"For as every soul is unwillingly deprived of the truth, so also is it unwillingly deprived of the power of behaving to each man according to his deserts.
"Accordingly men are pained when they are called unjust, ungrateful, and greedy, and in a word wrong-doers to their neighbors." . . .
--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11 (tr Long)
Philosophers have long discussed the problem of moral weakness. Can a man truly do something wrong, even while also knowing that it is wrong? Surely, if he knows it is not beneficial, will he not try to avoid such an action?
Plato argued that all vice came from ignorance, hence the solution was education, not punishment. Aristotle argued that men will indeed do wrong knowingly, but that their knowledge is clouded and hindered, and hence they do not choose to apply in practice what they know to be true in theory. The solution is the regular application of good habits and the development of character.
I have never assumed a dichotomy between these two positions. The deeper, theoretical questions about the relationship of the intellect and the will are indeed worthy questions, and for that I have the greatest respect.
I view the exercise of Stoicism, however, in a more immediate and practical light. I ask myself, in each and every particular instance, what is happening in my own judgment. I have long ago learned never to speak for another, but I have, with time and effort, learned to speak for myself.
My own failures have almost invariably involved something like this: I may have an apprehension that greed, deception, or vanity are some of the deepest vices. Yet that apprehension is vague and incomplete, and has no relation to my living. It is as if I was thinking in one world, and acting in another.
My thinking, therefore, is entirely removed from my living, an exercise in two different realms. I have come to recognize it in myself as a form of hypocrisy. I have freely chosen to accept two completely separated, and contradictory, standards. I think about one, and use the other. My will was already hindered by my poor judgment to begin with.
A man may know that the complete and unconditional love of his wife is right and good, and that this follows the order of Nature. But he surrenders his reason to his passions. At that moment, and at that time, he has completely and freely judged that adultery is a greater good than love. He no longer 'knows', in any true sense, what is good, because he has chosen a totally different apprehension of the good, at that instance of his decision.
Don't look back and justify or excuse it. Own it, and choose to make it better. Fix what you have broken, and show compassion when other people break their own lives, or try to break yours. 'They know not what they do.'
Describe the relation, in abstract principle, as you will. I will not debate for the sake of conflict or of being proven right. But I can indeed describe my own weakness in any instance. I have not known, in any true sense, what was right whenever I have acted with vice. I have replaced true dignity with the service of the self, and I have somehow convinced myself I am doing one, when I am actually doing the other.
I suggest that Plato was right. Vice does arise from ignorance. I also suggest that Aristotle was right. Ignorance admits of many causes and degrees, but it is still a form of ignorance.
In practice, it means I need to look at my fellows, especially those who act against me, and humbly ask why they might do what they do. In some form or another, they do not know what is right and good.
And if I see this weakness in another, a weakness I have often had myself, will I cast blame and speak with condemnation? Or could I perhaps simply ask myself how I might help my fellow man understand what is right and good, a meaning and purpose he has always shared with me?
To change my judgment changes everything about how I perceive my neighbor. I need to fix myself first, and worry less about judging others.
Written in 11/2002
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