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Jennifer Baker on Teaching and Living Stoicism (Episode 98)
731 Plays1 year ago
Caleb speaks with Jennifer Baker about teaching Stoicism and its application to modern day life. Along the way they discuss Aristotle, business ethics, the meaning of living in accordance with nature, and natural vs actual virtue.
https://philosophy.cofc.edu/faculty-staff-listing/baker-jennifer.php
(00:40) Teaching Stoicism In Academia
(04:22) Aristotle
(12:26) Natural Virtue vs Actual Virtue
(17:40) Stoics In The Economy
(30:25) Stoic Answer To Happiness
(36:54) Why Aren't We Happy Already?
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Transcript
Introduction and Setting Expectations
00:00:00
Speaker
When you look at what other people experience to kind of set your own expectations, I always think that's such a beautiful move. We can get so aggravated about anything bad that happens to us as if we don't deserve anything bad to happen to us.
00:00:16
Speaker
Welcome to Stoa Conversations. Today I am speaking with Professor Jennifer Baker, who teaches at the College of Charleston.
Exploration of Virtue Ethics with Prof. Jennifer Baker
00:00:27
Speaker
Her research focuses on virtue ethics, and today we'll be talking about that and of course talking about stoicism. Thanks for joining. So great to be here. This is really an honor. Well, let's start with a tricky broad one. How would you describe stoicism?
00:00:46
Speaker
Well, I do always start slow in doing that because I, I teach these views so I kind of have learned the value of beginning slowly because there are so many suggestions in ancient
00:01:01
Speaker
virtue ethics and classical virtue ethics that just aren't common sense today.
Teaching Ethics: Challenges and Approaches
00:01:07
Speaker
So usually I begin by describing like an Aristotelian take on choice. And I feel like that usually gets students taking on some of the assumptions of the ancients, you know, it's an easy way in.
00:01:24
Speaker
And then if I explain Aristotelianism before Stoicism, I noticed that the Stoicism is appreciated a little bit more and people don't just have knee-jerk critical reactions to it, which I find enough in other academics. So I like to avoid those. I don't have very good responses to those. That's interesting. Why do you think that is?
00:01:51
Speaker
I guess it's like lines about like your children are nothing to you. I mean, I'll notice people latching onto something, a line they've read that a stoic said, and then they just refuse to budge from it.
00:02:08
Speaker
And once you're at the point where people are choosing an Aristotelian virtue ethics over a Stoic one, I don't have that much to say, so that's probably what's going on when someone's quoting the Stoics. They're choosing Aristotle over the Stoics.
00:02:24
Speaker
But I have found it very hard to motivate interest in classical virtue ethics among contemporary ethicists.
The Real World vs. Theoretical Ethics
00:02:32
Speaker
And I'm not sure why I don't have a lot of success with that, but I think it's because there are a lot of assumptions about our
00:02:39
Speaker
psychology and a big robust account of moral psychology that people just aren't ready to take on, but I think that's actually a shame because there should be those associated with any ethical account. We could examine those and then we could look at how to better those, but I don't notice a lot of tolerance for those sorts of topics in contemporary ethics.
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, there is sort of a discussion that almost focuses on ethics as moral metaphysics or something of that nature that I think is more congenial to different forms of consequentialism or deontology. Oh, that's such a good way to put it. And then it's like the contest is who has the better
00:03:27
Speaker
argument or the superior point at the moment, and it's just not something that's tested in everyday normal people over their lives. And I guess I get how frustrating it must be to be told that the real test of ethics is out in the world, not in the most recent article, not in their last paragraph. That is frustrating, but I imagine it seems entirely correct.
00:03:52
Speaker
That is some comfort. I mean, there are other domains of academia where there does seem to be a lot of tolerance for some of the assumptions of ancient virtue ethics, like in medicine, any time the sacrifices of clinicians is described or even professionalism. I mean, so it's not that I don't see support for it, but in my particular area of ethical theory, there just are not that many of us fighting this fight.
00:04:23
Speaker
Got it, got it. So you mentioned that students or people are maybe more receptive to stoicism after they get a sense of Aristotelian virtue ethics.
Aristotelian vs. Stoic Ethics
00:04:35
Speaker
Yeah. I wonder if you could, we don't talk too much about Aristotelianism on this podcast, at least haven't so far. So I wonder if you could lay out just very, very quickly for people who aren't familiar with
00:04:47
Speaker
Aristotle's virtue ethics, what that amounts to, and then I would be curious what your thoughts are on whether that makes stoicism more approachable or more plausible, too.
00:04:57
Speaker
I mean, in some ways, I think, you know, Aristotle presents the view differently and then commentators on Aristotle kind of reflect his style of presentation. So you just get kind of a more literary, I think, approach to the virtues when you have people doing work on virtue ethics, you know, these very beautiful descriptions of the good in our life. And that suits Aristotle because he was not after the kind of
00:05:27
Speaker
precision that you assume in stoicism, especially with all the examples of the sage and completed practical rationality. That's not my favorite part of stoicism, but that's a real nice contrast to Aristotle's approach. Aristotle, of course, is going to think that sometimes we're best guided by our emotional reactions so that that's going to be something difficult to describe in advance.
00:05:53
Speaker
And then he also thinks he seems to be very comfortable with the idea that there are some tragic choices in life where there's no real way out and the Stoics have more confidence that we could discover something ethical to do and even the most difficult of circumstances.
00:06:14
Speaker
So I think the role of emotion and the idea that there's not a set of answers possible out there, I think those are very appealing to people. But also I think his more hesitant presentation style, and I don't think it was like his own writing. I hear their lecture notes, but he does write pretty beautifully sometimes. So sometimes I think he's just an attractive ethicist. It's nice to read Aristotle.
00:06:44
Speaker
And it doesn't make people uncomfortable because they don't have to think about the emotions eradicated or anything like that. He's a big fan of anger, for example. So that goes over really well with people. Right, right. In both philosophies, you have this idea of
00:07:01
Speaker
humans being geared towards eudaimonia, fluorescein, and then the question isn't so much about, you know, what rules should we follow to be happy, or what consequences should we try to achieve in order to be happy? It's instead, you know, who should I be? And that for Aristotle, he leaves. I understand what you're saying. He leaves.
00:07:25
Speaker
the he has a slightly different, a less radical view of the emotions. So he thinks sometimes anger is appropriate. And it's indeed not just appropriate, it's what we should respond to certain circumstances. And then he also has perhaps in some ways is almost less systematic than the Stoics recognizes, you need to do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. And there's a myriad of different factors determining what what that is.
00:07:52
Speaker
Yeah, right. Yeah, and I've really been influenced by my advisor Julia Anis' take on both views and then Martha Nussbaum's, who was my professor when I was an undergraduate and she was very gung-ho Aristotelian back then. And then I think her views have changed. I mean, I see so much stoicism in her recent work.
Skepticism and Norms in Contemporary Ethics
00:08:12
Speaker
So that move seems natural to me because I've made it myself, but you described so well, like the underlying similarities. And I think these are some of the things that
00:08:22
Speaker
contemporary people just would need a long time to consider before they accept. But the idea that we aren't born innocent, but that we really need to develop ourselves and develop a second nature, that it has to be very deliberate. That always bothers my students.
00:08:44
Speaker
I think we're very committed to the idea that we can be good accidentally and that we can live a good life accidentally. That seems like a very deep commitment people have today. So when I suggest, no, it couldn't possibly be accidental. And if you did not know you were developing yourself in an ethical way you couldn't be, that really seems very strident, I think, to
00:09:11
Speaker
people with a more contemporary ethics mindset. Then even the idea that we can be trusted for internalizing norms. I think the Stoics are far clearer on this than Aristotle. I can barely find Aristotle talking about norms, but I love that way of
00:09:29
Speaker
thinking of the stoics that, I mean, Larry Becker is my inspiration here, but the idea that we're running into norms all the time, that's how we understand our own behavior. We don't think of it as a one-off. We have things to say about it. We say simple sentences to ourselves about what we're doing. We use those simple sentences to correct other people.
00:09:48
Speaker
and that we can internalize good norms and it goes well if the norms are good. I mean, Aristotle talked about, I think in the rhetoric you mentioned, the kind of kickback you get if your psychology is reacting to some bad norm you're trying to follow or trying to endorse. So that I think is also not so easy for people to
00:10:17
Speaker
suggest is true about us that we have this practical rationality that can be explained in terms of norms that we don't know we're following, norms that we take up one by one and consider, and that there's a way to match norms to each other and to try to be motivated by good norms. I just feel like that's a lot of moral psychology for people who may be more interested in other ways of arguing for what's ethical.
00:10:46
Speaker
Yeah. If you think about excellent people, there is a sense in which they almost do good by accident, or at least they do good because that's who they are automatically. You wouldn't say by accident, you would say that's who they are. And there's a sense in which they don't need to deliberate as much as people who are.
00:11:10
Speaker
Progressing but you can't you can't just jump to that state you need to you know use maybe think deliberate Think about how what you know what your duties are and so on and craft yourself into that person that seems that yeah, correct
00:11:26
Speaker
That's such a good point.
Economics and Virtue: A Complex Relationship
00:11:28
Speaker
By accidental, I don't mean not automatic. You really did some things for good behavior to go down easy like that, or to be even pleasurable or appear to you as the right option. I always laugh that I think I have
00:11:43
Speaker
what Aristotle called natural virtue, which is when you do not have virtue, but you seem nice or something. So people are nice to me, but that's a very shallow, I mean, you catch anyone who just has natural virtue in a difficult or surprising situation, they won't have anything to rely on like practical rationality. So that might be a nice contrast to the person who's developed their practical rationality and now can decide and act quickly
00:12:10
Speaker
without wondering about other bad options. Yeah, that wouldn't be the same as accidental natural virtue. Yeah, yeah. That's a good example, not something we've brought up before. Natural virtue in that sense.
00:12:27
Speaker
One thing I've been looking at lately is, not that everybody cares about what economists think about us, but it comes up sometimes. I think they're committed to consequentialism in ways they don't acknowledge, but natural virtue, I feel, is all that they've come to represent in their modeling. It's neat that they attempt to model us correctly so they can
00:12:53
Speaker
make predictions. And they're starting to include what I would call all sorts of components of natural virtue. People like to be reciprocal. People like to think that they're gracious or to be trusted. But I always think, yeah, it's just not at all actual virtue. That's just natural virtue. And it gets reinforced by how people treat you, but it's completely dependent on that.
00:13:20
Speaker
You know, maybe it won't disappear immediately. Those norms might be internalized by you to some extent, but it's really, it's really based in, you know, an interest in the consequences of it. If it stops working out for you, well, you're, you're no longer going to be gracious. You're no longer going to care about reciprocity in a different situation. Anyway, I was just thinking that natural virtue should be the term that they use instead of virtue when they're looking at us from that perspective.
00:13:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's such an interesting idea because if you think some of the work on sometimes called like the bourgeoisie virtues, trusting, being reciprocal, essentially being someone who's good to work with. In a sense, you've got some aspects of virtue following good rules, as they were, you're probably doing the right thing in at least the circumstances you happen to find yourself in. But if they're not motivated by that, some underlying character, then
00:14:19
Speaker
following you may not end up being virtuous outside of what you're normally presented with when things go wrong.
00:14:28
Speaker
Oh, for sure. And I think Deirdre McCloskey admits that. She has this nice line I like, the beginning of one of those books. And it's just like, I don't mean virtue in the philosophical sense. She really is talking about commercial virtues. And I know she thinks people with those virtues are creative, with commercial virtues are creative, but one contrast would be like,
00:14:53
Speaker
virtue, I think she calls it worthy of the name, so philosophical ancient accounts of virtue, are important for us to recognize because we will get new ideas about what it is right to do from that person who's developed their practical rationality.
00:15:08
Speaker
But if you're just using natural virtues or acting in a commercially friendly way, trustworthy just to the extent and in a way that you're showing off because it brings rewards, lots of virtue signaling in what she describes as like commercial virtues, those are going to be very conventional ideas about ethics. We wouldn't be surprised by anyone who's learned
00:15:35
Speaker
how to get along well in commercial society. We're their audience, so they're going to be doing what we like. There's some research that you can seem trustworthy as a salesperson if you have a photo of a family in your office. It doesn't have to be your actual family. I think the economists call it hostages to fortune, which is a funny
00:15:56
Speaker
very funny that they call a picture of a family that, but it can be so phony and you can be aware it's so phony and temporary. So yeah, we should have more terms and sharp distinctions.
00:16:09
Speaker
I think there's also the issue where there's some amount of research showing that people who are materially successful tend to be, in the slogan form, better people because they are better at cooperating with others. And there's one, I think one of the question marks around that research is, is it just that these people cooperate with people 99% of the time and then are strategic in when they decide to harm others and do wrong in the way that others are not? Oh, yeah, sure. How would they know? Yeah, that's great.
00:16:38
Speaker
And then also, I mean, you reach a level of success. It's so obvious to me, observing, people treat you better. I mean, some of us just get treated well from the start. And so, you know, maybe they will have commercial success because we like some of their qualities. And then that just continues on. They're going to feel great about everything. What do they have to be upset about?
00:17:03
Speaker
I just only remember the title of this, but it was suggesting that you could even guess someone's socioeconomic status by maybe their expressions or something like that. I thought, well, wealthy people are going to look more relaxed and pleasant, just less stress. Do we respond well to that? Probably.
00:17:23
Speaker
Right. Right. Yeah. Maybe in some subtle ways, healthier or something. Yeah. I think it's an interesting question around how many different feedback loop cycles people get stuck in just by happening to being in certain circumstances. It is. That is.
Stoicism's Role in Market and Economic Interactions
00:17:40
Speaker
So thinking about now that virtue in the deeper sense, since we sort of found ourselves on this topic of the market economy and careers and so on, how do you think about what the Stoics would say is the project of becoming more virtuous in the market? How can you use Stoicism to be more virtuous people in our economic dealings and our careers and so on?
00:18:07
Speaker
Well, I really like stocks on the topic of markets. And once again, if it's okay, I'll just do a contrast to Aristotle, who it's hard to have sympathy for Aristotle, except he had to describe economics with no help. And so to me, he's a good example of what happens when we're very moralistic about markets, which work
00:18:26
Speaker
in kind of an indirect way. I'm kind of an opponent of the idea that every transaction is of two-way benefit. I mean, we wouldn't have reviews on Yelp that are so negative. It's just like, that cannot be the case. And AirSettle only looked at that and was very condemning of profit. Somebody ripped somebody off and suggested we should have no retail trade. So he's looking at markets and he wants them to be
00:18:55
Speaker
ethical in some direct way that's really naive and just is completely unworkable. It's embarrassing. I've seen some historians report on Aristotle on the economy and they're like, well, he probably didn't have a job. He never labored. People are looking for excuses for Aristotle on his take. But then the Stoics just do such a good job, I think, at dealing with
00:19:23
Speaker
how strange markets are and how strange it is that we come up with prices in this collective way and how strange it is that someone might be angry about their meal at the restaurant, but we have a sense that over time with the right legal structure, all sorts of other things in place that we don't have a list of yet, general affluence is benefited through markets. I just think they've come up with concepts to,
00:19:51
Speaker
handle that. And I think they look at how agents can understand what they're doing in markets in a way that, I mean, I would say nobody else does. So, you know, some religious views like Catholicism will give you some advice on how to act in markets, but it doesn't really reach to like, you know, what should I do now? Or should I make this sale? I mean, it's vague if you actually try and follow it.
00:20:21
Speaker
But what they innovated on was the idea that you could detach yourself from economic good or value. I think to be strict, I would have to say economic value, not good. So like only virtue is good. And they would refer to economic value
00:20:40
Speaker
they would categorize that as an indifferent. So then you kind of get to play business or markets like a game and you can focus on your sportsmanship and you won't do anything terrible or embarrassing or regrettable.
00:20:56
Speaker
to score some points in this game. And then there are other benefits that I think, though they weren't thinking about markets, some of the ancient philosopher, the scholars of ancient philosophy, they've described really well why the Stoics would come up with a category of moral indifference. And they point out that it's a reminder of
00:21:17
Speaker
that we're a collective and that we share things and we shouldn't think of anything we own as just ours and some cosmic sense. But I think that applies really well to markets and success in markets.
00:21:32
Speaker
So I think they can endorse all sorts of market norms, but they do so carefully so that when it's not a situation where you should be selling, they have an ancient example that Cicero reports where you're the first one to arrive at a famine-torn island,
00:21:51
Speaker
I always use that expression famine torn when I talk about this passage. I don't know where that comes from, but it's a famine torn island and you are a good person that's stipulated, but you don't know if you should reveal to the people buying the supplies you've brought that there are ships behind you.
00:22:10
Speaker
Do you follow normal standard business norms? You would never tell your other customers. You have plenty to focus on. You don't tell your other customers about deals that are potentially coming along. Or because it's a famine, are you in a circumstance where business norms don't apply?
00:22:30
Speaker
should you just do the humane thing. Strangely, they don't suggest just handing over the supplies. Maybe it's not so strange. But I just love that example. First of all, two Stoics disagree on it, which to me kind of shows
00:22:47
Speaker
how hard we have to work with stoicism. It's really a view that we have to work ourselves. So you could be justified according to the ancient Stoics if you did not reveal there were ships coming behind you or if you did. It's going to depend on your reasoning. But in both cases, they think you can keep in mind the good of others, like the social good that you're doing.
00:23:12
Speaker
That's a big compliment to business norms. I feel like they were really pointing out that not immediately, but over time, they really contribute to general affluence in an important way. Business norms have to be complemented for that reason because it's a disaster if we don't have them in place as we can see all over. I just think that's so sophisticated for them to have realized in ancient times.
00:23:38
Speaker
And with how complicated ancient, I mean, our economy is complicated today, but I'm not sure it was less complicated back then. So I like their flexibility. I think we need their flexibility and a few of their categories like indifference to talk about markets and ethics today. And I would suggest that
00:24:00
Speaker
economists are talking about moral indifference when they talk about what we're after in markets because they're not looking at ethics, as they say. I also would think when they model our behavior in markets, we might usefully refer to what we're doing as selecting rather than choosing.
00:24:21
Speaker
to remind us that a choice would be someone's ethical decision. When we buy something and they know it, they have no information about whether we were being ethical or not. Right. In the example you gave, how would you act well in the case where you don't tell the customers in this famine-torn island that there are boats coming over?
00:24:51
Speaker
I think you'd be acting well because you'd be able to give an account. So he gives an account of what you'd be doing. And you'd have to say, like, listen, I'm contributing to this market system. I'm bringing goods that people are willingly buying. So nobody's being tricked in this situation. They're still getting a deal. They're still offering their money.
00:25:20
Speaker
I'm just going to go with the system that brings general affluence elsewhere. We're going to need it in time on this island, so I'm just maintaining these business standards. That's one of the views, and then the other would just be like, this actually counts as an emergency, so all that is off. It would depend on if you thought you were setting a precedent or not, I think.
00:25:48
Speaker
Right, right. Isn't that good? I just think that's a nice, I mean, I guess it'd be better if they agreed on an answer, but I still think that's a nice analysis. And we forget that when we're pursuing business norms, even though we do, I don't know why we don't pay attention, but because my children are so young, they're getting their first jobs. And it's been so funny as they encounter
00:26:10
Speaker
marketplace norms. My daughter was working at a drive-thru fast food place and she was bringing her own money from home to give customers change because the managers weren't providing. They'd run out of change early in the morning and wouldn't get any more.
00:26:26
Speaker
It was just so funny to see everyone just get so angry with her for not understanding she was in a market. She felt so bad for customers who wouldn't get their 35 cents back, but she had to be walked back from the idea that markets are about directly providing.
00:26:44
Speaker
I don't think it's direct provision. It's something trickier going on. And we might eventually all come to understand the deal, that it's a bit competitive. But I think the justification is long-term, it helps us maintain general affluence. Not that every single transaction has to be well motivated or be one people are grateful for, anything like that. Right, right. Yeah. Perhaps there's a loose analogy between
00:27:15
Speaker
Stoics thinking what's important is to cultivate yourself into a certain person over time. And that's a project of a lifetime really. And you're not thinking about, you know, in this decision or you don't, of course you think about things on a decision related basis, but you're not as focused on thinking about
00:27:36
Speaker
what are the absolute prohibitions, absolute obligations within a particular slice of time and said your decisions build on one another and shape you into the kind of person. So maybe there's an analogy there to when you think about social systems broadly when we're not thinking about
00:27:54
Speaker
or at least a stoic approach to a social system would be, what sort of city are we building over time with these norms? What sort of nation are we building over time? Not what kind of absolute prohibition or obligation.
00:28:09
Speaker
should we enforce in a given decision? Because especially with things like markets, the matter gets so complicated. It includes so many different people over different time spans, different spaces, of course. And the approach of thinking about, oh, we must all wait. We should never say price gouge or something like this is probably too narrow of approach. Yes, yes, yes.
00:28:34
Speaker
or that we always have others interests in minds, or that we're always beneficent towards our cut. I have laughed that you can interview someone working as a server in a restaurant. They don't even think they're well-intentioned when they recommend coffee after dinner. It's just such an unrealistic description of what we're doing. There's nothing wrong with them recommending coffee after dinner, but I don't know why we have to dress it up in a little bow that they're really concerned about us being awake after a big dinner.
00:29:04
Speaker
I'm not concerned about that. Yeah, that's really helpful. The way you described it is such a nice compliment to practical rationality if we go with the idea that it works with the sayables or statements of norms, because that would give us a far more sophisticated analysis than a 15-year-old would have of what customers deserve. That's a far more complex
00:29:31
Speaker
question. What are the norms that we can follow or recommend or endorse that benefit society long-term? That's hard. One of my favorite ideas from Epictetus is his focus on role ethics, and I think he gets it from Postenius, or Cicero talks about this as well, but you have thinking about yourself as having these different roles, some of them
00:29:55
Speaker
are shared, others are individual to our specific talents, circumstance, and preferences.
Virtue Ethics and the Pursuit of Happiness
00:30:04
Speaker
And I think that frame for me and for others thinking about, you know, what does it look like to be an excellent human here? What does it look like to be a good partner, a good neighbor? What have you is useful for guiding different decisions. Yes. Well, I agree.
00:30:26
Speaker
Well, what do you think is one of the most underrated ideas in stoicism? I think it is a shame that we worry a lot about happiness together, you know, like public discussions, journalists of how we do that sort of thing. You know, it's a big topic in psychology today. You know, people worry about happiness, but
00:30:51
Speaker
but don't ever seem to suggest to the public other than you brave podcasters that virtue ethics might be the answer. That's a lot of wasted time, I think. It's amazing to me, the new books that'll come out with ideas on happiness and they're just like rebaked things that the Stoics and Aristotle just knocked out and Plato, they already knocked these ideas away. So I'm surprised
00:31:20
Speaker
at how tolerant people are for ideas about happiness that are really partial or they don't work. I'll see people worry about happiness for years and it never even helps them. So it's like then they don't realize there might be a theory that would focus more on how to bring about happiness. So people are interested in being happy and for some reason,
00:31:49
Speaker
this suggestion from ancient virtue ethics isn't presented to very many people, I think. Yeah. I suppose you do get some ideas around, you know, you ought to pursue something greater than yourself, be a member of a community, but there often might also be blurred into these focus on what the Stoics would think of as externals, like achieving some level of physical or mental health.
00:32:17
Speaker
Well, that's like the best entree I've ever come up with to Stoicism. What I've been focused on lately that seems to get them to be more charitable towards the view is how we can spend our whole life thinking if we only achieve
00:32:35
Speaker
you know, a few things on a bucket list or, you know, create even the desires for things on a bucket list. It's a kind of a trick or a trap, you know, because we might not, we know we won't get there. You know, if someone just thinks if they, you know, have $10 million or
00:32:51
Speaker
or thin for once in their life. Any of those things that people actually do throughout their lives, these are topics they bring up that they have these goals. My students are young, so be famous or successful or whatever it is they want. What the Stokes do so well, and I think Larry Becker does a good job of describing this, is they tell us you could look or they enable us to look at people who have achieved the bucket list.
00:33:19
Speaker
They're right there. I don't know why people don't look more often. I've had so many friends who just dream of a vacation, like other people take. They aren't even having fun on that vacation. You could ask them. Call them during the vacation. It's not changing anything for them. You shouldn't be so jealous they wake up.
00:33:36
Speaker
with themselves, but I worry it's like a little charm dangled in front of people's lives and then we get to 84 and we're still thinking, if I only, about these things that we could have had explained to us will not bring satisfaction just because of the nature of how we practically reason.
00:33:55
Speaker
I mean, I think people could figure it out in a simpler way and just interview people who have done the things that everybody thinks would make them happy. But the Stoics have an even better explanation. Larry Becker puts it so well, just like, we will have energy after that.
00:34:12
Speaker
Even if the bucket list has 11 things, you've done them all. You literally have more agential energy after that. So what are you going to do with yourself? I mean, it's pretty clear to me, but that I think is a way to get to what people actually do believe about their lives in an unembarrassed way and point out that the Stoics have something to say about it, an edit.
00:34:42
Speaker
Right, right. I think that's such a great idea to focus on. I don't think they ever get, my students don't seem to get the impression that Stokes
00:34:52
Speaker
are lazy or don't achieve. I never have had to bat that away. So the idea that you can still do the things you want to do, even if you aren't motivated by thinking that's all life is about or that you'll be happy after you do them, it's like you can still do the thing. In fact, maybe you'll be more focused, but it's not like your achievement suffers just because you take on stoicism. I never even
00:35:24
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah. I think people have different high achievers. There are some people who are completely unstoic, but others I often find have internalized a form of socialism or they're so focused on the process or the activity itself. Yes. No emotional setbacks when the rest of us would go back and lick our wounds or whatever that expression is.
00:35:47
Speaker
I never hear that worry.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah, I love finding that. I mean, it's amazing sometimes to see people who have used stoic ideas without advertising it. I love when you see that work. Someone was convincing me that a lot of the leaders in the civil rights movement had really taken on a lot of stoic ideas, like the setbacks. You shouldn't take them personally. That's not even what you focus on. Don't try and add those up.
00:36:18
Speaker
And they were so disciplined too, and they had a purpose for nearly every, at their best, I think they had a purpose for nearly every political protest or move.
00:36:29
Speaker
and something that could be put in simple language. I'm a big fan of that interpretation of Stoicism. We really need to understand these ideas. I like the notion of sayables. How about literally the things we say, not a paper full of theory or something that 1% of us can follow, but literally something simple. That can work. Well, one question I have that I'm curious to hear your thoughts on is,
00:36:59
Speaker
There's a sense in which some of these ideas about happiness have been around for so long. So why aren't people happy? Big question, of course, but I'm curious to hear. I mean, I do think we're given, we're really encouraged. I do think society works against us in certain ways. Like with my 20-year-old students, I always ask,
00:37:22
Speaker
was the number one message you got about being a person. It's usually the women who will say yes to this, to be nice. Down here, it's like, yeah, actually that's literally, that was the message, just be nice. That's very misleading. That's something that you're going to have to
00:37:39
Speaker
take on, consider as a norm, and reject. Refine and alter. Especially at 20 years old, I think they start to discover, you just literally can't be nice to everyone you'd be expected to be nice to. But that wastes a lot of time. I do think we get a lot of bad messages like that. The idea that
00:38:01
Speaker
that parents are so anxious, maybe they always were, I don't have a great historical sense, but the parents today are certainly so anxious about their children having economic independence. I saw that in a survey recently, just very worried that their children won't thrive in that specific sense. I know that we pick up
00:38:24
Speaker
that kind of messaging too. And then we base our worth on how we're doing against other people or if we've achieved in the way our parents want us to. So I sound like an Epicurean and a Stoic now, but I do think we get some pretty strict messaging from a very early age that is not supportive of us figuring out what happiness is.
00:38:52
Speaker
In other eras, it was different. I have older British friends who would tell me about the influences they got as children, and they were different than these, but still very specific. You will not stand out. You will do, as you're told, that type of messaging. It takes a long time to unravel that type of instruction.
00:39:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's right, that's right. Yeah, I suppose there's something to the thought that we're just gonna internalize some of these rules and misinterpret them until we are mature enough to recognize, you know, if you think about like the lowercase stoicism, when should you have the stiff upper lip?
Interpretations and Risks of Stoicism
00:39:30
Speaker
There's some wisdom to that general norm, but there's also serious risks with it as well.
00:39:35
Speaker
Yes. And we do have that. That's kind of an ideal too that we get encouraged in is that lowercase stoicism. And I've only recently been getting told about this from friends with military families. But one thing I've had suggested to me a few times is that the outward displays of stoicism, the small s stoicism that the military encourages
00:39:57
Speaker
really is not easy to manage in a life. It's just so difficult to live up to those expectations that they've acted like they're not surprised when someone goes off the rails when they're no longer being controlled in that external
00:40:14
Speaker
way. How interesting. So it's like, even when we are suggesting small s stoicism is better than emotionality and fighting with coworkers until you're 65, even if we point to that as a better ideal, I think that messaging is really incomplete. It doesn't lead to actual stoicism just because it looks close, which is the shame.
00:40:42
Speaker
Well, how do you interpret the Stoic idea of living in accordance with nature in the 21st century? How do you think about that? Such a hard question. I mean, I think some environmental ethicists have looked at how many different ways we use the
00:41:04
Speaker
concept of nature and they're like almost 10 or something. We really mean different things when we refer to nature. So trying to get back to the stoic notion is hard. I'm sure I have several of those accounts blended, but to me, I do find it an appealing message. I think of it as
00:41:24
Speaker
a way to kind of reinforce, I mean, this is very, this is not that accessible. It's kind of theoretical, but Julia Annes does such a good job of talking about our second nature. So like, if we live in accordance with nature, all these ancient eudaiminis are like, we don't mean how you are at seven.
00:41:42
Speaker
That's actually a disaster. That's like an unmade Lego set or something. We should not go back to childhood as some ideal. Instead, you have to put yourself together. And then with that second nature,
00:41:59
Speaker
I mean, nobody's going to have the tolerance for this long of an exploit. But then second nature has psychological benefits. So once you've developed your second nature and integrity, then I do believe that you, like Aristotle said, you kind of feel the zest of life and like the Stoics are good on like, you know, you just, you feel a certain joy and
00:42:22
Speaker
satisfaction with the things you're doing that seem ethical to you. I describe it as like a click. When I talk to the students, I'm like, when you do something complicated that's ethical and you've told no one, you just know you've done it yourself, it's like a little click. You can actually
00:42:38
Speaker
recognize it through the click feeling, but that to me seems a very... I don't mind the descriptions of how harmonious you feel in those moments. If I do the socially intelligent thing in a complicated situation, I don't try and gratify bad desires or something. I do experience that feeling of you do feel harmonious. So I like it in that sense. When it comes to markets,
00:43:07
Speaker
ask for air saddle, nobody would have designed these things. No human designed these things. They're so complicated. So I think of that as our markets are natural. They're like our organ system in our body. Nobody would design these things exactly like they are if humans were supposed to understand them directly or redesign them or something.
00:43:31
Speaker
So accommodating ourselves to our social and material circumstances, I see that also as a way that we live in accordance with nature. And then I guess there's one more if I haven't like droned on too much. I want to know what you think, but I guess the third way I think of that advice from the Stoics
00:43:54
Speaker
I like, but I don't see it written up much. And it's where you do think of your life as very temporary and part of something larger, not something you build. The idea that we build a life I think is really at odds with stoicism. Instead, we're just part of this great stream of existence. We're part of this complicated
00:44:19
Speaker
universe, we're here for a little bit, we participate more than build, if that makes sense. But I find that comforting because then when you lose people or when you focus on your own mortality, there's really everything continuing on. And I know that's not such a popular idea, but it's comforting. Well, I do like this idea of focusing on harmony and harmonizing
00:44:43
Speaker
with others, with the events that occurs. And then also I suppose maybe there's this idea of
00:44:52
Speaker
becoming more aligned with who you are in some sense supposed to be, either as a matter of your human nature or some deeper purpose. Do you take it in any practical way? Does it come up in your mind and give you a final determination to do something? Do you ever think of it like I'm living in accordance with nature in your day to day?
00:45:20
Speaker
That's a good question. I do think there's a sense in which when you're thinking about what to choose or when I might be thinking about what to choose, at my best I'm trying to align myself with a deeper reality and in that sense you're trying to live.
00:45:40
Speaker
in accordance with nature and in the 20 it's always hard to say you know like what's the actual structure of that reality but you do have a sense that look i'm a social creature others are social the world's ordered in a particular way and you know i'm agnostic as to whether there is some well that like what the stoics might think of providence or some god at the root of it all right but um
00:46:07
Speaker
I think that's certainly possible and you can live as if that were the case and there's something, I think that's, to me that at least captures part of the good life is trying to align yourself with your sense of what that deeper reality is.
00:46:24
Speaker
I mean there is some realism to it isn't there like you know so if you're living in accordance with nature you're not trying to completely transform the things we're given and that aren't up to us and I mean I always like this in virtue ethics generally modeled on the ancients of any sort you know when you look at what other people experience to kind of set your
00:46:48
Speaker
your own expectations. I always think that's such a beautiful move. So we can get so aggravated about anything bad that happens to us as if we don't deserve anything bad to happen to us. But that really is forgetting that terrible things happen to other people who should have the same status we do. And if you're paying attention to nature, our nature is compatible with
00:47:15
Speaker
you know, incredibly painful, harmful things being done to us. So, I mean, there's a bit of realism we might access too when it comes to like, you know, how magical our lives might be.
00:47:27
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah, there's this aspect of embracing reality or living in accordance with the facts and that that's a that's a very important idea. But I think both socially, how you set expectations for others set expectations for yourself. Yeah, how you manage this, these facts of fortune, uncertainty, adversity that you that you face and face in your life.
00:47:53
Speaker
Yes, you see it like when people get diagnosed with the terminal illness. I work in bioethics and some people are like, why me? Just not a very stoic question. And then you really see other people like, well, I mean, of course it could be me. I mean, they just like, they don't even need to take a step back. It's just like they were ready because they realize other people also get these diagnoses and don't see themselves as somehow different in a magical way.
00:48:24
Speaker
And that's impressive. I mean, if you can control yourself in those moments, that's a lot of control.
Personal Reflections and Philosophical Integration
00:48:28
Speaker
I feel like the stoics would compliment that ability or display. That's a natural stoic of some sort. Yeah, absolutely. That philosophy. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, to what extent would you see yourself as a stoic? Or are there particular ideas that you wrestle with?
00:48:47
Speaker
think so, but of course, I'm probably not thoughtful enough to realize where I'm not compatible. I get made fun of a lot for liking stoicism. I noticed that. If I wanted to fit in, I would not be a stoic around here, but I just like it. I haven't found anything I don't like.
00:49:07
Speaker
The Providence, I mean, like early on, I never thought I had to attach ancient science to the account. I mean, I was seeing people put it in modern terms, so I was focused on the theory. But I just find it very open to all sorts of good suggestions from other views. I don't see it as incompatible with some of the insights from consequentialism or Kantianism or
00:49:35
Speaker
even Epicureanism. I haven't yet encountered a case where I couldn't incorporate great arguments from other perspectives with stoicism because the compliments are taking on great arguments. I haven't had any problem with it so far. Not that I'm a good stoic, but as a framework, I'm on board with it.
00:50:05
Speaker
Yeah, thinking of how socialism adopts other philosophies or other critiques. I was rereading Seneca's letters and it's striking how, especially in the beginning, collection of letters and the way they're typically ordered, how often he just quotes Epicurious, the supposed rival of the squad.
00:50:24
Speaker
Oh, that's such a good reminder. Yeah. I mean, I, this is embarrassing, but like, I really think that Epicureans who recommended you don't have kids have great advice on parenting. I love, I love, you know, I don't want my kids to be spoiled. I want them to like simple things and find them pleasurable. So like, that's Epicurean. And I, maybe I do have a difference with maybe the stoic emphasis on, on seriousness.
00:50:47
Speaker
I think I do prefer sort of cheerfulness, although were they inconsistent about that? I feel like, I mean, there's some advice that you have to face the world in a joyful way, right? But yeah, I just feel that they're capable of taking in all sorts of good recommendations and letting you test them. Yeah, absolutely. Excellent. Well, is there anything else you want to add?
00:51:18
Speaker
No, I'm just so glad you're doing this. I wish I knew how to bring philosophy to more people and the answer really seems to be to do these really great podcasts. I'm so grateful to be a little part of this. I think people could write great use of these ideas and develop them for us, et cetera.
00:51:43
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Stoa Conversations. If you found this conversation useful, please give us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or whatever podcast platform you use, and share it with a friend. And I'd like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. Do check out his work at ancientliar.com, and please get in touch with us at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback or questions. Until next time.