I find it more grounded and bottom up than stoicism.
Reading about Epictetus leg break story (where he didn't stop his master from breaking his leg, but calmly explained it?!) kind of makes me wonder if stoicism would be called a slave philosophy by Nietzsche.
Here's some good comparisons of the two philosophies.
Rob, thank you for the great comments/questions/challenges (here and previously).
I'll try to be concise, but you raise probing questions that require and merit a thoughtful response, so it will take me a bit of space.
In regard to Stoicism and Epicureanism:
In the ancient world, they were largely considered competing schools of philosophy, though it was a respectful competition and Stoics sometimes borrowed ideas from Epicureans.
As I see it, while their outward lives might have actually resembled one another to a considerable extent, they differed on two fundamental issues. On both issues, I tend toward the Stoic position.
The first was on the nature of Nature (ie, they had different physics). The Epicureans were more strict materialists in our modern way of thinking of that. They were atomists. Hence, they saw Nature as essentially amoral.
The Stoics saw Nature as well ordered and a source of moral wisdom. The Stoic philosopher (and Roman Emperor) Marcus Aurelius (he's the 'good' emperor who dies early in the film Gladiator) succinctly put the matter in his oft repeated disjunction: providence or atoms. As elaborated in today's essay, the Stoics held that Nature served as a normative guide and we should 'live according to nature.'
The second fundamental disagreement was on the issue of ethics. With their 'thinner' conception of Nature, the Epicureans essentially equated good with pleasure and evil with pain (repeated by their modern heirs, the Utilitarians). They could still say something like 'live according to nature', but they did not mean Nature was a substantive well-ordered whole, but that we should do what comes naturally in seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.
The Stoics would be their strict logical selves and insist that pain does not equal evil. Pain equals pain. The only evil is to become evil. We may well prefer pleasure to pain, but pain is not a moral quality, it is a physical quality.
Hence the Stoics had a stricter moral logic from which placed pain within its proper, non-moral, sphere and as secondary to maintaining a good will (if you have to choose, choose doing right over choosing to avoid pain--if you can, do right and avoid pain, but when push comes to shove, be/do good).
Regarding whether the Stoics would fit into Nietzsche's characterization of 'slave morality':
That's hard, but I think Nietzsche misunderstood some things.
His basic contrast here is master morality vs. slave morality. On his view, these two ways of formulating systems of moral values are expressions of an elite's will-to-power: the first that of a noble warrior aristocracy and the second that of crafty, resentful priestly aristocracy. The warrior/master affirms itself by promulgating a moral system in which these equivalences hold: good=aristocratic=beautiful=loved by the gods. It is a joyous affirmation of one's power. Priestly aristocracies seek to gain power by turning the values of the warriors on their heads. A very good example of this is Jesus in the beatitudes (blessed are the peacemakers, the poor in spirit, and the meek shall inherit the earth, etc...). Nietzsche just hates that stuff and detects it stemming from the resentment of the weak. His main target is Christianity, but he includes Plato and to some extent other Greek philosophers in that. He accuses them of setting some world other than this world as the judge of this world (Christian heaven, Plato's forms, and possibly Stoic Nature) to undercut this world.
Two points:
I don't think the Stoics are really doing this. Plato and Christianity might be. I'm still going to hang with Plato and Jesus over Nietzsche (though I value him as well).
More importantly, I think Nietzsche is missing what is really going on in the moral revolutions he wants to critique. I see Jesus, the followers of Socrates, Confucious, and the Buddha all making the same essential move. They point out (to keep in Nietzsche's frame of reference) that while the warriors are the victors in external battles, that does not actually equate to them being good. Nobility does not equal power. All of them sought to internalize the struggle as a moral struggle such that the truly noble were the good and this class may or may not match up with those who were aristocrats. Confucius taught that all could be 'gentlemen'. Jesus taught that all could be holy. Etc....
This does not invalidate Nietzsche's critique. The question is: does this interiorizing of struggle into moral struggle represent an expression of resentment at the powerful or is it in fact a harder, more heroic, and more genuinely laudatory struggle. That it could actually be MORE heroic is what I think Nietzsche misses. The life of the philosophical martyr (Socrates, Seneca) is in no sense easier than that of a warrior (at least Socrates and Aurelius did well in that exterior struggle as well). The Christian martyrs were not just seeking to upset worldly hierarchies (though they did). They were also seeking a path of moral and spiritual development that they were willing to suffer to follow.
At least, that is what I think. I could be wrong about any of it, but am (like we all are) seeking good paths to best of my ability and as relates to the Stoics, Epicureans, and Nietzsche, that's what is looking true and valuable to me.
Other perspectives are certainly welcome and encouraged though. To a large extent 'we are in this together' and we work these things out better in dialogue with one another.
Your points are helpful in understanding the differences.
I just have a huge problem with the story of Epictetus leg being wrenched by his master. If I were in pain and didn't want my leg broken, I would have run or fought back. Epictetus somehow just kept logically trying to warn the master... And his leg was broken!
There's something good to stoicism, especially when there's nothing one can do about taxes, a stubborn boss, etc.
But when it comes to direct physical harm, the number one priority is listening to the pain of the body, I would think and act on it in order to prevent damage.
That was why I thought it was a slave like action.
In fact, in the movie 12 years a slave, the most destructive slaves were the ones who sucked it up and worked very hard, putting the rest in a bad light.
Rob, first, thank you for staying engaged. I start to see your point better.
Perhaps I recounted the story poorly, or misrepresented the point. It's a 'story passed down'. That is, it's not a newspaper account (though, I suppose, we realize those aren't actually factual as well), but a teaching story in which the actions of the one we (that is, later Stoics, looking back at Epictetus) look to as an exemplar is recounted. There might be problems with that, but I think we're just meant to assume that as a slave, he is at the mercy (or lack there of) of his master. Maybe the more documented and first-person account of Admiral Stockdale (prisoner of war) works better. In the story of Epictetus though, I think the message is definitely not one of the submissive, cowering slave. I think what we're supposed to take from the story is that though Epictetus is a slave and to a considerable degree at the physical mercy of his master, he retains control of himself. That though his master exercises a very considerable degree of control over his exterior existence, he manages to retain control over his interior existence. That is, his master can in principle control what happens TO him , but not WHO he is. It is an extreme position that Epictetus finds himself in, and hopefully we will not find ourselves in a similar position, but despite lack of power to control his external fate, Epictetus at least retains control of his internal fate. The 'powers that should never be' can do a lot to him. But he maintains the awareness that those external actions do not define him as a good or bad person: that is matter of his will which he retains control of.
If our 'goodness' is a matter subject to the control of others, then at least potentially, we are all at sever risk. If we learn to recognize that WHO we are is up to us, we retain a great reservoir of power. Essentially, he is asserting his human moral freedom in the face of overawing physical power. He is not internalizing his status of slave; he is moving to an internal point of freedom from which he resists that, even if physically he can't do much to alter his condition. That's what I think the story is about anyway.
Both of your points are well taken. Yes, its a teaching story that must be understood within the context of Stoic philosophy, which would assume doing the best with what one is given. The decision of external action is up to the individual in weighing the circumstances he finds himself in, but the decision to remain faithful to one's principles and to inner freedom and virtue is independent of outward circumstance.
I am very appreciative of this discussion. Thank you for laying these things out in such a clear, well-thought-through and understandable fashion. In many ways, this comment is more clarifying and helpful to me than the essay itself, and I have to say that I agree with where you put your "faith", W.D., with what you see as important and heroic.
I have always been a "dabbler" in philosophy... only reading a little here and there and never getting the bird's eye view- you help fill in the gaps :)
I am embarrassed to say I had not really engaged with the idea of "natural law" until I caught a Mark Passio video last year. I got hooked by the simple common sense therein and wondered how we'd (as a species) gotten so far away from such sturdy foundations.
The main problem I see for folks calling for a natural law Renaissance is that the technocrats think they are following natural law. They believe they are aiming toward the fulfillment of the blueprint. Many people assume that industry and forever "upgraded" technology IS "natural".
I hope I'm not going too far into the weeds. But I have heard a handful of people make this argument to defend our frenzied technological striving.
Perhaps more simply expressed; It is easy for us to see what an acorn will be. Each tree is unique yet the blueprint is basically the same for all acorns. When we take a human embryo the blueprint is harder to decipher. For the technocrats, the cultivation of industry and technology toward the pursuit of immortality is a "naturally human" pursuit.
While I do not share this view, I think for many years I made myself feel better about all the destruction around me through the unexamined assumption that humans move toward "progress" which meant ever expanding industry and technology. If war and destruction followed, it was because "progress" is a messy business.
Now (after my 2020 wake up call) I see industry (the kind in which "the ends justify the means") and transhumanism as a major departure from "the blueprint".
Yet I'm still left with the question of what is contained in the acorn seed called human? How much "innovation" and "progress" is inherent/natural? At what point does it become "unnatural"?
To be too stoic would destroy the thrill of discovery, which does seem to be within the blueprint of the human embryo (as anyone with kids can see).
I suppose this is where the necessity of cultivating wisdom comes in... and clearly our wells of wisdom are largely running dry (at least in the buzzing confusion of our "culture").
Yeah, I think we would do well to try to recapture some conception of natural law.
I also agree that is doubly difficult in that it is harder to figure it out for humans than 'simpler' species and because even using that framework would go against the interests and projects of some of the advocates of 'progress.'
I don't want to give too much away yet, but in the next series of essays we'll be looking at 'natural order' which connects to and overlaps somewhat with 'natural law', so there is more on the way if this subject interests you. We'll do a pretty deep dive on one classical thinker and one contemporary thinker (who is dealing with those issues in our world that make this a difficult endeavor).
Can you go into Epicureanism?
I find it more grounded and bottom up than stoicism.
Reading about Epictetus leg break story (where he didn't stop his master from breaking his leg, but calmly explained it?!) kind of makes me wonder if stoicism would be called a slave philosophy by Nietzsche.
Here's some good comparisons of the two philosophies.
https://dailystoic.com/stoicism-vs-epicureanism/
https://dailystoic.com/epicureanism-stoicism/
Rob, thank you for the great comments/questions/challenges (here and previously).
I'll try to be concise, but you raise probing questions that require and merit a thoughtful response, so it will take me a bit of space.
In regard to Stoicism and Epicureanism:
In the ancient world, they were largely considered competing schools of philosophy, though it was a respectful competition and Stoics sometimes borrowed ideas from Epicureans.
As I see it, while their outward lives might have actually resembled one another to a considerable extent, they differed on two fundamental issues. On both issues, I tend toward the Stoic position.
The first was on the nature of Nature (ie, they had different physics). The Epicureans were more strict materialists in our modern way of thinking of that. They were atomists. Hence, they saw Nature as essentially amoral.
The Stoics saw Nature as well ordered and a source of moral wisdom. The Stoic philosopher (and Roman Emperor) Marcus Aurelius (he's the 'good' emperor who dies early in the film Gladiator) succinctly put the matter in his oft repeated disjunction: providence or atoms. As elaborated in today's essay, the Stoics held that Nature served as a normative guide and we should 'live according to nature.'
The second fundamental disagreement was on the issue of ethics. With their 'thinner' conception of Nature, the Epicureans essentially equated good with pleasure and evil with pain (repeated by their modern heirs, the Utilitarians). They could still say something like 'live according to nature', but they did not mean Nature was a substantive well-ordered whole, but that we should do what comes naturally in seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.
The Stoics would be their strict logical selves and insist that pain does not equal evil. Pain equals pain. The only evil is to become evil. We may well prefer pleasure to pain, but pain is not a moral quality, it is a physical quality.
Hence the Stoics had a stricter moral logic from which placed pain within its proper, non-moral, sphere and as secondary to maintaining a good will (if you have to choose, choose doing right over choosing to avoid pain--if you can, do right and avoid pain, but when push comes to shove, be/do good).
Regarding whether the Stoics would fit into Nietzsche's characterization of 'slave morality':
That's hard, but I think Nietzsche misunderstood some things.
His basic contrast here is master morality vs. slave morality. On his view, these two ways of formulating systems of moral values are expressions of an elite's will-to-power: the first that of a noble warrior aristocracy and the second that of crafty, resentful priestly aristocracy. The warrior/master affirms itself by promulgating a moral system in which these equivalences hold: good=aristocratic=beautiful=loved by the gods. It is a joyous affirmation of one's power. Priestly aristocracies seek to gain power by turning the values of the warriors on their heads. A very good example of this is Jesus in the beatitudes (blessed are the peacemakers, the poor in spirit, and the meek shall inherit the earth, etc...). Nietzsche just hates that stuff and detects it stemming from the resentment of the weak. His main target is Christianity, but he includes Plato and to some extent other Greek philosophers in that. He accuses them of setting some world other than this world as the judge of this world (Christian heaven, Plato's forms, and possibly Stoic Nature) to undercut this world.
Two points:
I don't think the Stoics are really doing this. Plato and Christianity might be. I'm still going to hang with Plato and Jesus over Nietzsche (though I value him as well).
More importantly, I think Nietzsche is missing what is really going on in the moral revolutions he wants to critique. I see Jesus, the followers of Socrates, Confucious, and the Buddha all making the same essential move. They point out (to keep in Nietzsche's frame of reference) that while the warriors are the victors in external battles, that does not actually equate to them being good. Nobility does not equal power. All of them sought to internalize the struggle as a moral struggle such that the truly noble were the good and this class may or may not match up with those who were aristocrats. Confucius taught that all could be 'gentlemen'. Jesus taught that all could be holy. Etc....
This does not invalidate Nietzsche's critique. The question is: does this interiorizing of struggle into moral struggle represent an expression of resentment at the powerful or is it in fact a harder, more heroic, and more genuinely laudatory struggle. That it could actually be MORE heroic is what I think Nietzsche misses. The life of the philosophical martyr (Socrates, Seneca) is in no sense easier than that of a warrior (at least Socrates and Aurelius did well in that exterior struggle as well). The Christian martyrs were not just seeking to upset worldly hierarchies (though they did). They were also seeking a path of moral and spiritual development that they were willing to suffer to follow.
At least, that is what I think. I could be wrong about any of it, but am (like we all are) seeking good paths to best of my ability and as relates to the Stoics, Epicureans, and Nietzsche, that's what is looking true and valuable to me.
Other perspectives are certainly welcome and encouraged though. To a large extent 'we are in this together' and we work these things out better in dialogue with one another.
Your points are helpful in understanding the differences.
I just have a huge problem with the story of Epictetus leg being wrenched by his master. If I were in pain and didn't want my leg broken, I would have run or fought back. Epictetus somehow just kept logically trying to warn the master... And his leg was broken!
There's something good to stoicism, especially when there's nothing one can do about taxes, a stubborn boss, etc.
But when it comes to direct physical harm, the number one priority is listening to the pain of the body, I would think and act on it in order to prevent damage.
That was why I thought it was a slave like action.
In fact, in the movie 12 years a slave, the most destructive slaves were the ones who sucked it up and worked very hard, putting the rest in a bad light.
Rob, first, thank you for staying engaged. I start to see your point better.
Perhaps I recounted the story poorly, or misrepresented the point. It's a 'story passed down'. That is, it's not a newspaper account (though, I suppose, we realize those aren't actually factual as well), but a teaching story in which the actions of the one we (that is, later Stoics, looking back at Epictetus) look to as an exemplar is recounted. There might be problems with that, but I think we're just meant to assume that as a slave, he is at the mercy (or lack there of) of his master. Maybe the more documented and first-person account of Admiral Stockdale (prisoner of war) works better. In the story of Epictetus though, I think the message is definitely not one of the submissive, cowering slave. I think what we're supposed to take from the story is that though Epictetus is a slave and to a considerable degree at the physical mercy of his master, he retains control of himself. That though his master exercises a very considerable degree of control over his exterior existence, he manages to retain control over his interior existence. That is, his master can in principle control what happens TO him , but not WHO he is. It is an extreme position that Epictetus finds himself in, and hopefully we will not find ourselves in a similar position, but despite lack of power to control his external fate, Epictetus at least retains control of his internal fate. The 'powers that should never be' can do a lot to him. But he maintains the awareness that those external actions do not define him as a good or bad person: that is matter of his will which he retains control of.
If our 'goodness' is a matter subject to the control of others, then at least potentially, we are all at sever risk. If we learn to recognize that WHO we are is up to us, we retain a great reservoir of power. Essentially, he is asserting his human moral freedom in the face of overawing physical power. He is not internalizing his status of slave; he is moving to an internal point of freedom from which he resists that, even if physically he can't do much to alter his condition. That's what I think the story is about anyway.
Both of your points are well taken. Yes, its a teaching story that must be understood within the context of Stoic philosophy, which would assume doing the best with what one is given. The decision of external action is up to the individual in weighing the circumstances he finds himself in, but the decision to remain faithful to one's principles and to inner freedom and virtue is independent of outward circumstance.
I am very appreciative of this discussion. Thank you for laying these things out in such a clear, well-thought-through and understandable fashion. In many ways, this comment is more clarifying and helpful to me than the essay itself, and I have to say that I agree with where you put your "faith", W.D., with what you see as important and heroic.
Thanks for another great article.
I have always been a "dabbler" in philosophy... only reading a little here and there and never getting the bird's eye view- you help fill in the gaps :)
I am embarrassed to say I had not really engaged with the idea of "natural law" until I caught a Mark Passio video last year. I got hooked by the simple common sense therein and wondered how we'd (as a species) gotten so far away from such sturdy foundations.
The main problem I see for folks calling for a natural law Renaissance is that the technocrats think they are following natural law. They believe they are aiming toward the fulfillment of the blueprint. Many people assume that industry and forever "upgraded" technology IS "natural".
I hope I'm not going too far into the weeds. But I have heard a handful of people make this argument to defend our frenzied technological striving.
Perhaps more simply expressed; It is easy for us to see what an acorn will be. Each tree is unique yet the blueprint is basically the same for all acorns. When we take a human embryo the blueprint is harder to decipher. For the technocrats, the cultivation of industry and technology toward the pursuit of immortality is a "naturally human" pursuit.
While I do not share this view, I think for many years I made myself feel better about all the destruction around me through the unexamined assumption that humans move toward "progress" which meant ever expanding industry and technology. If war and destruction followed, it was because "progress" is a messy business.
Now (after my 2020 wake up call) I see industry (the kind in which "the ends justify the means") and transhumanism as a major departure from "the blueprint".
Yet I'm still left with the question of what is contained in the acorn seed called human? How much "innovation" and "progress" is inherent/natural? At what point does it become "unnatural"?
To be too stoic would destroy the thrill of discovery, which does seem to be within the blueprint of the human embryo (as anyone with kids can see).
I suppose this is where the necessity of cultivating wisdom comes in... and clearly our wells of wisdom are largely running dry (at least in the buzzing confusion of our "culture").
Jennifer, thanks for the great observations!
Yeah, I think we would do well to try to recapture some conception of natural law.
I also agree that is doubly difficult in that it is harder to figure it out for humans than 'simpler' species and because even using that framework would go against the interests and projects of some of the advocates of 'progress.'
I don't want to give too much away yet, but in the next series of essays we'll be looking at 'natural order' which connects to and overlaps somewhat with 'natural law', so there is more on the way if this subject interests you. We'll do a pretty deep dive on one classical thinker and one contemporary thinker (who is dealing with those issues in our world that make this a difficult endeavor).
I look forward to seeing what you've got cookin :)
I actually delight in being a student of yours... not in a presumptive manner, but wistfully and in a just sense.
Exceptionally kind. Thank you.
Credit where credit is due. You're welcome.
ditto