Book I, Chapter 28
That We Ought Not to be Angry with Men; and What are the Little Things and the Great Among Men?
This chapter, while continuing the last chapter’s discussion, also presents us with a Socratic/Platonic reading on the connection that is supposed to exist between knowledge and motivation. According to this view no one ever knowingly chooses to do things that are either wrong or harmful to themselves. It illustrates with those coldly described cases familiar in the Greco-Roman world, cases drawn from myth, theatre and literature, with which Epictetus and his students would have been quite familiar. In so doing, this chapter presents us with a continuation of the last’s examination of what it is that “impressions” are, (the psychological structure that exists within them) according to the Stoics, and the vocabulary they use and and strategies they suggest, when discussing how it is we can respond to these structures.
What is the reason that we assent to anything? The fact that it appears to us to be so. It is impossible, therefore, to assent to the thing that appears not to be so. Why? Because this is the nature of the intellect—to agree to what is true, to be dissatisfied with what is false, and to withhold judgement regarding what is uncertain.
When presented with a proposition, and considering relevant evidence we may have, we will either assent to the proposition, (that is, accept it, and count it as true) or we will reject it (refuse to accept it and count it as false) or we will neither accept nor reject it and count it as something whose truth value cannot be determined until further relevant evidence is gathered. We ‘suspend judgment’ to a later date on such propositions.
Relevant evidence includes our background knowledge, things we experience at the time we are presented with propositions, testimony, etc. Once we are confronted with the propositions, and these sources are engaged, it becomes impossible to react otherwise than we do:
What is the proof of this?
A quick bit of dialogue illustrates with examples. The first is to be taken as addressed to someone during the day:
“Feel, if you can, that it is now night.”
That is impossible.
“Put away the feeling that it is day.”
That is impossible.
The next example is a classic case of a proposition that warrants suspense of judgment:
“Either feel or put away the feeling that the stars are even in number.”
That is impossible.
It is impossible to accept this proposition as true or reject it as false because we clearly have no way of determining which of the possibilities is more likely. We just know there are countless trillions and trillions of stars, and that there are as many odd as even numbers. We can contrast our case with that of God who, presumably knows the exact number of stars and would accept or reject the proposition as the case may be. We, on the other hand, suspend judgment.
Now, a conclusion is drawn: Any time a person assents to a proposition, it can only be because, in his estimation, he believes the totality of his evidence supports it. This will be the case, even if the proposition in question is, as a matter of objective fact, false.
When, therefore, a man assents to a falsehood, rest assured that it was not his wish to assent to it as false; “for every soul is unwillingly deprived of the truth,” as Plato says; it only seemed to him that the false was true.
Epictetus now expands the universe of discourse. When we discuss axiological matters, we have a second set of analogs of these truth values which attach to such descriptive propositions. Where, in cases like the above, truth and falsity are the values, in the realm of propositions that concern practical action we have similar contrary values: ‘appropriate and inappropriate,’ ‘profitable and unprofitable,’ ‘in accord with duty, and contrary to duty.’ The latter could also be expressed as ‘morally right and morally wrong.’ This latter pair are explicitly moral normative values, while the other pairs are each ambiguous between the morally normative and other axiological senses.
Well now, in the sphere of actions what have we corresponding to the true and the false here in the sphere of perceptions? Duty and what is contrary to duty, the profitable and the unprofitable, that which is appropriate to me and that which is not appropriate to me, and whatever is similar to these.
Next, on this basis, he asks a classically Socratic question:
“Cannot a man, then, think that something is profitable to him, and yet not choose it?”
In other words, is it possible for a man to believe that something is profitable for him, good for him, and, at the same time choose not to do or pursue that thing?
He cannot.
It must be the case in all circumstances where someone appears to be doing something like this, that his views are mistaken. The thing which is indeed profitable for him is misperceived, on his part, as being harmful to him. So, he chooses to avoid it. Similarly, it might be the case that someone chooses a course of action that is harmful to him. He must do so laboring under the misapprehension that the thing is really good for him.
Again, no one knowingly does wrong, according to Socrates.
How of her (Medea) who says,
“Now, now, I learn what horrors I intend: But passion overmastereth sober thought?”
This is said by Medea, in Euripides’ play of the same name. She expresses this thought while resolving to murder her own children, fathered by Jason, who had betrayed her. She does this out of a thirst for inflicting revenge upon Jason. The key thing to note here, is that it looks to be a clear counterexample to the Socratic position. It sure looks as if Medea realizes killing innocent children is a ‘horror’ (morally wrong) but nevertheless does choose to carry out the plan, due to her thirst for revenge. Is this a case of someone knowingly doing wrong? Is Medea, though fictional, representative of other such counterexamples to the Socratic contention?
No. (According to Epictetus at any rate!)
It is because the very gratification of her passion and the taking of vengeance on her husband she regards as more profitable than the saving of her children.
Appearances notwithstanding, Medea is in error here. It is in fact not ‘more profitable’ to take revenge via her plan, but allegedly, she mistakenly believes that it is:
“Yes, but she is deceived.”
“Show her clearly that she is deceived, and she will not do it; but so long as you do not show it, what else has she to follow but that which appears to her to be true?”
“Nothing.”
“Why, then, are you angry with her, because the poor woman has gone astray in the greatest matters, and has been transformed from a human being into a viper? Why do you not, if anything, rather pity her? As we pity the blind and the halt, why do we not pity those who have been made blind and halt in their governing faculties?”
Before we move on, we must linger on this case of Medea: This Socratic read must be contrasted with the truly tragic read that is itself also in line with the picture of human reality that Epictetus subscribes to. That reading is also certainly in line with and consistent with the Euripidean text, and in fact deepens the tragedy. It better fits her character and monologue as presented in the play. She calculates and cajoles, and has plenty of time to contemplate the nature of her planned actions. All the while, she recognizes that the very enormity of the crimes she contemplates is precisely what will stab at the heart of her philandering and opportunistic husband. It is precisely because she does know it is such a horror that she chooses to go through with the murders. She does, in fact, knowingly and freely choose to do wrong, a monstrous wrong, on this reading. She is laboring under no misapprehensions at all, but quite deliberately chooses to pursue the visceral satisfaction of revenge over the value of the innocent lives of her sons.
According to that interpretation, Medea is fully aware of what she is doing. She is choosing to be a moral monster, she is extinguishing her own Moral Purpose, along with those innocent children’s lives. It is precisely this sort of action that Epictetus warns us against, and which he seems to hold open as not only possible, but carrying a distinctly human risk.
But this is clearly not a reading of the play that Epictetus ‘officially’ subscribes to, either in the case of Medea, or more generally. In every case where someone behaves in such fashion, he adopts the Socratic position that the person is laboring under misapprehension. That being the case, he believes the appropriate attitude to take toward such people is one of compassion or pity. One should then want to make efforts to aid such people in seeing the error of their ways. Once they are shown this fact, they will supposedly necessarily come to repentance, and will also change their behavior:
Whoever, then, bears this clearly in mind, that the measure of man’s every action is the impression of his senses (now this impression may be formed rightly or wrongly; if rightly, the man is blameless; if wrongly, the man himself pays the penalty; for it is impossible that the man who has gone astray, is one person, while the man who suffers is another),—whoever remembers this, I say, will not be enraged at anyone, will not be angry with anyone, will not revile anyone, will not blame, nor hate, nor take offence at anyone.
So, you conclude that such great and terrible things have their origin in this—the impression of one’s senses?
A note here. The terminology used is not altogether clear and helpful. Where we run into the phrases “impressions of senses,” or “sense impressions,” Epictetus means to be referring to something more than mere sensory experiences. He focuses us on certain concomitants to sense experiences, concomitants that are the result of the interface of our sensory experiences with valuational elements in our cognitive life, amongst which are those ‘preconceptions’ we have already encountered in earlier chapters. When these interactions occur, a sort of ‘snap-judgment’ also occurs. These suggest to us certain courses of action, that at first blush, might appear to be plausible. These are called ‘immediate impressions’ by the Stoics. As valuable as these are (we probably could not live without them) they can lead to mistaken paths. The Stoic wants us to get in the middle of that perceptual/cognitive process when we can, and especially when situations have bearing on our Moral Purpose. When we do not do so, tragedies occur, as the next several examples illustrate:
In this and nothing else. The Iliad is nothing but a sense-impression and a poet’s use of sense-impressions. There came to Alexander an impression to carry off the wife of Menelaus, and an impression came to Helen to follow him. Now if an impression had led Menelaus to feel that it was a gain to be deprived of such a wife, what would have happened? We should have lost not merely the Iliad, but the Odyssey as well.
Perhaps being unintentionally funny here, Epictetus tells us that the world benefited, after a fashion, from the helter-skelter of hasty decisions arising from the ‘sense impressions’ of these three characters. If they had been more circumspect, the carnage of the Trojan War would not have occurred. True, says he, but, we would have been robbed of some mighty fine epic poetry!
Next, we have an interesting line of questioning the intent of which seems to be that the greatest tragedy of that war was that it was brought about by these men and women not attending properly to their Moral Purpose. That brought about death and destruction, which is bad, surely, but this destruction was wrought in the sphere of the external. It was symptomatic and reflective of the greater internal tragedy in these persons, carelessness in the most important sphere.
Then do matters of such great import depend upon one that is so small?
But what do you mean by “matters of such great import”? Wars and factions and deaths of many men and destructions of cities? And what is there great in all this?
What, nothing great in this?
Why, what is there great in the death of many oxen and many sheep and the burning and destruction of many nests of swallows or storks?
This does seem a cold comparison, what is the point?
Is there any similarity between this and that?
A great similarity. Men’s bodies perished in the one case, and bodies of oxen and sheep in the other. Petty dwellings of men were burned, and so were nests of storks. What is there great or dreadful about that? Or else show me in what respect a man’s house and a stork’s nest differ as a place of habitation.
Two elements are being referred to here, both of which are being portrayed as external properties of persons (Moral Purposes). The first mentioned is ‘men’s bodies.’ The second are dwellings.
That logical distinction between person and body is being made here again, that we’ve seen referenced many times before. The relationship is similar to that between persons and their shelters. In both cases, the destruction of the person, the Moral Purpose is something distinct from destruction of the external. What is more, Epictetus is at pains to remind us that the harms visited upon the men, women, children and property of the warring parties were one-and-all ultimately attributable to human reliance on the haphazard of what he is here calling ‘sense-impressions.’ Men let themselves be led around by those heedless ‘snap judgments,’ bringing on Nemesis. Men, in so doing, (willingly negligent in using their rational and cognitive capacities), are choosing to behave in the ways of madmen, for they too are led about by their ‘immediate impressions,’ or ‘sense-impressions.’ The key difference though, is that in the case of the madman, he has no choice in the matter, his rationality is organically impaired. ‘What is worse,’ Epictetus asks his students, ‘to be mad or to willingly choose to behave as if mad?’
Is there any similarity between a stork and a man?
What is that you say? As far as the body is concerned, a great similarity; except that the petty houses of men are made of beams and tiles and bricks, but the nest of a stork is made of sticks and clay.
Does a man, then, differ in no wise from a stork?
Far from it; but in these matters he does not differ.
In what wise, then, does he differ?
Seek and you will find that he differs in some other respect. See whether it be not in his understanding what he does, see whether it be not in his capacity for social action, in his faithfulness, his self-respect, his steadfastness, his security from error, his intelligence. Where, then, is the great evil and the great good among men? Just where the difference is; and if that element wherein the difference lies be preserved and stands firm and well-fortified on every side, and neither his self-respect, nor his faithfulness, nor his intelligence be destroyed, then the man also is preserved; but if any of these qualities be destroyed or taken by storm, then the man also is destroyed. And it is in this sphere that the great things are. Did Alexander come to his great fall when the Hellenes assailed Troy with their ships, and when they were devastating the land, and when his brothers were dying? Not at all; for no one comes to his fall because of another’s deed; but what went on then was merely the destruction of storks’ nests. Nay, he came to his fall when he lost his self-respect, his faithfulness, his respect for the laws of hospitality, his decency of behavior. When did Achilles come to his fall? When Patroclus died? Far from it; but when Achilles himself was enraged, when he was crying about a paltry damsel, when he forgot that he was there, not to get sweethearts, but to make war. These are the falls that come to mankind, this is the siege of their city, this is the razing of it—when their correct judgements are torn down, when these are destroyed.
Again, the message here is that loss of life or property, common in war, is not as devastating as is loss of humanity, falling into animal-like behavior. Now the way he goes about making this point does come across as oddly cold. He compares slain humans to slain oxen, sheep and storks. A student takes up that line of objection asking Epictetus why he insists on putting things in this off-putting and offensive way:
Then when women are driven off into captivity, and children are enslaved, and when the men themselves are slaughtered, are not all these things evils?
How does Epictetus respond? In a way most annoying. He asks the student a question in return:
Where do you get the justification for adding this opinion? Let me know also.
The student doesn’t bite on this offering of a question as an answer. He insists, as he rightly should: Answer the question! Are these things evils?
No, on the contrary, do you let me know where you get the justification for saying that they are not evils?
This gives Epictetus occasion to lecture and apply Stoic methods of argumentation.
Let us turn to our standards, produce your preconceptions.
For this is why I cannot be sufficiently astonished at what men do. In a case where we wish to judge of weights, we do not judge at haphazard; where we wish to judge what is straight and what is crooked, we do not judge at haphazard; in short, where it makes any difference to us to know the truth in the case, no one of us will do anything at haphazard. Yet where there is involved the first and only cause of acting aright or erring, of prosperity or adversity, of failure or success, there alone are we haphazard and headlong. There I have nothing like a balance, there nothing like a standard, but some sense-impression comes and immediately I go and act upon it. What, am I any better than Agamemnon or Achilles—are they because of following the impressions of their senses to do and suffer such evils, while I am to be satisfied with the impression of my senses? And what tragedy has any other source than this? What is the Atreus of Euripides? His sense-impression. The Oedipus of Sophocles? His sense-impression. The Phoenix? His sense-impression. The Hippolytus? His sense-impression. What kind of a man, then, do you think he is who pays no attention to this matter? What are those men called who follow every impression of their senses?
Mad-men.
Are we, then, acting differently?
I suspect this answer was perceived as roundabout and avoiding a straight answer. Given what has transpired in earlier chapters we can make a good guess as to how he could have more directly answered the question:
When the word ‘evil’ is used, it can be construed in two different senses. In the one sense, an evil is anything that harms man or property. This would obviously include pain, disease, suffering, destruction and death brought on by war.
In another sense, evil refers to the free choice to do wrong, the free choice to visit pain, suffering destruction or death upon others.
Epictetus wants to emphasize his belief that evil in the second sense is the most horrific thing in the human realm, both the deepest sort of evil and the cause of evils in the first sense indicated above. Evil in the second sense is a true source of the pain suffering and death brought on by war, and one for which men are solely and exclusively personally responsible, when they do things like the tragic heroes do. The destruction of war could, to a large extent, be avoided if only people took greater care to avoid evil in the second sense.
Now, as Epictetus intends this to be taken, it is a statement of faith in the Socratic reading of the root cause of evil being ignorance. Such evil can be reduced or eliminated via eradicating the ignorance, if only we applied ourselves to serious study, dialogue, argument and enquiry.
We’ve seen, as we’ve discussed his example of Medea, that we can gainsay this naïve point of view, recognizing the true tragedy in knowingly and deliberately choosing evil, and, while doing so, still recognizing the validity of the basics of Stoic psychology of evil. Even if there are cases like Medea, most others, if fully cognizant, will alter their behaviors. At least we hope so.