Sterling's Complete Stoic System

 # Sterling's Complete Stoic System

## FOUNDATIONAL PREMISES

### P1: Human Nature and Goals

- Everyone wants happiness (eudaimonia)

- Complete, uninterrupted happiness is both possible and rational to pursue

- Eudaimonia consists of BOTH psychological contentment AND moral perfection

### P2: Control and Identity

- **The only things in our control are**: beliefs, desires, acts of will, and what follows from these

- **Everything else is "external"**: body, health, wealth, reputation, other people, outcomes, even life and death

- **Personal identity**: "I am my soul/prohairesis/inner self" - the rational choosing part

### P3: Value Theory

- **Only virtue is genuinely good**

- **Only vice is genuinely evil** 

- **All externals are neither good nor evil** (they are "indifferent")

- Some externals are "preferred" (health, life) or "dispreferred" (sickness, death) but still not truly good/evil

## PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISM

### The Impression-Assent Process

1. **Impressions arise** (cognitive, propositional ideas about how the world is)

2. **We choose whether to assent** (accept as true) or refuse assent

3. **If we assent to value-laden impressions**: desires and emotions result

4. **Desires lead to actions**

### Emotional Causation

- **All emotions are caused by value beliefs** - judgments about what is good or evil

- **Positive emotions**: result from believing we have/will get something good

- **Negative emotions**: result from believing we have/will get something bad, or have lost something good

## THE LOGICAL CHAIN

### Chain A: Eliminating Negative Emotions

1. All unhappiness comes from having desires about outcomes that don't occur

2. If you desire things outside your control, unhappiness is inevitable

3. Since externals are outside our control, desiring them guarantees unhappiness

4. Since externals aren't actually good/evil, beliefs that they are good/evil are FALSE

5. **Therefore**: Eliminate false beliefs about externals → eliminate desires for externals → eliminate unhappiness

### Chain B: Achieving Positive Emotions

1. If we correctly judge that virtue is good, we will desire it

2. Virtue IS in our control (it consists of correct willing/choosing)

3. We can achieve virtue through correct judgment and action

4. Achieving what we desire produces positive feelings

5. **Therefore**: Correct value judgments → desire for virtue → virtuous action → positive feelings (Joy)

### Chain C: Additional Positive Feelings

1. Some positive feelings don't depend on desires (physical pleasures, aesthetic appreciation)

2. These are not irrational if we don't desire them to continue

3. Appreciating the world "as it should be" (providential view) generates positive feelings

4. **Therefore**: The sage experiences multiple sources of appropriate positive feelings

## THE COMPLETE SYSTEM

### For the Sage (Perfect Stoic):

- **Believes**: Only virtue good, only vice evil, all externals indifferent

- **Desires**: Only virtue (which is achievable)

- **Emotions**: Joy from virtue + appropriate positive feelings, NO negative emotions

- **Actions**: Always virtuous (aimed at appropriate objects, not driven by false desires)

- **Result**: Complete eudaimonia - perfect happiness and perfect virtue

### The Path to Sagehood:

1. **Refuse assent** to impressions attributing value to externals

2. **Consciously formulate** correct propositions about what has value

3. **Act on preferred indifferents** (health, life, etc.) while remembering they're not truly good

4. **Fulfill role duties** (as parent, citizen, etc.) virtuously

5. **Build virtuous character** through repeated correct assent over time

## KEY PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

### What This Eliminates:

- Fear (of externals being bad)

- Grief (over loss of externals)  

- Anger (at externals not being as we wish)

- Disappointment (when external outcomes don't match desires)

- All passionate attachments to outcomes

### What This Preserves:

- Rational action toward preferred indifferents

- Joy in virtuous action

- Physical and aesthetic pleasures

- Appreciation of the natural order

- Rational affection and concern (but not passionate attachment)

### The Ultimate Promise:

**Complete control over happiness**: Since happiness depends only on virtue, and virtue depends only on correct judgment/willing, and judgment/willing are in our control, we can GUARANTEE perfect happiness through philosophical discipline.

## LOGICAL STRUCTURE SUMMARY

**IF** externals aren't good/evil (metaphysical claim)

**AND** emotions come from value judgments (psychological claim)  

**AND** we control our judgments (agency claim)

**THEN** we can eliminate all negative emotions and achieve perfect happiness through correct thinking

This makes Stoicism, in Sterling's presentation, a complete rational system for guaranteed eudaimonia.