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Stoic Risk Tolerance (Episode 148)
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In this episode, Caleb and Michael explore how Stoicism reframes our understanding of risk, teaching us to embrace uncertainty while focusing on what truly matters. They discuss:
- Why Stoics aren't reckless, but cultivate caution
- How Stoicism offers the highest reward with the lowest real risk
- Critiques that Stoicism is for the risk-averse, and why they fall short
- Why Stoicism may provide the ultimate psychological aid for meaningful risk-taking
Learn how ancient wisdom can help you navigate life's gambles with grace and purpose. The Stoics knew: true risk lies not in external outcomes, but in compromising your character.
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Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Stoicism and Risk
00:00:00
Speaker
Are those the people you most want to be like, or would you rather be like a Marcus Aurelius? Maybe that's dispositional then. Maybe some people just stoicism appeals to some people and it doesn't appeal to others. But I guess the disposition that makes you want to be like Marcus Aurelius, I don't think is the disposition of a coward. Welcome to Stoa what are we talking about today?
Role of Risk in Decision-Making
00:00:25
Speaker
Today, we are talking about risk, not the board game, but the concept the concept of risk, um really the the role it plays in our lives and our decision making and how stoicism can help us think about risk and transform the way that we approach, the way that we think about danger, the way that we think about cost, the way we think about trade-offs and things like this. um I wanted to jump into this because ah I think that a large part of stoicism's benefit is someone who's been practicing it for a while. I mean, Caleb, you've been doing this too, but I think for me, a large part of stoicism's benefit's long-term. So not just in a kind of a short-term moment. While I'm stressed now, I can i can think about the dichotomy of control or I can use the view from above to resolve my stress about some acute issue. But in terms of the way that I plan my life,
00:01:19
Speaker
A large part of the benefits of stoicism has been changing the way that I think about risk. I want to dig into that a bit and and and focus on that topic.
00:01:31
Speaker
Another thing I also want to think about is about this idea of risk tolerance and, you know, does stoicism increase our risk tolerance or is it a way of, you know, and and maybe a criticism against stoicism is that it is kind of the philosophy for the people with the least amount of risk tolerance and kind of exploring that criticism of stoicism from that angle. Yeah. um Anything you wanted to add before we jump into it?
00:01:57
Speaker
Nice, excellent.
Long-term Benefits of Stoicism on Risk Management
00:01:59
Speaker
Some other words by way of intro is stoicism helps us think about risk, ah manage it better, one might say. And it also provides this reminder that in a way, risk is unavoidable. And we have these related ideas. Seneca talks a lot about fortune, and he has this nice line that no No man has ever been so far advanced by fortune that she did not threaten him as greatly as she had previously indulged him. have You have these ideas of...
00:02:38
Speaker
risk, payoff from bets, exposure to danger, but also that that sense that prosperity and adversity, they come and go. So there's a lot to talk about here and it and it's certainly true that both philosophically and practically, and the Stokes gave us a lot to think about in terms of managing risk in our own lives.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm aware that, um yeah, totally agree. And I'm aware that risk doesn't necessarily sound like the most, it it sounds like an abstract concept, but it's not, right? It's something that we, it's really what we use to make decisions all the time. We we make trade-offs between different options. we We don't do certain things if we think they're too risky. and And so it really is this concept that I think informs a lot of how we live. People think about it a lot in terms of,
00:03:31
Speaker
financial decision-making, but I think it's a big part of how we make any sort of decisions and and want to dig into how stoicism um relates to that. So let's do it. Awesome. Cool.
Understanding Risk Through Stoic Principles
00:03:44
Speaker
So the first thing the first thing I want to do, again, like any good philosophy podcast, I want to start off with the definition. So I just define risk, and I think i I just got this off Google, as a situation that involves exposure to danger.
00:03:59
Speaker
So risk and we're going to define risk as a situation that involves exposure to danger. So something is risky if it involves the potential. not Maybe not the guarantee. It doesn't need to be a guarantee, I should say. it could It could be guaranteed. But if it involves the potential for danger, and you can say, well, what's danger? But I think of you know something you'd prefer not to happen, some sort of harm, some sort of bad thing occurring. um And so one of the first things about stoicism I built these kind of propositions one by one that I'll go through in this episode. One of the first things about stoicism is is that stoicism teaches us that we necessarily will be and should be anxious around risk.
00:04:42
Speaker
So um one one way you can think about stoicism was well stoicism teaches us not to care about risk, not to be worried about bad things. And that's not what stoicism teaches us. Stoicism teaches that we ah we feel,
00:04:58
Speaker
and we will necessarily feel, ah depending on what we think. And if we think something is risky, we will be anxious about it. um And so the the Stoics defined fear as you know the anticipation of a potential harm, something along those lines. And so I think that that when you when you recognize that something bad might happen, you will experience fear. So I think the Stoics teach that we will necessarily be anxious around what we identify as risk.
00:05:30
Speaker
um So a life is risk a life of risk, a life that where you expose yourself to risk will be a life of corresponding anxiety and fear as long as we think there is a genuine danger. So that's that's and that's a kind of, I think, a counterintuitive idea. The Stoics don't teach us to be brave in front of risk. They don't teach us that we shouldn't care about risk. They say, well, you will be fearful and you should be fearful in the face of risk.
00:05:59
Speaker
So that's that's point number one, and that's that's an interesting, I think it's just counterintuitive to what some people might think. what What do you think? Well, it gets tricky with some of this language, because I would say, so it tells us to be brave and from risk, but that doesn't mean that you're completely immune to any feeling of fear. That's natural and normal, and then you should even exercise what the Stokes would call you and in their taxonomy of positive emotions, you should feel cautious in the presence of genuine risk. And I think usually they'll they'll use a word that's translated sort of as as caution, right? you know It would be a mistake to say caution just involves keeping a completely cool head and experiencing you know stillness of mind in the face of danger.
00:06:55
Speaker
know for yeah I think in a real sense, caution does involve anxiety, but perhaps it's not this full ah like the full form of of anxiety so as many people imagine it. it is It is different, but it does have a sense of you know negative feelings associated with it and a real recognition if you're facing an actual danger, and and we'll talk we'll talk more about this, what how stoics think about ah how to classify things as dangerous or not, i you know that there's a real possibility of harm there, and that that that does carry with it some amount of negative feeling.
00:07:38
Speaker
Well, I think you got, yeah, I think you got me on the first one. I think, I think I agree with you. Um, we will feel, we will feel so, like maybe to clarify something like this, fear and anxiety is slight, is going to be disproportional. It's going to be a negative emotion because it's going to be disproportional. Even though it's identifying something we should be cautious about, we're going to be,
00:07:58
Speaker
a bit too extreme, so it becomes fear, it becomes this passionate response. um But we will at least be cautious. so we we Stoicism says that you know we should at least, in the best case, be cautious around fear in around risk, I should say, sorry. In the worst case, be anxious and and fearful. um So just be more precise with our language there.
Managing Fear and Anxiety in Risk Situations
00:08:21
Speaker
I would agree with that. Yeah, yeah that makes sense to me. But it doesn't And I think you make a good distinction, which is to say we should be courageous in that we should follow through with the correct plan of action, but we shouldn't be careless and we shouldn't be without caution, as you say. So so ah ah a life of risk is not a carefree life, even for a stoic. A life of risk is a very cautious life. And and yeah, to be precise, we we want to avoid that caution from slipping into fear.
00:08:55
Speaker
or these kind of extreme feelings, but it is a cautious life. It's not it's not a carefree life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I agree with that. And I think you you can talk about, we use words like fear and anxiety in a number of different ways. So ah colloquially, I think you you certainly could get away with saying some amount of anxiety, fear yeah does make sense because some ways in which we use those words, du I think does actually you know properly capture the stoic, stoic view, you know to especially when ah they refer just to feelings, not judgments, that and immediate experience of fear ah that's that's not reflective or that sort of anxious feeling in in one's stomach. you know There's a way to experience that without, I think, the corresponding judgment. So anyway, I think that's
00:09:54
Speaker
All that's to say is, I think using that language isn't completely wrong, but perhaps there's some amount of imprecision. Yeah, there's that there's that. We've got the contemporary English use of fear and anxiety, and that part of that graphs on to what the Stoics would describe as caution. Part of that graphs on to, as you said, the kind of natural feelings you're going to experience before they turn into judgments. And then part of that graphs on to passionate responses. And and the Stoic is not The Stoic is not forced into a life of passion responses, but certainly some things we identify as fear or anxiety or nervousness or hyper awareness today would correspond to actually kind of a healthy amount of caution in the Stoics view. Yeah. yeah
00:10:39
Speaker
Maybe, or just make that, maybe we'll jump into this a little bit more, but maybe to make that more concrete as in business, there's that phrase, you know, the paranoid always survive. And then there's sort of like, you know, the cultivation of paranoia and maybe some ah businesses or some leaders might think about as an exercise, you know, how can I be more paranoid about my business? And you think maybe that's the kind of and potential, like the kind of attitude that a stoic would think is healthy.
00:11:09
Speaker
jumping into that that mindset for the sake of building a better business and to you know combat other passionate emotions that might be more on the positive side, overconfidence and so on.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think i think that sounds that sounds right to me. So rephrasing that first one, first one is stoicism teaches us we'll necessarily be cautious or we'll experience a kind of awareness around risk. We're not immune to risk. Risk is going to be a part of our life regardless, and we should respond to it even as stoics.
Internal vs External Risks in Stoicism
00:11:40
Speaker
But the second idea here is that stoicism's real benefit is that it lets us identify the correct kind of risk. So it it asks us to deprioritize external risks.
00:11:52
Speaker
So losing money, damaged reputation, ah losing your property, um these kinds of things that are outside of our are outside of ourselves, outside of the things that are up to us, as Epictetus would say, and it asks us to prioritize internal risk. That's like acting poorly. So the Stoic says, look, you you should be cautious. so I'm happy to use the word cautious. You should be very cautious around risk.
00:12:18
Speaker
Risk is something we really want to pay attention to, but all these things you think are risks, um you know not being not being well liked by these group of people who don't matter to you, they're not family, they're just strangers.
00:12:32
Speaker
um Not ending up being able to keep up with the Jones's in terms of your possessions Those are not actual risks that those aren't the things that actually put you in a position of having a bad life The things that put you in a the real risk is that you end up like a bad person The real risk is you end up like a jerk selfish. You're not kind to others. You're not particularly nice and you are also unhappy because you ah compare yourself to others, you're jealous, you you desire things that are outside of your control. And so that's the real risk. And so there there is this there is not a not a, well, I don't care about what happens, but actually a ah just a recontextualization about what really what it really is dangerous for the individual, really is bad for you. And so we want to direct that caution
00:13:28
Speaker
you know, away from the typical targets, which are these external things which are outside of our control and towards these this internal target of saying, well, um what what what really puts me in danger is being a bad person. What really leads to a good life is being a good person.
00:13:43
Speaker
um And so, you think about some of the ways that they help you deprioritize an external risk. For example, things like amor fati, which is like loving fate, accepting what happens to you. Things like premeditatio, malorum, imagining the bad things that can occur outside of your control. Those are ways that they teach you to train yourself not just to numb yourself to those external harms or external things that could happen, but to also recognize that you'd be okay even if they happen and you can still flourish even if they happen. um So that's that that's that second idea is that shifting of what actually constitutes a real risk to a person.
00:14:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think that that's going to be the key stoic shift when thinking about risk. And I think thinking about pre-meditatio malorum, that's it an interesting exercise. And I think like a lot of stoic exercises has different levels to it. So what that is essentially just involving bad scenarios that could happen if you go back to that.
00:14:46
Speaker
business example. you know What if my favorite coworker leaves? What if the market has a severe downturn? And there are a few different reasons to do that. And I think often we the first two we mentioned is that first, that's just good planning. It has positive practical upshot in terms of thinking through different scenarios, what you'll practically do if they occur, and then also thinking through you how can I prevent that? How can I make that less likely that you know my favorite coworker leaves and so on?
00:15:16
Speaker
Another key reason to do it is to sort of psychologically prepare yourself for ah the fact that ah it might occur and not you know avoid a kind of unrealistic optimism, seen reality as you know such that no bad things are going to happen or just just coasting and until they do. um But there's also the upshot that I think it's so a way to internalize stoic value theory.
00:15:43
Speaker
where by practicing premeditatio malorum, another focus is not just on preparation, not just on sort of building up psychological resilience, but really internalizing that if these things happened, and you weren't acting vicious, you were doing the best you could,
00:16:02
Speaker
nothing bad occurred to you. It's sort of like, you know, like that, that Epictetus story where he's talking to a student and he says, you know, the student says something like this, this man went to jail and it was terrible for him. And Epictetus said, no, it's this man went to jail. That's all you need to say. That other bit that is terrible for him, that's added by you. And that I think practicing premeditatio malorum is a way of internalizing that scene, bad circumstances, if they concern the external um as not bad and and internalizing stoke philosophy that way. Yes, you you're arguing for this kind of level one, level two. Level one is what just helps you plan, helps you anticipate, helps you not be caught off guard. And then level two is actually internalizing the value that, hey, not nothing bad has actually happened. If I think about what happens if I lose my job,
00:16:56
Speaker
Nothing has stopped my capacity to flourish to flourish. Nothing has stopped my capacity to be a good person in that situation. um And so an actual bad thing has not occurred. And so that that internalization of that value theory, I think you're absolutely right. That's the that's the higher level. That's, again, what makes the stoic things so useful is you could draw the same analogy of the dichotomy of control. There's this like lower level application of it, which is just in any moment what's up to you and what's not and focus on what's up to you. And then this other there's the second level, which is, well, you should focus on the things that are up to you because those are the things that actually matter. um So there's that second level of it that gets into that the stoic value of really putting the importance on your character over these external things. I think that's absolutely right. Yep, yep.
00:17:44
Speaker
Um, and so, well, I mean, an interesting example here that I wanted to raise. So this idea is that yeah that we're shifting away from these external risks and we're focusing on internal risks, ah shifting our focus away from, you know, having a bad reputation
Prioritizing Virtue Over Perception
00:17:58
Speaker
and towards, you know, was I kind to other people.
00:18:02
Speaker
So it reminds me of this example from ah Plato's Republic, which is one of the most important books ever written, where Socrates asks this question, is it better to do good and be perceived as evil? So is it better to be this you know this nice, genuine, kind person that's framed for murder? Or is it better to do evil and be perceived as good? So be the person that does the murdering, goes around stealing, but is popular, well-respected, and loved.
00:18:31
Speaker
And that's such a stoic question and that's this that's this exact example of where do you place risk, right? If you are and you steal and you murder, is the risk getting caught? Or is the risk doing the bad thing? um is that the bad Is that the bad part? Or was the bad part getting caught, having poor reputation, losing your freedom because you go to jail? And so I think that is like the perfect way of framing that that stoic shift in terms of risk, which is to say, you know you know you're a stoic when you think it's better to do good and be perceived as evil.
00:19:07
Speaker
than to do evil and be perceived as good. Because in that sense, you've internalized, well, the thing that matters is not harmed. I'm still doing good, even if I'm being perceived as evil. um And i think that's that i mean it's just cool that distinction there, you find that foreshadowed in Plato as well. Yeah, I think that's one of this idea that it's better to be the ah you know the person of virtue and and not say have positions of power. One of those themes from Socrates that the Stoics really steal and run with and make a core part of their philosophy, ah this emphasis on virtue and not being necessary and sufficient for the good life.
00:20:02
Speaker
And I suppose, you know, what that means when it comes to the discussion of risk is that risk, that's exposure to danger. And then what that means for the Stoics is danger, something that can harm you is shifted from these external concerns to the internal in terms of what really will harm you is making poor decisions and judgments. That's what you want to avoid. You want to avoid making those mistakes and avoid putting yourself in situations where you make those kinds of mistakes because that ultimately leads to unhappiness. And that and that's where the focus is not so much on these external things, these outcomes, these results, and so on.
00:20:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. and and Socrates has another line which was very controversial at the time about how it's better to um experience harm than to do harm.
00:20:57
Speaker
you know if somebody's going If somebody's going to get robbed, it's better to be the person that that gets robbed than to do the robbing. And that's that same that's that same claim of you know what leads to happiness ah is a good character, not this kind of success in these external things. Not that we should ah and that we should give up unnecessarily success in external things.
00:21:19
Speaker
But just if you had to choose, you'd always choose a good character over the external success. And that's a very classic stoic argument. And you point to these, again, Plato does this in the Republic, you point to these tyrants. Today we could look at the, you know, the celebrity millionaires who are crashing their cars and getting in scandals in their relationships. And you think, well, you know do i do I want a life like that? And the answer is is no, because um you know you you've you've traded a solid, grounded character for external success. And it's that's not that's not a trade worth making, basically, is the is the stoic argument.
00:22:01
Speaker
um But yeah, I think you summarized it really well, which is that it's it's thinking differently about danger. If risk is exposure to danger, we're just re-conceptualizing what danger is. um Another follow-up from that is that I think that stoicism doesn't then teach risk tolerance. It more eliminates a certain kind of risk. And I should caveat that. i guess it I guess what it does is it is it teaches Because it depends on how we define risk tolerance, but um it it teaches us, I should say, um almost like a dichotomy of tolerance, which is maybe maybe we'll start saying that instead of dichotomy of control, maybe it'll catch on. I don't think so. I don't think so. Which is to say that you should be incredibly tolerant to external risk.
00:22:51
Speaker
at least ah at least the possibility of external risk. That that quote you gave from um Seneca about you know fortune, having this ability to ruin things, to change things at a moment's notice. um But we should be very intolerant to internal risk. We should be very cautious about situations, people, circumstances that put our character at risk. That's not something we can afford to jeopardize. That's not something we can afford to play with the same way we can play with external risk. um how do How do you think about that? This idea that you know maybe we become really tolerant to that external kind, but then actually very intolerant, very kind of sensitive to to internal risk.
00:23:39
Speaker
I think that's right. I think that's right. it's um I think it's important to maybe think about different examples where someone exemplifies the sort of the incorrect, the unstoic attitude towards a risk. and Maybe that'll help tease this out. so like On one hand, you can think of the person who refuses to engage with the world, whether that's in physical activity, romantic relationships, because they're afraid of getting hurt. And I think you can see how that person just you clearly doesn't have a
00:24:17
Speaker
stoic attitude towards risk, you know, they sit on the sidelines because they believe their well being is invested in, you know, their physical health, their romantic status, and so on. So that that that person is clearly not stoic. But you can also think about someone who the the classic Aristotelian example is supposed to just be ah is reckless, they have internalized part of the stoic message in a way where they don't care about outcomes ah as much but you still need to you you know you need to making good decisions and judgments and to some extent what happens
00:25:04
Speaker
is a measuring stick of you know how well you're doing it's giving you some information so if you you know if you're someone who is not afraid of getting physically injured but keeps on finding yourself in you know say say you're running or something like this keep you keep on hurting yourself after running too long that you're being that you're being reckless and that the internal has actually gone astray so I'm sure there's a tighter way to put this. But there is a kind of in the shift to the internal, you need to be careful that you need to be careful that internal doesn't just mean you know, you just make your decisions in your own little world. Really, it it means ah you know, not investing your well being and some of these external
00:25:54
Speaker
features we've discussed, but you know what it is to make good decisions, good judgments, and so on is to align in some sense with the world, with reality, and so the external can't completely fall away.
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah, so i mean that so I was trying to think of a simpler way to say that we there's there's two types of non-stoics. The non-stoic who's so afraid of everything, they hide themselves away. And then the person who is reckless, as you said, and you know says, i lie you know I don't care if I go out and get hit by a car because what matters is my character. And it's some sort of distorted part of stoicism, right where they're like, I don't care if I lose a hand or break a leg. or You know, just give away all my money because all that matters is the kind of person I am. And there's something there's something off there, but I think i think you hit it. what what's What's off there is that that speaks to kind of an inconsistent character, speaks to a reckless character. it's your Your performance in the external world is giving you some, probably one of the most reliable forms of feedback about your internal character.
00:26:59
Speaker
um But i guess there I guess there's another point there, which is also about chance, which is to say that I think the stoic is very tolerant towards chance, which is to say, I'm going to i'm going to make a bet on something. I'm going to try something that might fail. um But I'm OK with that percentage chance that it fails. And then in that way, you like so you know you decide to commit to being a musician or something.
00:27:29
Speaker
And you're saying, this is something I want to do. This is, I think, an expression of my talents, but there's a chance I won't become a professional musician. That's a kind of risk, an external risk that the way typical people would think about it, they think that's a very risky venture. And what the Stoic would say is that they would say um the actual The actual downsides of that going wrong, the actual downsides of you not becoming a potential ah professional is rather low. There's something there about chance that we approach chance differently in that you should still make an intelligent decision. I mean, that's the classic stoic thing, right? Which is like make an intelligent decision, but not be destroyed if the you know if the coin comes up tails, right?
00:28:16
Speaker
I think that's right. it's ah we think about chance you know The relevant considerations for becoming a musician are things like you can know you can take the role ethics type approach to it. you know Are you in a situation where you can go without income for a number of years? Or do you have dependents? If you have dependents, that's not going to be like likely.
00:28:43
Speaker
It's not going to be a good decision. And there's also your own personal fit. Some people are delusional about their musical abilities. Are you one of those people? And it's honestly hard to tell because even the best musicians had some people, I'm sure many people tell them that they didn't have a chance. um But, you know, you need to have that discerning judgment too.
00:29:07
Speaker
either have that well grounded to have that well grounded confidence in yourself while avoiding ah delusion. um And then, you know, suppose those things all go right, there's still that chance that you got unlucky, maybe the kind of style, you know, so a musician plays in just becomes out of fashion for some freak reason, or maybe, you know, even technological development, I imagine, heavily influenced some musicians' trajectories. and In that case, that's, I think, the kind of risk that I think the still should say you should account for, you know, you should account for that kind of thing to the extent that you can. But if things go wrong, and you still did your best, then it doesn't influence
00:30:00
Speaker
your life in a real in a real sense. you know What matters is whether you did your best and you know making making your judgments, making excellent decisions and so on. yeah Okay, i think and performing yeah i think I think to build on this, I think there's something yeah there's something that I think about from an in investment theory. um This comes from the Rational Reminder podcast, which I'm a big fan of, um which is this idea that like what What determines the quality of a decision is not the outcome. ah What determines the quality of a decision is, you know was that the right, was that the correct choice? Were you aware of the potential for success and the potential for failure? Did you take that into consideration? And was that you know all things considered the right course of action given what you want out of life and your investments compared to other choices? Something like this. And I think that's something that I think that stoicism encapsulates totally, which is this idea that like what determines whether or not a choice was risky is not the outcome. It's like, did you make a good choice at the outset? did you consider As you said, did you consider if you're delusional? Did you consider your relationship with other people? Did you consider your actual likelihood of succeeding?
00:31:17
Speaker
And once you've once you've calculated that and you've made that choice, then the quality of the choice is locked in, the quality of the decision is locked in, and then you try your best. That's locked in. And then if it if it if if it ends up failing, as you said, it it is not that big of a deal, um certainly not compared to the way other schools would think about it. Where something like, you know, you take something like Epicureanism,
00:31:39
Speaker
you know if if If you come up wrong there and you experience less pleasure than you could have, well, then, yeah, you made a big you know you made a big mistake. Or you think something like Aristotelianism or utilitarianism, which kind of build in the quality of the decision, I guess, has the outcome built into it in a way?
Decision Quality in Stoicism
00:31:58
Speaker
Or you can't evaluate and this is what Aristotle says right about like, you can't tell if somebody had a good life until after they died. It's like, you can't tell if you made a good decision until after it's after the result. And then I think in stoicism, it's like, no, the quality of a decision is locked in before, you know, before the once you roll the dice.
00:32:17
Speaker
um And then what the dice come up but that doesn't determine the quality of the decision Which means that didn't determine the quality of your character making that decision Which means you know, you're gonna have to adjust to it, but it's not really what's important What's important was if you were making an informed decision in the right way for the right reasons um Yeah, does that distinction should make sense? Yeah, that makes sense to me. Absolutely. I think that's a good way to put it cool and then that builds on this other thing which is that I I think that one thing Stoicism offers is it offers a life of the greatest possible reward, happiness. like it offers It offers the full 10 out of 10 that every other school offers, but it offers the lowest possible risk because it minimizes or eliminates an entire category of risk, which is this external risk.
00:33:04
Speaker
um And so it it offers the same ten ah it offers the same high as everybody else while minimizing the low. And so I think about something like, like I just said, ah Aristotelianism or Epicureanism, they have w risks built into it, which is to say some people just have bad lives. It doesn't matter what you do under these ways of thinking. Some people that, you know, that person who, you know, he was he was a nice person, but um his family got sick and then, um you know, he was framed for a crime he didn't commit and then he,
00:33:33
Speaker
He was suffered in jail. That person just had a bad life. right like that person The overall quality of that person's life is exposed to risk and to luck outside of their control. and Then the stoics just entirely ah eliminate that category.
00:33:51
Speaker
But they don't eliminate that category at at the, I guess that's ah that's one thing to say is that they don't eliminate that type of outcome at the expense of ah happiness. They still think that that full happiness is accessible to us us and that full quality of life is accessible to us. um And so that, yeah, I guess that that's that that's the that's the that's the twist is that, yeah, if you if you want exposure to full good with minimization of bad, stoicism seems like the obvious the obvious choice.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah, well, I suppose it it what it what it does is it gives... It says that happiness is available to everyone, no matter your circumstances. And in that sense, it's fundamentally egalitarian, unlike versus healing ism, or perhaps even I don't talk about this example as much, but epicureanism has possibly a similar issue. You know, if you just happen to be someone who is born into a body that is, you know, wracked with pain, if you're chronic pain syndrome or something like this, you probably have a much harder time being an epicurean.
00:34:54
Speaker
then ah than others, right? the The possibility of pleasure might be and might be remote for some individuals. I mean, that's not to say that stoicism is easy by any means, and it also might be the case that it's more difficult for others to be stoic than, you know, it's not equally easy for everyone to be a stoic. I think that's a little bit more controversial, but It is to say that for the stomachs in a way, if you're thinking about this from an investment type analogy, you know, you are secured, you know, so some of the
00:35:41
Speaker
safest high-value parts of your portfolio, if you will, so long as you build up your character, so long as you pursue virtue, um you know that's available to you no matter who you are. And then all these other aspects of life, all these other positive aspects of life, those may come along or not. you know that's That's just all upside at that point.
00:36:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's almost like you've got your investment portfolio of like millions and millions of dollars, and everybody has the ability to both grow that and secure that through internal decisions. And then it's like, but what about these like tokens or these, like I don't know, um online unique stickers or something? like There's something that's like, these are nice bonuses, but like I'm okay if I lose all of these, or I'm okay, if i and if I get a bunch of them, that's great, but it's not going to replace the the the rest of my savings. It's a bit of a silly example, but it's ah trying to make try to make the example of how these indifference stack up compared to the the unlimited wealth of good character, as the Stoics would think about it.
00:36:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think so. I also think about this idea of moral luck, which is um the idea that some people are praised or blamed, and potentially even rightly so, for things they didn't decide to do. So you know if you're born... It comes back to the egalitarian point. Some people are just born with a certain disposition, let's say to be a good leader or to be courageous um or to be hardworking. And those people are praised and they say, wow, that person's a really great person because they're a really hardworking person. If you have a conception of virtue that that's limited to a certain, it's not egalitarian, it says some some types of people are better than other types of people, knowledge aside, um then there's a certain there's a certain luck aspect to even the quality of your character.
00:37:47
Speaker
There's a certain luck aspect to even whether or not you have a virtue. But the Stoics don't think of virtue in that way. They think of virtue as knowledge. ah you know Do you understand what you should be courageous about, what you should be just about, and what ways you should have self-control, things like this? And that kind of knowledge is available to everyone. It's an it's an egalitarian conception of virtue, not even not just an egalitarian conception of you know what does a great life look like.
00:38:16
Speaker
But it's an egalitarian conception of virtue, which other schools might not have. they might The other ways of thinking might just say, well, some people are just born braver than others. Some people are just born harder working than others. And so that would be and that's the kind of risk point zero, that point of birth. the you know what What circumstances you were born into, both dispositionally and otherwise,
00:38:41
Speaker
And the stoics take that off the table in a way that I think is really liberating they remove they say oh that wasn't actually that big of a that wasn't that big of a problem. I so suppose the flip side of this is that given that everyone.
00:38:57
Speaker
has the opportunity for happiness or developing virtue. It's on the stoic view, it's up to them whether they in fact seize it or they in fact develop virtue or up to you know, it's ultimately up to up to you up to us.
00:39:16
Speaker
And the, and that comes back, I guess, to that real risk that you might not do it. And that's why, why the stoics are always encouraging you to set fire to the right things.
00:39:32
Speaker
You know, don't postpone the project of a self-improvement. Seneca has that wonderful line, you know, ensure your vices die before you do. Awesome. And ah that's where, you know, that I think that really like that coaching aspect, that protreptic, is that that that's ah that the right word I'm looking for? that Yes, that is. that That part of the Stoic program really comes into play where, okay, so you know now we're as equals in virtue of our humanity, you know we have this possibility to be happy, now you know it's it's up to us to go get it and then the Stoics aren't yet. yeah that's what That's when they give us their encouragement, their their coaching to get after it, as it were.
00:40:20
Speaker
Well, yeah, and i guess your point I guess your point Caleb is like, I've made this this distinction shift between internal risk and external risk, and I've downplayed external risk as if that's like as if you know it's fine if the only things in life are external internal risk. And you're like, well, you know if it's internal risk, there's still a risk that you just let yourself down.
00:40:40
Speaker
There is a risk that you don't turn yourself to a life of philosophy or cultivation. And just because you screwed yourself doesn't make it any less bad. So it's still a very real kind of risk is what I was taking from that. And so, you know, that's why Epictetus is always yelling at us, basically. Um, and Marcus Aurelius is writing his book to himself and there's this constant. You've got to put the work into eliminate the, the, the way that you can ruin your own life, basically.
00:41:09
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. um And so but the last point i I want to make here, so we've talked a lot about different ways of thinking about risk and the stoic conception. The last point I wanted to do was was bring up risk in terms of a criticism of stoicism. So I just argue that stoicism, I think it is the philosophy, it is the way of thinking about life.
00:41:28
Speaker
that offers the greatest reward with the lowest risk. And you pointed out correctly that look like that great that great reward is not easily achieved. There might be philosophers, that philosophies that offer that reward a little bit more easily, but at least it's up to us, at least it's in our control. And I think a criticism of Stoicism would be that it's a it's a it is a philosophy for the risk adverse. It is a philosophy for the cowards.
00:41:52
Speaker
um And so to to to argue for it, I would say something like stoicism. It's something that just appeals to risk-adverse people. It's not that true. It's just something that appeals to people that are uncomfortable with the fact that the world is a risky, dangerous place with winners and losers, and sometimes that comes up to chance, and sometimes that's unfair.
00:42:13
Speaker
It's for people who are trying to maximize the upside while limiting the downside. and Maybe stoicism is the best life with no external risk, but this doesn't make it the best life. life It's only the best life with no risk. It's only the the it's the middle road. It's the safe bet. The stoics shut themselves out of the highs that come with really going all in on something or feeling the rush of luck.
00:42:39
Speaker
um And to go back to a financial analogy, it's it's the philosophy of those that will save enough for retirement but never get rich. And it's silly to... you You'd never look at the people that save enough for retirement and say, well, that person is financially better off than the person who got rich. Maybe they had less risk, but they certainly aren't better financially off than the person who invested in Bitcoin back in 2008, right? Sure.
00:43:04
Speaker
um And so slosism again just plain devil's advocate here having some enjoying switching over to the other
Criticism of Stoicism as Risk-Averse
00:43:11
Speaker
side. It's for those that want to feel ah numb or dull or mitigate the worst scenarios. They want to protect themselves from the downs but in doing so they block themselves out of the best case scenarios.
00:43:23
Speaker
Um, and so that's, uh, it's not necessarily a good thing. and and And the stoics are pretending that we still have access to the highs. Well, really all we're doing is kind of meeting in the middle in both ways. What do you think about that?
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah, well, I wonder you know if you could make it more, what you know what are examples of people of lives, patterns of of living where people have the non-stoic approach to risk that perhaps is more ah defensible? I mean, I would say something like, ah I mean, the musician example we just gave or something like a professional athlete who, you can think about this in terms of professional success, somebody who bet on themselves and had ah had a significant positive outcome um because of that. um So that that's that's an example. um Yeah, but that's not ruled out by stoicism.
00:44:20
Speaker
Right. I guess unless you think i guess like what made it possible is the investment in the external, is the belief that you know the business person thought this cannot fail. If it fails, I will be a failure or something like this. It must happen. Like these sorts of thought patterns.
00:44:40
Speaker
i guess yeah I guess there'd be two arguments there. One is that yes, there's there's certain kinds of people that won't succeed unless they go all in and they won't go all in if they're stoics.
00:44:52
Speaker
And then the other argument would be something like, even if you succeed, you don't actually get... i mean it would be It would be a ah it would be ah different argument about the nature of passions. It would say, look, like you're so afraid of feeling stoics are so afraid of feeling negative passions that they lock themselves out of the positive ones too. And so even if you succeed, because you... restricted your value to the internal, you didn't actually feel the full highs of that like um ecstatic external success. You kind of you kind of are going through everything at like a 5 out of 10, and that at the end of the day is is not the best way to live. I guess it kind of becomes a... There's an outcome argument burning the ships to use ah you know that that Iliad metaphor.
00:45:44
Speaker
ah You know, you need ah some people need to burn the ships and really feel like I will die, my life will be over unless ah unless this happens. um And then there's kind of a, I guess, a um reincorporation of the passions, which is to say, no, you just don't want to feel passions because you're too worried about getting exposed to the bad ones. If you have good passions, all if you have pleasurable passions all the time, then that's quite a good thing. Yeah, I suppose. We've talked about that first.
00:46:13
Speaker
objection before in a few different different podcasts. I think when you yeah know when you talked about the reserve clause, I think that that objection really comes into play. but We've talked about the second one a little bit as well. The second one's interesting because I suppose what's what comes to mind there is There is at least some psychological evidence that people who limit the amount of negative emotions they feel may also be limiting in some way the amount of positive emotions they feel. There's some very limited evidence evidence for that. I'll take it. In the devil's advocate role, I'll take it. Yeah, supports my position. Perfect.
00:46:56
Speaker
um But ah it also brings to mind I guess patterns of life where some people they prefer their relationships to be more emotionally volatile. And I think they and and probably there is a kind of person for whom that sort of, you know, that rapturous experience is really important. And what that means is in a romantic relationship, terrible fights, terrible grief, heartache, but also, you know, that kind of euphoric sense of love on the other side and that you know, that promise of ah something that's maybe more intense than someone who I suppose you could say has a more stoic model where they
00:47:44
Speaker
aren't as um scared aren't as fearful of the ways things can go wrong in a relationship and don't invest ah themselves in it in the same way that you know this with this volatile person might it it is I mean it is just a it is just an anti stoic argument when you break it down like that to the point where you almost can't argue against each other because it's almost
00:48:13
Speaker
There's something very common sense about stoicism, right? Where it's almost that if you go back to Plato's Republic, I'm losing my devil's advocate position here because I'm reverting back to the stoic. I'm losing the strength. um But if we go back, you know there's this almost common sense thing to ah stoicism where it's like, well, look at those people. Look at those people who are you know in these passionate arguments with their ah with their lovers and then want to kill themselves, if not do kill themselves afterwards. And you think, is that the good life? like If you genuinely take a step back, you're like is is that the best way to live?
00:48:49
Speaker
and I think a lot of stoicism just like rests on the intuition that that's not the case. you know You look at Plato's argument about the tyrant in the Republic, you look at that person who gets whatever they want and but is actually so vulnerable and fragile that if they don't get what they want, they can't emotionally handle it. um if things if they don't If they're not able to exert that perfect control and you think, well,
00:49:11
Speaker
Is that the good life? Is that the kind of person I want to be? I want to be that emotionally tumultuous king. And I think there is an intuition that just, no, that's just not the case. I'm not sure. We can wait mean we can go into like long arguments for that, but i think just I think for now, just kind of resting on that intuition is a very powerful one. It's also a very socratic ah Socratic way of teaching, which is just to say, you know if you could pick which of those people to be, would you pick to be like those people? Are those the people you most want to be like, or would you rather be like a Marcus Aurelius?
00:49:41
Speaker
Maybe that's dispositional then. Maybe some people just stoicism appeals to some people and it doesn't appeal to others. But I guess the disposition that makes you want to be like Marcus Aurelius, I don't think is the disposition of a coward. And so I think yeah my attempt at a criticism fail fails there. Yeah, yeah. I think that's right. it's Certainly not the disposition of a coward. I think the best version of this objection is yeah to sort of to make it more precise and say, you know, there's a kind of person for whom stoicism isn't yeah the best fit or it doesn't fit their nature in some sense. So you need to broaden the the philosophical tent, as it were. and then And then I think you've already gave a kind of response to that, which is, well, look at these the examples people give about these kind of emotionally volatile people. Normally, they aren't ones we describe as happy.
00:50:36
Speaker
And then, I think it's interesting that the next defense for this argument, if you play it out, is often to point to things these unhappy people did in their lives, which is kind of a distraction from their actual life, if you think about it, where you know you started with emotional volatility, but then you're justifying it by reference to great works of art or something like this. I mean, there's like ah something to be suspicious in that line of reasoning. um But, ah And, you know, maybe, maybe there is something to that we could talk about, you know, butll talk about that sort of thing some more, but if you want to bring it back to risk, at least for the Stoics, you know, there is that a stoicism does give you the freedom to take these external risks to make great art, ah shoot for that maybe more risky career, which if it
00:51:31
Speaker
doesn't, if it is most likely not going to work out, but if it does work out, it's going to be very, it's going to be socially beneficial, and so on. So to to to to bring things back, the very least, stoicism gives so a lot of room, and even, I think, a psychological aid for taking risks that are and very important, you know, that, you know, certain people are are called, are called to do. Yeah, I think that's a good place to end it in terms of that idea of Stoicism yeah is ah is ah is provides a psychological aid to take the risks that people are um called to do. I think that's a nice way of putting it and that's in the external world and then also while focusing as on the the real risk, which is you know not living up to your internal potential as well but and keeping that focus on that. I think i think that's a that's ah that's a nice idea. Anything else you wanted to ah add on on the Stoics on risk? No, that's that's perfect. Great.
00:52:30
Speaker
Awesome. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Gil. 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 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.