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Forgive Your Enemies with Epictetus (Episode 181)
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In this episode, Michael Tremblay explores Epictetus' radical approach to anger and forgiveness. Discover why the Stoics believed we should pity rather than punish those who harm us, and how this ancient wisdom offers a practical path to emotional freedom in your daily life. Through Epictetus' teachings, learn the liberating power of seeing wrongdoers as victims of their own confusion.
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Transcript
Introduction to Epictetus' Teachings
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi everyone, welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Michael Tremblay and this is another solo episode where I will deep dive into a chapter of Epictetus, break down what he has to say, and why I think it's a chapter really worth talking about.
00:00:20
Speaker
So thanks for joining me.
How to Handle Anger Towards Others
00:00:22
Speaker
Today's episode will talk about Discourses Book 1, Chapter 18. This is titled, That We Should Not Be Angry With Those That Fall Into Error.
00:00:32
Speaker
I wanted to talk about this chapter in particular, go through the argument bit by bit, because Epictetus, he's really known for being this gruff, antagonistic philosopher, and he really is that way with his students. He really holds his students up to a high level.
00:00:47
Speaker
But in this chapter, we see Epictetus being really empathetic, really forgiving, think showing um some of the best qualities of Stoicism in terms of being nonjudgmental of others and not angry with others.
00:01:02
Speaker
And he advocates his students to be that way. So you get this picture of Epictetus as somebody who holds his students to a high standard, but also wants his students to not be the kind of people that are really frustrated by by non-Stoics or even by the selfish, rude, ungrateful people in their own lives, which is...
00:01:21
Speaker
Part of stoicism, understanding how to react to and respond to and know the the bad people that we will necessarily come across or have in our family or people that used to be our friends but lost our trust.
00:01:36
Speaker
How do we respond to those people? Should we be angry with them? How do we think about what those people deserve if they deserve to be punished?
00:01:46
Speaker
And I think to get the most out of this episode... Maybe as as we're going through it, consider Epictetus' advice in relation to somebody in your own life, somebody who's... who's you know lost your trust or done something that's treated you poorly or upset you or or acted acted in a, you know, and just in in a poor in a poor manner.
00:02:09
Speaker
And think about, you have that picture in mind, you'll have some content to put Epictetus' arguments against. So I'll jump into it. So in Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 18, Epictetus makes a radical claim.
Epictetus' Seven-Step Argument Against Anger
00:02:25
Speaker
He says that we shouldn't be angry with those that harm us. And so what's the argument behind this? I try to break it down into I think there's seven steps he makes and then I'll go through the text and show where he makes those steps and what he has to say himself.
00:02:40
Speaker
But I think those steps go something like this. One, people always do what they think is right. So people behave subjectively. People are always pursuing their subjective conception of the good, pursuing what they think is the best thing to do in the moment.
00:02:56
Speaker
The second argument Epictetus makes, the second claim, is that if someone is a bad person, this is a bad thing. So even though people live subjectively, there is an objective criteria for a good or a bad life. Some people have better lives than others.
00:03:10
Speaker
And to be a bad person is to have a bad life. This is a fundamental stoic idea. The third argument is that if someone thinks being a bad person is the right way to live, they are objectively mistaken.
00:03:25
Speaker
So there are bad lives and being a bad person is a bad life. So if somebody is making the subjective claim or if someone subjectively is thinking, well, I'm going to be...
00:03:38
Speaker
I'm going to steal or I'm going to lie or I'm going to cheat or I'm going to crush the people that I have power over or I'm going to not pay somebody back.
00:03:50
Speaker
If people have poor character and they think that's the that's a good life, they're objectively mistaken. They're getting that wrong. The fourth argument is that ah to be mistaken is a bad thing. It is to be harmed.
00:04:02
Speaker
They're harming themselves by living a life that is not good for them.
00:04:07
Speaker
Fifth, we should pity confused people that harm themselves. and Nobody wants to live a bad life. So if somebody is mistakenly picking a bad life, they're confused and they're harming themselves. And we should pity people that are confused and harming themselves.
00:04:23
Speaker
Sixth, that was the point I made earlier. Bad people harm themselves out of ignorance. And seven, therefore we should pity bad people. That's the the kind of the final of the argument. People, so one more time from this from the start, people always do what they think is right.
00:04:37
Speaker
If someone is a bad person, this is a bad thing. If someone thinks being a bad person is the right way to live, they're objectively mistaken and confused. To be mistaken is a bad thing. It's to be harmed.
00:04:49
Speaker
We should pity confused people that harm themselves. Bad people harm themselves out of ignorance. Therefore, we should pity bad people. And that's the argument is that we shouldn't be angry with bad people. We should pity them. We shouldn't be angry at the person who harmed us or cheated on us or broke our promise, broke their promises, stole or lied.
00:05:09
Speaker
We should pity them because they are confused and they're ruining their own lives, basically. That might be dramatic. I wouldn't say ma maybe not everybody's ruining it, but they're they're making a mistake.
00:05:22
Speaker
And that mistake is its own punishment, is Epictetus' point. So I'll go into his lines one by one and show where where this argument comes from. So to start off the chapter, Epictetus is talking about, with his students, talking about this example, you know how should you treat people that have wronged you? Should you be angry with them?
00:05:42
Speaker
And Epictetus responds, kind of matter-of-factly, quote, They have gone astray in matters of good and evil. Ought we then to be angry with them or to pity them?
00:05:53
Speaker
Do but show them their error, and you will see how they amend their faults. But if they do not see it, they have nothing higher than their personal opinion to rely on. So, Epictetus, I think in this passage we get those first three points of his argument.
00:06:10
Speaker
People do what they think is right. Some people get this wrong. And if we can show them they're wrong, they'll act differently. But until we show them the wrong, everyone's going to rely on their opinion.
00:06:22
Speaker
And so they're they're confused, but they're not going to realize they're confused unless we can show that to them.
00:06:31
Speaker
He continues, goes on further, and some of the students say, well, we we need to punish robbers and thieves. They should be put to death. People deserve punishment for what they've done. Then maybe they're confused, but doesn't change the fact. This is kind of a common counterargument.
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, sure, everybody thinks they're acting in their best interest all the time. It doesn't stop the fact that we should punish people. bad people. We should be angry with bad people. We should give them what they deserve.
00:07:02
Speaker
And so the students say, and we should put robbers and thieves to death. We should kill them. And Epictetus responds, what you're saying comes to the same as saying, ought not this blind or that deaf man be put to death?
00:07:16
Speaker
For if the greatest harm a man can suffer is to be deprived of the most valuable things, and the most valuable thing in each man is a right moral choice, when anyone is deprived just this thing, how can one still be angry with him?
00:07:33
Speaker
And so Epictetus points out, look, when we think of somebody that harms us, we're angry with them and we think they deserve punishment.
Shifting Focus from Anger to Understanding
00:07:42
Speaker
Often we're being kind of self-centered. We're kind of thinking about ourselves and we're kind of going, well, poor us.
00:07:48
Speaker
We need to get back at them for what they did to us. And Epictetus is he's shifting the perspective. he's like, think about them. They're like, and you know, this is a dated metaphor, but certainly in in in ancient Rome, you didn't want to be blind. You didn't want to be deaf.
00:08:04
Speaker
These were dangerous things. these were These were difficult conditions to have back in that time. you know, I'm not saying being a thief or the robber is the same as being blind or deaf.
00:08:16
Speaker
But the point is that, you know, that's ah that was a bad thing to be. um In ancient Rome, it was a harmful thing to be. And Epictetus is saying if if we look at somebody who's confused about how to live well, we want to punish them.
00:08:29
Speaker
It's the same as as taking somebody who's blind and saying, well, we should punish them for being blind. It it seems unintuitive because we think, well, why would why would we punish them for something bad that's happened to them?
00:08:41
Speaker
Why would we punish them for something that they're suffering through? They're suffering through their blindness. They're suffering through being deaf, through having these having these challenges and these disabilities.
00:08:52
Speaker
um And so Epictetus says, well, we don't think about being angry with those people. and We don't think about putting them to death. That that seems a bit ridiculous. And he's applying the same thing to the people that are morally confused.
00:09:05
Speaker
People that are morally confused in this case are kind of already punished. um They're already victims. They've already lost something of value.
00:09:15
Speaker
And if you shift the view onto them, then you actually, think you end up in that state, Epictetus talked about, you end up in that state of kind of pity. Saying, oh, I wish I could help them.
00:09:27
Speaker
Or if I can't help them, i just it's it's too bad they have to be the way they are. And that's really Epictetus' stoic position here is we want to get to that point of pitying bad people because they harm themselves out of ignorance.
00:09:43
Speaker
Now, I asked at the start of this episode to consider this in relation to somebody that you were angry with or had harmed you or maybe somebody you wanted to forgive. And this is not what Epictetus is proposing is not the same thing as blindly forgiving somebody.
00:10:00
Speaker
i think that's something that could be encouraged for if people say, let it go. Epictetus is not asking you to let it go because he's not saying, oh, you weren't, um you know, what this person did wasn't a bad thing. This person is a good person or this person is a normal person. that He's not asking you to reconceptualize any of these things. He's just saying when somebody is a bad person, unless you participate in that, unless you let that affect you,
00:10:32
Speaker
really the only person getting harmed is them, right? they're They're harming themselves. They're living a bad life. And that doesn't mean we we need to be around these people. That doesn't mean we need to practically let them back into our lives or act like nothing happened. But um it's a lot easier to be less angry from a position of pity, from a position of I feel sorry for you because you're confused. And because you're confused, you're living in a bad way.
00:11:00
Speaker
And I myself personally find that quite an effective effective way to deal with people that I'm angry with in my own life is know they they acted in the way that seemed best to them. And and and it's not it's not this, oh, you know everybody's different. There's no right and wrong. It's like, no, they acted in a wrong way.
00:11:18
Speaker
It was wrong what they did. um But they have to live with being themselves, right? They have to live with being confused and being the kind of person that thought that was the right thing to do. And Epictetus' point is that's so that's ah that's a sad thing.
00:11:31
Speaker
That's a pitiful thing. And it's it's kind of a mindset shift from thinking of yourself as a victim, thinking of yourself, ah focusing on the harm you've received, to focusing on really...
00:11:45
Speaker
you know, the the the harm they already received by just being confused.
The Value of Moral Character Over Material Wealth
00:11:52
Speaker
I'll do some other passages where he brings up some other interesting points, and I think two further examples that can help cement this idea of empathy.
00:12:01
Speaker
The first point and he makes is that most people lie, cheat, steal, act poorly because they covet something, because they want something.
00:12:13
Speaker
um And they want things the same way we want things. And they make the same mistakes as us, and so we should be empathetic. Epictetus gives this example. He says, quote, Now I had an iron lamp burning before my household goods, and hearing a noise at the window the other day, I ran downstairs to find that my lamp had been stolen.
00:12:36
Speaker
I thought to myself that the man who took it had been moved by a perfectly intelligible feeling. What of it? And Epictetus' point here is that, look, Epictetus liked the lamp.
00:12:46
Speaker
He's like, this is a cool lamp. I want this cool lamp. And so he bought it for himself and he hung it up. And somebody walking down the street thought, that is a cool lamp. I want that lamp.
00:12:58
Speaker
And so um but there's nothing really... dastardly about this. There's nothing really evil about this. This person was just, um they they they wanted something the same way we want things, and then they were a bit confused about the best way to go about it, and they thought that stealing was okay.
00:13:18
Speaker
That's wrong. um But there's i guess the idea here is there's not some sort of great injustice that has occurred here. I think that's Epictetus' place, kind of downplaying how dramatic the situation is.
00:13:33
Speaker
Somebody was walking down the street. They wanted Epictetus' lamp the same way Epictetus thought it was a cool lamp. And that's something Epictetus actually says ah later in the same chapter. He says, you know, even myself, I'm just upset because I like the lamp. I'm just upset because I also kind of covet and desire this external thing.
00:13:52
Speaker
And so now I'm judging this person for desiring something external to them. But I'm only upset because I wanted something external to them. I wanted that external to me. I wanted that cool lamp as well. Obviously there's difference because one of them's a thief, but Epictetus' point is is that yeah people the person is just responding to an impression the same way you do.
00:14:11
Speaker
They just have a worse character, so they're going about it in a worse way. you know and and And I think another point there is that there's only a harm to Epictetus insofar as he wants possessions.
00:14:24
Speaker
He's only been harmed, only his possessions have been harmed, and that's only a harm to him insofar as he um wants external things, which are obviously not up to his control. So Epictetus' argument so far is something along the lines of,
00:14:40
Speaker
we look at liars, cheaters, robbers, these kind of traditionally considered bad people in society, we shouldn't be angry with them, we shouldn't harm them, we should pity them.
00:14:52
Speaker
Same thing if they're in your own life, if they come and they steal your lamp or you meet somebody, maybe you strike up a friendship or business deal and they end up being a bad person.
00:15:04
Speaker
we should pity these people because they're confused and they harm themselves. And wanting to hurt them or wanting to get back at them for being bad people, it's the same as looking at somebody who's lost something else, lost their eyesight, lost their hearing, and saying, well, we should punish them more for that. Epictetus is kind of like, well, they already have their just desserts.
00:15:27
Speaker
They already kind of had the bad thing happen to them, which is living a bad life.
00:15:33
Speaker
Now, that's that's Epictetus in Discourses 1.18.
00:15:38
Speaker
But then there's this part from Epictetus Fragment 13, which I think picks up the same theme. And it's in response to a slightly different argument. Because you might respond to what I've been saying so far, and you might say, look, Epictetus, this is all fine and good when we're talking about robbers and thieves and people that aren't successful or kind of considered the already punished by society in some way, already kind of on the outskirts of society.
00:16:04
Speaker
But what about the people who are bad people who seem to be rewarded for their badness? What about the politician that becomes successful because they lie? The business person, the you know the terrible boss that cheats their way to to a lot of money?
00:16:19
Speaker
What about the bully in high school? that gets older and you look them up on Facebook and they seem to be having a great life. They seem to be having a good job and be successful.
00:16:31
Speaker
there's this There's this tendency to think, well, doesn't that just point to like ah ah something unjust about the universe? Isn't there something even unprovidential to use a stoic term? Like clearly this is not a rational universe where the good people are rewarded and the bad people are punished.
00:16:47
Speaker
um because I see bad people all around me who seem to be rewarded for their badness. They seem to be be successful because they're liars and cheaters and bad people. They're both people in the broader world and then some examples from your individual life as well.
00:17:03
Speaker
So how is Epictetus going to respond to this? Well, he has this really interesting response in fragment 13. He says, quote, The man who blames providence because the wicked are not punished but are strong and rich is doing much the same as if when they had lost their eyes, he said they had not been punished because their nails were sound.
00:17:25
Speaker
I, for my part, say there is much more difference between virtue and property than there is between eyes and nails. So Epictetus, again, coming back to the blind theme, but his point is that you know this person has lost the most valuable thing, their virtue, their character.
00:17:50
Speaker
They've received the worst thing. If you're a Stoic, you believe the worst thing has happened to them that can possibly happen to them, which is they've become a bad bad person. So that's the equivalent of them losing their eye.
00:18:03
Speaker
And now, Epictetus is saying, when you complain that they have a nice job or they have money or they have a good reputation, that's like you looking at the person who's who lost an eye and saying, well, um you know their nails are still looking nice.
00:18:19
Speaker
and His point is, that's absurd. It's silly. like It's a joke he's making. um His point is that it's it's not cosmic injustice. It's not an argument against providence if someone is a bad person but externally successful.
00:18:36
Speaker
If you're Stoic, you believe that character is more important than external success. It's more important to have a good character than power and money. So if someone is a bad person but has power money, then they've already been punished.
00:18:51
Speaker
And if you don't think that's punishment, Epictetus is going to push that back on you and say, well, maybe you've not really internalized stoicism. Maybe you're really thinking about stoicism and say, well, if I become a good person, I'll become externally successful.
00:19:04
Speaker
Epictetus is going to say stoicism is about I'm happy with my life even if I'm not externally successful as long as I'm a good person and I feel bad. i pity the people who are bad people but have external success and I'm not jealous of them and I don't think the universe has rewarded them. I genuinely think the universe has punished them with a bad life.
00:19:29
Speaker
That is the stoic position and so I think that's something... Epictetus puts back on us think, if I'm mad at somebody,
00:19:42
Speaker
even though you know I know they're a liar I know they're they're not trustworthy or I know they're a bad person, but I'm angry with them because they have a nice house or they now they're successful in their career. That makes you think about a little bit about how you place the value of character versus externals.
00:20:01
Speaker
And I'd really recommend, it's it's it's something that I consider as well. I think I fall into the exact trap, Epitidas. It's calling out here and I need to work on, you know, it's it's one thing to apply it to yourself and to say, well, you know, it's it's fine if I don't have external things as long as I'm a good person, but apply that to other people too and feel bad for the successful people who are bad people.
Internalizing Stoic Values
00:20:24
Speaker
So this was Epictetus's argument why you shouldn't be angry at people. that harm you, while you shouldn't be angry at those that fall into error. And I really like it, as I said earlier, because it's it's not about, it's not about, I would say, not recognizing what happened.
00:20:46
Speaker
It's not about lying what happened about what happened. It's not about forgiving quicker than you're ready for because, oh well, you know what happened to you doesn't matter.
00:21:00
Speaker
It's about saying, in a really common-sensical way, people are gonna do what they think is the best way to live. There are better and worse ways to live. It's good to be a good person and bad to be a bad person.
00:21:14
Speaker
But if someone is confused, if someone's mistaken, something's happened in their life that's given them the wrong conception of how to live, then they're gonna act as a bad person. And they're they're going to live an objectively bad life because of that, at least according to the Stoics. Even if they become successful, they're going to live a bad life.
00:21:33
Speaker
And so anybody who harms you already receives, you know harms you undeservedly, harms you um because they're a bad person, they're already receiving their punishment. Right?
00:21:46
Speaker
And we we when we've internalized Stoicism, not just for ourselves but for others, we can pity those people. We don't see them as these major obstacles to be overcome. We don't see them as these indicators of an unjust universe. How could this happen to me?
00:22:07
Speaker
Well, it happened to you because it's a very simple thing. Somebody got mistaken about, you know, they cheated on you because they thought it was ah better for them to be with another person than to be with you.
00:22:19
Speaker
They stole from you because they thought it was better to take your your possessions than to not because they they value those possessions. They lied to you because they prioritized their um career or their reputation over their honesty.
00:22:34
Speaker
It's not confusing about why they did it. They did it because they're they're confused. Because like anybody else, they act on what they think of the good life is and they've got it twisted.
00:22:46
Speaker
And so that is its own punishment. They have to live with that. And we should really work on pitying these people instead of being angry with them. um I'll return to one last quote from Epictetus.
00:23:00
Speaker
mentioned it earlier, but this is the one that I think encapsulates the idea of the clearest. This is Discourses 1, Chapter 18, Parts 7 through 9. So when Epictetus' students say that robbers and thieves should be put to death, Epictetus responds, quote, "'What you're saying comes to the same as saying, "'Ought not this blind or that deaf man be put to death?'' For if the greatest harm a man can suffer is to be deprived of the most valuable things, and the most valuable thing in each man is a right moral choice, a good character, when anyone is deprived just this thing, how can one still be angry with him?
00:23:41
Speaker
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00:24:02
Speaker
And I'd also like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. You can find more of his work at ancientliar.com. And finally, please get in touch with us.
00:24:14
Speaker
Send a message to stoa at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback, questions, or recommendations. Until next time.