" 'Ought not then this robber and this adulterer to be destroyed?' By no means say so, but speak rather in this way: 'This man who has been mistaken and deceived about the most important things, and blinded, not in the faculty of vision which distinguishes white and black, but in the faculty which distinguishes good and bad, should we not destroy him?' "
"If you speak thus, you will see how inhuman this is which you say, and that it is just as if you would say, 'Ought we not to destroy this blind and deaf man?' But if the greatest harm is the privation of the greatest things, and the greatest thing in every man is the will or choice such as it ought to be, and a man is deprived of this will, why are you also angry with him?
Man, you ought not to be affected contrary to nature by the bad things of another. Pity him rather. drop this readiness to be offended and to hate, and these words which the many utter: 'These accursed and odious fellows!' How have you been made so wise at once? and how are you so peevish? Why then are we angry? Is it because we value so much the things of which these men rob us? Do not admire your clothes, and then you will not be angry with the thief. Do not admire the beauty of your wife, and you will not be angry with the adulterer. Learn that a thief and an adulterer have no place in the things which are yours, but in those which belong to others and which are not in your power.
"If you dismiss these things and consider them as nothing, with whom are you still angry? But so long as you value these things, be angry with yourself rather than with the thief and the adulterer. Consider the matter thus: you have fine clothes; your neighbor has not. You have a window; you wish to air the clothes. The thief does not know wherein man's good consists, but he thinks that it consists in having fine clothes, the very thing which you also think. Must he not then come and take them away? When you show a cake to greedy persons, and swallow it all yourself, do you expect them not to snatch it from you? Do not provoke them: do not have a window, do not air your clothes."
---Epictetus, Discourses 18 (tr Long)
It has taken me many years to even begin practicing these principles. I may have understood in theory, but was often failing to apply them in practice. This means, of course, that my judgment of the the good was not complete.
I find the line of reasoning in this passage a daily help in my difficulties with judging and resenting others. It is a struggle to start building up better habits, so I must remind myself regularly what Nature truly asks of me.
We all act in one way or another because we think the action will be beneficial. It is our judgment, therefore, about what is good or bad, right or wrong, that guides, and it is therefore fair to say that ignorance, the absence of understanding, is at the root of our vices. We do not do what is good, because we do not even know what is good.
I bracket, for the moment, more complex questions about moral incontinence, and whether or how a man can truly act against his conscience. My own sense is that whenever we do something we know is wrong, that knowledge is not truly complete or informed, such that the abstract principle we may understand, more or less vaguely, is not being put into concrete practice. I have always thought there is a way to bring the differing views of Plato and Aristotle more closely together on this point, and I think Stoicism helps us with this.
I also resist the temptation of thinking that Epictetus is removing blame or responsibility from those who are ignorant. Their ignorance may be be involuntary or voluntary, and therefore undeserving or deserving of blame, but the key point is to remember that we should seek to help those who are ignorant, not condemn them. Socrates said much the same in the Apology. We don't make ourselves better through hate or anger, and we certainly don't make the offender any better, either. One man may have treated me poorly, and now I am simply treating him poorly in return. I have compounded the evil.
The beautiful irony of the argument is that we might say that we do not care for wealth, honor, or pleasure, but then we become angry when someone deprives us of wealth, honor, or pleasure. He wants these things only because he ignorantly thinks they are good. This does not mean he has not done wrong, but that is only within his choice. It is, however, within my own power to decide how I will act, and whether I end up choosing to desire the exact same things. The less my wealth, reputation, or luxuries matter to me, the less I will care whether I have them or not.
Written on 7/11/2011
Image: William Blake, The Accusers of Theft, Adultery, Murder (c. 1794)
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