Living with Nature 2

" 'Well,' said Epictetus, 'if we were inquiring about white and black, what criterion should we employ for distinguishing between them?'

 " 'The sight,' he said.

" 'And if about hot and cold, and hard and soft, what criterion?'

" 'The touch.'

" 'Well then, since we are inquiring about things which are according to nature, and those which are done rightly or not rightly, what kind of criterion do you think that we should employ?'

 " 'I do not know,' he said.

" 'And yet not to know the criterion of colors and smells, and also of tastes, is perhaps no great harm; but if a man do not know the criterion of good and bad, and of things according to nature and contrary to nature, does this seem to you a small harm?'

" 'The greatest harm.'

" 'Come tell me, do all things which seem to some persons to be good and becoming rightly appear such; and at present as to Jews and Syrians and Egyptians and Romans, is it possible that the opinions of all of them in respect to food are right?'

" 'How is it possible?' he said.

" 'Well, I suppose it is absolutely necessary that, if the opinions of the Egyptians are right, the opinions of the rest must be wrong: if the opinions of the Jews are right, those of the rest cannot be right.'

" 'Certainly.'

" 'But where there is ignorance, there also there is want of learning and training in things which are necessary.' He assented to this.

" 'You then,' said Epictetus, 'since you know this, for the future you will employ yourself seriously about nothing else, and will apply your mind to nothing else than to learn the criterion of things which are according to nature, and by using it also to determine each several thing.

" 'But in the present matter I have so much as this to aid you toward what you wish. Does affection to those of your family appear to you to be according to nature and to be good?'

 " 'Certainly.'

" 'Well, is such affection natural and good, and is a thing consistent with reason not good?'

" 'By no means.'

" 'Is then that which is consistent with reason in contradiction with affection?'

 " 'I think not.'

" 'You are right, for if it is otherwise, it is necessary that one of the contradictions being according to nature, the other must be contrary to nature. Is it not so?'

 " 'It is,' he said.

" 'Whatever, then, we shall discover to be at the same time affectionate and also consistent with reason, this we confidently declare to be right and good.'

 " 'Agreed.' "

--Epictetus, Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 11 (tr Long)

Determine the measure. I cannot judge something, unless I have a clear sense of the standard by which I am judging.

"That's good."

Define. How is it good? Please don't tell me that the answer is self-evident. I know some people who think that the good is gratification, and others who are convinced it is mortification. A sad woman, in all seriousness, once tried to convince me that committing adultery with her would make my marriage better, while a bitter man once insisted that I could never even think of my wife with any desire beyond the biological function of procreation. I've seen the whole breadth of crazy.

In my very progressive elementary school, I learned all about the spectrum of colors and the qualities of touch. Yet no one ever asked me to consider right from wrong in any serious way. There were simply rules, and they were to be followed, without question. Twenty years later, those rules are now completely different, and, once again, to be accepted without question.

Twenty years ago, for example, I was clearly told that marriage was between a man and a woman. Now, I'm told it's also between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. In neither case was I ever given an argument, a measure, or a standard by which to judge what was right. I could learn about all the facts of mathematics, physics, or chemistry, but there were never any real moral facts.

And telling me that something is true "because professionals said so", or "because the Church said so" is hardly enough reason for a thinking man. Fallacies of authority or popularity. 

We teach all about the science or matter or the science of business, but then we pass over the science of the soul. Ask a man how to build a bridge, and he will do the math to the decimal point. Ask him how to make money, and he will offer the most complex rules of accounting.

But ask him how to be a good man, and his jaw will drop. That is how the Magistrate in this passage surely feels. He knows he wants to be happy, and he wants to be good, but he has no idea of how to do so.

Do you wish to claim that all of Nature admits to rule and order, but the soul of man has no true order? Can't you see the foolishness of this claim? We only avoid moral facts because they are inconvenient to our desires. 

How much time have I spent studying how to further my career? How much time have I spent studying how to further my character? The answer that I must honestly give disgusts me.

I will now refuse to hide behind social customs alone. This is the attitude of the herd.

Perhaps I can begin, like Epictetus, with love. Affection is reasonable, therefore natural, and therefore good.

And now would be the time to ask what it means to love. . .

Written in 11/2002