The Stoic Doctrine on Desire
The Stoic Doctrine on Desire
[The Stoic doctrine on desire is not common sense.]
"This thread has produced an interesting
practical example of the issues I was discussing
with Steve about moral and non-moral beliefs (judgments),
and the distinction between those things and the
morality of _choices_.
To be clear, I will use the terms "believing
that-p", "making a judgment that-p", and "assenting
to the impression that-p" interchangeably.
As a preliminary, two comments directed
towards Nigel. The rest of this post is a discussion
of Stoic doctrine. Nigel's view is too Protean for
me to pin it down and comment on it.
> I personally do not accept such. All externals are neutral, as Stoicism
> claims. But they do have qualities whereby in the roles that we play
> out in our lives they may be preferred or dispreferred according to
> their appropriateness to any given situation and the wider view of what
> is the ethical path for us to follow.
*****
OK, so far, so good.
***
> Personally I try not to think in the Christian terms of ‘good and
> evil’. I prefer the Stoic idea of what is complete, appropriate and
> harmonious combined with the idea as to what is right and proper. I
> even follow some experts’ guidance to think in terms of beneficial and
> not beneficial. It all depends on circumstance – but ‘good’ and ‘evil’
> are definitely not part of my preferred vocabulary just as such words
> were not part of the Greek vocabulary.
*****
Astounding. Every translation that I can think of
that deals with the works of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics,
the Epicureans, etc. all use the words "good" and "evil"
repeatedly for some of the most central doctrines of those
thinkers. I am utterly baffled. This is like saying "Marx
didn't think in terms of 'capital'".
***
> As to your claim that it is OK to desire/lust after your neighbour
> because you cannot control such feelings, if this is truly you view your
> lack of understanding as to what is ethical and what is not as far as
> Stoicism is concerned would be astounding.
>
> To desire or lust after a person that it is not appropriate to lust
> after, be it because one is in a committed relationship or that they may
> not want to lusted after etcetera, is in Stoicism down to incorrect
> judgements – *judgements that need to be corrected*.
> If you do not think these feelings are under your control I would hope
> that you are not let loose with female students. However, despite your
> protestations, I am sure that you do in fact bring any such stirrings
> under control by making the correct judgement that to allow the initial
> stirring of the feeling to continue would be inappropriate.
>
> I am sure that if you experience the initial aesthetic attraction of a
> beautiful girl that you ensure that it does not increase in intensity to
> whereby you would be liable to act inappropriately. You will moderate
> the feelings and not be the slave to it.
>
> You cannot totally eliminate the initial stirring in that this is part
> of your animal nature but you do moderate it – in a similar manner as,
> in courtship, you will allow the same stirring to develop appropriately
> if the feelings are being reciprocated, while always moderating them so
> that they do not become inappropriate and out of the control of your
> ‘ruling faculty’.
*****
The view that Nigel seems to be affirming here (no
doubt he will deny it) is that there is a thing which we
can call "desire" which begins as a biologically-based
'stirring'. I am able to control whether or not I choose
to allow this feeling to grow in strength. If I am a single
person who is courting another single person, then it is
appropriate for me to allow the feeling to grow, as long as
I do not allow it to grow to be so strong that it overpowers
my reason and leads me to do the wrong thing. If I am am married
to someone else, or the object of my desire is married to
someone else, or if they are not attracted to me, then I
should prevent my desire from growing at all.
Stoicism, on the other hand, denies this picture
in more than one way:
1) It denies that the initial stirring and the
full-blown desire are the same thing. In other words,
they do not differ merely in degree, they differ in
_kind_.
2) It denies that I should ever allow the
initial stirring to grow into a desire. Ever, for
anyone. Not for the person I'm courting, not for my
wife, not for anyone.
3) It denies that the relationship between
desire and reason is a relationship of power. In
other words, on the Stoic view I don't have to worry
that my desires may become so strong that they will
overcome reason, because reason can and should
_eliminate_ desires entirely.
It works like this:
There is indeed a biological stirring which
slightly resembles "desire" (and, hence, becomes
confused with it in ordinary English). Allow me
the leeway to stipulatively use the word "urge"
for this stirring. This is the thing which I
acknowledged is not in our control, and hence
cannot ever be right or wrong. I ate lunch today
at a restaurant. There was a customer there who
I found very attractive in this way. I did not
find her boyfriend attractive, nor the waitress
who took my order. This was in no way voluntary
on my part--I did not in any way choose which
people (if any!) I would find attractive. If
I had my choice, I would have found none of them
attractive, because I was not looking for someone
to have sex with, and so there was no advantage in
seeing anyone as being sexually attractive. But
this wasn't voluntary.
There are similar biologically-based
stirrings in other areas. If I go to the zoo and the
lion suddenly roars unexpectedly, I may experience a
feeling of startlement that resembles fear. If I see a
dog get hit by a car and it whines in pain I may experience
something like sadness. Etc. None of these are under our
control.
Note also that none of these biologically-based
feelings _have cognitive content_. When the lion's
roar startles me I am not considering any proposition
at all. I am not thinking "I am in danger of being
harmed"...I am not thinking of anything. I am reacting
to a sound, or an image, or whatever. There is no
false judgment here, because there is no judgment. The
only thing I control is assenting to impressions, but
impressions have cognitive content, and no assent has
taken place in these cases. So these things, again, are
not in my control.
But what is under our control is what happens
next. I can choose to stare at the woman in the
restaurant, or to look away. I can sit there and
mentally undress her, or I can turn my mind back to
other subjects. I can imagine how happy I would be if
only I had her for my wife (or mistress), or I can
reject this thought on the grounds that she might very
well be stupid or selfish or obnoxious in some way and
so being with her would not be pleasant, or on the better and
more general grounds that my eudaimonia does not depend on
any external at all, include the nature of my wives or
mistresses, and that it would be wrong for me to have a
relationship with her.
If I choose to think that having sex with this
woman will make my life better, then I have accepted a
value judgment. Things that (I believe)contribute to my
eudaimonia are things that I judge to be good. If (as in
Epictetus' example) I say to myself "she is beautiful, and
_happy is her husband_ then I have passed beyond the stage
of seeing someone who I find biologically attractive, and into
the stage of assenting to a proposition. NOW what I experience
is no longer the biological feeling or urge, it is a desire.
Desires are feelings that arise from having assented to the
impression that something is good or bad. So what has happened
here is _not_ that an initial stirring has become stronger...
what has happened is that a non-propositional biological
urge has become transformed into a propositionally-based
desire. What we have now is a new thing, not a stronger
version of the old thing.
This belief, that having this woman as a sexual
partner will contribute to my true happiness, is false.
Always. In any case, assenting to any proposition is a
choice, and irrational choices are always wrong. {The belief
"the moon is made of green cheese" is not a moral belief, not a
value belief of any kind. But since it would be irrational for
me to assent to this impression, it would be morally wrong for
me to have that belief.}
How can reason control a desire? It can't. This
is where the Aristotelian model breaks down. If Reason
tells me that the impression "having her as a sexual
partner will increase my happiness (eudaimonia)" is false,
and so I refuse to assent to it, then the desire is not
moderated or controlled, it is eliminated. The desire is
caused by my assent to the impression--no assent, no desire.
On the other hand, if my reason has assented to the impression,
then it is no longer in position to control the desire that
results. It's like the legislature who turns power over to a
tyrant and expects to control his actions--once you have ceded
your authority, you cannot get it back without rescinding the
assent. As long as I assent to the proposition "having this
woman increases my eudaimonia" then I no longer have logical
grounds for refusing to assent to "it would be good for me to
have sex with her even though I'm married (or she's married,
or both)", or "I should conceal some of my income to buy her gifts
so that she will begin (or continue) having sex with me", etc.
Nowhere in Stoicism does it teach you how to maintain your desires
but moderate them and control them with reason. That's a common
sense idea, but you will not find it in Stoic thought. What you
find in Stoic thought are passages that tell you to refuse to
assent to the impressions of value and the desire, emotion or
pathos will _go away_.
So we have:
1) A non-propositional urge...not voluntary, neither true
nor false, neither right nor wrong.
2) The non-moral, non-value impression "this person is
physically beautiful". (This may not be connected to
a desire at all. For example, I would agree that George
Clooney is physically beautiful, even though I am not in
the least bit sexually attracted to him myself.) Assent
to this impression (like all assent to impressions) is
voluntary, but not in itself dangerous.
3) A value impression--"having sex with this person would
make me happy/be good for me/etc." This impression is
false--no external things are good. If I assent to it I
will experience a desire. I should never assent to such
impressions.
So what about my "desire" for my wife? I should
not have such a desire. Most people don't choose to marry
people for whom they don't even have a sexual urge. That's
fine--pleasure is a preferred indifferent for the Stoics, so
marrying someone who will give you sexual pleasure makes
rational sense. But there is no need for me to ever assent
to the proposition "my wife will bring me eudaimonia". Not
only is that false, but if I assent to it I will have a much
tougher time not also assenting to "it would be bad for my
wife to leave me", "it would be good for me to steal jewelry
that will make my wife want to stay with me", etc., etc., etc.
So...urges are neutral. All desires are bad.
***
> Let us get some common sense into understanding the Stoic approach.
>
*****
No, you want to change the Stoic approach to
conform to common sense.
***
> Nigel
>
Regards,
Grant
"This thread has produced an interesting
practical example of the issues I was discussing
with Steve about moral and non-moral beliefs (judgments),
and the distinction between those things and the
morality of _choices_.
To be clear, I will use the terms "believing
that-p", "making a judgment that-p", and "assenting
to the impression that-p" interchangeably.
As a preliminary, two comments directed
towards Nigel. The rest of this post is a discussion
of Stoic doctrine. Nigel's view is too Protean for
me to pin it down and comment on it.
> I personally do not accept such. All externals are neutral, as Stoicism
> claims. But they do have qualities whereby in the roles that we play
> out in our lives they may be preferred or dispreferred according to
> their appropriateness to any given situation and the wider view of what
> is the ethical path for us to follow.
*****
OK, so far, so good.
***
> Personally I try not to think in the Christian terms of ‘good and
> evil’. I prefer the Stoic idea of what is complete, appropriate and
> harmonious combined with the idea as to what is right and proper. I
> even follow some experts’ guidance to think in terms of beneficial and
> not beneficial. It all depends on circumstance – but ‘good’ and ‘evil’
> are definitely not part of my preferred vocabulary just as such words
> were not part of the Greek vocabulary.
*****
Astounding. Every translation that I can think of
that deals with the works of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics,
the Epicureans, etc. all use the words "good" and "evil"
repeatedly for some of the most central doctrines of those
thinkers. I am utterly baffled. This is like saying "Marx
didn't think in terms of 'capital'".
***
> As to your claim that it is OK to desire/lust after your neighbour
> because you cannot control such feelings, if this is truly you view your
> lack of understanding as to what is ethical and what is not as far as
> Stoicism is concerned would be astounding.
>
> To desire or lust after a person that it is not appropriate to lust
> after, be it because one is in a committed relationship or that they may
> not want to lusted after etcetera, is in Stoicism down to incorrect
> judgements – *judgements that need to be corrected*.
> If you do not think these feelings are under your control I would hope
> that you are not let loose with female students. However, despite your
> protestations, I am sure that you do in fact bring any such stirrings
> under control by making the correct judgement that to allow the initial
> stirring of the feeling to continue would be inappropriate.
>
> I am sure that if you experience the initial aesthetic attraction of a
> beautiful girl that you ensure that it does not increase in intensity to
> whereby you would be liable to act inappropriately. You will moderate
> the feelings and not be the slave to it.
>
> You cannot totally eliminate the initial stirring in that this is part
> of your animal nature but you do moderate it – in a similar manner as,
> in courtship, you will allow the same stirring to develop appropriately
> if the feelings are being reciprocated, while always moderating them so
> that they do not become inappropriate and out of the control of your
> ‘ruling faculty’.
*****
The view that Nigel seems to be affirming here (no
doubt he will deny it) is that there is a thing which we
can call "desire" which begins as a biologically-based
'stirring'. I am able to control whether or not I choose
to allow this feeling to grow in strength. If I am a single
person who is courting another single person, then it is
appropriate for me to allow the feeling to grow, as long as
I do not allow it to grow to be so strong that it overpowers
my reason and leads me to do the wrong thing. If I am am married
to someone else, or the object of my desire is married to
someone else, or if they are not attracted to me, then I
should prevent my desire from growing at all.
Stoicism, on the other hand, denies this picture
in more than one way:
1) It denies that the initial stirring and the
full-blown desire are the same thing. In other words,
they do not differ merely in degree, they differ in
_kind_.
2) It denies that I should ever allow the
initial stirring to grow into a desire. Ever, for
anyone. Not for the person I'm courting, not for my
wife, not for anyone.
3) It denies that the relationship between
desire and reason is a relationship of power. In
other words, on the Stoic view I don't have to worry
that my desires may become so strong that they will
overcome reason, because reason can and should
_eliminate_ desires entirely.
It works like this:
There is indeed a biological stirring which
slightly resembles "desire" (and, hence, becomes
confused with it in ordinary English). Allow me
the leeway to stipulatively use the word "urge"
for this stirring. This is the thing which I
acknowledged is not in our control, and hence
cannot ever be right or wrong. I ate lunch today
at a restaurant. There was a customer there who
I found very attractive in this way. I did not
find her boyfriend attractive, nor the waitress
who took my order. This was in no way voluntary
on my part--I did not in any way choose which
people (if any!) I would find attractive. If
I had my choice, I would have found none of them
attractive, because I was not looking for someone
to have sex with, and so there was no advantage in
seeing anyone as being sexually attractive. But
this wasn't voluntary.
There are similar biologically-based
stirrings in other areas. If I go to the zoo and the
lion suddenly roars unexpectedly, I may experience a
feeling of startlement that resembles fear. If I see a
dog get hit by a car and it whines in pain I may experience
something like sadness. Etc. None of these are under our
control.
Note also that none of these biologically-based
feelings _have cognitive content_. When the lion's
roar startles me I am not considering any proposition
at all. I am not thinking "I am in danger of being
harmed"...I am not thinking of anything. I am reacting
to a sound, or an image, or whatever. There is no
false judgment here, because there is no judgment. The
only thing I control is assenting to impressions, but
impressions have cognitive content, and no assent has
taken place in these cases. So these things, again, are
not in my control.
But what is under our control is what happens
next. I can choose to stare at the woman in the
restaurant, or to look away. I can sit there and
mentally undress her, or I can turn my mind back to
other subjects. I can imagine how happy I would be if
only I had her for my wife (or mistress), or I can
reject this thought on the grounds that she might very
well be stupid or selfish or obnoxious in some way and
so being with her would not be pleasant, or on the better and
more general grounds that my eudaimonia does not depend on
any external at all, include the nature of my wives or
mistresses, and that it would be wrong for me to have a
relationship with her.
If I choose to think that having sex with this
woman will make my life better, then I have accepted a
value judgment. Things that (I believe)contribute to my
eudaimonia are things that I judge to be good. If (as in
Epictetus' example) I say to myself "she is beautiful, and
_happy is her husband_ then I have passed beyond the stage
of seeing someone who I find biologically attractive, and into
the stage of assenting to a proposition. NOW what I experience
is no longer the biological feeling or urge, it is a desire.
Desires are feelings that arise from having assented to the
impression that something is good or bad. So what has happened
here is _not_ that an initial stirring has become stronger...
what has happened is that a non-propositional biological
urge has become transformed into a propositionally-based
desire. What we have now is a new thing, not a stronger
version of the old thing.
This belief, that having this woman as a sexual
partner will contribute to my true happiness, is false.
Always. In any case, assenting to any proposition is a
choice, and irrational choices are always wrong. {The belief
"the moon is made of green cheese" is not a moral belief, not a
value belief of any kind. But since it would be irrational for
me to assent to this impression, it would be morally wrong for
me to have that belief.}
How can reason control a desire? It can't. This
is where the Aristotelian model breaks down. If Reason
tells me that the impression "having her as a sexual
partner will increase my happiness (eudaimonia)" is false,
and so I refuse to assent to it, then the desire is not
moderated or controlled, it is eliminated. The desire is
caused by my assent to the impression--no assent, no desire.
On the other hand, if my reason has assented to the impression,
then it is no longer in position to control the desire that
results. It's like the legislature who turns power over to a
tyrant and expects to control his actions--once you have ceded
your authority, you cannot get it back without rescinding the
assent. As long as I assent to the proposition "having this
woman increases my eudaimonia" then I no longer have logical
grounds for refusing to assent to "it would be good for me to
have sex with her even though I'm married (or she's married,
or both)", or "I should conceal some of my income to buy her gifts
so that she will begin (or continue) having sex with me", etc.
Nowhere in Stoicism does it teach you how to maintain your desires
but moderate them and control them with reason. That's a common
sense idea, but you will not find it in Stoic thought. What you
find in Stoic thought are passages that tell you to refuse to
assent to the impressions of value and the desire, emotion or
pathos will _go away_.
So we have:
1) A non-propositional urge...not voluntary, neither true
nor false, neither right nor wrong.
2) The non-moral, non-value impression "this person is
physically beautiful". (This may not be connected to
a desire at all. For example, I would agree that George
Clooney is physically beautiful, even though I am not in
the least bit sexually attracted to him myself.) Assent
to this impression (like all assent to impressions) is
voluntary, but not in itself dangerous.
3) A value impression--"having sex with this person would
make me happy/be good for me/etc." This impression is
false--no external things are good. If I assent to it I
will experience a desire. I should never assent to such
impressions.
So what about my "desire" for my wife? I should
not have such a desire. Most people don't choose to marry
people for whom they don't even have a sexual urge. That's
fine--pleasure is a preferred indifferent for the Stoics, so
marrying someone who will give you sexual pleasure makes
rational sense. But there is no need for me to ever assent
to the proposition "my wife will bring me eudaimonia". Not
only is that false, but if I assent to it I will have a much
tougher time not also assenting to "it would be bad for my
wife to leave me", "it would be good for me to steal jewelry
that will make my wife want to stay with me", etc., etc., etc.
So...urges are neutral. All desires are bad.
***
> Let us get some common sense into understanding the Stoic approach.
>
*****
No, you want to change the Stoic approach to
conform to common sense.
***
> Nigel
>
Regards,
Grant
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