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The Classic Defense Of Stoic Ethics (Episode 177)
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In this episode of Stoic Conversations, Caleb and Michael break down Book III of Cicero's On Ends - the definitive ancient defense of Stoic ethics.
Discover why the Stoics believed virtue alone is sufficient for happiness, and how they justified their unique system of values. Follow along as they unpack Stoic moral development, from our earliest instincts to the cultivation of wisdom.
On Ends Book I: The Epicureans
On Ends Book II: Against The Epicureans
(05:53) Overview Of The Book
(09:34) Moral Development
(26:46) Stoicism Defended
(28:08) Morality is the Only Good
(38:01) Indifferents
(54:57) Awesome Lines
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Transcript
Introduction to Stoa Conversations
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Cael Bonteveros. And I'm Michael Tremblay.
Exploring Cicero's On Ends and Stoic Philosophy
00:00:06
Speaker
And today we're continuing our series on Cicero's On Ends.
00:00:12
Speaker
We're talking about book three. So we have two previous episodes on on ends, as it were. It's a classic work of Roman philosophy going over different philosophies
Cicero's Defense of Stoicism through Cato
00:00:27
Speaker
of life. And this book three is the introduction of the Stoics,
00:00:31
Speaker
So it's a classic text on Stoicism because you really get to see a defense of Stoic ethics. Cicero puts an argument for Stoicism in the mouth of the Stoic Cato the Younger, who he knew,
00:00:51
Speaker
um and and does it in a favorable way.
Podcast Structure and Approach
00:00:56
Speaker
So this this book is essentially a description of stoicism along with arguments for for the view.
00:01:08
Speaker
we're at We're at part three here. I was thinking about No, it's like the Fast and Furious or something. like What would be the title of this one? ahhu It just keeps getting keeps getting better each time.
Cicero's Clarity on Stoic Ethics
00:01:20
Speaker
um We're digging into, yeah as you said, arguments, are description of Stoicism, arguments for, and I was really blown away with this book also with how non-pretentious it is.
00:01:34
Speaker
how almost commonsensical Cicero is in his explanation of Stoic ethics and Stoic indifference in particular, which are like really kind of complicated. And he goes through it in a really nice, clear way, which I'm i'm sure we'll cover today, but really down-to-earth explanation by Cicero, which is appreciated.
Cicero: Statesman and Philosopher
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah, he's clearly a learned character. Yeah. But you know he's a Roman statesman and he's focused on the life of action, the life of speech, and is an excellent writer, of course. i think that comes through in some of the translations. so But he is really focused on some of these questions about how how you live.
00:02:20
Speaker
ah One quick note in terms of background that we touched on before, ah briefly, is that this work was written around 45 BC. and The arguments for Stoicism are put in the mouth of Cato the Younger, who died the previous year.
00:02:37
Speaker
So in a way, this is a tribute to Cato, who Cicero knew, who was ah friend, a political rival, political ally throughout
Cicero's Tribute to Cato
00:02:49
Speaker
his life. So I think you see You see how Cicero respects Cato, which was a politically risky thing to do at the time, speak well of Cato.
00:03:02
Speaker
um But of course, in in the next book, you see how he also wants to distance himself from Cato's philosophy. But I think thats that's an interesting note, that Cicero would honor someone like Cato in this way by giving making him the the mouthpiece of Stoic philosophy.
Philosophical Respect and Cato's Legacy
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool. A lot of the philosophical respect we give people is based on the writings they and that we have left. Like Epictetus, and there's a certain causality that people are more likely to preserve the good writings.
00:03:33
Speaker
But we give this reverence to Epictetus, to Seneca, to Marcus Aurelius, because we can read what they wrote. and And so it's it's interesting to see um you know who is Cicero's spokesman for philosophy, for Stoicism. It's Cato.
00:03:50
Speaker
We don't have Cato's writings. We don't have um and the insight into Cato's mind that someone like Cicero had, but Cicero kind of puts him on that pedestal as that, um obviously following also in this Platonic tradition of these of these dialogues as well.
00:04:05
Speaker
And he's but almost the Socrates, right? it's less It's a bit less dialogue-y than than Plato, but he he is that that mouthpiece from which the philosophy is presented.
Cicero's Methodology in Presenting Stoicism
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. And it is a good point that this work is not as dialogue heavy, you don't have as much ah reply response. It's not as much of a conversation. It's more of an matter of these characters giving long speeches.
00:04:33
Speaker
which Cato actually defends interestingly enough here. The work sort of starts with a little bit of back and forth between Cicero and Cato, but then Cato says, wait, before I can really answer your questions,
00:04:48
Speaker
you need to understand the whole of Stoic theory. So if you don't mind, I'm going to give a long speech explaining Stoicism to you. That's going to go on for pages and pages, but that's important. Otherwise you might leap onto rebuttal or snatch some advantage from something I've said without fully understanding the system, which is an interesting defense of a kind of, uh, uh, of the law of this form that Cicero decided to, to write in and perhaps more broadly, uh, uh, a cool point, I think about not wanting to move too quickly in conversation to rebutting what someone has just said when you haven't taken the time to understand, you know, what, what they would have said if they were given the opportunity to give a long speech about that, you know, the system, their systems of belief.
00:05:42
Speaker
Cicero is just easy steel manning out here. He's trying to present the best version.
00:05:51
Speaker
um so let's jump into it. Cool. Yeah,
Stoic Beliefs on Virtue and Happiness
00:05:54
Speaker
let's jump into it. I think this i mean, this is just a a great book because it's, as I said, really a full defense of Stoic ethics, starting with the view of the stoic ancient Stoics had about moral development and going to justify some of the classic, of course, the central tenets of Stoicism that virtue is all one needs for happiness. And importantly, for on this work, you know it's ah called On Ends, which the focus is really yeah on we know what's the purpose, what's the telos of life, what's the good
00:06:30
Speaker
that everything should aim at. And the Stoic answer of is, of course, ah virtue or morality, you know as it's sometimes translated, is the as the only good. It's really, that's all you need.
00:06:44
Speaker
um But the there's also quite a bit of a, there's also some detail on how Stoics thought about indifference and made sense of you know this common idea that, well, maybe morality is enough, but aren't some things better than others? Is there any
00:07:00
Speaker
ah value in non-moral things. So we should get it we should definitely get into that, but I think that's ah that's a general map of of what of what's going to go on in this book. this um Yeah, the the other thing, i mean, I do want to get into the content for those listening, but the other thing that's interesting is he does that overview of Stoic ethics, and he does some appeal to naturalism.
00:07:25
Speaker
Naturalism, i dont that's the right way to say it, but that there's there's some conceptions of nature, and there's some... But he he doesn't go, okay, well, for me to do ethics, I need to first talk about logic, or I need to first talk about metaphysics.
00:07:39
Speaker
He almost jumps right into... It's almost an explanation of ethics using the terms of ethics. um I was struck by basically just how ethics focused it was.
00:07:51
Speaker
He's like, here's everything you need to know about stoicism or stoic ethics. And then he just talks about the ethics. He doesn't bring in the other part, which is kind of interesting. i know it's an ethical work. It's about on ends, but there's this kind of modern stoic debate about how much um the role of physics or the role of logic and the importance they play or how much you need to have the same metaphysical position of the Stoics for for Stoicism to work.
00:08:20
Speaker
And he almost seems to ground all of Stoic ethics on these appeals to things you can see with your eyes, you know like the behavior of children or the absurdity of um you know thinking somebody – ah had a good life if they're very rich, but were internally suffering or a bad person.
00:08:40
Speaker
He almost makes these kind of commonsensical appeals. He doesn't have to go and talk about um the the the nature of matter or even as far as I remember from the book, the providential nature of the universe or anything like this. it's It really is almost ah um yeah i guess like a bottom-up construction rather than a top-down. I thought that was it was impressive.
00:09:05
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I think that's interesting. It's interesting how it touches on the some of these modern debates about how much stoicism do you need in order to be stoic? Yeah. I'll just say, he's he's saying not very much.
00:09:17
Speaker
It's basically the point. It's like, this was a really coherent view of stoic ethics that didn't make any other appeals. We'll get into it and we'll pull it out, but I just want people to pay attention to that as we're talking about it. it's It's basically justifying it with not very much appeals to the other parts of the school, I would say.
00:09:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So it's where, where he he starts or where at least I'd like to start is with this picture of development.
Stoics vs. Epicureans: Pleasure and Self-Preservation
00:09:44
Speaker
how humans develop through time, um ah this picture of moral development, which you can contrast with the Epicureans who came in the earlier book. Epicureans think, you know, we come into the world and what do we want? We want to feel good. We want pleasure.
00:10:00
Speaker
We want to avoid feeling bad. want to avoid pain. And from that, so you get the whole philosophy, this whole hedonistic philosophy. Interestingly for the Stoics,
00:10:12
Speaker
We humans come into the world and simply seek to preserve themselves. So I'll just read a little. It is the view of those whose system I adopt, this is Cato speaking, that immediately upon birth, a living creature feels an attachment for itself and an impulse to preserve itself and to feel affection for its own constitution and for those things which tend to preserve that constitution.
00:10:38
Speaker
While on the other hand, it conceives an antipathy to destruction and to those things which appear to threaten destruction. So, and I think this is going to be important for the next book, but The way the Soeks challenged Epicureans and other philosophers was to insist that we don't merely value pleasure or pain.
00:11:05
Speaker
Instead, what's important for creatures of any type, not merely humans, is self-preservation. And that's a goal that goes above and beyond pleasure and pain, which points to the fact that it's something more of value.
00:11:19
Speaker
Yeah, what's your take on that and sort of the importance of of moral principle, of self-preservation and this picture of moral development here? Yeah, well, it's like um it's very similar to the Epicurean one, right? where Which is this idea that we look at babies and we can tell from babies what humans are made to do.
00:11:39
Speaker
And the Epicurean is like, if you look at babies, they like pleasure and they don't like pain. And the stoic view, and correct me if you feel different, Caleb, is something like, well, no, when you look at babies, they like preserving themselves or toddlers.
Stoic Tools for Understanding Pleasure and Pain
00:11:53
Speaker
And you view pleasure and pain almost becomes a proxy for this. Pleasure and pain becomes the way that you, if you're not a very smart thing yet, because you're a baby or you're an animal and you don't have the complex kind of cognitions that humans do, it's it's a way that you tell, okay things that hurt, right?
00:12:10
Speaker
generally are not preserving. Things that feel good generally are preserving. And so you use that as a kind of a proxy. But what humans are really, because the Stoic can't can't ah be justified in saying kids don't like pleasure pleasure and kids don't hate pain. That's clear. It doesn't make any sense.
00:12:30
Speaker
So they have to say, what well, what they're really going for is they're really going for preservation and they're using that as a way to discern it. i think it's a I think it's a compelling argument. um i guess I guess my issue with it is I'm not...
00:12:45
Speaker
I'm not so sure what kids do matters that much for how adults are supposed to live. ah um i'm not so I'm not so sure, even if the Epicureans descriptively were right, that we just pursue pleasure and avoid pain, that it matters for the adult view.
00:13:01
Speaker
um But i think that is like a I think that is like an intelligent, a stoic way to get around it, if you if you did think that was like... um an important argument. um And I think we see this all the time. This will be the Stoic argument up through adulthood where you know Epictetus has this insight of, well, pain can't be a bad thing because you know athletes endure it or Spartans gladly endure pain as part of their training and it makes them feel proud and happy. And it's like, yeah, well, when you become an adult, you just become better at discerning Well, that's the kind of pain that's preserving.
00:13:34
Speaker
You know, if I work a job and I make money that I need to, you know, support my family, that's maybe I don't like my job as physical manual labor or something like that. There's some pain I'm withstanding to preserve myself and my family.
00:13:46
Speaker
And that's fine. And that's like, I shouldn't be avoiding that as long as it's achieving that other goal. Um, so it's the same kind of, they're going to make that argument about adults as well. Um, So anyway, I think it's a smart play.
00:13:59
Speaker
I'm not sure how necessary it is um to be talking so much about children. What do you think?
The Stoic Path to a Good Life
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think this an interesting question about whether it's necessary or not, but to I think what's going on the background from any of these philosophers is this idea that you can find the good life by looking at what is natural.
00:14:19
Speaker
So the Stoic view is that the good life is one that's lived in accordance with with nature. So then you would expect in at least some sense to see nature as tending towards or revealing you know what the good life is, what the Stoic path is in this case.
00:14:41
Speaker
And it would be it would be odd perhaps. At least the Stoics would need to explain something if the world was such that we came into the world, you know, we came, humans didn't value virtue initially.
00:14:55
Speaker
They don't have a story about how we come to value virtue, but somehow we should, even though in a sense it's unnatural. I think that that would put the Stoics, Because they have this background view that the good life needs to somehow, in some sense, be natural, that would put them in a funny place. Yeah, what do you think about that?
00:15:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're right. ah that That would be an issue. i guess I just think that our, which I guess the Stoics are also going to argue to a certain extent. and I'm thinking this through.
00:15:26
Speaker
So let me let me try it again. It doesn't seem to me like a big as big of an issue for the Stoics. if They're like, yeah, babies are little pleasure-seeking machines, but I am a very different thing than a baby, right? That that that to me isn't seen doesn't seem to knock down Stoicism's house of cards.
00:15:45
Speaker
But ah the Stoics are going to make a different play here, which is... All, all living things are the kinds of things that do what's good for them and do what's do what is ah according or seek to preserve their nature.
00:16:02
Speaker
Babies are going to do that in a different way than adults, but what we don't see everybody doing is just pursuing pleasure and pain. That's a way that's an oversimplification the same way, you know,
00:16:14
Speaker
you might have an animal that tries to bite its leg off instead of die in a trap. It's going to make some, it's going to do something that's very painful for the sake of self-preservation. It's appealing to something other than, than that simple calculus.
00:16:28
Speaker
And yeah, if the Stoics can, if the Stoics can pull it off, I guess that is a better way to go about it. Yeah. I suppose that is an interesting question. you know if you, if you're a Stoic, how much continuity, I suppose, do you need between the baby and the adult human?
00:16:44
Speaker
And there are parts of stoicism we've talked about before that suggest maybe you don't need that much. you know They don't see ah babies, of course, as rational, young children as rational. So maybe it'd be fine to he give them the baby, the Epicurean impulse, as it were.
00:17:00
Speaker
But that's not what they decide to do. And I think what's interesting about their picture is they do have this, there is this idea of moral development. and And they do have a story about how we come to value virtue, we sort of start with this instinct for self-preservation.
00:17:19
Speaker
um but come to value ah what really matters, which is virtue for the Stoics. So I'll just read a quick section on that. The initial principle being thus established that things in accordance with nature are things to be taken for their own sake and their opposite, similarly, things to be rejected.
00:17:38
Speaker
The first appropriate act is to preserve oneself in one's natural constitution. That's the importance of self-preservation. The next is to retain those things which are in accordance with nature and to repel those that are contrary.
00:17:52
Speaker
Then, when this principle of choice and also of rejection has been discovered, there follows next in order there fall is next in order choice conditioned by appropriate action.
From Self-Preservation to Rational Choice
00:18:03
Speaker
Then such choice becomes a fixed habit, and finally choice fully rationalized and in harmony with nature. It is at this final stage that the good properly so-called first emerges and comes to be understood in its true nature.
00:18:22
Speaker
So the picture you get there is, look, we're starting with self-preservation. Then we learn that we have this principle of choice, choosing between indifference, survival,
00:18:34
Speaker
food, social goods, what have you, these sorts of things that were naturally that we naturally prefer, things that we want to naturally avoid. And as we get older, we have pictures about you know what's valuable, how do we make these choices?
00:18:50
Speaker
And then we get this idea of appropriate action, duty, morality. And then from this, we can build ah fixed habit. you know That's that picture. What's virtue? It's a disposition.
00:19:03
Speaker
It's habit. It's character. And once that's formed, then you have choice, fully rationalized and in harmony with nature. a nice phrase. It's not just doing something one-off because it's a duty. No, it's you know it's fulfilling your duties because you know that's who you are. Your thinking is harmonized with the way things should be.
00:19:23
Speaker
So I think that's ah that's a that's a picture ah of development. Cato starts there and says, okay, this is how we get to the Stoic view. This is the path that ideally we should take.
00:19:37
Speaker
Okay. I think that made sense to me, but can we simplify it in like simple language? if If you had redo those steps and like it explain it to me like I'm a fifth grader, it's something along the lines of first first we just have an instinct towards self-preservation.
00:19:56
Speaker
then we... become smart enough to choose and to go, well, this is good for me. This is not good for me. This is like, you know sleeping, eating well, not hurting myself.
00:20:11
Speaker
These are things that I'm going to choose because I see them as being in in recognition with my nature ah or, you know, in accordance with my nature or preserving of my constitution, whatever language you want to use.
00:20:24
Speaker
And then there's another step. I guess I got a little bit lost on the other step, which is something like the actual choice itself becomes the good thing ah instead of the consequence of it. Because there has to be a shift there between, you know, the baby doesn't have reason.
00:20:40
Speaker
The baby is right, or even the toddler is right, that the cookie is a good thing for the toddler. But at some point you become an adult and the cookie becomes an indifferent thing.
00:20:52
Speaker
um preferred and different, and then the choice becomes the good thing? like Does your constitution change in that process? Yeah, what do you think? Yeah, it's it's really... um it's It's sort of like if you imagine if you imagine a scenario where you just use that that classic ah example that ah Cicero mentions here, where you're shooting an arrow at a target.
00:21:19
Speaker
Initially, you know what do you need to shoot the arrow to the target? You need to be alive. That's the first step. Humans come into the world and we need to survive to do anything.
00:21:30
Speaker
and You can almost imagine you know in this this age of AI, if you're training a simple agent playing this game, shooting an arrow at a target, it's alive, realizes it needs to be alive to do this, then what's gonna realize next? It's gonna realize the consequences of its actions are sometimes preferable, sometimes dis-preferable.
00:21:52
Speaker
So if it hits the center of the target, everyone cheers. When it misses, you know ah feel people boo and that feels bad. So slowly we come to learn that some consequences of our actions are preferable and dis-preferable.
00:22:06
Speaker
And then over time we realize, ah in a way, what matters is, you know, how tightly we hold the string, where we aim and such. And these are of these sort of principles of choice.
00:22:20
Speaker
And then that in the end is what we can control. And that's what we start valuing because we learn the consequences. Although, you know, they determine, you know, how we should choose those consequences. Aren't always up to us. Instead, it's, you know, how we,
00:22:38
Speaker
aim you know how we play the game. And that is what the AI in the simple example might start optimizing instead of purely trying to get get an outcome.
00:22:49
Speaker
So but maybe that's ahs so that's an example that helps alps ground it a little more. And then you just think about that for the rest of life. you know We learned that. what are and Our natural instincts might be pointed towards certain outcomes.
00:23:03
Speaker
we start We just seek those outcomes blindly as a matter of instinct. And as we become more rational, we learn to choose between those instincts. And then we see, oh, yeah what really matters is that skill of choice.
00:23:16
Speaker
It's choosing well. And that's what's up to us. And that's what we are. So... that's what we start to start to value. And that becomes, uh, you have understand that as virtue, understand that as, as morality.
00:23:32
Speaker
they're They're almost as like this, um, odd implies can there. It like, yeah, as we become smart enough, to actually reflect and actually make choices. And i mean, smart enough, I mean, in terms of like literally developing from being a child into an adult brain, we become reflective.
00:23:53
Speaker
We develop the idea, the ability to reflect on the quality of our choices. Then our nature shifts. We shift from like animal like things to rational things.
00:24:04
Speaker
And so, I think that's for me is the part that was missing from your explanation is like, not only do you learn more as you grow up, but the kind of thing you are changes as well.
00:24:15
Speaker
And so to, to achieve your function, ah you again, you go from being more similar to an animal than not to being a human, which for the Stoics is a different kind of thing.
00:24:26
Speaker
It has a different kind of goal. Right. which is, as you said, to focus on the things that are up to you, to aim well, to make good choices, to have knowledge. That becomes preservation.
00:24:36
Speaker
and um And that becomes ah promoting the constitution of the human, the essential parts of the human, in a way that it's not true for a toddler.
00:24:47
Speaker
So you don't just learn more about what it is to be a person You change. I think it's like those two things at the same time is a bit confusing to me, but the way you described it makes sense to me, i think with the change or the emphasis that I've added.
00:25:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's right.
00:25:04
Speaker
You change because you become more rational and that gives you the ability to focus just more on that faculty.
Reasoning and Managing Impressions
00:25:11
Speaker
Mm-hmm. which, as you say, is an essential part of your constitution, reasoning well, thinking well, managing impressions, not purely being making decisions on on instinct and such.
00:25:22
Speaker
I think you also learn, and this is something Cato mentions here, is that you learn some sort of ethical principles. some philosophers held that if something's good, then more of that thing is, in a sense, always better. And that's something the Stoics...
00:25:43
Speaker
put a question mark on a number of other ancient philosophers, put a question mark behind, you know, that perhaps more of a good thing isn't always better. Health isn't something you're just trying to maximize across life. Instead, what you ought to be maximizing to the extent that idea is appropriate is wisdom. You know that ability that helps you choose between health and the other things in life.
00:26:11
Speaker
That is, I think, a central part of Stoicism in maybe some way. What makes it different from other philosophies like utilitarianism and such that say, you know, it should just maximize pleasure. Stoics say, no, that's not what you want to be thinking about is focusing on that ability to choose between different things of value, different and ah indifference, because that's that's what life is, ah that's what they see life as being about.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yep. Okay. That makes sense to me. So we've got the developmental picture and then what comes, what comes next?
00:26:46
Speaker
Yeah, so we've got the developmental picture. the And then i think what comes next is, okay, what's this end stage? What is choice fully rationalized and in harmony with nature?
Virtue as the Ultimate Good in Stoicism
00:26:58
Speaker
What does that look like for the Stoics?
00:27:01
Speaker
That looks like acting virtuously. And that is enough. So I think those are the two central claims that Cato and talks about throughout the rest of the book.
00:27:16
Speaker
First, you know the idea that morality is the ultimate good, virtue is the ultimate good. I'll just use those terms interchangeably here. um he gives a few different arguments for that.
00:27:28
Speaker
and Another central idea is just this idea of indifference. you know What makes the Stoics different from other philosophers like Aristo or perhaps some the cynics which held which agree that virtue is all you need, but they don't have these distinctions, this other idea of indifference and they don't distinguish between other kinds of value. So I see i see those as the the sort of the two other other points of of the book. does that You think that's right?
00:27:57
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, for me, it was it was ah such a, I want to get into that, the description of indifference because i think he does a really good job of covering that. Definitely. Okay, cool, cool.
00:28:09
Speaker
Yeah, before before we do that, I'll just touch on some of the arguments for why morality is the only good. We don't need to dive into them, into detail here. We've talked about that that throughout the podcast, but I think ah some points that might be ah a difference that some some of y'all might not have heard before, you haven't come across this work, which I thought were interesting.
00:28:30
Speaker
So there's an interesting argument from right?
00:28:37
Speaker
It's perhaps a ah deceptively simple one, but it's put in a nice logistic form. Whatever is good is praiseworthy, but whatever is praiseworthy is morally honorable.
00:28:49
Speaker
Therefore, that which is good is morally honorable. And I think the praiseworthy aspect ah Cato talks about, it gives a simple example. you know Can you be proud of a life that is miserable or not happy?
00:29:02
Speaker
And he thinks, no, you can only be proud when one's lot is a happy one. And you know this shows that the happy life is something you should be proud of. And this cannot be said of any life but one that is morally honorable.
00:29:18
Speaker
Therefore, the moral life is the happy life. That's an interesting argument. I'm not sure if it's persuasive. You might think it sort of begs the question. But perhaps it's an interesting ah one if you have similar ideas about honor praise and think of that idea you know is a good life something you can sit back and be proud of when you're on your deathbed as it were and it probably the answer seems probably yes and then is morality enough for you to be proud of that good life and
00:29:53
Speaker
if you know if you did your best If you really did your best, isn't that enough at the end of a life? Do you really need these other things philosophers say you need for your life to go well? And I think that's ah that's an interesting argument.
00:30:08
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i agree with you that it praises it begs the question. And so in the same way, it um almost appeals to our intuitions about what is praiseworthy.
00:30:20
Speaker
But I like that. I like that it's like a different way of talking. We're spending all this time talking about good. We're spending all this time talking about happiness. What if you just thought about what is praiseworthy? And that's what I like. like Sometimes I do that when i'm talking trying to explain eudaimonia about, well, it's like think of it like a great life or a flourished life. And I think that metaphor of praiseworthy is is a really good one.
00:30:40
Speaker
Because you can think of people who, you know, they suffered, they sacrificed a lot. I'm thinking of... people in terrible kinds of situations maybe lived under fear and stress, but um maybe in some sort of war zone, but saved a lot of lives, you know had a terrible time. it was not a pleasant Epicurean ah you know commune, but but they they did great things in these stressful situations and that is praiseworthy. And then the Stoic is going to say, and that person, you know as long as they were like that consistently,
00:31:14
Speaker
was also a happy, good person. And there's that, there's that, I guess that, I think it does. Yeah. So I think it does beg the question, but it's maybe a different lens by which to look at stoic happiness, where if you think less about what's life is going to make you happy and more about the life that is like deserving of praise.
00:31:32
Speaker
And because for stoicism, those are the same thing. It's a different way to get there. I'm not persuaded if I didn't already believe it, um but it's it's maybe a different way to think about what what happiness looks like.
00:31:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a cool avenue into the Stoic view and also a nice snapshot of how a culture like the Roman culture that so valued things like glory, reputation and such – you might make the stoic picture more intuitive to that that kind of culture.
00:32:10
Speaker
um Yeah, so that's ah that's ah that's a neat argument for that idea.
Fear and Wisdom in Stoicism
00:32:15
Speaker
Another argument for ah Stoicism you get here is the belief that something is bad often causes us to dread that thing happening from happening, and that can sometimes cause a loss of wisdom, this dread, anxiety, and such.
00:32:32
Speaker
And as because of this, we really only ought to fear things which are
00:32:44
Speaker
that we can, of course, prevent. Otherwise, if you fear not having ah solid reputation, not having good health and such, there's some risk that that fear might cause you to make a mistake. So again, I think this is not an entirely persuasive argument if you're not a stoic already, but it's an it I think it's a another avenue to the stoic view, along with ah really a practical pragmatic point, which is that idea that what we believe, what we think, what we value, ah does influence our decisions. And as such, you know, what to be careful exceptionally careful about how you think and what you value.
00:33:29
Speaker
I mean, is is this the kind of the same argument as like, Epictetus' thing about you know death isn't terrible, but it's how we view it?
00:33:40
Speaker
Is it the same kind of argument there about like these things are bad for you because you fear them? And if you don't fear them, they cease to be bad? Can you just yeah can you explain it a bit a bit more? I think it's so i think it's not it's not just the cognitive view of emotion. I think it's more of a causal claim, almost a practical, pragmatic one, which is that if you...
00:34:03
Speaker
It's sort of, if you go back to that example of shooting the arrow, if you're always nervous about hitting the target exactly, some of your attention is gonna be taken on that outcome instead of focusing your attention on practicing the skill of being a good archer, which is ah the things that are up to you, you know how you're holding the bow, your posture.
00:34:31
Speaker
your timing. So it's all maybe or maybe more of a pragmatic point about attention and how our beliefs about what's good or bad, once they're divorced from virtue, can cause us to act less virtuously.
00:34:47
Speaker
And I think this ist ah this is ah especially perhaps more of a sharp point for other life philosophies, which say virtue is good. It's perhaps even essential for living the good life, but it's not sufficient.
00:35:00
Speaker
So I think that's where this argument might have some more bite to it or force to it. Which is to say that you know if you already think virtue is good, then you whenever you youre you move your attention to something else, there's that risk that you forsake virtue to some
Comparing Virtue with Other Goods
00:35:17
Speaker
extent. Okay, I understand. i think it's a little bit but so Yeah, yeah. It's a little bit more of a practical, pragmatic point perhaps.
00:35:22
Speaker
almost about the sufficiency, the sufficiency of virtue for being good. um You already think it's good. it' And once you think it's good, it's better to just focus on just that um because there's these risks that come with valuing these other things.
00:35:40
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
00:35:43
Speaker
Cool. So those are some of the arguments that stuck out ah for me in terms of arguments for that central stoic idea that virtue is enough.
00:35:54
Speaker
Do you have anything else to add on to this? I mean, I just like the way that, um, um I just like the way that he frames it in relation to um Aristotle and the peripatetics, the followers of Aristotle. and this this really kind of It's a way that I... so I just realized how influenced I am by this book when I read it, ah you know maybe for the first time five or six years ago.
00:36:22
Speaker
He just really does just a structure in terms of the Epicureans think this, the skeptics think this, um the Aristotelians think that... look, there are a bunch of good things.
00:36:34
Speaker
And virtue is one of them, but there's there's these other good things too, and you kind of want all of them. And then you almost you almost position the ah the Aristotelian view as being the most commonsensical and the most intuitive.
00:36:49
Speaker
of like virtue is a good thing and there's these other good things too. And then you're almost, you're working from that position. um you just You've just got to kind of, your work to convince people of stoicism is just to kind of eliminate those other things.
00:37:02
Speaker
So um it's just the kind of... if you can if you can make these arguments, and then that's where these arguments kind of around indifference, I think comes in about, well, you know, can you really call any of these things good when it's circumstantial, whether or not they benefit you?
00:37:18
Speaker
Can you call these things good when there's these counter examples of when they'll actually harm you? Or these counter examples when being healthy or wealthy or having a lot of pleasure is actually bad for you? Or these counter examples of where being sick or um yeah poor or um struggling or actually benefiting to you.
00:37:37
Speaker
And so it's it's like you almost, you you break down the logic of that and you're only left with this one thing that's like always good. um i like that frame i like that framing of Stoicism in relation to the Aristotelians.
00:37:49
Speaker
And you're you're just like kind of just like one jump away. You're almost at Stoicism. Almost anybody's going to agree with that Aristotelian view and then you're you're almost there Stoicism. Just a little bit more convincing after that.
00:38:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great point and something I didn't hit on as much or that that I should have hit on earlier, which is at this point in the dialogue, that's what that's sort of cato is arguing against you know he says you know we've we've dispatched the epicureans essentially so who who are the other rivals well it's people like the peripatetics the followers of aristotle on one side who value things in addition to virtue and then on the other side it's people like aristo perhaps some of the cynics who think no it's just it's just virtue and all this idea of indifference uh
00:38:37
Speaker
is nonsense. It's just not needed. and So something that Sisera asks Cato explicitly is, aren't you just saying the exact same thing as Aristo? And Cato says no, because we have this idea of indifference.
Indifference in Stoic Ethics
00:38:53
Speaker
And there's a nice passage about why indifference are important. So Risto holds that everything is indifferent except for virtue. But I should say, when I'm talking about indifference, so you know that the Stoics have this idea of preferred indifference and dispreferred indifference, this other level of value, if you will, that's that's essential to the picture.
00:39:14
Speaker
There's a distinction between indifference. And he says, for if we maintained that all things were absolutely indifferent, the whole of life would be thrown into confusion as it is by Risto.
00:39:27
Speaker
And no function or task could be found for wisdom, since there would be absolutely no distinction between the things that pertain to the conduct of life, and no choice need be exercised among them.
00:39:41
Speaker
And I think this is a nice. When I first read this book, when I first came across the Stoics, I thought,
00:39:49
Speaker
their ethics was didn't make any sense because you had this idea of virtue is the only good, but somehow there's this other level of value, preferred indifference and dispreferred indifference that exists and you need to be mindful of.
00:40:06
Speaker
And my my reaction was essentially, well, is virtue the only good or not? if what's so you know the point of indifference? Why not just be like a Risto? And I think I didn't you fully internalize this response, which is that you know the yeah the role indifference play is they are the material for virtue. you know they're They're what you're choosing between.
00:40:29
Speaker
And you need some things to be dispreferred and preferred because that's sort of what guides your choice. Right.
00:40:41
Speaker
And going back to that picture of development, you know that's sort of where we start with are these natural instincts for what's preferred and dispreferred. And then as we become rational, we're able to exercise virtue and work on you know that capability of choosing the preferred, ah choosing between indifference will.
00:41:02
Speaker
So anyway, I found you know coming... back to this book with that that background. helps me see the picture much more clearly.
00:41:16
Speaker
Yeah. i mean, this is also, this indifference is something that I've also wrestled with. It's funny you said that because when I remember first learning about stoicism and I was like, this is also dumb.
Challenging Stoic Indifference
00:41:24
Speaker
I was like, i was definitely you know that introductory philosophy class. and was like, Epicureanism is where it's at.
00:41:31
Speaker
These guys had to figure it figured out. Clearly it's all about pleasure and pain. Um, and now I am mature, fully, fully gone through my developmental stages here.
00:41:42
Speaker
ah um, But you know I also had trouble internalizing. I mean, I still had trouble wrestling with it. And and um especially when you read Epictetus, like as much as I did, Aristo can feel appealing. Because Aristo, we did a whole conversation on him, but as a reminder, um Aristo's argument is basically, look, to talk about something being preferred or dispreferred doesn't make any sense because it's going to be a context, a situation by situation decision.
00:42:09
Speaker
How can you say death is dispreferred when it's something you will sometimes choose and sometimes not choose? How can you say that wealth or money is preferred when sometimes money is bad and sometimes money is good?
00:42:21
Speaker
It's nonsensical to apply categories to indifference, to to things outside of virtue. What you need to do is you need to like look at the actual situation you're in, and then you will have so money will be good in one situation to have, and be bad in another And then that's, that's a Aristo's argument as I understand it. And I think there's something compelling to that. This idea that like, it's weird to talk, it's weird to apply categories to things when, and then be like, well, not this time money's good or money's preferred.
00:42:54
Speaker
Well, not here, you know? um ah But to to be charitable to the Stoics, the Stoics are saying, when you say something's preferred, you're not actually saying anything about the specific situation.
00:43:06
Speaker
You're saying something about a kind of general tendency. And then it's your job to ascertain if that general tendency applies here or not. you know health and Health is generally a good thing. and that's like it's It's honestly like a claim about averages. Yeah.
00:43:22
Speaker
you know Nine times out of 10, it's better to be healthy than sick, but it's your job, and that's the exercising of virtue, wisdom, diligence, to tell in that situation if this is one of the nine times it's good or one of the one out of 10 times it's better to be sick.
00:43:39
Speaker
one out of a hundred times. And then the Stoics are going to say, what makes the the category difference with virtue and vice is that those are a hundred out of hundred times you should choose virtue. There's never a case not to choose virtue. And so there's a type difference there.
00:43:53
Speaker
And I don't know where I'm going with this other than i found Aristo's argument really convincing when i first started to learn Stoicism. It's like, why not just take it situation by situation? And then they're saying,
00:44:06
Speaker
they're saying that these things tend to be a certain way. And the reason they tend to be a certain way is because they connect, they connect to ah us, um, um, as rational animals, right? Things like health, money, um fame, these connect to our social natures, our physical natures as like embodied brains. We're not just floating minds.
00:44:30
Speaker
And so we we should try to preserve that physical constitution, that social constitution wherever possible. Right. And so you're going to have good reason. You need a good reason to opt out of health and a good reason to opt out of money.
00:44:46
Speaker
And then that's that's virtue's job to decide if this is a good reason to do that or not. um and don't know how smooth that was but that to me makes sense.
00:44:57
Speaker
It's taken me a long time, but I think the indifferent picture finally makes sense. and Because my tendency, I guess, was not was was to go towards the Aristo side or to bounce back between the
Value and Choice in Stoicism
00:45:09
Speaker
Aristotelian side. like I find both of those counterarguments pretty appealing.
00:45:13
Speaker
it's like it's It's only virtue or it's virtue plus other things. The Stoic position is this really weird counterintuitive middle ground. But and don't know. I think the the version I just presented to you makes sense to me now, I feel. I feel i'm persuaded by it.
00:45:28
Speaker
um Do you find it persuasive now or you feel the same way as before? Yeah, i and I find it more persuasive. And I think it's one reason it was difficult for me to understand in the past is because I think so often we there are some of these ah assumptions about if you want to ask, you know what's the purpose of life?
00:45:50
Speaker
Well, it's for to pursue some good. so then you find the good and then you just want as much of it as possible. I think that's a common sort of picture. The sort of idea that more good is always better and such.
00:46:03
Speaker
And that that picture is really persuasive. i The Stoics really radically challenge that picture because there is no single thing where more of it is always better. either you're acting virtuously, which is enough in the moment, or everything else are is indifferent and you're choosing between them. And sometimes they're going to be, ah you know as as you say, sometimes pleasure is what you should choose. Other times it's not.
00:46:35
Speaker
And that picture of life doesn't fit nicely into a lot of the philosophies you encounter in ordinary life, ordinary culture, but also in the classroom of philosophers, we are thinking about Kantianism versus utilitarianism versus even some of the classics you'll encounter in introductory philosophy, like Aristotelianism. It's really a different framework, and that can make it difficult to grasp.
00:47:07
Speaker
to grass initially. Is there anywhere else we use this framework? Like the Stoics are going to appeal to games. And that's something Epictetus does explicitly is it'll appeal like, you know, when you're playing basketball,
00:47:24
Speaker
there's nothing really good about a ball going into a net, but there is this story we tell ourselves. i don't know it's a story. it It's kind of a material, it's ah it's an opportunity for us to exercise our skill.
00:47:39
Speaker
But even that, the metaphor doesn't really land now that I think about it, right? um Even Epictetus' example is flawed because on the Stoic example, no, there is actually something good about the ball going to the net. There is something...
00:47:52
Speaker
I want to be careful with my language here. Maybe not good. There is something preferable about health.
00:47:58
Speaker
I'm not sure there's something preferable about the ball going into a net. Is there any example where we kind of have this two-layer value system anywhere else?
00:48:12
Speaker
ah Well, I think game yeah games, as you say, are useful. In a sense, the stoic answer is not that helpful as well. Everywhere else you have this two-layer value system.
00:48:27
Speaker
And perhaps another way of coming at it is
00:48:33
Speaker
to oppose it to the view of a craft where you're just trying to pursue the outcome. so if you just have a view about say physicians you know the purpose of a physician is to promote health and if you're not promoting health you're not a good physician the stoics might say first that's not how you should think about the craft of being a physician but if we're using simple analogies you should think more of virtue as and i think this is this is an example that cato
00:49:10
Speaker
Cicero has Cato use here, which is you think should think of virtue as ah dancing or acting, where the performance itself is what's valuable, not the production of some outcome.
00:49:31
Speaker
And perhaps when you see crafts like that and think about, oh, that's what's important is the performance itself, then maybe also you can change how you think about what it is to be a physician. you know To be a physician is to be skilled, do what typically promotes health, but do you you know do your best ah given what's up again what's under your control.
00:49:56
Speaker
that that might not be what ends up always in fact producing more health, doing what's good for people. So I think that's ah that's not a direct answer to your question perhaps. and Maybe that's so ah wait a way to get into it is thinking about the first idea that virtue, that's intrinsically valuable sort of in the same way that acting, dancing, and then the performance itself.
00:50:20
Speaker
um And then, okay, if that's if that's what you're trying to do, going thinking about, okay, well, what makes some performance good or not? And that's where this picture and that's where indifference comes into play. You know, they're the the thing that makes some choices better than others is that, you know, you're properly managing indifference, properly managing your oppressions and such.
00:50:42
Speaker
Yeah, but they have to, and that's the getaway from the Aristo point, is they have to make have to make things better than others. Some decisions have to be better than others because the material
Decision-Making and Indifference
00:50:52
Speaker
matters.
00:50:52
Speaker
You can make a wrong decision. two Just to be a silly example, but you know to cut off your finger... when you're sitting around and treat that as the same as scratching your chin is ah is the wrong decision.
00:51:09
Speaker
The Stoic would say you've you've messed up and you've messed up on the grounds of of indifference, but you've taken you've taken one of the worst indifferent things you can do, which is like destroy your bodily constitution in the Stoics view for no reason.
00:51:26
Speaker
Whereas to get your finger cut off because somebody's threatening you, you know the Epictetus example, you know demanding you vote ah the right way in in the Senate, and you say, well, I don't care. You have to cut off my pinky.
00:51:40
Speaker
i don't care. That's a very good thing to do because now you've you've given up that indifferent for a good reason. But the the stoic view has to be that the pinky matters. It's just...
00:51:52
Speaker
not It doesn't matter in the same way as virtue and vice. and i just um Because if it doesn't matter, you end up at the Aristo position. And Cicero is very clear, as you said, that it's like,
00:52:05
Speaker
how can you In Cicero's view, Aristo has no way to differentiate between scratching your chin and cutting off your pinky because the difference in those decisions is that you you've actually screwed up some sort of benefit calculus or indifferent calculus or indifferent math, right?
00:52:20
Speaker
Do you get what I'm saying there? Yeah, I think so. There's a discussion in this book on suicide and Cicero makes a point that – um Even virtue itself can tell you to end your life because sometimes it might be better to end your life for the sake of others or merely because you know the rest you're certain that the rest of your life is going to be full of dispreferred indifference would be the clunky stoic phrase, I suppose, but full of pain.
00:53:02
Speaker
uh, what have you. So I think that's, yeah, go ahead. Well, I was going to like, cause you said as a clunky phrase, I do think when you get down to the Greek, the, the better translation is something like don't make a differences, ah not, not indifferences.
00:53:22
Speaker
And when I think of that in terms of like, it doesn't make a difference for being happy or unhappy, it it it almost like It almost like reduces the scope of indifference.
00:53:33
Speaker
It's not indifference entirely. It's that they don't make a difference. if you're like If you're like, hey, is, um you know, ah If I say, well, I have my friend, John, childhood friend, he's got a lot of money.
00:53:50
Speaker
he's got a bunch of cars. Uh, do you think he's a happy guy? The Stoics have to say, well, you've told me a bunch of don't make a difference facts about him. Give me some of the make a difference facts, which is like, is he a courageous guy? Is he just guys? He, uh, um, a wise guy.
00:54:05
Speaker
oh That sounds not good, but does he have wisdom? um And that that almost helps me understand indifference a bit more. it' it's like it's it's not Again, it's not that they're devoid of value in one sense.
00:54:20
Speaker
It's that they don't make a difference. And then, again, when you say, well, there's the only good is virtue, again, the good thing in the Stoics view is the thing that is always beneficial. the thing that is always desirable and always selectable.
00:54:33
Speaker
And so the Stoics, again, are reducing the scope of what good means. And they're not meaning these things are not better to have. They're meaning the the good thing is the thing that is always desirable, always beneficial.
00:54:47
Speaker
um i don't know if that was helpful. i'm trying to make I'm trying to make sense of it. I thought I had it. And the more we talk about it, the more indifference stressed me out. Yeah.
00:54:57
Speaker
All right. Well, I'll need to wrap up and perhaps you do as well. going a bit over, but um some places I wanted to, to end is there just some nice lines on from Cicero here.
Mindset, Emotions, and Virtue's Supremacy
00:55:10
Speaker
There's a statement of the stoic view of ah emotions. Yeah. The mere fact that men endure the same pain more easily when they voluntarily undergo it for the sake of their country than when they suffer it for some lesser cause shows that the intensity of the pain depends on the state of mind of the sufferer, not on its intrinsic nature.
00:55:33
Speaker
That's a great example and well-stated view of the Stoic view of emotions. you know How you think determines how you feel. And then there's some nice lines on virtue. um
00:55:48
Speaker
The light of a lamp is eclipsed and overpowered by the rays of the sun. A drop of honey is lost in the vastness of the Aegean Sea. An additional sixpence is nothing amid the wealth of croesus or a single step in the journey from here to India.
00:56:03
Speaker
Similarly, if the stoic definition of the end of goods be accepted, it follows that all the value you set on bodily advantages must be absolutely eclipsed and annihilated by the brilliance and of virtue.
00:56:20
Speaker
That's a great line. Yeah. Cool. Anything else? No, I love that. Summary. Eclipsed.
00:56:30
Speaker
I mean, it again, and it makes me wonder how much of this stuff is like pedantic. Pedantic is the, but... you know When something's eclipsed, it still exists.
00:56:42
Speaker
There's still some microscopic value. The stoic point might be that there's just no kind of behavior directing value. There's no... um these indifference don't have a value that would ever cause you to choose them over virtue. And in such case, and so when we're arguing about like the only good, or this is a different kind of, um at the end of the day, the point is just that you should always choose virtue over these indifference.
00:57:10
Speaker
um And you you you you exercise virtue by selecting the indifference well, but you always choose virtue over the indifference. And that's that's ultimately, practically the implication that matters.
00:57:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. i think it's I think these lines might be motivational if you're thinking about a specific indifferent perhaps here and it's bodily advantage. you know That's eclipsed by virtue. But of course, you know what is virtue? It's being able to choose between skillfully between indifference. Yeah.
00:57:41
Speaker
you always have that almost that, that paradox that we, that, that, you know, I initially thought made no sense, which is, you know, that focus on virtue is the only good, but also of course the idea that other things matter.
00:57:55
Speaker
um
00:57:58
Speaker
And, you know, I think it's explained well and this classic work. It's a, it's a great statement of stoicism, but of course there's still some, some more wrestling what needs to do with the ideas.
00:58:14
Speaker
Awesome. Thanks, Gil. Awesome. Cool. Thanks, Michael.