor compassion in the different sense of feeling sorry for other people and making their sadness one’s own – that is, becoming despondent because others are despondent. Seneca’s position was that good Stoics will do all that would be done by anyone who feels pity for others, but that they will not feel the pity themselves; pity is considered a form of distress that serves no purpose and impairs good judgment.
Sorrow is not suited to seeing things accurately, to understanding how to get things done, to avoiding dangers, or to knowing what is just. So the wise man will not indulge in pity, because there cannot be pity without mental suffering. All else that those who feel pity are inclined do, he will do gladly and with an elevated spirit; he will bring relief to another’s tears, but will not add his own. To the shipwrecked man he will give a hand; he will give shelter to the exile, and charity to those in need.
In Chapter 13 we will see a similar sentiment from Epictetus. In the meantime, Montesquieu’s conclusions:
Never were any principles more worthy of human nature, and more proper to form the good man, than those of the Stoics; and if I could for a moment cease to think that I am a Christian, I should not be able to hinder myself from ranking the destruction of the sect of Zeno among the misfortunes that have befallen the human race.
It carried to excess only those things in which there is true greatness – the contempt of pleasure and of pain.
It was this sect alone that made citizens; this alone that made great men; this alone great emperors….
While the Stoics looked upon riches, human grandeur, grief, disquietudes, and pleasures as vanity, they were entirely employed in laboring for the happiness of mankind, and in exercising the duties of society. It seems as if they regarded that sacred spirit, which they believed to dwell within them, as a kind of favorable providence watchful over the human race.
Born for society, they all believed that it was their destiny to labor for it; with so much the less fatigue, their rewards were all within themselves. Happy by their philosophy alone, it seemed as if only the happiness of others could increase theirs.
6. Interdependence and service. The Stoic regards human lives as interdependent, and finds in this a source of duty, affection, and solace.
Nor can anyone live happily who has only himself in view, who turns everything to his own advantage; you ought to live for the other fellow, if you want to live for yourself.
Why should I list everything that is to be done and to be avoided, when I can give you the duties of mankind in a rule of few words? All this that you see, including both the divine and the human, is one: we are limbs of one body. Nature made us kin, since she gave birth to us from the same substance and to the same ends. She put into us love of one another and made us social beings. She constructed fairness and justice; according to her dispensation, it is more wretched to harm than to be harmed. In obedience to her command, let our hands be ready where help is needed. Let that famous line be in your heart and in your mouth: “I am human, I consider nothing human foreign to me.” Let us hold things in common: that is how we are made. Our society is just like an archway of stones, which would fall if they did not block each other. It is held up in the same way.
What are you? A man. If you look at yourself in isolation, it is natural to live to old age, to be rich, to be healthy. But if you look at yourself as one person and as part of a given whole, for the sake of the whole your turn may come to be sick, or to run risks on a sea voyage, or to be in need, perhaps to be put to death.
This interdependence has significance for how we live and spend our time. The Stoics understand themselves to have a duty of service to others, including a duty to participate in public life. Cicero’s rendition of the Stoic view:
Since we see that man is designed by nature to safeguard and protect his fellows, it follows from this natural disposition that the wise man should desire to engage in politics and government, and also to live in accordance with nature by taking to himself a wife and desiring to have children with her. Even the passion of love when pure is not thought incompatible with the character of the Stoic sage.
Seneca had a pithier version of what is expected from the Stoics – those in the sect of Zeno, as Montesquieu called them.
Epicurus says: “The sage will not engage in public affairs unless he must.” Zeno says: “The sage will engage in public affairs unless he cannot.”
That translation is, again, a bit free – this time to keep the two halves of it parallel, which is irresistible. But what is meant by “public affairs”? Not just politics, but helping others on whatever scale is available, large or small.
It is of course required of a man that he should benefit his fellow-men – many if he can; if not, a few; if not a few, those who are nearest; if not these, himself. For when he renders himself useful to others, he engages in public affairs.
The Stoics also take a broad view of what it means to benefit others. Philosophizing counts. And they have a broad understanding, too, of the relevant “others” they are bound to serve. They did not view those in their immediate communities or their country as the only ones who matter. Everyone does.
When asked what country you are from, do not say “I am Athenian” or “I am from Corinth.” Say (like Socrates), “I am a citizen of the world.”
For what is a man? A part of a state – first, of one that consists of gods and of men; then of the state to which you more immediately belong, which is a miniature of the universal state.
Let us grasp that there are two commonwealths – the one, a vast and truly common state, which embraces alike gods and men, in which we look neither to this corner of earth nor to that, but measure the bounds of our citizenship by the path of the sun; the other, the one to which we have been assigned by the accident of birth…. Some yield service to both commonwealths at the same time – to the greater and to the lesser – some only to the lesser, some only to the greater.