Eighteenth installment:
Arrian, a student of Epictetus, wrote eight books, The Discourses of Epictetus, of which four survive. Selections from those eight books were also collected in the Enchiridion, or “Handbook.” The Discourses give us a quite vivid portrait of the man who inspired them, and also give us fascinating glimpses into his singular didactic style. We very quickly see how Epictetus ran his school, the nature of its curricula, and how he mentored his students. We see his earnestness, his zeal, and piety, but we also get a good dose of his sharp and often acerbic sense of humor. It is no wonder that Arrian felt he ‘had to get this down.’
It also can be quite a challenge to understand exactly what is being said in the chapters of the Discourses. The text is composed of lecture notes, we must recall. The subject matter sometimes jumps from one subject to another, veering into matters that are not obviously related to what we have just read. Sometimes these tangential matters are finally related back to things brought up earlier, or to the main topic of the chapter. Sometimes they are not. This leaves the reader with the task of finding the connections. Epictetus deliberately ‘weaves’ in an almost conversational style. His is most certainly not the style of the tightly outlined academic’s essay. He does not write like Aristotle, nor, if we are to believe his own testimony, like the Stoic school’s founders (chief among them, Chrysippus). Yet, we can see, as we ride his ‘weave’ that he was quite versed in all aspects of the school’s doctrine.
So, with that genesis, and that style of writing in mind, I’ve set out to read through the four extant books, a chapter at a time, while also breaking up the text with commentary, (essentially my best guesses as to how we might flesh out some of his ‘weave,’ (what can be very brief or truncated sketches of dialogue and argumentation), as it was no easy business for Arrian to get down what he had experienced in the lecture halls of Nicopolis!
A last note: I use the Oldfather translation in the Loeb Classical Library, and have taken some editorial and interpretive liberties where I thought it necessary. But, I’ve tried to keep such changes to a minimum. The advantage of using this translation is that it can easily be accessed via various online sources, and given that it presents, along with Oldfather’s translation and footnotes, the text in the original Greek, it is quite useful for those that would like to check any translations or interpretations against the original.
Book I, Chapter 18
That We Ought Not to be Angry with the Erring
This chapter, operating under a guiding Socratic assumption that no-one does wrong knowingly, but out of ignorance, discusses crime, punishment and rehabilitation, while, along the way, giving Stoic analysis of the emotions pity and anger. Epictetus envisions these emotions, when triggered by loss of externals, to be opportunities given ‘by nature’ allowing us to develop muscle memory with regard to appropriate focus on our Moral Purpose, and what Stoics take to be the concomitant proper calibration of desires and aversions.
If what the philosophers say is true, that in all men thought and action start from a single source, namely feeling—as in the case of assent the feeling that a thing is so, and in the case of dissent the feeling that it is not so, yes, and, by Zeus, in the case of suspended judgement the feeling that it is uncertain, so also in the case of impulse towards a thing, the feeling that it is expedient for me and that it is impossible to judge one thing expedient and yet desire another, and again, to judge one thing fitting, and yet be impelled to another—if all this be true, why are we any longer angry with the multitude?—“They are thieves,” says someone, “and robbers.”—What do you mean by “thieves and robbers?” They have simply gone astray in questions of good and evil. Ought we, therefore, to be angry with them, or rather pity them? Only show them their error and you will see how quickly they will desist from their mistakes. But if their eyes are not opened, they have nothing superior to their mere opinion.
We are contending here with yet another condensed argument. Let’s unpack as if we are students in the Stoic school being presented this line of argument:
All human actions are motivated by opinions. Here are some examples we commonly discuss in our classes:
People assent to propositions if they believe the propositions accurately reflect the state of affairs they intend to describe. In such cases they count such propositions as true.
Similarly, they will dissent from propositions when they are of the opinion that they do not reflect the actual state of affairs. These they deem false.
In cases where they are of the opinion that propositions are equally as likely to be inaccurate as accurate portrayals of states of affairs, people will suspend judgment on them, and will most likely seek further information relevant to the propositions.
In the case of choices to pursue or avoid things in our environment or activities, there is a similar connection with opinion. If people are of the opinion that something is to their benefit, or to the benefit of others for whom they care, they will pursue it. If they are of the opinion that something is harmful to them, or those others, they will not pursue it, and will also avoid it.
For any two things, one of which is believed to be beneficial, the other harmful, and for any person who simultaneously holds these opinions, it is not possible that the person will pursue the latter while avoiding the former.
[One wonders at this last claim. There seem to be counterexamples. One such would be addicts who are aware of the harmful nature of their addiction, but who nevertheless continue. We can, no doubt, make distinctions here between different sorts of benefit and harm, and their relative levels of intensity, to resolve this counterexample. The pain of withdrawal, for instance, is often so intense and near term that the addict chooses to alleviate it instead of serving his longer-term benefit by enduring it and kicking the physical addiction.]
In any case, given this basic sketch of the connections that exist between opinion and action, Epictetus now has us consider people whose actions harm others in some way. His sample miscreants: ‘thieves and robbers.’ (Note the subtle distinction between thieves and robbers. The latter uses force to take others’ possessions, while the former does not, but takes possession in some sneaky manner).
We quite naturally get angry with such people when they divest us of our possessions. He asks if that is the proper attitude to take. That does depend on the case, it would seem. For, suppose that we take it the miscreant has an incorrect opinion concerning what is proper behavior toward others. If that is the case, then, a-priori, we cannot blame him and should cut him some slack on his first strike. Suppose we do, and that we couple that break with a bit of education, explaining to him why it is that his opinion is in error. If that explanation is accepted, he will allegedly change his ways, and all will be good between us.
If we, on our part as aggrieved parties, are convinced that this is truly the case with this man or woman, then our considered reaction should be to pity this person, and try to help him in the above described way.
If upon doing so, we find that subsequent behavior indicates our explanation or education did not take, then there are two possible explanations:
- It did actually take, but the person willingly chooses to act wrongly.
- It did not take, and the person is actually unable to be educated.
Now, regarding (1) the passage seems to indicate Epictetus’s essentially Socratic opinion that no such person, wherein the education truly takes or ‘sticks’ will actually persist in the bad behavior. Again, this is a dubious claim. It seems clear to us that there are cases of thieves and robbers, or other such miscreants that persist in their behavior knowing fully what it entails, and that it is wrong. Much of what he says below operates under the assumption that cases like this do not really occur. We must note, as we move on, that it is quite open to us to ask him what the appropriate attitude and actions would be that we should harbor or take toward people that do fit the description in (1).
It seems to me that anger and punishments including death would be appropriate, depending on the severity of the harms they knowingly inflict on others. The obvious example of sadistic serial killers comes to mind, or those that knowingly enjoy torturing innocents. Such reactions as Epictetus here disapproves, seem entirely justifiable, and morally apropos in such cases, where they are arguably not appropriate in cases that fit description (2). On that:
Consider the second option. If it is true that the person is unable to be educated, he should not be hated for this, but pitied, and perhaps his freedom curtailed as preventative measure. In any case, he should not be executed. That would be unnecessarily cruel. Now Epictetus expands the set of his sample miscreant population. Brigands (basically, bands of people who undertake ambush robberies) and adulterers:
Ought not this brigand, then, and this adulterer to be put to death? you ask. Not at all, but you should ask rather, “Ought not this man to be put to death who is in a state of error and delusion about the greatest matters, and is in a state of blindness, not, indeed, in the vision which distinguishes between white and black, but in the judgement, which distinguishes between the good and the evil?”
And if you put it this way, you will realize how inhuman a sentiment it is that you are uttering, and that it is just as if you should say, “Ought not this blind man, then, or this deaf man to be put to death?” For if the loss of the greatest things is the greatest harm that can befall a man, while the greatest thing in each man is a right Moral Purpose, and if a man is deprived of this very thing, what ground is left for you to be angry at him?
The person that is unable to understand moral matters is, like the blind person, disabled. It would be just as egregiously vicious to execute him as it would be to kill the blind. A better reaction would be guided by the same sorts of considerations we do give to those that are victims of other forms of disability.
(Again, it is an open question, whether or not any human being is as insensate to harms he may generate as is here presumed.)
Next, Epictetus says something curious. He seems to claim that there are ways of reacting to misdeeds that are ‘contrary to nature.’ Anger is clearly one of his examples, as is pity:
Why, man, if you must needs be affected in a way that is contrary to nature at the misfortunes of another, pity him rather, but do not hate him; drop this readiness to take offence and this spirit of hatred; do not introduce those words which the multitude of the censorious use: “Well, then, these accursed and abominable fools!” Very well; but how is it that you have so suddenly been converted to wisdom that you are angry at fools?
What can he possibly mean by this seeming statement that pity and anger are reactions contrary to nature? Yes, he ranks pity above anger, but he counts both as being ‘contrary to nature.’ What does this mean?
Emotional reactions are quite natural are they not? Utilizing an interpretive principle of charity, we might surmise that he means to say that exclusive reliance on the emotions, and the “snap-judgments” they impose upon us is unnatural for beings endowed with reason. We have been put in a position, by our very nature, (and, we might add, Nature’s God) to do better than that, and should utilize reason to evaluate those snap judgments and make more considered decisions and take more considered courses of action.
Be that as it may, he notes that acting from pity will get us closer to the mark in terms of the sorts of rationally justifiable reactions he thinks we should have, than will anger, in cases such as this, where someone acts from a position of disability. Turning to anger, Epictetus dissects that natural (in one sense just described) reaction, and asks his Stoic students about the causes of the anger:
Why, then, are we angry? Because we admire the goods of which these men rob us. For, mark you, stop admiring your clothes, and you are not angry at the man who steals them; stop admiring your wife’s beauty, and you are not angry at her adulterer. Know that a thief or an adulterer has no place among the things that are your own, but only among the things that are another’s and that are not under your control. If you give these things up and count them as nothing, at whom have you still ground to feel angry? But so long as you admire these things, be angry at yourself and not at the men that I have just mentioned. For consider; you have fine clothes and your neighbor does not; you have a window and wish to air them. He does not know wherein the true good of man consists, but fancies that it consists in having fine clothes, the very same fancy that you also entertain. Shall he not come, then, and carry them off? Why, when you show a cake to gluttonous men and then gulp it down all to yourself, are you not wanting them to snatch it? Stop provoking them, stop having a window, stop airing your clothes.
Several points being conveyed here. First, both the robbery victim’s anger, and the robber’s actions show that each party places too much value on externals, in this sample case; flashy clothing. The wise student should consider his anger as a symptomological sign of sorts, a sign that he has not attained his end, an ability to connect his sense of well being only to that thing over which he has complete control, the state of his ‘Moral Purpose.’ Anger is essentially seen as an opportunity to cement a Stoic lesson in need of being learned.
Ultimately these external items, be they clothing or spouses, are under the control of circumstance, other people and ultimately divine purpose, so treat them as such. Whether you persist in owning the fancy clothes is at least partially up to actions of others, and you will never be able to completely prevent their being taken from you. When they are, those actions are the responsibility of those others, not yours. You, on the other hand are totally responsible for your own attitudes toward those things you possess, and your own attitudes toward their loss.
This is so, even in regard to adulterous spouses! When you tie up your sense of well-being with possession of these external things or people, you set yourself up to be disturbed when you lose them. Similarly, because we “admire” the clothes or the beautiful wife, we get upset when someone else deliberately takes them from us.
So, stop admiring these things, stop tying up your sense of well-being with these things and all will be good! So, says Epictetus.
We might go along with him with regard to the fancy clothes, but what he says seems to be odd and coldly distant with regard to spouses! It does not even address the sense of hurt borne of disloyalty and betrayal that lies at the heart of the angered reaction to adultery. How does this square with what he has to say in other chapters about person-to-person connections, our essentially familial and social nature, and playing roles well? We will see. Still, he recognizes the disbelief with which these remonstrations are likely to be met, so, he gives us a bit of autobiographical information to perhaps make it a bit easier for us to take the pill. In effect he says, ‘Hey, I’m like you in this regard!’
Something similar happened to me also the other day. I keep an iron lamp by the side of my household gods, and, on hearing a noise at the window, I ran down.
We can suppose that his rushing down is due to his sense of alarm or distress at perhaps being the victim of theft or being robbed? See, he’s just like us…
I found that the lamp had been stolen.
And we can suppose he felt an immediate anger. Still, he stops and thinks:
I reflected that the man who stole it was moved by no unreasonable motive.
He can put himself in the thief’s shoes and understand why he might have wanted to take this thing. He admired it, no doubt. Admiration is ‘natural’ in the first of the two senses of the word that we used earlier. But, he asks himself whether it does him any good to persist in the anger or vexation he feels. Probably not. It will not allow him to recover the lamp. What is more, he can find a replacement, perhaps one less valuable, and hence, less causative of distress when lost:
What then? To-morrow, I say, you will find one of earthenware.
And, if he carefully considers the case, he can draw certain general conclusions as to the source of distress. It is invariably brought on by either possession or loss of a valued external. And, (the key point here) possession and loss of externals is an inevitable aspect of life:
Indeed, a man loses only that which he already has. “I have lost my cloak.” Yes, for you had a cloak. “I have a pain in my head.” You don’t have a pain in your horns, do you? Why, then, are you indignant? For our losses and our pains have to do only with the things which we possess.
And, to put a point on it, losses and pains may be less distressing if we take time to duly reflect on the fact that a vast majority of the things which we possess and which we can lose, are at least partially ‘the property of others.’ The only thing that is entirely our own property, and completely under our own control is our Moral Purpose. Again, as in earlier chapters, Epictetus brings us around to realizing this ‘dichotomy of control’ is true even as concerns our own bodies:
“But the tyrant will chain –“
“What? Your leg.
“But he will cut off-“
“What? Your neck.
What, then, will he neither chain nor cut off? Your Moral Purpose. This is why the ancients gave us the injunction, “Know thyself.” What follows, then?
That is to say; what practical consequences follow from these undeniable facts about our, at best, partial ownership of external possessions and the inevitable losses we will endure, as contrasted with our complete ownership and control over our Moral Purpose? Clearly, that we should make efforts every day to keep these facts in mind, and tailor our behaviors in the ways they suggest. This is not an easy task, and will not be successfully undertaken all at once. We should think strategically about the project, and tackle it in a realistic and piecemeal fashion:
Why, but the Gods would have it that one ought to practice in small things, and beginning with them pass on to the greater.
“I have a head-ache.”
Well, do not say “Alas!”
“I have an ear-ache.”
Do not say “Alas!”
And I am not saying that it is not permissible to groan, only do not groan in the center of your being.
Epictetus addresses us in something like this way: Headaches and earaches are common enough, and relatively minor enough to be occasions for proper exercise. Realize, as you note your ‘possession’ of these, that you can distance yourself from distress over them. Don’t panic. Take your medicine perhaps, or ride them out, but don’t become unglued over them. Do similar things with life’s petty inconveniences and annoyances. There are so many instances of these things in the typical person’s life that he/she can, by responding appropriately to them, build up a sort of muscle-memory that can be applied to greater misfortunes when they occur:
And if your slave is slow in bringing your bandage, do not cry out and make a wry face and say, “Everybody hates me.” Why, who would not hate such a person?
Nobody likes a cry-baby. Check.
For the future put your confidence in these doctrines and walk about erect, free, not putting your confidence in the size of your body, like an athlete; for you ought not to be invincible in the way an ass is invincible.
He continues: Asses cannot be budged from their positions because they are stronger than your typical human being, and pretty clever as well. What we want is a similar resoluteness, but one of the spirit or mind:
Who, then, is the invincible man? He whom nothing that is outside the sphere of his Moral Purpose can dismay.
And how might we test someone for having such invincibility? By subjecting him or her to various circumstances, as one might subject a candidate athlete. Consider all those instances of challenges we face in life as being like such athletic testing; opportunities for development with regard to building up the strength or resiliency of Moral Purpose:
I then proceed to consider the circumstances one by one, as I would do in the case of the athlete.
“This fellow has won the first round. What, then, will he do in the second?
What if it be scorching hot?
And what will he do at Olympia?”
It is the same way with the case under consideration. If you put a bit of silver coin in a man’s way, he will despise it. Yes, but if you put an attractive woman in his way, what then? Or if it be in the dark, what then? Or if you throw a bit of reputation in his way, what then? Or abuse, what then? Or praise, what then? Or death, what then? All these things he can overcome. What, then, if it be scorching hot—that is, what if he be drunk? What if he be melancholy-mad? What if asleep? The man who passes all these tests is what I mean by the invincible athlete.
The optimistic note upon which he seems to be, (even if implicitly), ending this chapter is reliant on the truth that all of us are presented with such long chains of opportunity to exercise our Moral Purpose. That is the way of things in our lives. And, much as in the athletic case, we must needs always be in training. That requirement never ceases.
Be that as it may, the sheer volume of such opportunity guarantees progress if only we get serious and apply ourselves. As to the idea that, with that constant practice, even the dreaming, drunk, severely depressed or insane “athlete” would be able to pass the tests; that strains credulity. But, we do see this goal expressed by Epictetus several times in the Discourses.