God Commands The Good

(In which I get overly lyrical.)

One way to justify Divine Command Theory - the idea that a God can provide objective morality - is to say that "what is good is good because God commands it". I'm having trouble marshalling a coherent argument against the that idea, so until then, here's my intuitive problem with it: even if I were to receive convincing proof that God exists and has laid down certain commandments, that would not replace my inner sense of morality.

I recoil instinctively from the idea that the commandments of God cannot be morally assessed - like Job, I want to challenge what I think is unfair. If I'm wrong, I want good reasons. In fact, my problems with Divine Command Theory can be pretty well sketched out with constant reference to Job. When God speaks from the whirlwind and Job backs down, I don't see that as a triumph of morality over pride. I see that as a triumph of power over reason.

In Job, we see that like gravity on spacetime, power exerts a distorting influence on morality. Infinite power, like a black hole, can collapse everything around it to become the only relevant point in the moral landscape. But I reject this framework! Like the Stoics, I want ethics to be the one thing untouched by power. I want the courage to stand in Job's position
 and tell God that despite the torture - and it is torture - I will continue to demand a reckoning. He can take everything from me, including my life, but the only person who can bend my ethics is me. If God reaches out to alter my ethical framework, I cease being me anymore - it is as if he has killed me, and so I win.

Hume On Stoicism

David Hume, of course, did not think of himself as a Stoic. Traditionally, a strong concept of God or Natural Law is central to Stoic philosophy, and Hume had neither. Moreover, Hume famously declared that reason ought to be "the slave of passion", which at least superficially seems to be a direct contradiction of Stoic thought. Now, a Stoic who wanted to reclaim Hume (in the same way that every single Greek philosopher ever tried to recruit Socrates' ghost to his cause) might argue that you could construct a secular Stoicism, and that Hume defined 'reason' and 'passion' in a different way to the Stoics. I'm tempted to do that myself.

However, first I want to call attention to an area where Hume seems at least to empathize with Stoic thought. In his essay 'Delicacy of Taste and Delicacy of Passion', he says this:

SOME People are subject to a certain delicacy of passion, which makes them extremely sensible to all the accidents of life, and gives them a lively joy upon every prosperous event, as well as a piercing grief, when they meet with misfortunes and adversity. Favours and good offices easily engage their friendship; while the smallest injury provokes their resentment. Any honour or mark of distinction elevates them above measure; but they are as sensibly touched with contempt. People of this character have, no doubt, more lively enjoyments, as well as more pungent sorrows, than men of cool and sedate tempers: But, I believe, when every thing is balanced, there is no one, who would not rather be of the latter character, were he entirely master of his own disposition. Good or ill fortune is very little at our disposal: And when a person, that has this sensibility of temper, meets with any misfortune, his sorrow or resentment takes entire possession of him, and deprives him of all relish in the common occurrences of life; the right enjoyment of which forms the chief part of our happiness. Great pleasures are much less frequent than great pains; so that a sensible temper must meet with fewer trials in the former way than in the latter. Not to mention, that men of such lively passions are apt to be transported beyond all bounds of prudence and discretion, and to take false steps in the conduct of life, which are often irretrievable.


Compared to many other philosophers, Hume is an absolute pleasure to read, but for those who can't be bothered wading through the italicized paragraph, he says something like this: some people are prone to great happiness and great sadness, reacting to small good events with ecstasy and small setbacks with despair, but this isn't a good way to live. The kind of person he's talking about is the ultimate non-Stoic: somebody who's enormously and constantly affected by outside events. Hume shares the Stoic judgement on such a person, claiming that it's better to be of "cool and sedate temper". Why does he say this? Well, his two main points are thus:

1) "Good or ill fortune is very little at our disposal", so a person of strong passion basically lives with a sword over their head.
2) "Great pleasures are much less frequent than great pains", so a person of strong passion is going to be unhappy more often than not.

I contend that the whole practical element of Stoic thought can be spun out from these two points, if you grant the further assumption that we can control our passions. Unfortunately, Hume doesn't immediately grant that assumption (or at least appears not to in his other essays.) If you disagree with Hume here and think that we are "masters of [our] own disposition", then Stoicism might be for you!

The World Is An Illusion, Trying To Change You

I've liked this video for a while, but I just realized that the general sentiment - the world is an illusion, trying to change you - is pretty Stoic.  Of course, the rest of the song (especially the idea of begging anybody for anything) is very un-Stoic, but a philosopher can dream, can't he?

Stoicism: One Last Try

This is going to be the last post in my series on Stoicism (although I reserve the right to bang on about it in future).  The major criticism I've received so far, on the internet and in real life, has been this: why would anybody want to embrace a philosophy that requires them not to enjoy things? If I've misunderstood the criticism, let me know. For now I'm going to argue forcefully against it, in an attempt to either salvage the value of Stoicism or establish that it has none.

Can we avoid pain without avoiding pleasure?

I consider it fairly undeniable that Stoicism does a good job at minimizing pain.  In other words, a proper Stoic is indifferent to any outside event that befalls her, by definition.  Now you might claim that some pain ought not to be avoided - losing a loved one, for instance - and I think the root of that claim is a belief that if you avoid pain, you necessarily avoid pleasure.  Can we construct a Stoicism where we can enjoy pleasures like sex and at the same time cultivate indifference to pain?  I don't think so.

Rousseau said famously (I can't find the exact quote, so feel free to correct me) that without property, there is no harm.  What this means, roughly, is that harm can be exactly defined as damage to property - if I pick your pocket, I'm stealing your property, and if I break your leg, I'm damaging your most fundamental possession: your body.  To enjoy pleasures like, for example, good health, we need to accept our body as part of our property.  When our body improves, our property improves, and we are made happy.  The Stoic way of avoiding pain is accepting that our body should not be considered our property, since it can be damaged by outside forces.  When we do this, we necessarily prevent ourselves from enjoying improvements to that property.

Should we avoid pain at all?

So I can't see a way in which we can avoid pain without being a Stoic and avoiding pleasure.  However, you might think that, on balance, the pleasure of life is worth the pain!  If, looking back, you can honestly say that   your life has been overall positive, then I can hardly argue that you should be a Stoic. Epictetus would say that you're a base animal, driven by urges, but honestly I wouldn't go that far.  On my view, Stoicism is for people who consider the level of pain in their life to be greater than the level of pleasure - like much philosophy, it serves simultaneously as explanation and consolation.

I'd personally side with Schopenhauer and say that pain in the world outweighs pleasure, and that if it doesn't for you (or me), then that's either momentary luck, delusion, or an artifact of extreme economic privilege (or all three).  Still, if you happen to be lucky or rich, then I don't want to harsh your buzz, man - Stoicism isn't for you.  Basically, the choice of whether you should avoid pain or not is an entirely subjective choice: there's no objective reason for everyone to embrace Stoic principles.

Are you already practicing stoicism?

Finally - still with me? - I'd like to argue that you're probably already to some extent a Stoic.  Western society has been influenced heavily by the Bible, of course, and as Ivan mentioned in the comments earlier, the book of Job contains some pretty heavy proto-Stoicism.  Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble? Anyone who believes that 'such is life' or 'what will be, will be' is practicing Stoic principles on a small scale.  Moreover, anyone who makes a conscious decision not to 'be a whiner' - a sick person, for instance, who pretends to be well because she doesn't want to be the kind of person who complains - is approaching Stoicism.  The claim that the Stoics are making is that this kind of small-scale behaviour can be extrapolated into a large-scale ethical philosophy - and while they might be wrong, there's at least a little intuitive weight behind them.

Stoicism: Justice Is Revenge

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking: Phil, you do go on about Stoicism, but where's the practical application?  What's the takeaway?  Well, let's take a look at one way Stoicism gives a practical and un-intuitive ethical result.  Most people think that justice (roughly defined as 'just deserts', or making it so that individuals don't profit from immoral actions) is ethically desirable.  Most people think that revenge (roughly defined as emotionally-motivated-justice) is ethically desirable in extreme circumstances.  Stoicism, the way I construct it, classes both justice and revenge in the same category.  On this view, justice and revenge aren't just obviously unethical, but motivated by a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of harm.

Here's a brief review of the Stoic concept of harm.  The only things that should be important to us, it says, are things we can control.  We can only be harmed by damage to things important to us - 'no property, no harm', for all you anarchists in the audience.  Since the only thing we can control is our own will, our own moral choices, then we can only be harmed by making immoral choices.  Therefore, the only person who can harm us is ourselves.

What ramifications does this have for justice and revenge?  Well, both exist as responses to harm, as ways of punishing the person who caused us unfair harm.  But if we accept that nobody can cause us harm but ourselves, then we can only justifiably take revenge or exact justice on ourselves!  Back up another moment: both justice and revenge seek to even the scales, to ensure nobody profits from sin.  If we harm ourselves, then that harm is punishment enough for having caused it, and no further retribution is needed.  So, on the Stoic view, there's no instance of permissible revenge or justice.

I'll set out a little example to show how this might work in real life.  Stoical Sam is summoned before a mighty king, who commands Sam to go forth and assassinate a rival's children.  Sam, being a stand-up guy, refuses, and is tortured.  Now, for Sam, the torture itself doesn't consitute harm - it's a necessary consequence of the moral decision not to kill children, that's all - and the only potential harm in the situation is the possibility of him giving in and acting in an immoral way.  In fact, the torture gives him a chance to demonstrate his moral fortitude, and practice the important skill of bearing up under pressure.  The king's rival executes a stunning coup and frees the prisoners, including Sam, who is given the chance to decide what will happen to the king.

What happens if Sam walks away, deciding not to punish the king at all?  Nothing - and it's a reasonable response, since from Sam's perspective the king has (unwittingly) done him a service.

What happens if Sam decides to have the king tortured?  Sam becomes a torturer, thereby harming himself (his soul, if you will) irreparably.  Worse still, from a Stoic perspective, he doesn't harm the king at all through doing this.

And what about practical applications today? Turns out I was right to tell you not to call the cops! So there.

Stoicism: Utilitarianism And Socrates

Here's a bit of a problem with regular utilitarianism (or any kind of consequentialism that deals with mental states like happiness).  You've got to act in such a way that you maximise the happiness of those around you, and they've got to act in such a way that they maximise your happiness.  Weirdly, the responsibility for your happiness seems to fall on everybody else, and you bear a fragment of responsibility for everybody else's happiness.  This is contrary to the way we intuitively think about happiness - we think that our own happiness is  to a decent extent our own responsibility.  Be satisfied with what you've got, we say, and so on.  But what makes ourselves happy is often very difficult to pin down - we can come into a load of money, feel oddly unsatisfied, and then experience nirvana while watching that evening's sunset.  How much more difficult is it to fathom the causes of and take responsibility for other people's happiness?

The Stoic answer to this problem has the advantage of being simple.  Happiness, it says, is entirely our own responsibility.  Nothing anybody else can do ought to make you happy - if it does, you're behaving immorally and laying yourself open to inconsistency and danger.  Make your happiness depend on your own virtue, and you will be entirely self-sufficient, since nobody but you can assist or harm your virtue.

What, then, is our responsibility to others?  We should act in a gentle, dignified, kind way, but that's a function of our responsibility to ourselves, not to other people.  In terms of other people's benefit, Socrates' last wish was that the Athenian state should punish his sons harshly and thus lead them to virtue. This is obviously directly at odds with a utilitarian view.

Does a Stoic have a responsibility to others at all?  Maybe not.

The Chance Of Living

There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part of a good man or of a bad.

Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth - that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that to die and be released was better for me; and therefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason also, I am not angry with my accusers, or my condemners; they have done me no harm, although neither of them meant to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them.

A little taste of Plato's Apology before my next Stoicism post.  It's not explicitly a Stoic text, but if you (mis)read it in the context of Epictetus and other Stoics you can explain some of the more difficult bits.  Here's the thing in full - it's genuine philosophical heroism and, on the off-chance you haven't read it, well worth a look.

Stoicism: We've Got The Power

What - according to Epictetus - is a Stoic?  A person who knows that some things are within their control and some things aren't; a person who can change the things that are under their control and reconcile themselves to the things that aren't; a person who understands that their important possessions cannot be taken from them unless they choose to give them up.

What could these possessions be?  It varies from Stoic to Stoic - feel free to choose your own - but they've got to be ways of using impressions.  Good health and riches are merely impressions from the outside world (things that aren't part of us), and don't qualify as important possessions, but inner dignity and calm are ways of using impressions and do qualify.  In theory, you can maintain calm no matter what happens to you; and if you don't, then you (and only you) have decided to give your calm up.  You can't maintain your riches no matter what happens; they're out of your control, and so don't really belong to you.

Epictetus' way of doing this is to practice equanimity.  When you come into money, he advises, say to yourself: it has come to me from the world, and may soon leave me.  When your child is born, say to yourself: this child is mortal, and may soon die.  If such a thing happens, you'll have prepared yourself and will be able to retain your virtue.  This doesn't mean being insensible to worldly pleasures - you're free to enjoy your money and love your children, of course - but a proper Stoic maintains a certain level of detachment.

A central belief of Stoicism is that emotions and desire are fully within our control.  If we say that we were 'carried away by lust', or 'consumed with anger' and not responsible for our actions, a Stoic would chuckle and call us a liar.  This contradicts the established Freudian view of emotions being 'bottled up' and needing to be released.  If you clamp down on your anger, the Stoics say, it won't fester and eventually erupt; on the contrary, it will fade with time and you'll become a less angry person.  My personal experience, incidentally, leads me to side with the Stoics over Freud.

Stoicism: Good Men Are Invincible

Let's take a look at the claim that got me interested in Stoicism in the first place.  Here it is, from Socrates' Apology:

No harm can come to a good man, in life or death.

On the surface, this is ridiculous.  It sounds like the worst of Leibniz's best-of-all-worlds theory, like Job's judgemental friends - so obviously contradicted by what we see in the world every day.  Good people suffer more than bad people, if anything.  Christianity is simultaneously built on this principle - be a good person and they'll kill you, etc - and troubled by it in the problem of evil.  Innocent children catch awful diseases, and so on.

If we wish to construct Socrates' view charitably, we need to look at what he means by the words 'good' and 'harm'.  Rather than being a statement about how the world is, Socrates' claim is really a definition of a 'good man': a good man is someone to whom no harm can come.  How can anybody live to avoid all harm?  Well, as the Buddhists say, pain and harm are functions of desire - if you don't desire something, then removing it can't harm you.  But Socrates isn't saying that the good man desires nothing.  Rather, the good man desires only what is entirely within his power: his own moral behaviour.

You want to avoid being harmed?  It's easy: just see all the things that you can't control as worthless.  Your own health, the health and lives of people you care about, money, even your own life - all these things are determined largely by chance, and so it's a bad idea to worry about them.  Change the way you think so that, if you retain your moral integrity, you will be entirely satisfied.  Epictetus tells a story of a man who is summoned by a capricious ruler.  He refuses, and the ruler threatens to cut his head off.  "You are free to do that," says the man, "just as I am free to refuse your summons."

On this view, if you do something evil - kill another person, for instance - the only person you've harmed is yourself.  If you're killed by another person, they've done you no wrong.  How could they?  All they can harm is your body, your life - which as we've seen is of no concern to the Stoics.

Make your state of mind dependent on nothing but your own actions.  If you allow chance to determine how happy you are, you lay yourself open to disaster.  Don't worry about what will happen to you; worry about how you'll react to it. Then you'll be Socrates' 'good man', and nobody will be able to harm you again.

Why Stoicism?

In the comments of my last post, Pied Cow asked why anybody would want to treat misfortune and good fortune in the same way.  It's a fair question, since we intuitively feel that grieving and celebrating are natural.  However, consider the kind of person who suffers misfortune far more often than good fortune, and ask yourself whether that kind of person might find comfort in Stoicism.  Two quotes, now - the first from Schopenhauer and the second from Marcus Aurelius:


A quick test of the assertion that enjoyment outweighs pain in this world, or that they are at any rate balanced, would be to compare the feelings of an animal engaged in eating another with those of the animal being eaten.

If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now.

I hope this goes some way towards answering that question. 

Practical Stoicism

This will be the first post in a series on stoic philosophy.  The vast majority of Stoic discussion on the internet and in philosophy textbooks has been focused on the religious aspects of Stoicism: man's relationship to the universe, the wishes of the gods, the relationship between public and private duties, and so on.  It's certainly rewarding to study these things, but to me the biggest advantage of Stoicism is its incredible practicality: putting aside the metaphysical framework, Stoic philosophy gives useful advice for the real world.

Prisoners of war - I'm too lazy to look them up, so trust me on this - have turned to Stoic precepts to help them get through the horrors of internment.  In fact, Stoicism is designed to answer a very common question: how ought we to react to misfortune? 

So far I haven't actually said anything about what Stoicism is - bear with me a little further.  The Stoicism I'm interested in is drawn from people like Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and heavily grounded in certain maxims of Socrates.  Every Greek philosopher tried to enlist Socrates in their cause, propping up his venerable corpse at the forefront of each new idea, and Epictetus was no exception.  He argued that Socrates was an ideal Stoic.  In this series I'll lay out a kind of non-supernatural Stoicism, centred on ideas like these:

Socrates' paradoxical claim that, a priori, no harm can come to a good man.

Epictetus' argument that the defining human trait is the use of impressions.

Marcus Aurelius' argument that we ought only to concern ourselves with what is in our power.

And finally, here's a skeleton definition of Stoicism: the philosophy that counsels us to receive life's troubles with total equanimity; for example, to react to the death of a loved one and the birth of one's child in the same way.  I'll flesh this out in posts to come.