0:00

Hey, before I start today's episode, I

0:02

just wanted to let you know that

0:04

my book, What Is Stoicism, is now

0:06

available for pre-order on Amazon and a

0:08

few other places. I am very excited

0:10

about this, and I hope you are

0:12

as well. Go to stoicismpod.com/book to learn

0:14

more and to pre-order. Thanks. Good

0:31

morning, pre-cop-town. I hope you are

0:33

well and that your progress on

0:35

the Stoic path is feeling especially

0:37

frictionless today. In this episode, I'm

0:39

going to try my best to

0:42

square a circle. Many of you

0:44

have told me you've struggled to

0:46

square in your own understanding of

0:48

stoicism, and that is, what does

0:50

it mean to be good exactly?

0:52

Why does it matter? And how

0:54

do I do it? And

0:56

this is a poignant episode because I, as you

0:59

know, have a little baby boy on the way,

1:01

and I have found myself contemplating these

1:03

things the more and more I go

1:05

along as an expecting father, and I

1:08

expect that one day, in the not-too-distant

1:10

future, I will be asked by said

1:12

baby boy why being good matters, what

1:14

it even means, and how they can

1:17

do it themselves. And to be upfront,

1:19

I don't know that I possess the

1:21

depth of understanding of stoicism to get

1:23

this right entirely today, but I'm going

1:26

to try my very best, and I'm

1:28

confident that by the end of the

1:30

episode, you'll understand goodness at least

1:32

a little bit better than you already

1:34

do, and you'll have a strategy for

1:36

achieving it yourself, or at least working

1:39

towards it. Before all that,

1:41

though, thanks to a few

1:44

new patrons. Thank you to

1:46

Camille Jaworski, SUNY Johnson Guder,

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Bizant D'Amien, and Beth

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Campbell-Duke. I appreciate your support of

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my work, and I'm grateful to

1:55

have you each as patrons. So

1:57

thank you. I also just want to take

1:59

a second here to- let existing patrons and would-be

2:01

patrons know that there is now a

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way to pay for an entire year

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of patronage upfront. There is no benefit

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to me for you doing this. In

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fact, the argument could be made that

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it makes my monthly income less predictable.

2:14

But a lot of you have asked

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if I could enable the ability for

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annual payments instead of, you know, the

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nickel and diming that happens every month,

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and I've decided if that helps you

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I should. Existing patrons can change to

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it's just another way to support my

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Now let's break here for a couple

2:48

of sponsorship messages, and when I return,

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I'll get started on today's topic, which

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I am surprisingly excited to dive into.

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quick refresher. In stoicism,

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virtue is the only good. If

5:51

something is good, it is either

5:53

virtue itself or virtuous

5:56

behavior or thinking. Virtue is

5:58

not a quality, but

6:00

rather a kind of learnable

6:02

knowledge, the knowledge of how

6:04

to live excellently, or an

6:06

expression which indicates such knowledge

6:08

is possessed by the individual.

6:10

The Greeks referred to this

6:12

as erote, the Romans as

6:14

virtue. I use virtue because

6:16

it's a more familiar word

6:18

to most people. So, to

6:20

reform the statement, the knowledge

6:22

of how to live excellently

6:24

is the only good. But

6:26

why is this the case?

6:28

Because, for the Stoics, in

6:30

order for something to be truly good,

6:33

it could never be bad. Since everything

6:35

we might think of as being good

6:37

could also be, given

6:39

the proper circumstances, bad, those

6:41

things are not actually good.

6:44

They are conditionally good. And

6:46

if they're not absolutely good,

6:48

but are instead conditionally good,

6:50

they aren't objectively good

6:52

at all. For

6:55

example, eating ice cream can be

6:57

considered good on a hot day.

7:00

But eating ice cream could also be

7:02

considered bad on a hot day by

7:04

someone who has diabetes and is

7:07

in the middle of a hypoglycemic

7:09

episode. So, since ice

7:11

cream isn't always good, it's not

7:13

a good. The knowledge of how

7:16

to live excellently, on the other

7:18

hand, could never be bad. For

7:20

when and how could it be

7:22

bad to know the exact thing

7:24

required to think, choose, and

7:27

act excellently. Now, there's maybe some

7:29

semantic argument to be had here.

7:31

You might be thinking, for instance,

7:34

suppose that a serial killer was

7:36

targeting people who knew how to

7:38

live excellently. Surely then, Having

7:41

this knowledge would not be considered

7:43

good, right? I Think the ancient

7:45

stoic response to this might be

7:47

along the lines of, it's not

7:49

the knowledge we possess as sages.

7:51

If we do possess that knowledge,

7:53

the knowledge of good. It's not

7:55

that knowledge that is bad, but

7:57

the lack of that knowledge in

7:59

the. The serial Killer. Since it

8:01

is probably not living excellently to

8:03

be a serial killer. And by

8:06

that logic, you might also say

8:08

that it's not the ice cream

8:10

that is good or bad, but

8:12

the subjective impact of the ice

8:14

cream on the person consuming it.

8:16

And this is exactly the point.

8:18

The knowledge of how to live

8:21

excellently cannot ever have an external

8:23

we subjective impact on the person.

8:25

Who. Possesses it. it's and only

8:27

ever has a internal impact

8:29

on the person who possesses

8:32

it. So it is the

8:34

only good. But why is

8:36

this knowledge good? Why is

8:38

the possession of this knowledge

8:40

held in such high esteem

8:42

by the ancient Stoics in

8:44

the first place? The ancient

8:46

Stoic believed that the universe

8:48

was rational and comprised of

8:50

a passive and active set

8:52

of principles. Be active principle,

8:54

The organizing principle was. The

8:56

Logos also thought of as Divine

8:58

Reason. The past of principle was

9:00

the New My also known as

9:03

the Divine Brass. We can set

9:05

aside the new my for the

9:07

most part in this episode as

9:09

it's not important for my purposes

9:11

at least again in this episode

9:13

and will focus on the Logos

9:15

this active organizing principle. The Logos

9:18

can be thought of as the

9:20

purest form of reason. It pervades

9:22

everything to some degree and provides

9:24

everything with. let's say, A dose

9:26

of universal reason Rocks have a dose

9:28

of this reason as to plants, animals,

9:30

and humans. And I know I said

9:32

I'd leave the New Met out of

9:35

this episode, but I do need to

9:37

give it a bit of a head

9:39

nod here because the new my as

9:41

the vehicle of the logos in the

9:43

same way that perhaps your vocal chords

9:45

are the vehicle of your thoughts being

9:47

expressed audibly has a role to play,

9:50

and how concentrated a dose those things

9:52

get. So logos and new are are

9:54

a team, but I don't want to

9:56

get hung up on the cosmology of

9:58

stoicism and lose your. In

10:00

the Point this early in the

10:03

episode and that point is universal

10:05

Reason exists in everything and this

10:07

is why everything has a way

10:09

of being. Naturally this way of

10:12

being is what it means to

10:14

live in accordance with nature. You've

10:16

heard this countless times on this

10:18

podcast and in other stoic content

10:21

I'm sure you consume your for

10:23

saying lives in accordance with it.

10:25

So Nature It is living in

10:28

accordance with nature. It is living.

10:30

In accordance with nature and

10:32

is therefore in alignment with

10:35

divine reason or logos, everything

10:37

which exists does this effortlessly

10:39

accept. It seems for humans,

10:42

humans seem burdened in away

10:44

by their level of consciousness

10:47

and find themselves as a

10:49

result in a position to

10:52

have to actively effort in

10:54

order to live in that

10:56

alignments. Bumble Bees Bumble without

10:59

using planets. Planet without

11:01

using giraffes. Do their giraffe

11:03

thing without choosing, and so

11:05

on. Humans, on the other

11:08

hand, must choose to fully

11:10

embody their rational nature. They

11:12

don't just do it automatically.

11:15

Humans. Don't just human.

11:18

As. It were the ancient stoics.

11:20

looked around the whole of the

11:23

ancient world, saw the logic of

11:25

the universe in everything. They saw

11:27

how the trees grew, how the

11:29

animals played, and how there was

11:32

harmony and nature that suggested some

11:34

sort of rationality. And they notice

11:36

that when this rationality was left

11:39

to it's own devices, whole ecosystems

11:41

flourished and homeostasis although a sour

11:43

they were views they don't think.

11:45

And that is to say balance

11:48

was. Always the end results. This

11:50

was too sensible in the eyes

11:52

of ease and stoics and beneficial

11:54

to be the result of chaos.

11:56

This was organized. It was rare,

11:59

you know. But then, being humans

12:01

themselves, when they looked at humans,

12:03

they probably said, and what about

12:05

these dummies? They do exactly the

12:07

opposite of what seems to be

12:09

sensible and beneficial. They are chaos

12:12

incarnate and they're mucking everything up.

12:14

Here's a quote from Xena. I

12:16

think you're going to like it

12:18

comes to us to Cicero Stay

12:20

not Torah, Drm or on the

12:22

Nature of the Gods. If flutes

12:25

playing musical tunes grew on an

12:27

olive tree, Surely he would not

12:29

question that. The olive tree possess

12:31

some knowledge of the art

12:33

of sleep plan or if

12:35

plane trees for well tuned

12:37

dilutes doubtless. she was likewise

12:40

infer that the plane trees

12:42

themselves possessed the art of

12:44

music. Why then should we

12:46

not judge the world to

12:48

be animates and endowed with

12:50

wisdom when it produces animates

12:52

and wise offspring. Now. This

12:54

is from the man himself, the

12:57

founder of the philosophy, and in

12:59

it we can see the line

13:01

of reasoning that suggests the only

13:04

worthwhile goal for human beings to

13:06

fully embody the animation and wisdom

13:09

we are endowed with. And we

13:11

can also see the justification for

13:13

why such wisdom is believed to

13:16

actually exist and therefore be attainable

13:18

because it exists everywhere else in

13:21

nature. And if that's true, then

13:23

wisdom must exist. In some

13:25

part in us when Stoicism

13:27

is reduced to life hack

13:29

or self help isms, there

13:32

is something incredibly profound missed.

13:34

And that is that. The

13:36

point of Stoicism of the

13:38

whole philosophy is for it's

13:40

practitioners to connect with the

13:42

universal logos that we all

13:45

possess a share of, cultivate

13:47

our relationship with it and

13:49

become a fully rational beings

13:51

that are nothing but a

13:53

boon. to the communities ecosystems

13:55

and environments with which we live

13:58

this This is a massive goal.

14:00

It is unfathomable how massive a

14:02

goal it really is. As big

14:05

as any religious goal, but I

14:07

dare say more difficult since you're

14:09

not trying to please some divine

14:12

third party, rather you are part

14:14

of that divine party and you're

14:16

trying to draw it out of

14:18

yourself. Then of course

14:21

there's also the difference that in

14:23

religion that divinity is a third

14:25

party at all and one which

14:27

exists outside of nature and cares

14:29

about, for example, who you marry

14:31

or what political party you align

14:34

yourself with apparently. While in stoicism

14:36

the divinity is you and

14:39

the logos is not third party

14:41

but a fundamental part of actual

14:43

nature. In fact, the entirety of

14:45

nature. And I'm pointing these things

14:48

out because I really want you

14:50

to internalize that the philosophy of

14:52

stoicism is as close to a

14:54

religion as a philosophy can be

14:57

in the size of its aims

14:59

without actually being a

15:01

supernatural philosophy. So

15:04

you now understand what good is

15:06

and why you might want to

15:08

be good. But how do you

15:10

be good? How

15:12

can anyone ever hope to be

15:15

as good as the bumblebee, a

15:17

planet, or the noble giraffe? Stick

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that easy. i realize i to

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little bit of a swipe at religion

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before the break. So let me offer

18:04

an olive branch before anyone thinks I'm

18:06

being too unkind. I actually find a

18:08

lot more in common with religious folks

18:11

these days than I used to, in

18:13

that I now know what it feels

18:15

like to believe you are holding the

18:17

answer to all the world's problems in

18:19

your hands and everyone seems not to

18:21

be listening to you when you talk

18:24

about it or grasping it entirely. I

18:26

find myself regularly in a position where

18:28

I am fighting the urge to

18:30

proselytize on behalf of Stoicism because

18:32

I really do believe it to

18:34

be to use religious terminology,

18:36

the light, the truth, the way,

18:39

etc., in that I feel it

18:41

really is a cure-all for what

18:43

ails the world. And I suppose

18:45

that means I feel somewhat more

18:47

religious than I used to, in

18:49

this regard anyway, but I do

18:51

want to make it clear, in

18:53

case it isn't, that Stoicism is

18:55

an entirely naturalistic philosophy. And while

18:57

the Stoics do call the universe

18:59

God, they don't use that

19:02

word the same way that

19:04

contemporary or modern religions do.

19:07

But I told you before the break that we

19:09

were going to focus on how to be good

19:11

now that we know why we would want to

19:13

be good. We understand the why, now how

19:15

about the how. How does

19:17

one be good? First, it is

19:19

important to note that the ancient

19:22

Stoics did not believe that wise

19:24

men existed, and I think this

19:26

is an often overlooked bit of

19:28

Stoic history that gets lost in

19:31

all of that the sage is

19:33

as rare as the phoenix talk.

19:35

Zeno and others are on record

19:37

as saying more than once that

19:40

wise men don't exist. Sagehood is

19:42

not an actually achievable state. Plutarch

19:44

talks about this in De Stoic,

19:46

Sextus Empiricus talks about it

19:49

in multiple works, and Epictetus

19:51

alludes to it in his

19:53

discourses more than once when

19:55

characterizing Zeno and Chrysippus in

19:58

particular. Sagehood is not

20:00

achievable, or at least it is

20:02

not a state one could falsify

20:04

externally. In the same way that

20:06

one could not falsify the truth

20:09

of my statement if I were

20:11

to say to them, I'm hungry.

20:13

That's an internal characteristic. Being hungry,

20:15

that is. And if I were

20:17

virtuous, you might be able to

20:19

make assumptions about my external-facing behavior

20:21

and suggest I was a sage.

20:24

But you wouldn't know it. And

20:26

so both technically and theoretically, sagehood

20:29

is at least not provable,

20:31

not falsifiable, and so practically not

20:33

possible. The point of stoicism isn't

20:35

to make us perfect before we

20:38

die, lest we fail at life

20:40

or fail at stoicism. It is

20:42

instead to keep us focused on

20:45

inching ever closer to the stoic

20:47

ideal of sagehood so that when

20:49

we die, we will not feel

20:51

as though we wasted our time,

20:54

and we will be able to

20:56

say, honestly, that we spent our

20:58

time appropriately and in a

21:00

worthwhile manner. Compare this to the

21:03

countless number of people who spend

21:05

very little of their time working

21:07

towards any big picture goal at

21:10

all and who die with mountains

21:12

of regret, guilt, and anger. Clearly

21:14

there is a practical advantage to

21:17

working towards perfection even though it's

21:19

not achievable. As stoics, we work

21:21

to become better while keeping our

21:24

eyes on good, not as a

21:26

goal, but as a constant reminder

21:28

that there's always more work

21:30

to do and more room for

21:33

growth as individuals. It also helps

21:35

us to be more compassionate in

21:38

concerns to others. So how do

21:40

we do it? How do we

21:42

become good? By using our rational

21:45

faculty to identify what exactly is

21:47

true or reasonable and transforming the

21:49

knowledge of that truth or reasonableness

21:52

into thoughts, actions, and attitudes. For

21:54

example, your friend is late for

21:57

dinner. This is a fact. It's

21:59

falsifiable. They are late. You find

22:01

yourself assuming that he's a flake,

22:03

an inconsiderate jerk who hasn't prioritized

22:05

your friendship and doesn't respect your

22:07

time. You are fuming mad. But

22:11

is any of this true? Potentially. But you

22:13

don't know for certain. It could be that

22:15

your friend's wife collapsed in the kitchen and

22:17

he's on his way to the hospital in

22:20

the back of an ambulance holding his wife's

22:22

hand and hoping she doesn't die. Now that

22:24

might not be the most likely of scenarios,

22:26

but it is at least a probable one.

22:29

In any event, choosing to

22:31

believe the worst is no

22:33

better supported in this example

22:35

than is choosing to believe

22:37

the unlikely. To apply a

22:39

more modern concept, you've probably

22:41

heard of Schrodinger's cat. Well,

22:44

you might think of this

22:46

as Schrodinger's reality or Zeno's

22:48

impression. You don't

22:50

know what the truth is until

22:52

you know what the truth is.

22:55

And in the meantime, for all

22:57

intents and purposes, all realities, all

22:59

impressions could be the case. Your

23:01

friend is late. That's a reality you know

23:03

for certain. But the reality that is the

23:06

cause of the lateness is not known. What

23:08

does the sage do in this case? Become

23:11

worried and anxious? Get angry? Probably

23:14

neither of those. For what rational reason

23:16

is there to feel either of those

23:18

emotions? The sage would, probably, take out

23:20

his or her cell phone and send

23:22

their friend a text or give them

23:25

a phone call. Hey, I'm at

23:27

the restaurant. Are you on your way? This

23:29

is an appropriate thing to do, given

23:32

the facts. To ask yourself

23:34

what would the sage do seems,

23:37

perhaps, silly. But

23:39

it is what you do as

23:41

Prakaptan all the time. You're assessing

23:44

the situation at hand and reasoning

23:46

for yourself what is the behavior

23:48

most approaching, sage-like behavior in response

23:50

to what is known. Now, there

23:53

are two important things of note

23:55

here. First, you don't have

23:57

to know the whole truth in order

23:59

to make it. a rational choice. For

24:02

example, if you're a teacher in a

24:04

classroom and you hear over the school

24:06

announcement system that there's an active shooter

24:08

on campus, you don't say to yourself,

24:11

oh, well, I don't know for sure if

24:14

this is or isn't a drill. And even

24:16

if it's not, I don't know for sure

24:18

that the gun the shooter has is even

24:20

loaded. Maybe I shouldn't do anything until I'm

24:23

100% certain of those

24:25

things and then wait and find

24:27

out. That would be stupid and

24:29

dangerous. Instead, you are

24:31

trying to figure out what is appropriate

24:33

in this situation. You're a teacher and

24:36

part of your role is the protection

24:38

of the kids in your class. School

24:41

shootings happen, unfortunately. It's therefore

24:43

logical to assume a real

24:46

and present threat exists and

24:48

to then act appropriately

24:50

with that in mind,

24:53

with that well-reasoned to conclusion

24:55

in mind. And then secondly,

24:57

the sage makes mistakes. Sages are

25:00

not gods. They are not all-knowing

25:02

beings. Sages are entirely rational beings,

25:04

not all-knowing ones. If my friend

25:06

is a sage and I decide

25:08

to play a joke on her

25:11

by handing her a piece of

25:13

wax fruit and she bites into

25:15

it, believing it is real, she's

25:17

done nothing unsage-like. I'm a friend.

25:20

It was reasonable for her to

25:22

trust me. It was reasonable for

25:24

her to believe that a fruit

25:26

handed to her by a friend

25:29

was a real fruit. Biting into

25:31

it therefore doesn't make her not

25:33

a sage, nor does believing it

25:35

was a real fruit. It makes

25:37

me a practical joker who thinks

25:39

making friends bite fake fruit is

25:42

appropriate or funny. So sages don't

25:44

not act until all the facts

25:46

are known because that's dumb and

25:48

highly impractical. Instead, they wait until

25:50

they have an understanding of a

25:52

situation that they feel provides them

25:55

with the ability to make a

25:57

rational choice. And sometimes they

25:59

can't And wait, sometimes the information

26:01

at hand is the only information

26:03

they're going to get and they're

26:05

in a position where a decision

26:07

has to be made. And in

26:09

that case, in such a case,

26:11

the sage makes the most appropriate

26:13

choice given the available information. And

26:16

this is why the Stoics don't

26:18

believe that the moral judgment

26:20

of a choice should be

26:22

determined by the outcomes of

26:24

the choice, but instead should

26:26

be determined by assessing the

26:28

logic and rationale and reason

26:30

involved in arriving at the

26:32

choice that was made. And

26:34

everything you've heard in this

26:36

episode probably makes one thing

26:39

very clear, that you will

26:41

never be completely good because

26:43

you'll never be a sage,

26:45

but that there is, should

26:47

you choose to adopt it, a framework

26:50

for being good. And

26:52

it's surprisingly simple. Maybe

26:54

there are just five steps to

26:56

being good. Step one,

26:58

observe what's going on and what can

27:00

you know for certain. Step

27:03

two, consider what do all

27:05

these observations mean? Step

27:08

three, reason. Now

27:10

that we've observed what we can

27:12

and have considered what it all

27:14

means, we can reason towards a

27:16

sensible and logical choice or course

27:19

of action. Step four,

27:21

commit and choose. Actually

27:23

make the choice and commit to making

27:25

it. And then step five,

27:28

act. Act in accordance with

27:30

those previous four steps. Now

27:33

all that's left is for you to do these

27:35

five steps forever, all the

27:37

time with everything. And

27:39

I'll see you at the Sages table this Christmas. But

27:42

of course I won't because neither of

27:44

us will make it there. But I

27:46

will see you a bit closer to

27:48

the Sages table this year than last

27:50

year. And maybe we can all get

27:52

together and go for Korean corn dogs

27:54

as imperfect Stoics and progressing for Kaapdong.

27:57

Thanks for listening to today's episode. I appreciate it.

28:00

you being here to listen to new episodes

28:02

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28:04

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28:20

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28:22

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28:24

Thank you again for listening and until

28:26

next time, take care.