Stoicism in a Nutshell
"So now the threads of the sections can be tied
together. Someone who judges truly will never be unhappy,
will in fact experience continual uninterrupted appropriate
positive feelings, and will always act virtuously. Anyone
would agree that someone who led a life like that was
happy. Judgment is in our control. Hence, not only is
prefect continual happiness possible, it is actually in our
control--we can actually guarantee it by simply judging
correctly, and acting on those judgments."
together. Someone who judges truly will never be unhappy,
will in fact experience continual uninterrupted appropriate
positive feelings, and will always act virtuously. Anyone
would agree that someone who led a life like that was
happy. Judgment is in our control. Hence, not only is
prefect continual happiness possible, it is actually in our
control--we can actually guarantee it by simply judging
correctly, and acting on those judgments."
5 Comments:
"Someone who judges truly will never be unhappy".
I think that's an oversimplication. Consider this scenario. Suppose a child's shoelace is trapped under the stove and her pulling causes a pot of boiling oil to fall towards her. You have less than a second to act. You can't move the child (she's trapped). You can't grab the pot of boiling oil (it's too hot). You're only choice is to sit back and watch or placed yourself under the boiling oil to shield her.
The virtuous choice is courage, but if you take that choice, you'll have 3rd degree burns for months and scars for the rest of your life. You also risk damaging your spinal cord forever.
Yes, you'll be self-satisfied that you did the right thing. Yes the action is meaningful. Yes, you may do it again without hesitation. But don't tell me you can be happy while they change dressing on your severely burned and sensitive skin several times a day and you have to depend on nurses to manage your bodily functions because it's too agonizing to move.
Anonymous, I think it depends on one's definition of happiness. If one defines happiness by living virtuously; then committing a virtuous act, even one that leads to personal injury, leads to happiness, so long as the definition of happiness remains with committing acts of virtue.
This is a great blog. Thanks for your dedication over the years. I wanted to let you know that I am currently posting and annotating each of the Marcus Aurelius meditations with extensive explanations on my blog. These are designed to supplement those already published in my book, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Selections Annotated and Explained.
I like the fact that you have attempted here to formally define certain tenets of stoicism and how they logically entail one another, and as a huge fan of stoicism i would agree with much of you said here.
This may be true. If it is, though, one must know how to judge correctly. And how does one do that, exactly? Are there rules to be applied in judging all situations "correctly"? If there are not, are we doomed to be unhappy?
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