CLAS 196/PHIL196
Stoicism

A modern attempt to revive stoicism: based on Lawrence Becker's A New Stoicism, Princeton, 1998.

• The History and Current State of Stoicism
  
• During 17th and 18th centuries, the few Stoics around:
  
• Abandon the idea of the universe as a purposive rational being
• There is no theology whatsoever in their Neo-Stoicism
• He's not quite right about that: they pay lip service to religion, because it is prudent to do so.
  
• but still they base their ethical theory on eudaemonism
• New Stoicism "thus lost contact with (both theology and) the secular side of moral philosophy ..., mobbed as it was (and is) by people clamoring for a priori principles, sentiment, commonsense virtues, utility, rights, duties, and justice in contractual arrangements. Our obliteration began in this period, with the emergence of claims for the autonomy of ethics."
• The ruins of a doctrine:
• "Only three small groups will now say anything in our (the Stoics') favor. Some soldiers, actual or spiritual, still prefer our psychotherapy to morphine and mood enhancers. Logicians appreciate our early work on the propositional calculus. Hellenists admire the stoics of antiquity and argue that their ethical doctrines were not (for their time) foolish."

• The Proposal
• Rebuild, revive, and continue Stoicism.

• Virtue, happiness, and the goal of life
• Life's goal is excelling or flourishing as what one is with whatever resources one has available.
• This is Becker's version of eudaemonia, happiness.
  
• To achieve it, one must live according to the "final, all-things-considered, normative propositions of practical reason"
• Such normative propositions must always start with the particular: they must not be a priori.
• Start with this agent in this situation with this history, these resources, and these choices.
• to create them a priori would mean to first determine what normative propositions to follow and then afterward apply them to particular situations.
• "normative propositions" are simply statements that say what one should do
  
• Often, following these normative propositions will not be egotistic: it will involve foregoing one's dearest wishes in many cases
• Controlling and developing one's mental state will be the key to living well, however.
  
• Particular natural endowments and circumstances must dictate whether passion, adventure, etc. or colorless caution is in order.
• The good life for humans is human flourishing, which is being excellent as a human
• Virtue is a species of rationality: it is carrying out the normative propositions of practical reason
• Facts about the natural world are the substance of the deliberations of practical reason
• Virtue is one single thing (conformity to practical reason)

• Abandonment of God
• Can it still be Stoicism if we abandon the belief in a sentient rationally ordered universe that is the Cosmos?
• There is no Cosmic telos, or end goal, toward which all is aiming
• How do you solve the is/ought problem without this teleological structuring of all of reality?
• How can it make the "follow nature" idea plausible?
• Becker's response:
• "If the Stoics had had to confront Bacon and Descartes, Newton and Locke, Hobbes and Bentham, Hume and Kant, Darwin and Marx, and ... ethics in the twentieth century ....stoics would have found a way to reject teleological physics and biology when the scientific consensus did."
• i.e. stoics would follow science rather than reject it for their theology
• Insofar as their theology is a result of their more basic 'scientific' commitments, Becker can be very simply and easily right. To the extent that their theology explains or justifies other things they believe, we need to worry about Becker's claims.
  

• What about Stoicism as a philosophy of bleak, boring, and bored people
• The sheer variety of stoics over time refutes that

• THREE KEY STEPS IN BECKER'S REVIVAL/RECONSTRUCTION OF STOICISM
1. Declarative survey of new stoicism's possibilities (this week)
   
2. A short but thorough presentation of the logic and character of stoic naturalism (next week?)
   
3. An account of the good life and virtue (next week...)

• What is left that is recognizably and unquestionably "Stoic"
• The final end of all rational activity is virtue, not happiness
• somewhat stacked deck here: "rational activity"? Why not just all "human activity"?
• also, wasn't happiness the end of all ancient ethics?
• well, since virtue is sufficient and necessary for happiness and you can aim at rationality but not directly at happiness, according to plausible views of ancient Stoics, we can grant him this one
  
• Virtue does not admit of degrees
• No vicious person is more vicious than any other
• A sage is happy just because of virtue, even if in great physical pain
• Nothing else is good other than virtue (includes friends, loves, emotions, reputation, wealth, suffering, disease, death, etc.)
  

• Declarative Survey
• By "declarative" is meant that Becker intends to declare his positions
• By "Survey" is meant that this will be fast and not as detailed and full as possible
• "Ethics" is how we should live our lives, who we should be, all-things-considered
• Many try to confine ethics more narrowly
• for example, they might say moral matters are those which lead to universalizable prescriptions that affect human well-being significantly: for Becker, ethics should be a posteriori
  
• or that the moral viewpoint is impartial (and omniscient)
• for Becker, the moral viewpoint is from within a particular person
  
• or that the moral viewpoint is that of a rational actor whose default is to cooperate
• well, that seems kind of stoic, no? no-shoving combined with rational nature? Becker probably doesn't like setting the default at all?
  
• or they suggest that morality is concerned with prima facie duties (such as keeping promises)
• again, Becker says ethics is a posteriori rather than about application of pre-set rules/duties
  
• Becker is not rejecting all these ideas (he will reject some, however): he is saying they are too narrow a scope for what he wants to call "ethics"
  
• Becker asks why non-universalizable prescriptions should be overridden by universalizable, why be moral rather than egoistic?
• Possible example: Should I break this promise to this person (a lunatic hell-bent on violence) or return the knife because I promised to? Can we just say there is some higher universalizable prescription about lunatics that supercedes the prescription to keep promises? Or is it a matter of analyzing particular cases and making particular judgements?
  
• In the end, the big question which ethics has as its domain is how we should live our lives, who we should be, all-things-considered
• Ethics is subordinate to science and logic
  
• ethics is not autonomous
• changes in science lead to changes in ethics (think of birth-control, steroids, data science and privacy, eye-witnesses not as reliable as we usually think, understanding of 'life' what it is) (BUT NOT VICE VERSA: ethics does not dictate to science: Bailly's addition)
  
• in antiquity, the best science led to the idea of a rational conscious universe
• now the best science rejects that
• the universe is billions of yrs old, constantly changing, and there is no evidence that we, our planet, our solar system, and our galaxy have a special place in it
• modern cosmology tells us nothing about why there is something rather than nothing, whether there is a god, etc.
• modern cosmology's relevance to ethics is that it tells us about our (lack of a) place in the grand (non)scheme of things
  
• science changes, and so does ethics
  
• Ethics is not what Becker calls a science, because it is not about what IS the case, but about what OUGHT to be the case
• The OUGHTS can be derived from the IS of science (Bailly is not sure in the end that Becker manages to do this, but Bailly is also not sure whether that severely undermines Becker's enterprise: Bailly is sure that Becker has thought about this more than he has)
  
• This is a claim vigorously disputed
  
• Hume says "ought" cannot be derived from "is"
• Kant rejects all empirical knowledge in ethics: fundamental ethical truths are discovered a priori
• Intuitionists claim that OUGHTS are known immediately, without any inference
• Others claim that OUGHTS are linked to empirical truths through some other psychological mechanism, also not via logic
• Even those who think that empirical facts do have something to do with ethics often limit it to the following:
• beliefs of many sorts are relevant to the foundations of ethics: scientific ones have a privileged position and ought to be used in preference to religious, cultural, or other sorts of beliefs
• "There is no moral geometry that proceeds with deductive certainty from one necessary truth to another. Ethics is based on facts about the world, and proceeds from one contingent truth to another. But among the ways we might proceed from truth to truth, it is those defined by the canons of logic that ethics should use." (P. 9)
• Bailly suggestion: maybe it is empirically observable that humans generate meaning and have desires. Meaning and desires have built-in oughts: you can't have a desire that has no ought in it: so we don't derive an ought from an is when we make claims about human nature, if we think human nature includes some desires: rather we are making claims that include oughts. But Becker doesn't seem to be following that idea. Back to Becker.
  
• Ethics takes place AFTER all the empirical work is done: the empirical work is description, representation, and prediction
• Ethics has no unique subject matter: it adds a purpose to the empirical work (purpose involves an ought, right? can you have a goal without having an idea that it is worthy/a good idea? so to the extent that humans are purposeful they, statistically, normally have oughts all the time)
  
• in other words, there are not certain matters that are "ethical" and belong to no other domain
• in any 'non-ethical' domain, the facts of the matter may be qualified by an ethical purpose
• The subject of ethics is human
• human character
• human conduct
• human social phenomena
• human mental phenomena
• The methods of ethics are:
• logic and reasoned argument
• The purpose of ethics is normative
• In other words, ethics' purpose is to work on what people OUGHT to do or be, to add/determine purpose
  
• A unique purpose of ethics is to decide and explain which norms take priority over other norms
• Often, Ethics simply organizes fact-finding missions, then puts the results through a logical/rational mill
• Often it is found that some overriding norm governs the situation and there is no need for ethics to do further work
• see an easy way to save the children, no other problems, so save the children
• note that, given one's project of becoming a doctor, an undergraduate degree is necessary, so pursue an undergraduate degree
• etc. etc.
  
• Often agents have no room for maneuver: there are no choices
• Often the choice one faces is a matter of indifference
• "Necessity," "Impossibility," and "Possibilities" divide up into 4 kinds according to Becker (an example is given for each):
• logical
• (circles cannot be rectangles)
• scientific theory-driven
• (no object can travel faster than light)
• limited to a sphere
• (no pole-vaulter now alive can pole-vault 25 feet)
• limited to a particular
• (The particular before you named Jacques is too scared to pole-vault at all: a better example might be "Chris has no legs and so cannot pole-vault without mechanical aids.")

• Normative propositions (propositions that say what we OUGHT to do)
• Are built from existing values, preferences, projects, commitments, and conventions
• Bailly observation: those things have built-in oughts: they are also "existing" so he should have said "from other existing.."
  
• So, for example, I have an existing goal, to get home tonight
  
• What OUGHT I to do?
• I OUGHT to get home (That's just a rephrasing of the project: given that I have that project, I can put it into an 'ought' statement: I ought to do it)
  
• There are many things that, given my project, I can do that might lead to the goal
• Ethics is assigned the task of finding the all-things-considered overriding normative proposition in that situation
• after a brief fact-finding mission, I discover that I can walk, ride my bike, take a bus partway then walk, or ask my wife to come get me, and there are always other options (call a cab, ask a friend for a ride, run home, buy a horse, hitchhike, crawl, build a catapult, ride piggy-back on someone going that way). I also notice the weather (walk, ride, or drive?), the fact that I have to make dinner in time to get the kids fed in time for Isidora to go fencing and Leslyn to go to Tai Chi, and what I've planned for dinner. I also ask my wife what she's doing and whether she can come get me/how inconvenient it would be, whether she can make dinner, etc. I also think that I ran 7 miles this morning and so don't need any more exercise, so there's no real bonus to walking or riding or running.
  
• Then I ask "How do I get home in a way that will allow my other projects to move forward optimally without interfering with other people's projects." It's all very complex, because some projects have higher priority than others, and some have more definite timelines, etc.
• How ought I to get home tonight?
• In whatever way optimizes my own projects and does not unacceptably interfere with others: I can also take into account how it might further others' projects, many of which are really part and parcel of my own.
  
• Human Nature
• For Becker, it's a probabilistic and statistical matter, not dictated by ideology
  
• huge percentages of humans are purposive, socially interactive, benevolent, language using, full of emotional response dispositions, attached to other people and things, deliberate and make choices, have boundaries that they try to maintain categorically
• all of these can be thought of as projects
  
• the full list of the sorts of things humans do in huge percentages is enormous
• it includes tendencies, propensities, and probabilities
• it does not include essential traits or universals
• so Becker seems to be dodging the essentialist 'nature' objection if he can
  
• the things on this list do NOT fit into the usual argument, which is:
  
• humans are X by nature
• y is contrary to x
• therefore y is contrary to human nature.
• rather, they fit in as things that large numbers of humans do: it's a sort of statistical norm, a bell -curve, etc.
• we can, however, say "This human is an outlier in this respect": what does Becker do with that?
  
• the sciences help us weed out the relatively fixed traits from the transient ones
• those things that huge numbers of humans share are statistically human nature.
  
• BUT there are certain "schematic propositions" that Stoic training depends upon:
• these "schematic propositions" are bedrock assumptions about humans
• sort of like "human nature" (but not really) more like parameters within which any given human nature occurs
  
• each person's rational deliberative powers define their individual human consciousness:
  
• an agent's rational power is exercised in a deliberative field that is particular
• each person's deliberative field is constantly changing
• it has givens at any given moment:
• information available
• information gathered after the deliberation starts becomes part of what is given for the next deliberation
  
• methods available (how does/can the person think)
  
• pre-existing choices/dispositions:
  
• sensibilities
• sensitivities
• values
• aims
• commitments
• preferences
• each agent has different levels of awareness of these things
• high awareness can be self-transformative
• agent's make their own characters over time
• no uniform essentially human content can be specified for a deliberative field
• particulars
• every ethical decision is about particulars
• any universal we think we know is either not a real universal or is merely "schematic" or probabilistic and so could have exceptions or outliers and so does not allow a definite inference about any given particular
• Stoicism starts with fully particular individuals and works outward to the more general, not to find or specify universal laws, but rather to find useful guidelines or patterns, simply because time is short and everyone is finite
  
• "Values": the good, the bad, and the indifferent
  
• Values are facts which can often be expressed by a proposition of the form "X is good" or "X is bad"
• Those sentences hide a number of possible meanins of "good"
  
• Good Affects:
  
• "X is good" can mean that the individual feels a positive affect for it.
• a positive affect is part of what is ordinarily called "emotion" but also part of what we call "desire"
• YAY broccoli
• BOO dog poo
• WANT broccoli
• DON'T WANT dog poo
  
• an individual's approval, liking of, or desire for a thing is that person's "affect"
• affects have motivational force
• want broccoli -> get, buy, cook, peel, ask for, plant, harvest, beg for, etc. broccoli
• don't want dog poo -> jump over dog poo, bag and get rid of dog poo in a dumpster, scrape dog poo off shoe, ban all dogs, enforce anti-dogpoo laws, devise new dogfood that leads to odorless canine feces, etc.
  
• affects can conflict with what is possible, necessary, impossible, or with what is all-things-considered judged better
• i.e. we can want the impossible: develop a poo-less dog
  
• Stoic training tries to negate that internal motivational force of affects in cases of conflict:
  
• Good Effects:
• "X is good" can mean that an individual sees X as an effective means to an end
• in this case, "x is good" has no built in motivational force
• only want poop-scooper to avoid touching poo: don't really have positive affect for pooper-scooper
• only want to go to store to find broccoli to have broccoli: don't really care one way or another about going to store
  
• Good All-things-considered norms
• the judgements an individual arrives at after deliberation about the overriding norms of his or her life
• this is particular to individuals
  
• Stoic training tries to give these categorical motivational force for the individual
  
• Stoic training tries to make these override other "values"of the individual
  
• Good Exemplars
• "X is good" means that X is a particularly good example of its kind
• "That's a perfect dog poo" or "That's exactly what I expect broccoli to look like"
  
• no motivational force
• Appropriateness
• "X is good" may mean that X is suitable, fits well, etc with other things, surroundings, or conventions or necessities
• general 'Valuables'
• "X is good" can mean that X has some unspecified one of the above positive values.
• a generic for any "X is good" is that X is "valuable."
  
• Summation
• "X is good" can be a mix of more than one of the values above
• difficult to assess, because there is no single continuum of value between the types
• Categorical commitments
• "X is good" may mean that it conforms to a categorical commitment
• a categorical commitment is one that says "I will do X," but not "I will do X, if...": it is not contingent: it means "X is good and is required, nothing-else-considered"
  
• but categorical commitments may be more than simply an evaluation that "this is good"
  
• a categorical commitment is, for example, the thing in us that makes breaking the law difficult (many of us are categorically committed to obeying the law)
• if breaking the law is not difficult for you, I pity you, but perhaps another example will help: when it is a matter of honor, many of us are categorically committed to upholding our honor
  
• things like legality, honor, integrity, privacy are all categorical commitments
  
• has motivational force, but usually against rather than for actions or things:
  
• they are experienced as restraints, boundaries, attachments
• they keep us from doing certain things
• violating them has two usual reactions:
• if someone else does it, there is anger, resentment, revenge-desires (emotions)
  
• if one does it oneself, there is guilt and shame (emotions)
  
• these reactions are themselves often the cause of further damage
• Stoicism tries to create homeostatic devices in us that follow a strategy of mitigating those reactions if the reactions will not have positive value themselves.
• this is Becker's version of "no emotions"
• for instance, if a victim is harmed, but rage and guilt will do nothing of positive value, Stoicism preaches disconnecting the connection between the initial act and the reaction: it is counterproductive to feed those reactions
• but, Bailly asks as an aside, will the stoic use rage and guilt if they will do something of positive value? Can they? Just asking. seem that Becker says yes, but may think such cases are vanishingly rare.
  
• categorical commitments lead to the normative proposition: "It is required/forbidden that X, nothing-else-considered."
• stoicism says that all-things-considered normative propositions (ought to) override categorical commitments and the normative propositions that result from categorical commitments.
• that is, we might on some particular occasion develop a proposition that is well considered but conflicts with a categorical commitment, and in that case, we should go with the proposition
  
• "stoic training aims to negate the internal motive force of a categorical commitment when it conflicts with what is possible, or with what ought to be done, all-things-considered." P. 16)
• so categorical commitments are useful, but need to be put into perspective
  
• Bailly thinks an example people broadly accept is civil disobedience: when this particular situation requires, all-things-considered, that I break my categorical commitment to obeying the law