Sterling, 11 August 2013 — Stoicism and Individualism, Part the Last: The Primary-Source Record v1.0
Sterling, 11 August 2013 — Stoicism and Individualism, Part the Last: The Primary-Source Record v1.0
Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.
I. Archive Coordinates
- Author: Grant C. Sterling, gcsterling@eiu.edu
- Subject line as archived: Fwd: Re: [stoics] Re: Stoicism and individualism, Part the Last
- List: stoics@yahoogroups.com (International Stoic Forum), Label_29 / Label_34
- Message and thread id: 1407043c791a04f5
- Header timestamp: 2013-08-12T02:05:54Z — that is, 11 August 2013, 9:05 p.m. US Central, Sterling’s local time. The corpus dating of 11 August 2013 is correct.
- Retrieval: Gmail, full-message depth, 21 August 2026. Located by subject search across the August 2013 window rather than by sender filter.
Rendering note: the original is hard-wrapped plain text; line breaks have been reflowed into paragraphs and Sterling’s underscore emphasis rendered as italics. No wording is altered. His typing of follow man for fellow man is retained as archived.
II. Where This Post Sits
The post is the third of three, and it opens mid-argument with an orphaned numeral. The frame comes from Part One, sent about eighty-five minutes earlier the same evening (message 1406ff6e4c6e072e), which separates three issues:
1) What is the fundamental subject of Stoic thought—individuals or societies? This is a question about the essential nature of the philosophy.
2) To what degree is morality connected to social life? This is a question about the content of the moral life.
3) What is the relationship between society and our knowledge of the moral life? This is a question about the source of our awareness of duty, not what duty itself consists in.
Part the Last answers question three. That placement matters for how the sentences the corpus draws on should be read: they arrive as the answer to an epistemological question about the source of moral awareness, not as a standalone remark about weakness of will. The interlocutors are Theophile and Steve Marquis, and Sterling rejects both of their positions on this question while siding with Theophile against Marquis on question two.
III. The Text
I have claimed that Stoicism is an individualist philosophy (in which I disagree with Theophile) in the sense that Stoicism is essentially directed towards the achievement of eudaimonia by an individual person. On the other hand, I reject the view of several people on this List who hold that Stoicism is completely individualistic (that it is, basically, a sort of egoism or the ethical cousin of political libertarianism). For the Stoic, we have duties to others that may require us to risk our lives for others (like Horatius), sacrifice our worldly goods, etc. On this issue, I am much closer to Theophile than to Steve.
3) What is the relationship between society and our knowledge of the moral life? This is a question about the source of our awareness of duty, not what duty itself consists in.
Regarding question 3:
Now we come to the purely epistemological issue. Can we know what we ought to do without an irreducibly social element?
And now I reject both Theophile’s and Steve’s positions.
The Stoic view (and my view) is that ethics is a matter of reason, and reason is knowledge of the Logos. (I will omit a discussion of whether the Logos is a material or immaterial principle—I don’t actually think it matters for the purpose of this questions, although of course it matters for many other questions!) I see no reason to think that we must somehow look at the effects of our actions on society or on others to know what is right. I am a theist, but I don’t derive ethical principles from divine commands. I am happy to talk about the Cosmopolis, but I simply don’t understand how we figure out what the cosmopolis requires without first knowing what duties come with what roles, and what things are preferred and dispreferred. On the other hand, while it is certainly true that we sometimes mistake ‘what we’re familiar with’ for ‘what is right’, this doesn’t seem to me to be any cause for substantial skepticism about role-duties or pref/dispref indifferents, especially those which are recognized throughout a multitude of societies.
In this I think that I really am a traditional Stoic. As I have said before—I don’t think the problem is that we don’t know what the right thing is to do…the problem is that we often don’t want to do it. I know that as a human being (and as a citizen) I have a duty not to steal from my follow man…but I sometimes see something that someone else has that I really want, and I try to convince myself that somehow I don’t really know what to do. I don’t believe that I ought not steal because my society tells me that—sometimes society is wrong. I don’t believe it because it harms others…such information is only relevant if I know that I ought not harm others, and my knowledge that I shouldn’t steal seems just as obvious to me as my knowledge that I ought not harm others. I don’t believe it because God forbids it, although I do think God forbids it. I think “Ceteris paribus, one ought not steal” is just as obvious as a principle of reason as “2+2=4” or “no proposition can be true and false at the same time”, etc. And I think it is significant that the Stoics spend less than 0.1% of their time trying to explain where our knowledge of ethical truths comes from (except for the generic appeals to “reason” and “logos”). But, as I said, the issue here is only this—can we know what to do without deriving it from social considerations, and I think the answer is a definite yes. But that doesn’t mean we need to be skeptical or hostile to social considerations, either.
Regards, and apologies for the length and the lack of direct citations,
Grant
IV. What the Message Carries
Four things, and it is worth keeping them distinct.
The Decision Point sentences. I don’t think the problem is that we don’t know what the right thing is to do…the problem is that we often don’t want to do it, followed by the theft example and the self-description of manufactured confusion. These are the sentences quoted in The Decision Point v1.0 and in The Fixed Target v1.0, and the archive text confirms them exactly. Note the phrase as I have said before — in 2013 Sterling treats the position as long settled, which is consistent with the 2009 statements and predates the Butler agreement of 2014 by a year.
The self-evidence claim, at the level of principle. Ceteris paribus, one ought not steal is placed alongside arithmetic and the law of non-contradiction. This is a statement about a fundamental principle, not about a particular case, and it therefore sits on the correct side of the distinction Sterling draws in October 2014. It is direct grounding for C3 and C4.
Three explicit rejections of alternative grounds for moral knowledge. Not social convention, since societies are sometimes wrong. Not harm to others, since that consideration only bears once one already knows one ought not harm others — a regress point, made in passing. Not divine command, though he is a theist and holds that God does forbid it. The third is notable given how often theism is assumed to supply the ground.
The limit Sterling puts on his own claim. The closing sentences narrow it: the question is only whether moral knowledge can be had without deriving it from social considerations, and skepticism about role-duties is not warranted merely because familiarity is sometimes mistaken for rightness. He does not conclude that social considerations are to be treated with hostility. This restraint belongs in the record alongside the stronger sentences.
V. What This Closes
The 11 August 2013 message was carried in both session documents as supplied but not independently retrieved. It is now verified at full-message depth against the archive, and the pending item is discharged. No wording in either document requires amendment; the quoted passages match the source.
One companion post is now also in hand — Part One, message 1406ff6e4c6e072e, quoted above for its three-question frame. Part Two, message 140701a2775ac0c2, answering question two, has been located but not opened.
Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.
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