More on Self-sufficiency

The Stoics often say that there is only one true good and that is virtue. This has often been understood as saying that all we should care about is our own mental health - and everything else is either "preferred indifferents" or "dispreferred indifferents" (according to orthodox Stoic terminology). It's true that they generally agree that virtue is all that is necessary for happiness - and that virtue in that sense is "the only true good". But there are other kinds of good. In the sources for Greek Stoicism virtue is considered an "internal good" - meaning that it is in our "soul". But there are also "external goods" - meaning that they are still related to us even though they are not a requirement for our happiness. Examples are living in a good country and having good and happy friends. In Roman Stoicism, the explicit concept "external goods" seems to have been lost and so it's extremely easy to get the impression that the roman Stoics think that having good friends and living in a good country are so-called preferred indifferents. However, that interpretation is horribly wrong and misguided. A stoic obviously loves his or her friends. And you can't love something you don't care about.

Still life with glass bowl of fruit and vases. Roman painting from the House of Julia Felix in Pompeii, 63-79 CE

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Aristotle on happiness and external goods

According to popular opinion both in ancient Greece and today, happiness requires things such as wealth, good health, good looks, friends, family and good reputation. In Plato's dialogue Euthydemus Socrates challenges those beliefs by claiming that none of those things are good, if they are not used wisely. In fact, Socrates claims that a person who has wisdom doesn't need any of those things at all since he or she can turn any situation into something beneficial for him- or herself. "If wisdom is present, the one for whom it is present has no need of good fortune". - Socrates in Euthydemus, 279E In other words, Socrates claims that wisdom is a sufficient requirement for happiness (and a necessary requirement too, of course). Aristotle famously challenges that claim. But what exactly does he say? Let's have a look. "we suppose happiness is enduring and definitely not prone to fluctuate, but the same person’s fortunes often turn to and fro. For clearly

Stoicism and Evil Governments

This article claims that a Stoic has no reason to get depressed by bad political conditions since an evil government is not really a bad thing for a Stoic - since nothing can be bad for a Stoic except his own bad choices. Even so, the article claims, a Stoic acknowledges that an evil government is capable of doing "terrible things" to people. To make this line of thinking work we have to think of ourselves as Stoics who can't be harmed by an evil government - since nothing can be bad for us as Stoics except our own bad choices - and other people as non-Stoics who will suffer terribly if they are oppressed by the evil government. In my opinion, this interpretation of Stoicism is flat out wrong. First of all, an evil government is indeed a bad thing. The Stoics distinguish between internal good/bad things such as our own good or bad choices and external good/bad things such as other people's happiness or unhappiness: "some bad things are in the sou

Not wanting is just as good as having

" Not wanting is just as good as having ." - Seneca, Letters 119.2 The reason that not wanting is just as good as having is, of course, that both when we have something and when we don't want that thing we don't need that something. In both cases we are in a state (in regard to that thing) where we don't feel that our life is incomplete due to not having that thing. However, simply being in a state of "not having" does not equal being content, happy, wise. A person who does not have something is not content if that person is in a state of wanting what he or she hasn't got. To be content, happy, wise is to fully understand that we always already have all we need for happiness in ourselves. A stoic does not want food, health, wealth etc. Wanting something is to desire that thing - which is to suffer from the false belief that the thing is question is a necessary condition for happiness. A Stoic knows that the only thing which is necessary fo

Socrates and the Stoics

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