The Stoic Argument: Why False Value Judgments Are the Sole Cause of Suffering

 

# The Stoic Argument: Why False Value Judgments Are the Sole Cause of Suffering

**Philosophy, not psychology**. This is not an empirical investigation into how emotions happen to work in human beings, nor a therapeutic technique for feeling better. This is **moral philosophy**—a logical argument about the nature of good and evil, and the necessary consequences of correct versus incorrect judgments about value. Stoicism was recognized as radical even in antiquity precisely because it refuses to accommodate common sense, conventional wisdom, or "what everyone believes." The argument stands or falls on logical grounds, not empirical observation.

**The Stoic claim is absolute**: All suffering—every instance of emotional disturbance—arises from one and only one source: false value judgment. Specifically, the error of judging that something outside the domain of prohairesis (moral character, the capacity for choice) is genuinely good or evil. This is not a hypothesis about psychology. It is a **necessary truth** following from what "good" and "evil" actually mean when properly understood.

## The Central Argument: Only What Is Controlled Can Be Good

Grant Sterling's "Core Stoicism," developed through messages to the International Stoic Forum, identifies what he calls "the crucial logic": **Only things that are completely controlled by us can be genuinely good or evil**. This is not a therapeutic principle. It is a logical necessity arising from the nature of value itself.

**The argument proceeds**: 

1. Genuine goods must necessarily and always benefit their possessor

2. Genuine evils must necessarily and always harm their possessor  

3. What sometimes benefits and sometimes harms is neither good nor evil

4. We do not completely control external things (body, health, wealth, reputation, others' actions, outcomes)

5. External things sometimes benefit us and sometimes harm us (they can be used well or badly)

6. Therefore, external things cannot be genuinely good or evil

7. We do completely control our prohairesis (our capacity for assent, our judgments, our character)

8. Excellence of prohairesis (virtue) necessarily and always benefits

9. Corruption of prohairesis (vice) necessarily and always harms

10. Therefore, only virtue is genuinely good and only vice is genuinely evil

11. All other things are adiaphora (indifferent)

**This is not a claim about how people happen to feel**. It is a claim about what good and evil ARE. The argument's power lies in its logical necessity: if you accept the premises about what makes something genuinely valuable, the conclusions follow inexorably.

## Epictetus on the Mechanism: From Impressions to Disturbance

Epictetus presents the psychological mechanism with philosophical precision. The process is not a description of brain states but an analysis of rational agency and its misuse.

**Impressions (phantasiai) strike the mind**. This is involuntary. When external events occur, mental representations arise automatically. These impressions present themselves with propositional content: "Death threatens," "Wealth is present," "Reputation is damaged." The impression itself is morally neutral—receiving it is not up to us.

**Assent (synkatathesis) is the critical act**. This IS up to us. This is the exercise of prohairesis. When an impression strikes, the rational agent either:

- Gives assent (accepts the proposition as true)

- Withholds assent (suspends judgment)

- Refuses assent (rejects the proposition)

Epictetus is emphatic: "No one can compel you to assent to what appears false, nor to refuse assent to what appears true; here you have power that nothing can overcome" (Discourses 1.1). This power of assent is the domain of human freedom and the locus of good and evil.

**When assent is given to false value judgments, pathe (passions) necessarily follow**. This is not a contingent psychological fact but a logical consequence. If you assent to the proposition "Death is a genuine evil," and you assent to "Death may occur to me," you have necessarily assented to "A genuine evil threatens me"—which is what fear IS. The passion is not caused by the judgment; **the passion is the judgment plus the evaluative commitment plus the resulting impulse**.

Epictetus makes the logical structure explicit: "What disturbs men's minds is not events but their judgments on events" (Enchiridion 5). This is not a claim that events have no causal role in the appearance of impressions. It is the claim that **disturbance arises solely from the assent given to false propositions about value**.

## The Dichotomy of Control: Metaphysical Foundation

The famous dichotomy articulated in Enchiridion 1 is not practical advice. It is **ontological analysis** of what lies within versus outside the domain of prohairesis:

**Eph' hēmin (up to us)**: 

- Assent and refusal of assent

- Impulse (hormē) and disinclination  

- Our own actions as they proceed from prohairesis

- In summary: our judgments and volitions

**Ouk eph' hēmin (not up to us)**:

- Body and its states

- Property and possessions

- Reputation and social standing

- Political office and worldly success  

- Others' actions and choices

- All external outcomes

**The philosophical claim**: Only what is eph' hēmin can be good or evil, because only what is completely controlled can reliably benefit or harm in the relevant sense. External things may have value relative to nature (they are "preferred" or "dispreferred" indifferents), but they cannot have value in the moral sense—they cannot make us better or worse as rational agents.

This is why Epictetus can say: "If you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will" (Enchiridion 1). This follows by logical necessity from the nature of control and value.

## Sterling's Crucial Logic: The Logical Structure

Sterling's systematic derivation, developed through his contributions to the International Stoic Forum, shows how all Stoic doctrines follow from the crucial logic about control and value. What he accomplished was making explicit the foundational principle that was implicit in classical texts—demonstrating that Stoicism is not a collection of separate insights but a unified logical system.

**The core derivation runs**:

**Theorem 1**: Only virtue is genuinely good; only vice is genuinely evil

- Follows from: Only what's controlled can be good/evil + Only prohairesis is controlled + Virtue is excellence of prohairesis

**Theorem 2**: All externals are indifferent  

- Follows from: Externals are not controlled + Only controlled things are good/evil

**Theorem 3**: Virtue is sufficient for eudaimonia (happiness/flourishing)

- Follows from: Eudaimonia consists in possessing genuine goods + Only virtue is genuinely good + Virtue can be possessed regardless of externals

**Theorem 4**: The virtuous person cannot be harmed by externals

- Follows from: Harm requires loss of genuine good + Only virtue is genuine good + Externals cannot affect virtue

**Theorem 5**: Pathe (passions) arise only from false value judgments

- Follows from: Pathe involve judging externals good/evil + Externals are indifferent + Therefore all such judgments are false

**Theorem 6**: Eliminating false value judgments eliminates pathe

- Follows from: Pathe necessarily involve false value judgments + Removing necessary conditions removes what depends on them

**Theorem 7**: The sage (one with perfect virtue) experiences no pathe

- Follows from: The sage makes no false value judgments + Pathe require false value judgments

The beauty of this system lies in its logical necessity. **These are not empirical generalizations that might have exceptions**. They are deductive consequences of premises about the nature of good, evil, control, and rationality.

## Why VALUE Judgments Specifically

Not all false beliefs generate suffering. You can be mistaken about geography, history, mathematics—these errors may have practical consequences but not emotional disturbance. **The specificity to value judgments is not arbitrary**; it follows from what pathe ARE.

**Analysis of passion structure**:

Every passion involves at minimum two judgments:

1. A value judgment (X is good/evil)

2. A factual judgment (X is present/absent/future)

**Fear**, for instance, requires:

- "Death is a genuine evil" (value judgment—FALSE)

- "Death may occur to me" (factual judgment—possibly true)

- "Response of fear is appropriate" (practical judgment following from the above)

Remove the false value judgment while retaining the factual judgment, and fear cannot arise. You may judge "Death may occur" while also judging "Death is indifferent"—this combination cannot generate fear, because fear requires the proposition "A genuine evil threatens."

**Distress** requires:

- "Loss of X is a genuine evil" (value judgment—FALSE if X is external)

- "X has been lost" (factual judgment—possibly true)  

- "Distress is the appropriate response" (practical judgment)

The person who judges correctly—"Loss of health/wealth/reputation is loss of an indifferent"—cannot experience distress about these losses, because distress requires judging them genuine evils.

**This is why Epictetus can make the seemingly outrageous claim**: "If you kiss your child or your wife, say that you are kissing a human being; for when it dies you will not be disturbed" (Enchiridion 3). This is not psychological advice about emotional management. It is a **logical point about what can and cannot disturb** one who judges correctly. If you judge that your child is "a human being" (a mortal, an external, not genuinely good though certainly preferred), then when death comes, you have not lost anything genuinely good—therefore, logically, you cannot be disturbed in the technical sense of pathos.

## The Passions as False Judgments: Chrysippus's Analysis

Chrysippus formalized the Stoic theory of pathe with philosophical rigor. The four primary passions map precisely onto value judgments about present or future goods and evils:

**Distress (lupē)**: Fresh judgment that present evil exists  

**Fear (phobos)**: Judgment that future evil threatens  

**Pleasure (hēdonē)**: Fresh judgment that present good exists  

**Appetite (epithumia)**: Judgment that future good is obtainable

Each is defined by Chrysippus in four ways, preserved by ancient sources:

1. As "excessive impulse" (pleonazōn hormē)

2. As "impulse disobedient to reason" (hormē aπειθής τῷ λόγῳ)

3. As "fluttering of the soul" (pterōsis tēs psychēs)  

4. Most significantly: As "false judgment" (pseudēs doxa)

**The fourth definition is primary**. The passion IS the false judgment plus its consequences. The "excess" and "disobedience to reason" consist precisely in assenting to falsehood about value. The "fluttering" is the necessary consequence when the soul commits to pursuing or fleeing what is actually indifferent.

**Subspecies of passion follow logically**:

Under distress:

- Pity: Distress at another's undeserved suffering (false because suffering is indifferent)

- Envy: Distress at another's goods (false because external "goods" are indifferent)  

- Grief: Distress at recent loss (false because loss of externals is loss of indifferents)

Under fear:

- Dread: Fear of future labor (false because labor is indifferent)

- Shame: Fear of disrepute (false because reputation is indifferent)

- Panic: Fear that overwhelms reasoning (false because it treats indifferent as genuinely threatening)

**Each subspecies contains the basic value error plus specifications**. All are false judgments, all are "up to us" in the sense that we assent or refuse assent, all are eliminable through correct judgment.

## Propatheiai: The Crucial Distinction

The Stoics were not naive about automatic physiological responses. **The distinction between propatheiai (pre-passions) and pathe (full passions) is philosophically critical**, not just psychologically convenient.

Aulus Gellius preserves the account: A Stoic philosopher at sea in a storm turns pale and trembles. Afterward, he explains using Epictetus: "When terrifying impressions strike, even the wise person's soul must contract and grow pale for a moment—not because it judges (hypolambanei) that something evil is present, but through certain rapid motions prior to the work of intellect (proēgoumena tou ergou tēs dianoias)."

**Philosophical analysis**:

- **Propatheiai**: Automatic, involuntary, non-rational responses of the organism to impressions

  - Examples: Initial startle, pallor, trembling, rapid heartbeat

  - Status: Indifferent (neither good nor bad)

  - Location: Body, not prohairesis

  - Not "up to us"

- **Pathe**: Responses involving assent to value propositions  

  - Examples: Fear, distress, anger, inappropriate pleasure

  - Status: Vicious (bad) because they involve false judgment

  - Location: Prohairesis (the rational, choosing faculty)

  - Completely "up to us"

**The sage experiences propatheiai but never pathe**. When the terrifying impression strikes, the body reacts—this is not in the domain of prohairesis. But the sage withholds assent from the proposition "This is a genuine evil threatening me." Without that assent, there is physiological response but no fear (pathos).

Seneca analyzes this in *De Ira* (On Anger) 2.4:

- **First movement**: Involuntary impression and physiological preparation (not anger)

- **Second movement**: Assent to "I have been injured" + judgment "I should retaliate" (this IS anger)

- **Third movement**: Passion overwhelming reason (fully developed anger)

**The sage may experience first movements while preventing second and third movements**. The crucial point: Full passion requires assent, and assent is always voluntary, always "up to us."

## The Logical Necessity of Apatheia

**Apatheia** (freedom from pathe) is not a psychological achievement or therapeutic goal. It is the **logical consequence** of correct value judgment. The sage has apatheia not through emotional suppression or management but through the impossibility of forming passions while judging correctly.

**The argument**:

1. All pathe involve false value judgments about externals

2. The sage makes no false value judgments  

3. Therefore, the sage experiences no pathe

4. The sage does judge correctly about preferred/dispreferred indifferents

5. Therefore, the sage experiences eupatheiai (good feelings) corresponding to correct judgments

**The three eupatheiai** (good feelings of the sage):

- **Boulēsis** (wish/will): Rational impulse toward genuine good (virtue)

  - Contrasts with: epithumia (appetite for falsely judged goods)

- **Chara** (joy): Rational response to present genuine good (virtue)

  - Contrasts with: hēdonē (pleasure in falsely judged goods)  

- **Eulabeia** (caution): Rational aversion to genuine evil (vice)

  - Contrasts with: phobos (fear of falsely judged evils)

**Note the asymmetry**: There is no eupatheia corresponding to distress, because distress responds to present evil, and the sage cannot experience present genuine evil (virtue cannot be taken from the sage by externals). The sage has rational aversion to vice (eulabeia) but cannot experience rational distress, because genuine evil cannot befall the sage against his will.

**This is not emotional suppression**. The sage has feelings—but only feelings corresponding to correct judgments. The sage experiences joy at virtuous action, wishes for the good of others, exercises caution about vice. What the sage does not experience are the turbulent, excessive, false-judgment-based pathe.

## Objections From Common Sense: Why They Miss the Point

**Objection 1**: "But losing loved ones DOES cause suffering—this is obvious!"

**Stoic response**: You confuse two things: (1) the natural impression of loss creating propatheiai, and (2) the judgment that loss of an external is genuinely evil creating pathos. The first is not denied. The second is the error. When you say loss "causes" suffering, you speak imprecisely. Loss causes an impression; your judgment about that impression causes passion. The sage experiences the impression and its automatic physiological consequences but does not add the false judgment that converts this into pathos.

Furthermore, your "obviousness" merely reflects conventional false belief, not philosophical truth. **That "everyone believes" something does not make it true**. Everyone once believed the Earth was flat. The task of philosophy is precisely to question what seems obvious to common sense.

**Objection 2**: "This makes the Stoic sage inhuman, unfeeling, monstrous!"

**Stoic response**: You equivocate on "feeling." If "feeling" means experiencing concern, care, rational preference—the sage has this fully. The sage prefers loved ones to live, acts to preserve their lives, and when death comes, experiences the natural impression and its bodily effects. What the sage lacks is **false judgment about value**. Is it "inhuman" to judge truly? Is it "monstrous" to see clearly what is genuinely good and evil?

Moreover, the conventional "humanity" you defend consists largely in **shared false belief**. The fact that everyone experiences grief does not make grief correct. It makes it a shared error, not a shared truth.

**Objection 3**: "But some suffering has biological/neurological causes independent of belief!"

**Stoic response**: This confuses philosophical analysis with empirical psychology. **We are not making claims about brain states or neural mechanisms**. We are analyzing the logical structure of value and rational agency. When we say pathe arise from false judgment, we speak of **rational causation**, not efficient causation in the physical sense.

The biological substrate is irrelevant to the philosophical question. Even if certain brain states regularly accompany false value judgments, this does not refute the claim that the passion qua passion—the evaluative, rational phenomenon—arises from and consists in false judgment. You would not say "depression has serotonin causes, therefore the judgment 'I am worthless' plays no role." The levels of analysis are distinct.

**Objection 4**: "This seems to blame sufferers for their suffering!"

**Stoic response**: "Blame" is your moralistic addition. The claim is not that people are blameworthy for false judgment (though in the Stoic system, vice is blameworthy). The claim is that **false judgment is the source**, and recognizing this locates the power to eliminate suffering where it actually lies—in our own prohairesis.

Far from being harsh, this is liberation. It means **no external circumstance can make you suffer** unless you assent to false propositions. Your happiness depends entirely on what you control—your judgments. This grants human beings the dignity of rational agency and the power of self-determination that no tyrant, no disease, no poverty can touch.

## Sterling's Crucial Logic: The Power of Systematic Derivation

What Sterling's formalization reveals is that **every major Stoic doctrine follows deductively from the crucial logic** about control and value. This is not a collection of therapeutic techniques or life advice. It is a **philosophical system** with the rigor of geometry.

**From "Only what is controlled can be good/evil" we derive**:

- The indifference of externals (they are not controlled)

- The sufficiency of virtue (it is controlled and is the only good)

- The invulnerability of the sage (externals cannot affect what is genuinely valuable)

- The source of pathe in false judgment (pathe treat indifferents as good/evil)

- The possibility of apatheia (eliminating false judgment eliminates pathe)

- The inappropriateness of fear regarding externals (externals are not genuine evils)

- The inappropriateness of distress regarding externals (loss of indifferents is not genuine loss)

- The freedom of the rational agent (good and evil are "up to us" because they lie in judgment)

**Each theorem supports the others**. The system has the coherence of **logical necessity**, not the contingency of empirical generalization. Challenge one theorem, and you must reject the premises; accept the premises, and you must accept all conclusions.

This is why Stoicism can be radical while being rationally compelling. **It does not accommodate common sense; it refutes common sense through superior reasoning**. The masses believe externals are genuinely good and evil—the Stoics prove this belief is false. The masses suffer pathe—the Stoics show this suffering is self-inflicted through assent to falsehood. The masses fear death, grieve losses, desire externals—the Stoics demonstrate these responses rest on philosophical error.

Sterling's achievement was to make this logical structure explicit and systematic—showing that what Epictetus taught through concrete examples and what the ancient Stoics practiced follows necessarily from a single foundational principle about control and value.

## The Practical Syllogism: From Theory to Action

Stoic practice is not therapeutic technique. It is **applied logic**—the rigorous implementation of philosophical truth in concrete judgment.

**The practice consists in**:

1. **Examining impressions before assenting**: When a frightening impression arises ("This threatens genuine evil"), pause and analyze: Is this genuinely evil? Is it controlled by me? The answer reveals: It is external, therefore indifferent, therefore cannot be genuinely evil. **Withhold assent**.

2. **Formulating correct judgments explicitly**: "Death is indifferent." "Loss of property is loss of an indifferent." "Others' opinions are not up to me, therefore not good or evil." Make the correct judgment in propositional form and **assent to this truth**.

3. **Habituating correct assent**: Through repeated practice, the pattern of correct judgment becomes automatic. This is not conditioning in the psychological sense but **perfecting the rational faculty** through exercise.

4. **Premeditation of "evils"**: Mentally rehearse future "misfortunes"—not to reduce anxiety (therapeutic goal) but to **pre-judge correctly** what they are. "Death may come today—what is this? Loss of an indifferent. Therefore, no genuine evil threatens." (Praemeditatio malorum)

5. **Reserve clause in all action**: Pursue preferred indifferents with the reservation "if nothing prevents it" or "if it accords with nature's will." This maintains correct judgment about the value of outcomes—they are preferred but not genuinely good. (Hupexairesis)

**Example from Epictetus** (Enchiridion 3): "With regard to whatever objects give you delight, are useful, or are deeply loved, remember to tell yourself of what general nature they are, beginning from the most insignificant things. If, for example, you are fond of a specific ceramic cup, remind yourself that it is only ceramic cups in general of which you are fond. Then, if it breaks, you will not be disturbed."

**Analysis**: The point is not emotional preparation for loss. The point is maintaining correct judgment about value. The cup is an indifferent. Fondness for it is appropriate as a preferred indifferent, but not as a genuine good. When it breaks, you have lost an indifferent—there is no rational basis for distress (pathos). You may experience natural preference for the cup, natural disappointment at loss (propatheia), but not passion.

## The Complete Argument: Summary and Necessity

**The Stoic position, fully articulated**:

1. **Metaphysical premise**: Only what is completely controlled can be genuinely good or evil

2. **Anthropological premise**: Humans control only prohairesis (rational choice, judgment, character)

3. **Conclusion 1**: Only virtue (excellence of prohairesis) is genuinely good; only vice is genuinely evil

4. **Conclusion 2**: All externals are adiaphora (indifferent)

5. **Psychological premise**: Pathe (passions) necessarily involve judging externals to be good or evil

6. **Conclusion 3**: All pathe involve false value judgments

7. **Practical conclusion**: Eliminating false value judgments eliminates pathe

8. **Achievement**: The sage, judging correctly about all things, experiences no pathe (apatheia) and has eudaimonia regardless of externals

**This is not a hypothesis about how minds happen to work**. It is a **deductive argument** from premises about value, control, and rationality to conclusions about passion and happiness. The argument stands or falls on:

- Whether the premise "only what is controlled can be good/evil" is true

- Whether humans indeed control only prohairesis

- Whether pathe indeed involve value judgments about externals

If these premises are granted, **the conclusions follow with logical necessity**. There is no room for "yes, but..." or "in most cases..." or "generally speaking..." The necessity is absolute.

## Why This Philosophy Remains Radical

Stoicism was radical in antiquity and remains radical today because **it refuses all compromise with conventional belief**. It does not say "externals matter less than we think" but "externals are absolutely indifferent to genuine good and evil." It does not say "we can reduce suffering" but "we can eliminate all suffering while living virtuously." It does not say "virtue is very important" but "virtue is the only thing that is genuinely good."

**The radicalism is necessary, not rhetorical**. If externals were even slightly good or evil, the Stoic argument collapses. If wealth were "a little bit good," then losing it would be "a little bit bad," and distress would be rational. The system permits no halfway position because the logic permits no halfway position.

Modern appropriations that soften Stoicism—"it's just about what you can control," "it's about resilience," "it's cognitive therapy"—**miss the philosophical point entirely**. These are therapeutic uses of Stoic-inspired techniques, not Stoic philosophy. Stoic philosophy makes absolute claims about the nature of good and evil, and these claims have absolute consequences for how rational beings should judge and act.

**The question is not**: "Does this philosophy accommodate modern psychology, neuroscience, or common intuitions?" The question is: **"Is the argument sound?"** If the premises are true and the reasoning valid, the conclusions follow—whether they align with empirical psychology, therapeutic practice, or conventional wisdom is irrelevant to their truth.

This is philosophy in the classical sense: **rational inquiry into the nature of reality and value, following argument wherever it leads, regardless of comfort or convention**. The Stoics followed their argument to radical conclusions. The question for us is whether we have the philosophical courage to examine the argument on its own terms, rather than diluting it to match our pre-existing commitments.