The conflict between morality and desire

In a message to the International Stoic Forum Grant Sterling provided the reason why we should eliminate all desires for externals.

John: How do we know when something is appropriate for the will and when something is better left alone?

Grant: This is a general problem, which would require a very long answer
to discuss adequately. Becker (in _A New Stoicism_) regards stoicism
and intuitionism as fundamentally opposed. I think quite the opposite--
they are answering different questions in a compatible way. Both systems
generally present the idea that what we ought to do in a situation is
fairly obvious the vast majority of the time, and only in those rare
occasions when we have conflicting duties is the case difficult.
In other words, I think [that] it is very rare when we really are
in a situation where we don't know what's appropriate to do--the
fundamental moral conflict is not between different ideas of what is
morally appropriate. The conflict is between morality and desire--we
see what we ought to do, but it conflicts with what we desire to do.
If we have banished desire, then we will no longer have much difficulty
in knowing what is appropriate and doing it, which is why stoic
teaching on the connection between desire and happiness is
compatible with stoic teaching on virtue.

The Stoics' doctrine of pathological feelings

Grant Sterling's message of 1/31/2022 to the International Stoic Forum in answer to Nigel Glassborow.

Nigel:

     The Stoic doctrine, repeated countless times throughout the

history of the movement is:

     1) Judgments about good and evil generate feelings.  (Let's

just use this neutral term for now.)

     2) Externals are neither good nor evil.  Never, ever.

     3) If you judge an external to be good or evil, then your judgment

is contrary to reason.  Always, without exception.

     4) A feeling generated by a judgement contrary to reason is always

excessive and contrary to reason.  {Since the feeling was generated by

a false belief that there is something good or evil out there, and there

isn't anything good or evil out there, then the appropriate level of

feeling in that case is zero.  So any feeling, in this case, is excessive.}

     5) Internals are good or evil.  True judgements about internals
generate

feelings which are not excessive or contrary to reason.  Those feelings

are the eupathea, none of which are negative (grief, anger, sorrow, etc.)


     The Stoics were famous for rejecting the multi-part soul of Plato

and Aristotle, and holding that feelings arise from the rational

part of the soul--that is, the part of the soul that reasons and makes

judgments.  (Although, unfortunately, most of them result from

reasoning badly and making false judgments.)  The idea that feelings

have their origin outside and prior to the act of judgment is a key

element of the Aristotelian-Platonic picture that the Stoics rejected.

You cannot take Zeno's definition, which Plato and Aristotle would have

happily embraced, and pull it away from the critical areas in which the

Stoics took that definition in a radically different direction from Plato

and Aristotle.


     Sincerely,

             GCS