Stoicism
From c. 300 BCE
The school that taught virtue is the only true good and that freedom lies in mastering our judgements, not our circumstances.
The core idea
Stoicism was founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium, who taught in a painted porch, the stoa, that gave the school its name. It flourished for five centuries and reached its widest audience through Romans such as Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.
Its ethics turns on the dichotomy of control. Our judgements and choices are up to us; everything else, health, wealth, reputation, the actions of others, is not. Virtue, which is wisdom applied to life, is the only real good. Other things are preferred indifferents: worth pursuing, but not worth our peace of mind.
The Stoics also held that the universe is a rational, ordered whole in which everything happens by causal necessity. They were among the first compatibilists, holding that our assent to impressions is still our own. Their practical techniques passed into modern cognitive behavioural therapy.
What they hold
- Virtue is the only true good; vice the only true evil.
- Distress comes from our judgements about events, not from events themselves.
- Focus effort on what is in our control; accept the rest.
- Live in agreement with nature and reason, which govern the cosmos.
- All human beings are fellow citizens of one world.
The main criticisms
Critics argue that Stoicism can slide into passivity, accepting injustice that should be fought, and that it asks people to suppress emotions such as grief that are fitting responses to loss. Aristotelians object that external goods really do matter to a flourishing life.
“Some things are in our power, and others are not.”
Epictetus, Enchiridion 1, trans. Elizabeth Carter
Key figures
Where it comes up
Further reading
- EncyclopediaStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Stoicism
- WikipediaStoicism