Stoicism (A History of Western Philosophy)

Zeno, the founder of Stoicism (a school of thought that appealed to rulers), was a Phoenician. When it comes to preaching about the superiority of slaves or the brotherhood of man, there are few philosophies that could compare to Stoicism during that moment in history.

Stoicism, unlike the earlier purely Greek philosophies, is emotionally narrow and fanatical; but it also contains religious elements of which the world felt the need, and which the Greeks seemed unable to supply.

It particularly appealed to rulers: ‘nearly all the successors of Alexander—we may say all the principal kings in existence in the generations following Zeno—professed themselves Stoics,’ says Professor Gilbert Murray. 

The main doctrines to which the school remained constant throughout are concerned with cosmic determinism and human freedom.

The Philosophy

Zeno believed that there is no such thing as chance, and that the course of nature is rigidly determined by natural laws. Originally there was only fire; then the other elements—air, water, earth, in that order—gradually emerged. But eventually, there will be a cosmic conflagration, and all will return to fire. But this is not a final consummation, such as the Christian doctrine, according to the Stoics, but only the end of a cycle, before the whole process is repeated eternally.

Everything that happens has happened before, and will happen again, not once, but countless times. 

God is not separate from the world; He is the soul of the world, and each of us contains a part of the Divine Fire.

Each thing is part of a one system called Nature. The individual life is good when it is in harmony with Nature. In a sense, every life is in harmony with Nature, since it is as Nature’s laws have caused it to be; but in another sense a human life is only in harmony with Nature when the individual will is directed to ends which are among those of Nature. 

Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature. The wicked, though they obey God’s law, do so involuntarily; they are like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it goes. 

In the life of an individual man, virtue is the sole good; such things as health, happiness, possessions, are of no value. Since virtue resides in the will, everything really good or bad in a man’s life depends only on himself. He may become poor, but he can still be virtuous.

A tyrant may put him in prison, but he can still persevere in living in harmony with Nature. He may be sentenced to death, but he can die nobly, like Socrates. Other men have power only over externals; virtue, which alone is truly good, rests entirely with the individual.

Therefore every man has perfect freedom, provided he emancipates himself from mundane desires. It is only through false judgments that such desires prevail; the sage whose judgments are true is master of his fate in all that he values, since no outside force can deprive him of virtue. 

Russell’s Criticism

There are obvious logical difficulties about this doctrine. If virtue is really the sole good, a benign God must be solely concerned to cause virtue, but the laws of Nature have produced many sinners.

If virtue is the sole good, there can be no reason against cruelty and injustice, since, as the Stoics say, cruelty and injustice afford the sufferer the best opportunities for the exercise of virtue.

If the world is wholly deterministic, natural laws will decide whether I shall be virtuous or not. If I am wicked, Nature compels me to be wicked, and the freedom which virtue is supposed to give does not exist.

To a modern mind, it is difficult to feel enthusiastic about a virtuous life if nothing is going to be achieved by it. We admire a physician who risks his life in an epidemic of plague, because we think illness is an evil, and we hope to eradicate it. But if illness is not an evil, the physician might as well stay at home.

To the Stoic, his virtue is an end in itself, not something that does good. And when we take a longer view, what is the ultimate outcome? A destruction of the present world by fire, and then a repetition of the whole process. Could anything be more futile?

There may be progress for a time, but in the long run there is only recurrence. When we see something unbearably painful, we hope that such things will cease to happen in time; but the Stoic assures us that what is happening now will happen over and over again.

God, who sees all, must, you would think, grow weary through despair.

And there is a certain coldness in the Stoic conception of virtue. Not only bad passions are condemned, but all passions. The sage does not feel sympathy; when his wife or his children die, he reflects that this event is no obstacle to his own virtue, and therefore he does not suffer deeply.

Friendship, so highly prized by Epicurus, is great, but it must not be
carried to the point where your friend’s bad luck can destroy your holy calm. As for public life, it may be your duty to engage in it, since it gives opportunities for justice, fortitude, and so on; but you must not be animated by a desire to benefit mankind, since the benefits you can confer—such as peace, or a more adequate supply of food—are no true benefits, and, in any case, nothing matters except your own virtue.

The Stoic is not virtuous in order to do good, but does good in order to be virtuous.

The doctrine of natural right, as it appears in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, is a revival of a Stoic doctrine, with important modifications.

Natural law was derived from first principles of the kind held to underlie all general knowledge. By nature, the Stoics held, all human beings are equal. Marcus Aurelius, in his Meditations, favors a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed’.

This was an ideal that failed to be realized in the Roman empire, but it influenced legislation, especially in improving the status of women and slaves. Christianity took over this part of the Stoic teaching.

When, in the seventeenth century, the opportunity came to combat despotism, the Stoic doctrines of natural law and natural equality, in their Christian dress, acquired a practical force which, in antiquity, not even an emperor could give to them. 

"A gilded No is more satisfactory than a dry yes" - Gracian