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Stoic Justice (Episode 150)
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The four pillars of Stoic Justice.
Justice isn't just about courtrooms and laws. For the Stoics, it was a way of life. In this episode, Caleb and Michael break down the four components of Stoic justice: piety, kindness, good fellowship, and fair dealing.
They explore how these ideas apply to our lives today, from helping strangers to making tough business decisions. You'll learn why the Stoics thought we should expand our circles of concern to include all of humanity, and how to deal fairly with others without being a pushover.
(03:21) Defining Justice
(05:36) Piety
(11:47) What Piety Looks Like
(16:22) Kindness
(24:06) Good Fellowship
(35:03) Fair Dealing
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Transcript
Introduction to Stoic Justice and Virtue
00:00:01
Speaker
All right, let's talk about justice, then. Justice. Welcome to Stowe Conversations. My name is Caleb Montaveris. And I'm Michael Trombley. And today we're going to do a breakdown of the stoic virtue of justice.
Benefits of Subdividing Stoic Virtues
00:00:18
Speaker
So we've done three other podcasts, one on moderation or discipline,
00:00:25
Speaker
another on courage, and then, of course, another one on wisdom, all using the framework from a ancient Roman, Arius Didymus, who wrote about these breakdowns, subcomponents, or parts of the virtues in the epitome of Stoic ethics.
00:00:51
Speaker
So Justice is the last in his list, so we'll be going through it last as well.
Understanding Justice Through Its Parts
00:01:00
Speaker
Yeah, I've really enjoyed these episodes, Caleb. These are some of the favorites for mine in terms of my learning. I think I was always a bit of a
00:01:08
Speaker
uh, for virtue skeptic or subdivision of virtue skeptic. I think I've, I've definitely more of an Epictetus person who, you know, it's like, as long as you have the dichotomy of control, you focus on what's up to you, you know, you make sure you care about wisdom and doing the right thing or knowledge. I should, I should say, um, what's the point in breaking this down?
00:01:30
Speaker
And these episodes have really revealed to me, oh, well, the benefit of breaking this apart and breaking virtue into these subcomponents is just helpful for you when you're progressing to figure out where you need to focus and where you can improve, right? If you only ever compare yourself to being perfect, it's not really clear where you need to work. But if you say, well, there's these four subparts, they all have their own certain aspects to them, their own subcomponents. And you can kind of pick which of those you want to work on
00:01:58
Speaker
That's been really helpful for
Exploring Piety in Stoic Justice
00:02:00
Speaker
me. So looking forward to doing this one on justice, too. Yeah, absolutely. I think the stoics sort of have these different opposing angles on the virtues or they come at it from both ends. I suppose on one side you have virtue. It's unitary virtue is just one thing and what you learn from that idea is that you can't just apply courage by itself. You need to
00:02:28
Speaker
be disciplined when you are courageous. You need to know what the right thing to do is. You need to have some sense of justice. And in that sense, the virtues are one. But on the other side, you can think of breaking things down to get more traction, learn more about different situations, say, what does courage look like?
00:02:47
Speaker
What does justice look like in my day-to-day or when I'm thinking about larger decisions in my life and so on. So I think talking about different aspects of the virtues is useful for training them really because you can, just like any other skill, break them down a little bit and see how they apply in more specific situations or how you can practice them.
00:03:16
Speaker
Yeah, totally. So let's dig into justice. Sweet. So I'm using a translation of the epitome from Stoic Ethics by Arthur Palmeroy. And before we break into the different parts, I should read out how he thinks about justice itself. So he defines justice as justice deals with the apportioning of what is due.
00:03:44
Speaker
Another way to think about that apportioning, that's not a word we use so often, is just that justice concerns giving to others what they are owed. You have that sort of classic account of justice as paying your debts, and you can think of justice as paying your debts in the deepest sense, treating others as they ought to be treated.
00:04:09
Speaker
and so on. So that's still, that's still a broad notion. Aria Sinemis goes on to then say, justice has these four parts, piety, kindness, good fellowship, and fair dealing. So piety, that's a knowledge of the service of the gods,
00:04:31
Speaker
kindness is a knowledge of which is disposed to do good. Good fellowship is a knowledge of equality and partnership. And finally, fair dealing is a knowledge of how to deal with one's neighbors without incurring blame. So we'll go through all four of these, but before we do that, do you have any quick reactions to that list?
00:04:55
Speaker
Um, I mean, something that stands out as seeing piety on that list, right? Like a knowledge of service to the gods. I think it's interesting that we kind of, I mean, it makes sense because justice is about how we treat other people. It's how we treat people outside of ourselves, but it's interesting to see God or the gods on that list. It's not something, you know, people, people don't typically think about being in just towards God. That's not something I think we use in our common language. I think, I think that's right.
00:05:25
Speaker
I guess you could be unjust towards God from the Judeo-Christian idea, but it does seem like even that's fallen out to some extent. Cool. Well, that is our first one, piety. It's also defined as the knowledge of how to care for the gods or knowledge of the service of the gods. And I think you're right that this is a
00:05:52
Speaker
pretty different from what most people would think of as something that has to do anything with justice.
Epictetus' View on Piety and Control
00:05:59
Speaker
And we should say that there are different readings of this in both the ancient and the modern tradition. So one quick gloss, one quick way to describe those different readings is that on one hand, you can understand
00:06:19
Speaker
some Stoics, perhaps as advocating a kind of cultural piety, you know, one reading for that is just to understand piety as respect for ritual and religion, and perhaps having some metaphorical, useful metaphorical role it can play, it can play on our lives. So
00:06:41
Speaker
And this is probably less common, to be honest, in terms of the ancient Stoics, but it's certainly more common for modern Stoics. And you can analogize this to people who sometimes say they're cultural Christians, or perhaps more liberal Christian types, where they find ideas in the religion useful.
00:07:05
Speaker
But they wouldn't sign on to, you know, the creation account in Genesis by any means. And perhaps if you really cornered them on it, they would may say they don't even believe in God or something of that sort. But they think as a cultural purpose, piety plays an important cultural purpose. And that's one way you could understand the Stoic view. The other way is, of course, the more metaphysical reading where
00:07:35
Speaker
in a real sense, the gods do exist. We covered the nature of the Stoic god in episode 129, and you can see the Greco-Roman religion, perhaps the gods in the Greco-Roman religion, as reflections of, and as such, one ought to perform the rituals, be a religious person, show piety towards the gods,
00:08:05
Speaker
not just because it's, say, useful, but because God and the God somehow in a real sense exist. So that's two different kinds of readings, this cultural on one hand and this metaphysical reading on the other that I think is useful to distinguish. Yeah, that first one is to say,
00:08:32
Speaker
Look, this is a crucial part of our society or this is religion is a crucial part of how humans organize themselves. And just getting this part right is important to getting along well with others and showing people the respect they deserve. And then the stronger one is to say, no, this is a, you know, the Stoics don't believe in anthropomorphism. They don't think that God is like a human, but there is, there is a God in a sense that we've talked about before and
00:09:00
Speaker
There's this, there's, there's a kind of symbolism of religion that that's reflecting something that's real there. And so, you know, paying respect to that and engaging in that correctly is paying respect to the real thing and engaging correctly with the real thing. Yeah. I think that's a really helpful division. I think I'm more on the metaphysical reading. I mean, I think that's what the Stoics thought. I think the cultural one might be a way to take it up today. If you're an atheist or agnostic and understand how to put this into practice.
00:09:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's probably right. The majority of ancient Stoics probably had more of the metaphysical reading of this, but though I think, yeah, there's a lot to say here. We could definitely do a whole episode on this one. I would like to, I would like to read a section from handbook 31, which I think gets at the ancient stoic view on this.
00:09:55
Speaker
As piety towards the gods, you must know that this is the chief thing to have right opinions about them, to think that they exist, and that they administer the all well and justly. And you must fix yourself in this principle to obey them and to yield to them in everything which happens and voluntarily to follow it as being accomplished by the wisest intelligence.
Acceptance of Fate and Anger Management
00:10:17
Speaker
For if you do so, you will never either blame the gods, nor will you accuse them of neglecting you. And it is not possible for this to be done in any other way than by withdrawing from the things which are not in our power, and by placing the good and the evil only in those things which are in our power." I think that passage is
00:10:42
Speaker
interesting, both because I think it does bring out the metaphysical reading of piety. Epictetus just reportedly says that you should know that God exists. And then, of course, he references the stoic view of God, which is that God is nature, logos, some fundamental sense of intelligence behind all things.
00:11:12
Speaker
And then this last point brings out the dichotomy of control with this aspect of piety. This reminder just to focus on what's your own and to have faith or acceptance that other things happen as they will because
00:11:35
Speaker
from the perspective of any given human, the good and the evil are, is only in those things which are in your power. That's where happiness lies, in the things that are up to you.
00:11:47
Speaker
That's a great passage. I mean, I think you hit on the key parts. Another thing, so I mean, Epictetus is saying that to show piety towards the gods is to do these things is to obey them, you know, voluntarily follow what they set out. Something that I'm thinking about when you're saying that is I think for these virtues, it's always really clarifying to say what the opposite looks like. So what is somebody who's lacks piety and in
00:12:15
Speaker
Epictetus's example, it's not necessarily somebody who doesn't do the right ritual or doesn't conform to the religious practices of the day. It's somebody who's cursing the gods, somebody who, you know, think of that movie character who falls to their knees and, you know, swears against God and is like, I hate you. Or why are you doing this? Or I don't understand. And that is that that is the disservice
00:12:38
Speaker
that Epictetus is talking about, that blaming the gods, accusing them of neglecting you. And so that to me makes a lot of sense, which is to say that the right relationship you should have with them to be pious, pious in the stellar picture is to, I mean, really just like accept fate, right? Like a more fatty and just to understand your role in the world and align yourself with that role, essentially those things outside of yourself that are kind of carrying you along. That to me makes a lot of sense.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a great point, an essential one. If you're thinking about being stoic today, it doesn't mean following the Greco-Roman religion, obviously. So it must mean something like what you're saying just now, which is
00:13:31
Speaker
you know, embracing things as they happen, locating the source of value in, you know, what's up to you. And not having this sense of anger towards things that are outside of you. And that's I think that's maybe if there's an insight here, it's that a lot of our anger, perhaps negative passions are
00:13:56
Speaker
focus not necessarily on other people, maybe not even necessarily on God, but systems, nature, the way things are in a broader sense. And that's what this virtue, this aspect of piety I think is challenging. It's sort of a reminder that those things are outside of one's power and in certain senses ought to be respected.
00:14:25
Speaker
Right. And understood. Not raged
Kindness as Genuine Action in Stoicism
00:14:30
Speaker
against. Like, you know, it brings that line from Spinoza to mind. He says something like, you know, don't wax, indignant, understand. And I think that's sort of the attitude that a stoic could certainly, certainly hold when you're thinking about larger systems, things outside your control, fate, and so on.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah. And so, I mean, maybe we should, we can move on to the next ones because there's so much here in piety that we get. We want to talk, keep talking about it, but you know, if you think about what's unjust, maybe seeking revenge, being angry at another person, well, being angry at the world, angry at systems, angry at these things, these things outside of your control that are bigger than you. That's a similar kind of
00:15:17
Speaker
Injust this sounds a little weird does, but I think that there's that idea that the Stoics are wrapping their heads around about like, you're blaming somebody for something that's not, or something I should say, for something that's not their fault in a broader sense, or that, you know, they haven't really harmed you, but you're angry with them, you're blaming them, you're cursing them. And if you do that to another person, that would be in just, but now you're doing that to God, the universe, right? And that's in that same way.
00:15:46
Speaker
which is what you were getting at. It's not about sacrificing, you know, sacrificing animals or something like this or, you know, burning something. It's about that kind of, uh, don't, don't be angry at the universe as if it's a person that harms you because the universe doesn't deserve that anger. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think that's the central point. We should, we should do a longer episode on this though, because I think it is a really interesting one in part because it's not what one would expect. These next three, uh, are aspects of justice that in a way,
00:16:16
Speaker
are more expected, but I think the breakdown is still useful. So this next aspect is kindness. You know, stuff can be defined as the state of voluntarily doing good actions. Palmarize that it's a knowledge of which is disposed to do good. So one way I think about this is in terms of the notion of ethical reaction time. You know, just as you have physical reaction time,
00:16:45
Speaker
There's this feature of being able to quickly, voluntarily do the right thing or do something that's good, have that disposition to do the good. A story that's brought to mind for me was when I was out at a work event in a park with a number of coworkers in the Bay Area and close to us we saw
00:17:08
Speaker
a homeless person you know walk by clearly struggling with something mechanical with their bike and you know myself most of my co workers probably just looked at this person and I went back to discussing work matters but
00:17:23
Speaker
one person, one person there sort of immediately saw them a bit later and then walked over as soon as they saw the man to help fix their bike. And I think that sort of immediate recognition that there's someone in need, and they're in need of something I can help with, I think is a great example of the kind of kindness that
00:17:49
Speaker
this aspect of justice is getting at that ability to recognize when you can contribute, when you can do something kind, and then do it right away. So I thought that was really cool. It's a simple virtue, of course, but perhaps one of the most important ones.
Balancing Kindness and Wisdom
00:18:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a really great example. And it's one where I think the English still does a good job, like kindness. I'm thinking in my own life of who I think is kind versus good, for example. And I think I know a lot of good people who aim at good things and generate good outcomes. But when I think of kind people, it's the kind of thing you said, it's the people who
00:18:27
Speaker
There's no hesitation. There's no further thinking. They see somebody that needs help and they help them or they at least very much want to help them and try their best to do it. It's also a good example of why you can't have any of these things in isolation because there's definitely a trope of kind people being naive or kind people being taken advantage of. And so you can see how if you dump all your points into kindness and you don't put anything into wisdom,
00:18:53
Speaker
all of a sudden, maybe you're helping people that are taking advantage of you or you're being kind in a way that isn't productive. So it's a good example of, I think, yeah, one of the best things you can be, which is really attuned to other people, you see somebody that needs help and you help them because you're the kind of person who values helping other people. It's really simple like that, but then it also is connected to these other virtues in order to
00:19:19
Speaker
make you holistically a great person, and as I said, not somebody who either tries to help other people ineffectively or gets taken advantage of themselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I think it's always an interesting question. If you're thinking about becoming more kind, how do I know that
00:19:41
Speaker
I'm in situations where I ought to be helping others more quickly or perhaps if I'm in situations where I am either being taken advantage of, not asserting myself properly or doing things that I believe will help but which in fact do not help at all.
00:20:02
Speaker
And I suppose there's some advice here. If you think you fall too far on one side, whether it's simply not being kind, not doing anything, or perhaps paying too much attention to others' needs, or
00:20:20
Speaker
trying to help others without having a good enough understanding of their needs, then perhaps trying to do the opposite or moving in the opposite direction is the kind of a classic advice one gets from Aristotelian ethics that might be useful here.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah, and that's why it's helpful to separate it as an idea, right? So it's like, am I kind or not kind? And if I am kind, what can I do to make that kindness better, which is to say, make it more practical? I totally agree with kind of adding it in the other direction. Another thing that I think is...
00:20:58
Speaker
There's still a concept of oichiosis, which is like expanding your field of concern. I mean, this is something I would say to people who are not kind and say, well, I'm just not that kind of person who sees a homeless person and wants to go and help. Maybe they feel kind of guilty or they feel like other people are just better than them in that sense.
00:21:16
Speaker
Um, I think, I think something there is to say, we all have a certain domain in which we're kind and that, that connects back to oikiosis, which is they, you know, if you're not kind of strangers, you're probably kind at least to your friends, your family members, maybe just your pets, you know, and find that example of, of the thing that you unconditionally help without reflecting
00:21:40
Speaker
without over-intellectualizing it or worrying about it too much, find that area, that domain, that person that you unconditionally help, and then just try to expand that feeling out to a broader circle of people or types of situations. So I guess the advice there, if you feel like you're too low on this, is to, well, find the domain of your life where you show this quality and then kind of nurture that up from there.
Good Fellowship and Cosmopolitanism
00:22:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's really good advice. And I suppose you have, you can think about, you know, in that domain where you're kind, you have the right level of concern and the right level of skill to know what is in fact helpful. And you can think, you know, where are some sort of adjacent areas where I can take that same level of concern and skill and apply it well?
00:22:28
Speaker
And the example that I gave initially, I think it was also a good one because the person who helped the homeless man with his bike also, he was a very handy person in general, fixes tons of different things. So it's not like he was some random.
00:22:44
Speaker
randomly walked over to help something where he had no sense of competence. But it was a perfect match for his skill, even though at the same time, I think it's probably true that many other people who are there, including myself, probably could have responded more quickly. But there is still that point about concern and having the right level of skill to do good.
00:23:09
Speaker
Well, I guess that, and I don't want to over-intellectualize it, but I guess that raises an interesting point about you can take what you're good at. Can you, for example, if you want to work on being kind, I guess one way to think about it is you can take where you already like helping people and try to extend that out, or the other way is you can find what you're good at.
00:23:32
Speaker
and then try helping other people with that. If you're really handy with bikes, try to find situations in which that comes up and you can add that help. You're almost like you start with the skill and then you build up the goodwill, or the other one is you start with the goodwill and you try to expand it over more skills and domains. There's just something there that I never thought about before, which is if you want to actually be the most kind,
00:23:59
Speaker
double your attention down and the stuff that you're good at, stuff that you're most likely to make a positive effect with. Yep, yep. Yeah, absolutely. Excellent. So our next sub component of justice is a good fellowship.
00:24:20
Speaker
It's been translated as knowledge of equality in community or society. Paul Maroy has it translated as knowledge of equality in partnership. So both of those translations are lined up reasonably nicely.
00:24:38
Speaker
Well, I think that sort of the central theoretical point to understand here is, you know, the Stoics thought humans were equal in virtue of being rational and social animals. You know, all adult humans have the ability to reason and because of that, you know, we play a role together and humans are meant to work together, not
00:25:04
Speaker
work alone like isolated islands, not against one another, but instead as a part of a reasoning whole. And there's a deep sense in which humans are equal because we all have this ability to reason. The ancient Stoics would talk about all of us sharing in a fragment of the divine. You know, they saw reason as
00:25:25
Speaker
And going back to these ideas about piety and God, they saw reason as the fundamental force behind things and an aspect of God. And it's something that humans share and as such are in the same standing or the same footing.
00:25:45
Speaker
So that's the theoretical grounding for good fellowship. And one way in which you see this is the stoic idea of cosmopolitanism, this idea that you're a citizen of the world, not just a citizen of
00:26:01
Speaker
your city or today we would say nation, but that foreigners must count in some sense or another because they are also rational social beings. They can't be completely written off. And that's why the Stoics talk about this expanding circles of concern where you start with your
00:26:28
Speaker
family, then the community around you, then your city, and then expand those circles of concern to include your people you might consider as foreigners or outsiders, what have you. And part of, I think, study justice just involves
00:26:44
Speaker
treating your family, your neighbors, your community better, and then expanding that same concern to the rest of humanity. It doesn't mean treating a random stranger like your family, but it does mean increasing your sense of partnership, I think, with others.
00:27:06
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think the Stoic metaphor there, which you hit on is that idea of cosmopolitanism is you don't treat a stranger like your family, but you treat a stranger like you owe them something. This is the reason why I'm a Canadian.
00:27:21
Speaker
And so all the Canadians, we all have something in common. We all have this shared identity. And you could take a cynical view and say, well, that's just like something that the government makes up to instill this sense of patriotism, to get something from you. Or there's this other view, which is we actually are a collective. We're working together for some goal. And politically, we might disagree, but we
00:27:41
Speaker
We should share a concern for each other all as Canadians. And the Stoics are saying that's all good and fine, but we just need to extend that perspective out to all people, right? We should all share a concern. We're all working towards a similar goal just by virtue of being human beings.
Historical Example of Good Fellowship
00:27:57
Speaker
And so, you know, I don't treat every Canadian like my family.
00:28:01
Speaker
But I treat my fellow Canadian with a certain degree of respect and kindness. And the Stoics are just saying, which sounds less controversial today than it might have been in the past, still needs to be said today, but less controversial, that you should treat anybody like that, whether they're from across the world, any human being as part of this project.
00:28:24
Speaker
I also like the I mean the the the Greek there is just like the um like coin a you it's you coin a izian is that that's it um coin non izian it's a long one um and that's just like coin on izian you coin on izian there we go
00:28:43
Speaker
And the you is just good and then the coin coin honest is that's that word for common. Like in Greek, there's this type of Greek you can learn called coin a, which is this common Greek. And so it's just like being good at community, being good. And I guess understanding, you know, justice is about those obligations you have to other people.
00:29:03
Speaker
then this part is about understanding your obligations to your community while recognizing who your community is. Because I think any Athenian or Roman would understand your responsibilities to your community, but there's this mind shift here about who your community is, which you were hitting on, which I think is the key point, right? Yeah, I think so. Maybe one useful example of this
00:29:28
Speaker
that I discussed with Alex Petkas in episode 128. It's a Roman story. It comes from the Stoic Postodonius, and he gave advice to a general, Pompey the Great, who was tasked with resettling pirates who were causing significant issues with
00:29:50
Speaker
the Romans harming their grain supply and such. And one thing he did as a stoic reminded Pompey the Great that look, these pirates are people too. Many of them, they were nobles who have been displaced and they have reasons for their action.
00:30:14
Speaker
might, you know, just bringing to mind that that simple facts can guide your action. So upon be the great, he doesn't go out and, you know, simply just destroy all the pirates, which perhaps he could have, but instead, essentially resettles them into
00:30:37
Speaker
new lands. Of course he does a little bit of combat, but gives substantive options to many of the other pirates, which I think in a way is
00:30:50
Speaker
an interesting example of this idea of good fellowship. Of course, it's more conflict-oriented, but, you know, Postodonius' advice, I think, was useful to the Roman general, in part because it reminded him that
00:31:10
Speaker
Yes, there is a severe conflict between the pirates and the Romans, but don't forget these pirates, they are ambitious just like you and they feel like they want to serve their cities, families, and probably the greatest
00:31:28
Speaker
general always concerned about pursuing glory and he can remind himself of that that fact as well many of these pirates used to be nobles you know don't just don't just think about destroying them but perhaps we you know give them the option to live the life they're trying to have right instead of you know
00:31:48
Speaker
extending the war for the sake of some scorcher policy or something of this sort. I like that story just because it's one example that I think maybe is slightly different than what you might think of when you think of equality, but is I think a good example of
00:32:19
Speaker
It's pretty radical, right? Like it's pretty.
00:32:23
Speaker
I mean, what's the modern equivalent, right? Like taking terrorists or something and being like, whoa, whoa, wait, these are people trying to pursue their own conception of the good and there needs to be a certain amount of empathy for that. It's a pretty radical claim. I mean, I think I agree with it, but it's pretty controversial in a war in battle. And I guess there's that picture there of how far that conception of
00:32:53
Speaker
community extends. And the idea is like, yeah, it extends to the pirates. It extends to the people. And I guess this notion of human rights, right? Like it extends to people you're literally engaged in war with because they're still human. And as such, they're still part of a community, even if there's a fight within that community. I think it's a great, I think it's a great example.
00:33:13
Speaker
Absolutely. Perhaps one of the best places to end that for a good fellowship is the famous lines from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations 2.1. I think these lines are useful to
00:33:28
Speaker
rehearse or you're thinking about a good fellowship, at least for me. So there you go as follows. When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because I can't tell good from evil. But I've seen the beauty of the good and the ugliness of evil, and I've recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own.
00:33:51
Speaker
not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness, nor can I feel at my relative or hate
Introducing Fair Dealing in Justice
00:34:04
Speaker
him. We are born to work together, like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him, these are obstructions.
00:34:20
Speaker
So I think it's amazing reflections from the Roman Emperor and start almost on a cynical note, but come back to this idea that we're all as humans on the same team and we were born to work together. And figuring out what that looks like is a central part of justice.
00:34:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's beautiful. Like two rows of teeth. To obstruct each other is unnatural. I think that's I think that's great. It's like unobstruction. You know, what's the way for us all to get what we want? Well, while limiting people, other people as little as possible. Nice. Great one. Awesome. So last one we have we had piety, kindness, good fellowship, last item, fair dealing.
00:35:13
Speaker
knowledge of how to deal with one's neighbors without incurring blame.
00:35:19
Speaker
I interpret fair dealing as essentially having to do with what you might call process fairness. Sometimes people talk about fairness in terms of outcome. Something's fair only if it produces equal outcomes for people. Other times people talk about fairness in terms of opportunity. Some systems fair only if everyone is given equal opportunity to achieve whatever the system's about.
00:35:47
Speaker
This is not either of those. I think it has to do more with this sense of a process being fair. And part of that involves our things set up to avoid the situation where others can justly blame you for acting poorly.
Fairness in Transactions: A Stoic Debate
00:36:12
Speaker
Perhaps it's one of the least ambitious of these of these other three.
00:36:18
Speaker
One way to get at it is there was a debate between two ancient Stoics, Diogenes and Antipater. So there's this case they talk about where a merchant arrives at a city where there is a shortage of grain and he knows that other merchants with more grain are on their way.
00:36:41
Speaker
And there's this question, does the merchant disclose the information that more grain is on the way and they don't need to purchase his grain, they can weed out if they don't like his price, or is it okay for him to simply remain silent about the matter and perhaps sell his grain at the higher price, taking advantage of a shortage?
00:37:10
Speaker
So Diogenes argued that the merchant doesn't need to disclose the information about new ships being on their way. Whereas his student Antipatter believed that withholding this information is unethical. So Cicero describes this as follows. Antipatter believes that all the facts should be divulged so that the buyer is kept unaware of absolutely nothing which is known to the seller.
00:37:36
Speaker
Diogenes, on the other hand, believes that the seller is obliged to report any defects in his goods, insofar as the civil law prescribes and to conduct the transaction otherwise without chicanery. It's a good word. Nice translation. But since she has goods to sell, he should sell them at the best possible price.
00:37:58
Speaker
Interesting case because I think it brings out some disagreements, so it's had about what feral dealing looks like. So you can think about this issue sort of at the object level, you know, what should the merchant actually do here? But the more general level, I think this case is useful just because it's an example of thinking through
00:38:18
Speaker
What does fair dealing look like? How do you deal with situations like this without incurring blame? And this is where you might also see just how important those issues of being in a different culture are, society are, and circumstance are. Because you can imagine in many different scenarios like this, what fair dealing looks like is a sensitive matter, sensitive to the actual situation, the actual facts at hand.
Economic Justice and Cultural Context
00:38:48
Speaker
So that's fair dealing. What do you think about that one, Michael? What would you do, Caleb? That's what I'm curious. Oh, yeah, that's interesting. That's an interesting question. There are sort of different questions about. This exact situation, I think one could go either way on it, depending on the the situation. But in general, I have another conversation with
00:39:18
Speaker
Jessica Baker, who has a paper on economic justice and stoicism. And she makes the point that the object of economic justice for the Stoics are indifference. They're not things, these material goods that contribute to, that make the difference between living a good life or a bad one.
00:39:43
Speaker
And the best way to think about this, doing the right thing in the market is to see the market as a system where we set up rules. And part of those rules involve making a system that works at the whole level, not necessarily making sure that everyone's needs are met in every single
00:40:13
Speaker
So one example she talks about is someone working at a McDonald's and feeling bad because sometimes people present bills that she can't give the right change for. So she feels like she should bring, you know, bills from her own house to ensure that the customer always has the right change. And Jessica argues that, you know, you don't actually need to do that. That's not how, that's not what the market demands.
00:40:42
Speaker
of you as an individual.
00:40:57
Speaker
That's a long-winded non-answer to your question. That was a long answer to say you'd sell that grain for as much as you could get. Here's five minutes to say I would let the children die if it would maximize my profit, is what I was thinking.
00:41:15
Speaker
No, I think that's fair. Then I guess the point in that example is that bringing in your own change is like you're helping the people in the market. There's this role for someone who tracks
00:41:30
Speaker
grain movement or somebody who could share the information of when the next grain shipment is coming and you don't need to disclose that information to your own harm just because the market, people would benefit from it. There's lots of things you could do that people would benefit from that you don't have an obligation to do.
00:41:52
Speaker
Um, I also wonder, I mean, I think the question here, which maybe Cicero gets into is just, you know, how much, how much of a shortage is that? Right? Like, are there people who are going to sell their house to buy this grain because their children are literally dying or are you going to charge, you know, I don't know how much a bag of grain goes for, but are you charging, you know, 30% more in a way that is doable for people?
00:42:19
Speaker
Um, but you know, is a premium you wouldn't get if there was a direct competitor there. And then I think in that case, there's like, uh, you know, yeah, you got there first, you, you get a certain premium, but you know, only, only in exchange for so much suffering that could be avoided, right? Like in that way you're, if someone's selling their house to, to get food for the short term, your, your. I think somewhat responsible for that suffering. You're not exactly producing value in capturing it. If you know somebody else will come and sell.
00:42:49
Speaker
I wonder here, my next question for you Caleb is how much of this do you think is culturally relativist? Knowledge of how to deal with one's neighbor without incurring blame, is the answer to Cicero's thought experiment just dependent upon not
00:43:06
Speaker
the rules of economics, but just what Greek or Roman people thought about economics. It was just like, if you told somebody that later and they didn't think you were a scumbag, then it was good. But if it crossed the line, if everybody would have judged you after, then it was bad. Is that the stick that we're measuring by?
Compromises and Context in Fair Dealing
00:43:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think it can't just be... It's a good question because it can't just be what would people think of your behavior.
00:43:33
Speaker
When you're thinking about knowledge of how to deal with one's neighbors without blame, it's not just thinking about what would your neighbors, in fact, blame you for, but almost closer to thinking in terms of what's possible. And that's what's one of the constraints perhaps on fair dealing.
00:43:56
Speaker
So one issue that Stoics dealt with, we deal with in different countries today, of course, is corruption. And suppose you're in Rome, you're running against someone else, you know you're a better fit for the job.
00:44:14
Speaker
are you going to engage in corruption during the election to win? You know, Cicero says, yes, you should. You should engage in corruption to win. Cato the Younger had a much stronger anti-corruption type attitude, but even he, in some cases, bent on that. And I think that that's an example of where your society, your situation,
00:44:43
Speaker
matters because in some societies, to get anything done, you need to pay someone under the table, right? But in other societies where there's a stronger rule of law, I think acts of corruption are more harmful in a sense because they have more possibility of destabilizing the system.
00:45:06
Speaker
in the long run, even if you are doing it for a good cause, it's not worth it because they're going to be longer run consequences. Whereas perhaps in more corrupt circumstances, the system's already corrupt, the system's already broken. It's a question of whether you can improve it in some other areas. So I think that's my attempt at answering that question.
00:45:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, what I'm taking from that is at least, you know, fair dealing is not deontological. It's not never bribe.
00:45:39
Speaker
I'm taking that as there's a certain amount of relativism. There's a certain amount of room for things that it doesn't have to be your perfect squeaky clean in every situation.
Modern Fair Dealing in Business
00:45:54
Speaker
There's some practicalities. There's some compromises that can be made and still fall under fair dealing. I guess the question is, where does it cross the line?
00:46:03
Speaker
And that line maybe is, yeah, is different in, in depending on your culture, your circumstance, your situations. I guess maybe it's that thing where we all know it when we see it, when it's not fair dealing. We know when we say, Hey, like, you know, your
00:46:21
Speaker
Because there has to be also this pushback against what's allowed in a society too because otherwise we'd just be following the laws or just following cultural norms. There has to be some example of like, hey, you were able to get away with that. You played the game, but I still think you're kind of a jerk for that move. There has to be some of that in fair dealing.
00:46:44
Speaker
Yeah. So, I mean, this vague, vague answers here, but I think maybe, yeah, to end on some, some positive examples of fair dealing. I've always been impressed by stories of say, CEO startup types who have.
00:47:04
Speaker
had great success, their startup goes public. So there's a big payoff for themselves, their employees. And the CEO remembers that we had an early employee who passed away who would have made this amount of money and his wife and family still alive. I'm going to give them what they would have earned if they had not passed away. I think examples like that is a good example of something that's
00:47:33
Speaker
fair dealing kind of in action in a way. In a sense, it's almost going above and beyond, but in another sense, I think it's just doing the right thing because legally, of course, they can get away without doing that kind of thing.
Summary of Justice Components
00:47:49
Speaker
The person's passed away. They're not owed any money.
00:47:54
Speaker
But if you think about, maybe one way to think about it is the CO business person has these larger questions. What kind of business am I running? Who do I want to be the person who
00:48:09
Speaker
optimizes every financial transaction and ensures that the company is maximally profitable, maximally efficient, whatever it is, or do I want to run the company that does great work, builds community and takes people more seriously in a way that has more partial to my employees. And I think that's a nice example.
00:48:39
Speaker
where someone chooses the ladder and then they show it in their actions. Okay. And I'm going to try at the risk of pushing this too far. I'm going to try to see how... I think that's such a great example, but if we don't call that just fair dealing, we extend that to say adjust action. Maybe there's something there about
00:49:00
Speaker
might be a bit of a reach, but somebody dies in your, in your startup. Well, there's the kind of a piety in that you don't get angry. You don't get bitter. You say, you know, you, as either you can have had this stoic response to it, but then there's this, this kindness and that I want to help.
00:49:18
Speaker
There's good fellowship in that you extend your community. Your community is not just, you know, I'm the founder or the current employees. The community extends out to former employees or even, in this case, I guess, the family of former employees.
00:49:35
Speaker
And then fair dealing is then, okay, and then I do something that seems just, that recognizes that this person contributed to the success of this business. It seems appropriate. And in that way, that's fair dealing. And so it kind of connects all those things. It's a kind act. It's a fair way to treat the situation. It extends that sense of community. I tried to get Pidy in there by just saying, you're not angry about it.
00:50:02
Speaker
Just trying to show how these things also connect too, because I think that's such a good example. No, yeah, I think that's a good way to end is that reminder that...
00:50:13
Speaker
These do connect and all come together. So, you know, justice is useful to focus perhaps on one for brainstorming different ideas to be more just or thinking through parts of, you know, thinking through what justice looks like in our individual lives. Ultimately, they need to come together in some ways and, you know, the best actions have, have parts of each.
00:50:41
Speaker
Yeah, great. I think so. Awesome. Is there anything else you want to add on this? I mean, I think that for me, just for those listening, we made it to the end of the episode, I think what's always been helpful with me is this idea of there's both positive examples and negative examples and trying that both ways. So there's both like, okay, fair dealing.
00:51:09
Speaker
don't be a jerk in the way you deal with people. And then the other thing of that positive example, that positive role model, kindness, try to avoid being unkind and try to model kind people. And by breaking justice down into these four dimensions and then coming at it from both a positive aspirational aspect and I guess a negative
00:51:29
Speaker
kind of defensive avoiding aspect. It gives you a pretty robust picture of how to improve the way you treat other people. There's not much that won't be captured here or that won't rely on some of this. I think it's a cool system.
00:51:44
Speaker
Excellent. Yep. I think that's well summarized. Perfect. All right. So I'll just wrap up by going through our list. So we cover justice or the four aspects of justice according to Arias Didymus. And I should say that these are a part of the Stoic tradition. You see these ideas repeated again and again.
00:52:03
Speaker
not just they weren't just his. We have piety, knowledge of service of the gods, kindness, a knowledge of which is disposed to do good. Good fellowship is a knowledge of equality and partnership. And finally, fair dealing is a knowledge of how to deal with one's neighbors without incurring blame. Awesome. Thanks, Michael.
00:52:27
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Stoa Conversations. Please give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share it with a friend. If you want to dive deeper still, search Stoa in the App Store or Play Store for a complete app with routines, meditations, and lessons designed to help people become more.
00:52:46
Speaker
Stoic. And I'd also like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. You can find more of his work at ancientlyre.com. And finally, please get in touch with us. Send a message to stoa at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback, questions, or recommendations. Until next time.