The Stoics hold that all emotions are bad

In the following message of 8/7/2019 to the International Stoic Forum, Grant Sterling's comments are interspersed with Adrian's response to Dave's (my) post.

All:

  Although the post below is a response to Dave, I'll

chime in here.  (Comments interspersed below).

*****


Hello Dave,

 

I was going to leave this subject alone but I was surprised that you appear to be ignoring all the points I had made about the use of the word ‘evil’ by posting:

 

“Stoicism teaches us to make true value judgments, and to eliminate

false value judgments..

 

1) Emotions are evil.

2) Emotions are caused by false value judgments.

3) Ergo, if we change those false value judgments, the

bad emotions will go away.”

 

Repetition of a formula does not make it any more understandable than on its first outing.  If it was questionable on the first outing, clearly more needs to be said to improve on the original statement to make the intent clear.

 

In response to the first bit of what you have said, ‘value’ is derived from the Latin ‘valere’.  So yet again we may be falling foul of problems in translation from the original Greek intent. 

 

The point I have made regards ‘observational judgements’ being preferable to ‘value judgements’ is that, as Stoicism points out, most value judgements are based on our feelings (emotions) and unsound entrenched opinions, whereas sound judgements are based on observation and sound opinion that is known to be sound in that it has been examined. It is only through observation and examined opinion that we can make what we may today call a sound value judgement. 


*****

  You appear to have Stoic thought backwards.

  I judge the death of my neighbor to be bad (or evil...

more on that later).

   My neighbor dies.

   I experience an emotion (grief, or anger [if I think

my neighbor's death was someone's fault]), etc.


  In other words, it's not emotions that cause us to

make bad value judgments, it's bad value judgments that

cause us to experience emotions.  

  That's why the Stoics regard emotions as being in our

control--they are caused by judgements (i.e., assenting

to impressions), and that's in our control.


  A sound value judgement is one that aligns with the facts

about value.  (I think we have to be very cautious about

presenting judgements of fact and judgements of value as

if they are different things.  Sometimes it's necessary, but

too many people today think of values as chosen by the

individual rather than facts about objective reality.)


  This is not to deny, of course, that such judgements

may require us to carefully examine our opinions, etc.

*****

In response to your attempt at logical argument, if I was in your place, in order to continue the discussion I would have been less challenging and would have conceded the point I had made and would have started your points with:

 

• Emotions are ‘kakon’ (bad/harmful or counter to ‘agathon’).

 

That way a false value judgement would have been avoided in that, as I appear to have demonstrated, the word ‘evil’ is not an appropriate value word to translate ‘kakon’ and so ‘evil’ offers a false value judgement regards the Stoic view of emotions or anything else. 


*****

  I reject this claim, by the way.  I see nothing wrong

with using the term "evil" in connection with Stoic

thought.  In particular, if I choose to rape or murder someone,

my actions are "evil"--they are irrational, destructive of my eudaimonia,

a violation of the proper use of my abilities, etc.  

  But more to the point, the Stoics are trying to explain their

views in contrast with the ordinary views of others.  In doing

that, they create a new technical vocabulary for the external

things that other people _falsely_ believe to be good or

evil/bad, but they do NOT create a new technical vocabulary

for the internal states.  In other words, they are in effect saying

"You are correct to regard some things as good and other

things as evil, but you have made a mistake about _which_

things are good and evil."  Hence, using ordinary English

translations of 'kakon', 'agathon', etc. as "evil"or "good" is not only 

acceptable but is in some sense necessary to understanding their 

point.

*****


 

And while we are on the subject, I am with Steve.  Your list of points fails as a piece of logic.  To offer a cohesive and logical argument all three of your statements need to be about either ‘emotions’ or ‘bad emotions’.  Logic does not allow the unsubstantiated jumping between both.


*****

  There are no good emotions.  That is, the English

word "emotions" conjures in the mind of the reader/listener

the idea of a certain set of states.  None of those states 

are good.


  I don't care about the origin of words when I am trying

to communicate to a modern audience.  It doesn't matter

to me if I translate Greek words using English words that

were not originally derived from Greek.  It doesn't matter

to me if I translate two Greek words that are related in

origin using two English words or phrases that are utterly

unrelated.  All I care about is what ideas will appear in a

listener's mind when I use a certain set of words, and whether

those ideas do or do not correspond well with the ideas that

the author intended his reader to think about..  {{{In other

words, I have Aristotle's theory of language.}}}

  Suppose that the Greek name of the rose bush was

derived from the word for "tree".  Imagine, for example,

that the Greeks called rose bushes "beautiful trees".  

Now imagine further that temples to Aphrodite were often

adorned with rose bushes, but never with any taller plants.

I would happily say (in English) "temples of Aphrodite

were never adorned with trees", because in English rose

bushes are never considered to be trees.  The fact that the

ancient Greeks happened to call them "trees" is irrelevant--

a modern reader wouldn't call them trees, so I would have

conveyed accurate information to the modern reader of

English.

*****

Next, in that Stoicism uses the Greek ‘pathos’ and ‘eupathos’ where ‘pathos’ is used to describe what we would today call ‘harmful emotions’ and ‘eupathos’ is used to describe what we would today call ‘beneficial emotions’, it is misleading to state that ‘emotions’ are harmful if translating  the Stoic use of the word ‘pathos’.  In common Greek usage ‘pathos’ refers to feelings.  But as a Stoic technical term ‘pathos’, to differentiate it from the common usage, is to be better translated as ‘bad/harmful emotions’.

 

So your statement, based on the Greek ‘all pathos are kakon’, following the Stoic use of the word ‘pathos’ we ought to translate it as ‘bad/harmful emotions are bad/harmful’.

 

To insist on saying in English that ‘emotions are evil’ is to say that ‘good emotions’ (eupathos) are also ‘evil’.


*****

  The problem is that this is an analysis of the Greek words

with no corresponding thought about modern English.

  I repeat my assertion, made many times on this List

and never (that I can remember) denied or disproven.


   100% of the things that will come to the mind of a

modern English speaker when they hear the word "emotion"

are things that the Stoics would have considered bad.


  Try it.  (I've tried it.)  A 'eupathos' is a perfectly rational

positive state in a fully virtuous person in which the person

recognizes that no external thing is good or evil (intrinsically).

Ask someone to list 5 emotions (or 10, or 20), and they will

never list something like that.  They may list 'love', but their

love wouldn't be Stoic love--their love will be a passionate

attachment to an external.  They may list "joy", but it won't

be the eupathos of "Joy" that comes from a fully rational

recognition of God's hand in the world...their "joy" will be

the feeling of elation that comes when something "good"

happens...where they conceive of some external thing as

the good.


  Hence, when I say "All emotions are bad (or evil) on

the Stoic view" I risk making the listener think that the Stoics

held that all _feelings_ are bad, which is a distortion of

Stoic thought.  But it's only a small distortion--the "good

feelings" are as rare as the Phoenix.  On the other hand, when

you say "The Stoics believed that some emotions were good

and others were bad", what the listener will hear is "The

Stoics thought that emotions like love and the happy feeling

that comes when your team won the game are good, and

emotions like hatred and anger are bad"...because that's what

people think of when they think of "emotions" and especially

"good" and "bad" emotions.  And that is a _huge_ distortion of

Stoic thought.  My way of talking (and Dave's) is a more

accurate translation of Stoic _thought_ than yours..


  Of course if we have unlimited time and the unlimited

attention of the listener, either of us could explain the

subtleties of Stoic thought in such a way as to avoid the

potential confusions.  But since that rarely happens, I

will choose the description of Stoic thought which is less

confusing.

*****

So may I suggest the following rewording of your three statements:

 

1) Bad emotions are harmful to the wellbeing of the individual.

2) Bad emotions are caused by judgments based on false observation and/or unsound opinion.

3) Ergo, if we re-examine our observations to see the reality of any given situation and/or correct any unsound opinion, the bad emotions will go away.

 

By adding detail the intent becomes more obvious and provides the student with the tools with which to improve their rational thinking processes.

 

Of course we are then left to define ‘bad emotions’ and why they are harmful.  Just what are these feelings that we call ‘pathos’ or ‘bad emotions’ and what quality differentiates them from other emotions?  How do we recognise them?


*****

  Exactly my point.  Because if you hand 100 English

speakers Dave's 3 statements, and then hand another 100

your 3 statements, the ones who get Dave's will be closer

to understanding Stoic thought than the ones who get

yours.  Because the ones who get yours will immediately

think "bad emotions" means anger or hatred.  That is, they

won't think that "bad emotions" needs to be defined, because

they already know what it means.  On the other hand, if you

use Dave's version, they will think that the Stoics are saying

that not only hatred or anger, but even (what they think of as)

love and joy and grief and fear, etc., are bad...and that is exactly

what the Stoics _are_ saying.


  Put it another way...if you transported Epictetus through

time, taught him English, and then let him spend many

years among English speakers learning how they used words...

Epictetus would say "All emotions are bad".

*****

 

Adrian


[Grant]