Introduction to Stoicism

Excerpt from the Stoic Week Handbook 2020: Stoicism

during a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others, and
Our World

What is Stoicism?
Stoicism is a school of ancient Greek philosophy in the Socratic tradition. It was
founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium around 301 BC. The name comes from the
painted porch (stoa poikile) where Zeno lectured his students. Stoicism later became
very popular in ancient Rome, where it continued to flourish long after the
disappearance of the original Greek school. Less than one percent of the Stoics'
original writings now survive, however. The most important ancient sources that we
have today are:

1. The many Letters, Essays and Dialogues of the Roman statesman Seneca, who
was advisor to the emperor Nero.
2. The Handbook and four surviving books of Epictetus' Discourses compiled from
his lectures by a student called Arrian. Epictetus, a Greek ex-slave, is the only
Stoic teacher whose thoughts survive in book form.
3. The Meditations, a private Stoic notebook or diary of the Roman emperor
Marcus Aurelius, who was strongly influenced by Epictetus.

In the Stoic Week Handbook we include passages from all three thinkers, and
sometimes also from other ancient authors who wrote about Stoic ethics. These texts
are used for the morning and evening reflections. Several the passages are from
Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, which present Stoic ideas in an especially powerful
and personal form. Some people think that Marcus wrote The Meditations as morning
and evening reflections so they may be particularly helpful for encouraging your
reflections.

Stoic Week gives you a chance to follow a similar routine to Marcus each day. You
might like to write down your own morning and evening meditations and keep
them in a notebook, or share them with other people through social networks. You
can base your personal meditations on the topics suggested or use other Stoic ideas
that you have learned about and find helpful.

You may find it helpful to read some of these Stoic writings during the week, or at
least dip into them. For instance, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, Epictetus’ Handbook
and Discourses, and Seneca’s Letters provide sources of helpful additional reading.
All of these are available in up-to-date translations with introductions and notes,
published by Oxford University Press, The World’s Classics, or Penguin, for
instance. We offer more suggestions for further reading at the end of the Handbook.

From the Stoic Week Handbook 2020 Authors: the Modern Stoicism Team
 Introduction to Stoicism
Excerpt from the Stoic Week Handbook 2020: Stoicism
during a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others, and
Our World

Central Stoic Ideas

What is Stoicism? How might it help us to live better, happier lives today? Some of
you will be drawn to this experiment because you already know a little bit about
Stoicism and want to put it into practice for yourselves. Others may know very little
about Stoicism and are curious to learn more. The ancient Stoic philosophical system
was well known for being vast and complex, addressing a wide range of topics
under the headings of Ethics, Logic, and Physics. It will be impossible to introduce it
all. However, here are several central ideas at the heart of Stoic ethics: happiness,
virtue, ethical development, emotions, nature. These are also the main themes for
reflection on different days of Stoic Week. Don't worry if some of these ideas seem a
bit hard to grasp on first reading. They will become clearer as you go through each
day of Stoic Week.

1. Happiness
We all want to live happily – but what is happiness? In modern terms, ‘happiness’
tends to mean being in a cheerful mood or having enjoyable experiences. People
often think that being happy depends on factors largely outside our control, such as
being healthy or well-off, or finding the right life partner or a stable family life.
Ancient philosophers often thought of happiness as a matter of leading a certain
kind of life, a life that we can determine for ourselves. In forming an idea of
happiness, we are adopting a ‘goal’ (in Greek, telos) to provide shape for our lives.
The Stoics offered an idea of happiness that gives a central role to our own agency,
our ability to determine our own actions. They also insisted that we can all work
towards achieving happiness whatever our situation in life. They maintained that
adopting a correct view of happiness will affect our emotions and moods as well as
our actions and relationships to others, and will do so in a very positive way.

What is happiness, then, according to Stoicism? The standard definition was ‘the life
according to nature’ or ‘the natural life’. ‘Nature’ in what sense, though? The Stoics
seem to have in mind a combination of human nature and nature as a whole (the
universe or cosmos). They defined human nature as rational and sociable. They saw
animals in general as naturally sociable, and humans as sociable in a way that
expresses rationality. They thought the universe or nature as a whole was
characterised by two main sets of qualities. One is order, structure, and wholeness
(overall, a kind of consistency). The other is providential care for all the forms of life

From the Stoic Week Handbook 2020 Authors: the Modern Stoicism Team
 Introduction to Stoicism
Excerpt from the Stoic Week Handbook 2020: Stoicism
during a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others, and
Our World

that make up the natural world, including human beings. The Stoics thought that
human beings can express these same qualities, though in a human way.

… therefore, living in agreement with nature comes to be the goal, which is in

accordance with the nature of oneself [human nature] and that of the whole […]
the virtue of the happy person and his good flow of life [happiness] are just this:
always doing everything on the basis of the harmony of each person’s guardian
spirit with the will of the administrator of the whole.
Chrysippus, quoted by Diogenes Laertius, 7.88

So, the happy life for Stoicism is a life that expresses human nature at its best and
reflects, at a human level, the best qualities of nature as a whole. The happy life
combines the proper use of rationality with sociability (wanting to benefit other
people). It is a coherent life, marked by inner order, structure and wholeness or
integrity, rather than being chaotic or unstable. It is also a life which combines caring
for ourselves (wanting to express the best qualities of our nature) with caring for
other people. This idea of happiness is closely linked with Stoic thinking about
virtue and ethical development, and their views on those subjects help to spell out
what is involved in Stoic happiness.

Compared with some modern ideas of happiness, the Stoic view stresses inner
rather than outer features, qualities of understanding and character rather than
success or good health or being rich. Although Stoic happiness is not defined in
terms of feeling or mood, Stoics think that someone who is happy in the Stoic sense
is also someone who experiences positive emotions such as joy and does so in a
consistent way, which does not depend on external circumstances. Even if we do not
entirely share the Stoic picture of human or universal nature, we may still find their
idea of happiness a powerful and inspiring one and one that we want to explore
further.

During a pandemic, when many avenues of happiness (as conventionally

understood) are limited - foreign holidays, going out, even meeting friends - the
Stoic view, stressing the importance of inner qualities, can be particularly helpful.
The Stoic view of happiness reminds us, for example, that true happiness is not so
much about having lots of positive experiences so much as how you conduct
yourself. Happiness, so understand, is within our grasp even during a pandemic.

From the Stoic Week Handbook 2020 Authors: the Modern Stoicism Team
 Introduction to Stoicism
Excerpt from the Stoic Week Handbook 2020: Stoicism
during a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others, and
Our World

2. Virtue
Virtue is a consistent character, choice-worthy for its own sake and not from fear or
hope or anything external. Happiness consists in virtue since virtue is a soul which
has been fashioned to achieve consistency in the whole of life. (Diogenes Laertius, 7.89)

For the Stoics, the ideas of happiness and virtue are closely connected; indeed,
happiness was sometimes defined as ‘the life according to virtue’, as well as ‘the life
according to nature’. The virtues, taken generally, are the qualities that enable us to
lead a happy life, that is, a fully human and ‘natural’ life, in the Stoic sense.

The Stoics thought there were four core (or ‘cardinal’) virtues, with many
subdivisions, which cover the four main areas of human experience and motivation.
They defined them as forms of knowledge or expertise (skill in living a happy life).
But they are not purely intellectual skills and cover qualities of character as well as
understanding. The core virtues are:

Wisdom, excellence in reasoning and judgement in theory and practice

Courage (or resilience), ability to deal with dangers properly
Justice (including kindness and generosity), excellence in our
relationships with others
Moderation or self-control, ability to deal properly with emotions and desires

The four virtues were seen as very closely linked. Sometimes, wisdom was regarded
as the core virtue, and the other three virtues as aspects of wisdom, that is, as
wisdom applied in the various sectors of human experience. The virtues were also
seen as depending on each other, so you could not be brave or moderate, in a real
sense, unless you were also wise (using good judgement) or just (treating people
properly).

In modern thought, virtues are often described as ‘moral’ qualities and these are
seen as qualities that benefit other people rather than ourselves (or that express
altruism rather than egoism). In ancient ethics, including Stoicism, virtues are
generally seen as qualities that benefit us ourselves as well as other people. In
Stoicism, the virtues enable us to lead a happy life, that is, the best possible life for a
human being (seen as part of nature as a whole). By exercising wisdom or good
judgment in the four main areas of human experience, we express the distinctively
human combination of rationality and sociability. In this way, we also take the best
possible care of ourselves and of other people who form part of our lives, by

From the Stoic Week Handbook 2020 Authors: the Modern Stoicism Team
 Introduction to Stoicism
Excerpt from the Stoic Week Handbook 2020: Stoicism
during a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others, and
Our World

achieving the best possible qualities of human excellence and expressing this in the
way we treat others, for instance, by acting justly, bravely and with self-control. We
also give our lives an overall shape and coherence or wholeness, as the virtues are
applied consistently in all aspects of our actions and experiences. Thus, we achieve
happiness, but a form of happiness that benefits other people as much as us, and
does so to the fullest possible extent.

The Stoics sometimes draw a sharp distinction between the virtues (genuinely good)
and other things often assumed to be good by the majority of people, such as health,
prosperity, reputation and the welfare of our families and friends. The second kind
of things are described by Stoics as ‘matters of indifference’ or, more precisely, as
indifferents that are ‘preferred’ or ‘preferable’, rather than the opposite. This
distinction is a potentially confusing one, especially as the Stoics also recognise that
the preferred indifferents such as health and the welfare of our families have a real,
positive value and are things that human beings naturally want to have rather than
not have. Why, then, are they described as ‘indifferents’? They are indifferents
because they do not make the difference between leading a happy life or not,
whereas the virtues do make this difference. If you have and exercise the virtues,
you will achieve happiness, as Stoics understand this (leading a life that is properly
rational and sociable, for instance), and you will do so whether or not you also have
health, prosperity and so on. But if you have the preferred indifferents but not the
virtues, you will not lead a happy life (you will not care for yourself and others in a
proper way or give your life coherence and unity). So the distinction reflects the
central role given by the Stoics to virtue in producing happiness.

There are two recent dialogues on the Stoic idea of ‘indifferents’ between Tim LeBon
and Chris Gill on the ‘Stoicism Today’ blog that you might find helpful:

1. Stoic Values Clarification Part 1

2. Stoic Values Clarification Part 2

The virtues are extremely relevant in a pandemic. We need courage to carry on doing
what is right, even if it is difficult (such as an employee complaining about a flaw in
an organisation’s safety). We need self-control so that we don’t do certain things even
though we want to (such as reading too much new or breaking the guidelines). We
need justice and kindness to look after those who need it, such as the vulnerable in our

From the Stoic Week Handbook 2020 Authors: the Modern Stoicism Team
 Introduction to Stoicism
Excerpt from the Stoic Week Handbook 2020: Stoicism
during a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others, and
Our World

neighbourhood (and beyond). We need wisdom to understand the situation well, and
to decide which of the virtues are relevant.

3. Ethical Development ('Appropriation')

From the beginning nature has assigned to every type of creature the tendency to
preserve itself, its life and body, and to reject anything that seems likely to harm
them […] Common to all animals is the instinct to unite for the purposes of
procreation, and to care for those that are born… The great difference between
humans and other animals is this […] Human beings have a share in reason.
(Cicero, On Duties, 1.11)

Stoics believed that all human beings have a natural, in-built, capacity to develop
towards virtue and happiness. In this respect, they differed from some other ancient
thinkers who believed that ethical development depended on having a special kind
of inborn nature, and a special kind of upbringing and social context or education.
For the Stoics, ethical development is a matter of fulfilling your own nature as a
human being and an integral part of the natural universe; and everyone, even
someone who seems to be evil or conflicted, has this ability at a deep level. They
described this process as ‘appropriation’ (in Greek, oikeiōsis), which suggests making
your human nature ‘your own’ or making other people who share your nature ‘your
own’ (oikeion).

This process of development was sometimes subdivided by Stoic thinkers into two
strands (though they are also seen as interlinked). These can be seen as rational and
sociable strands, corresponding to the two main distinctive features of human nature.
In the first strand, we express our rationality by learning how to select properly
between ‘indifferents’ (things such as health and prosperity) and in this way
learning how to select virtuously (wisely, bravely, justly, moderately). As we come
to learn what the virtues involve, we also recognise that it is virtue, rather than other
things, that enables us to lead a happy life, and we begin to form a proper
understanding of what happiness is.

In the second strand, we develop the sociability that is also an integral part of
human nature. The Stoics thought that all animals have a social instinct, expressed
most obviously in the love of parents for their offspring. In human beings this social
instinct can be developed in a rational way, and can lead us to care for (or to ‘make
our own’) family members, friends, neighbours and fellow citizens. These different

From the Stoic Week Handbook 2020 Authors: the Modern Stoicism Team
 Introduction to Stoicism
Excerpt from the Stoic Week Handbook 2020: Stoicism
during a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others, and
Our World

kinds of relationships were sometimes described as ‘circles’ around ourselves. Also,

the Stoics, exceptionally in the ancient world, maintained that all human beings,
including foreigners, are our brothers or sisters or fellow citizens, in that we all share
the same core human characteristics of rationality and sociability and are equally
capable of virtue and happiness.

These two strands of development are interconnected. Learning how to select things
virtuously depends partly on forming attitudes of care towards other people, in
different forms of relationship. Caring for other people properly depends on treating
them virtuously and also on recognising that happiness depends on virtue rather
than indifferents. Although the Stoics thought this process was natural for us as
human beings, they did not see it as easy or automatic. Indeed, for virtually all of us,
it will be a life-long process and one that we do not complete in full. However, we
can make progress in doing so, and in learning how to carry through these two
strands and to relate them to each other. Aiming to make progress towards virtue
and happiness can provide a coherent and powerful framework for our lives, even if
we fall short of the perfection of the ideal wise person.

The pandemic may be an opportunity to rise to the occasion and make the ethical
development advocated by the Stoics. When other options are limited, and the needs
of others are particularly obvious, it could be the perfect time to find opportunity in
crisis.

4. Emotions
Modern ideas of happiness often give a central place to emotions (feeling happy),
and this topic also plays a part in Stoic thinking on happiness and ethical
development. In the popular imagination the Stoic is someone who has no emotions
(like a robot) or who represses her feelings in an unhealthy way.

The Stoics’ real views on this are more credible and also more complex. Stoics think
that a further strand in our ethical development is the emotional one. As we make
progress towards virtue and happiness, our emotional life changes. We stop having
ethically misguided and intense or conflicted emotions (sometimes called ‘passions’)
and we move towards having ‘good emotions’.

From the Stoic Week Handbook 2020 Authors: the Modern Stoicism Team
 Introduction to Stoicism
Excerpt from the Stoic Week Handbook 2020: Stoicism
during a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others, and
Our World

As Epictetus puts it: ‘if virtue promises to enable us to achieve happiness, freedom
from passion, and serenity, then progress towards virtue is surely also progress
towards each of these states’ (Discourses, 1.4.3).

The passions are misguided because the passionate person supposes that happiness
depends on acquiring or retaining ‘preferred indifferents’, such as wealth or fame
(rather than on exercising the virtues). This mistake generates emotions such as
anger, fear, or overwhelming lust; as well as being mistaken, these emotions are
often marked by intensity of feeling, instability and inner conflict. Ethical
development leads someone towards acting virtuously and recognising that
happiness depends on virtue. It also leads towards expressing affection and care for
the other people who share our lives, including children and other family members,
fellow-citizens and strangers or foreigners. Someone who develops in this way
experiences ‘good emotions’, rather than misguided ones, based on sound ethical
judgements and marked by a calmer and more stable and consistent pattern of
feeling.

The Stoics recognise three main good emotions (with many subdivisions),
corresponding to three of the main passions; these good emotions are focused on
developing the virtues, rather than on preferred indifferents, as the passions are:

1. Wishing, directed at gaining what is genuinely good (virtue), rather than

intense desire or craving for (for instance) wealth
2. Caution, directed at avoiding what is bad (vice or defective character), rather
than fear about losing wealth or another preferred indifferent
3. Joy or delight directed at what is good (virtue or happiness in oneself or
someone else), rather than (misguided) pleasure in something trivial or
malicious

The good emotions can be focused on other people’s virtues and happiness as well
as one’s own. The Stoics recognized good (wise) forms of erotic love and of affection
for children and other family members as well as the three main good emotions and
their subdivisions.

So, for the Stoics, as well as other thinkers, happiness has an emotional dimension.
But good emotions, like happiness generally, come as a result of developing the
virtues and should not be taken as a separate objective or goal in their own right.

From the Stoic Week Handbook 2020 Authors: the Modern Stoicism Team
 Introduction to Stoicism
Excerpt from the Stoic Week Handbook 2020: Stoicism
during a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others, and
Our World

Central to Stoic therapy about the emotions is the idea that it is not events but the
interpretation of events that causes us problems.

The Stoics believed that we can go wrong in our beliefs about the facts and especially
in our value judgements.

By becoming more aware of our thoughts and beliefs, we can avoid the “bad
passions.”

For example, imagine that Frieda is very disappointed about missing her foreign
holiday this year. Frieda might benefit from recalling that actually a foreign holiday
is not that much better, if any, than a holiday in her own country - think of the cost
savings, the inconvenience of air travel. More importantly, the Stoic would also
remind her that having a foreign holiday is a "preferred indifferent" - maybe a nice
thing to have, but not something that would make the difference between her being
happy or not. What matters more is how she handles each situation she finds herself
in. She might decide that what is important is that she is a good parent and
enthusiastically plans the family staycation. Can you see how Frieda’s “bad passion”
of extreme disappointment could be replaced by the “good emotion” of joy at the
fact that her attitude leads to the whole family being positive about the staycation?

5. Nature
As brought out already, ‘nature’ is a very important idea in Stoic ethics, with several
key senses:

1. Human nature, regarded as distinctively rational and sociable

2. Universal or cosmic nature, marked by order, structure, wholeness and
providential care for all parts of the universe, including human beings
3. Our own nature, which at its best (when it achieves virtue and happiness)
shares in these qualities of human and universal nature
4. The community or brotherhood of human beings, which is the bond existing
between all human beings as co-sharers in nature in these senses.

Modern people would find it difficult to accept the kind of picture of the physical
world offered by Stoic physics, rather than by modern science. But we can still see

From the Stoic Week Handbook 2020 Authors: the Modern Stoicism Team
 Introduction to Stoicism
Excerpt from the Stoic Week Handbook 2020: Stoicism
during a Pandemic: Care for Ourselves, Others, and
Our World

the role allocated to nature in Stoic ethics as a powerful and suggestive one today,
for several reasons. For instance, the Stoic idea of nature helps to give substantial
content to their thinking on virtue and happiness. The idea that virtue and
happiness consist in a combination of rationality and sociability, and involve order,
structure, and wholeness, as well as care for ourselves and others of our kind, is one
that modern thinkers can find convincing and inspiring.

Thinking about ourselves as an integral part of universal or cosmic nature may have
ethical significance in other ways too. It can help us to see our lifecycle from birth to
death as an infinitesimal part of life in nature, and thus to accept inevitable events
such as our own death and that of others in a more realistic and calmer way. Also,
today – much more than in the time of the ancient Stoics – we need, as human
beings, to take care of the natural environment and to try to repair the damage we
have done to many aspects of the natural order. Thinking of ourselves as integral
parts of universal nature can help us to develop a proper sense of responsibility in
this respect.

“You should regard the realization and fulfilment of what seems good to nature as a
whole in the same way as you view your own health, and so welcome everything
that happens, even if it seems rather harsh, because it leads in that direction,
towards the health of the universe.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.8.9

The pandemic is a reminder to us about all the aspects of nature mentioned by the
Stoics. It reminds us about how connected we all are and how we are vulnerable are
to the total web of causation. Furthermore the pandemic provides a unique
challenge and opportunity to be at our most rational and sociable as individuals,
communities and nations.

Conclusion
If you are going to follow Stoic week, then you need to be open-minded at least
towards these core Stoic ethical ideas. Our aim here is not to convince you of the
truth of these claims but to invite you to consider them and reflect on them and see if
they can help you to formulate and shape your own thoughts about how to give
more shape and purpose to your life. If the ideas we are presenting seem completely
absurd to you it may simply be that Stoicism is not for you. But you will only find
this out by giving yourself time to think about these ideas for yourself.

From the Stoic Week Handbook 2020 Authors: the Modern Stoicism Team