You need not, therefore, wonder that goods are equal, both those which are to be deliberately chosen, and those which circumstances have imposed.
For if you once adopt the view that they are unequal, deeming, for instance, a brave endurance of torture as among the lesser goods, you will be including it among the evils also; you will pronounce Socrates unhappy in his prison, Cato unhappy when he reopens his wounds with more courage than he showed in inflicting them, and Regulus the most ill-starred of all when he pays the penalty for keeping his word even with his enemies.
And yet no man, even the most effeminate person in the world, has ever dared to maintain such an opinion. For though such persons deny that a man like Regulus is happy, yet for all that they also deny that he is wretched.
The earlier Academics do indeed admit that a man is happy even amid such tortures, but do not admit that he is completely or fully happy. With this view we cannot in any wise agree; for unless a man is happy, he has not attained the Supreme Good; and the good which is supreme admits of no higher degree, if only virtue exists within this man, and if adversity does not impair his virtue, and if, though the body be injured, the virtue abides unharmed.
And it does abide. For I understand virtue to be high-spirited and exalted, so that it is aroused by anything that molests it. This spirit, which young men of noble breeding often assume, when they are so deeply stirred by the beauty of some honorable object that they despise all the gifts of chance, is assuredly infused in us and communicated to us by wisdom.
For if you once adopt the view that they are unequal, deeming, for instance, a brave endurance of torture as among the lesser goods, you will be including it among the evils also; you will pronounce Socrates unhappy in his prison, Cato unhappy when he reopens his wounds with more courage than he showed in inflicting them, and Regulus the most ill-starred of all when he pays the penalty for keeping his word even with his enemies.
And yet no man, even the most effeminate person in the world, has ever dared to maintain such an opinion. For though such persons deny that a man like Regulus is happy, yet for all that they also deny that he is wretched.
The earlier Academics do indeed admit that a man is happy even amid such tortures, but do not admit that he is completely or fully happy. With this view we cannot in any wise agree; for unless a man is happy, he has not attained the Supreme Good; and the good which is supreme admits of no higher degree, if only virtue exists within this man, and if adversity does not impair his virtue, and if, though the body be injured, the virtue abides unharmed.
And it does abide. For I understand virtue to be high-spirited and exalted, so that it is aroused by anything that molests it. This spirit, which young men of noble breeding often assume, when they are so deeply stirred by the beauty of some honorable object that they despise all the gifts of chance, is assuredly infused in us and communicated to us by wisdom.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 71
It wasn’t until I had examined my motives with a brutal honesty that I recognized how thoroughly I was comparing myself to others. I liked to think I was a free spirit, hardly restricted by the blinders of convention, and yet it turned out how most every goal I believed I was setting for myself was actually defined by some sort of contest, always looking to my left or to my right to gauge my progress.
This fellow has far better grades, so he is surely ahead of me. That fellow just got brutally dumped by his girlfriend, so I might have a chance to gain some ground. It was all about someone else’s situation, and not really about my own character: if I had reflected more carefully upon the true good within my nature, I would have understood why a blessing for one is never greater or lesser than a blessing for another.
This only sounds ridiculous if I remain entranced by the accidents instead of the substance. As a creature of reason and will, the perfection of my nature lies in the excellence of my own judgments and actions, with every other condition being relative to that end. This is the basic argument for why the Stoics speak of virtue as the highest human good, as much as I might prefer to dismiss such principles as mere romantic posturing.
And if I muddy the water by dwelling upon the whims of fortune, I am compromising the superior for the inferior. Socrates, or Cato, or Regulus chose to focus on their own integrity, and in doing so they lived in the richest and fullest way possible: nothing further could be added to it, whatever the circumstances, and nothing could be taken away from it, without their free consent.
Once I object that their virtue was diminished by pain, or that their happiness was lessened by hardship, I am working from contradictory standards; once I wish to have it both ways, I will end up having it no way at all. If a state is complete in itself, in each of its moments, no supplement or reduction is required. Hume was mistaken to claim that comfort makes it nicer, just as Kant was mistaken to claim the discomfort makes it nobler—it is all of a one.
No, Socrates would not have been a better or a happier man free from prison, and Cato would not have been a better or a happier man by defeating Caesar, and Regulus would not have been a better or a happier man by remaining in Rome. Do not permit the obfuscations of scholars to convince you otherwise.
I do not know how embellished their life stories became over the years, and I honestly don’t think it matters to prove the point that character always rises above convenience. It is the mark of a misanthrope to question the honorable intent of legendary heroes, when dozens of similar cases can be found from everyday life, just outside his window.
It wasn’t until I had examined my motives with a brutal honesty that I recognized how thoroughly I was comparing myself to others. I liked to think I was a free spirit, hardly restricted by the blinders of convention, and yet it turned out how most every goal I believed I was setting for myself was actually defined by some sort of contest, always looking to my left or to my right to gauge my progress.
This fellow has far better grades, so he is surely ahead of me. That fellow just got brutally dumped by his girlfriend, so I might have a chance to gain some ground. It was all about someone else’s situation, and not really about my own character: if I had reflected more carefully upon the true good within my nature, I would have understood why a blessing for one is never greater or lesser than a blessing for another.
This only sounds ridiculous if I remain entranced by the accidents instead of the substance. As a creature of reason and will, the perfection of my nature lies in the excellence of my own judgments and actions, with every other condition being relative to that end. This is the basic argument for why the Stoics speak of virtue as the highest human good, as much as I might prefer to dismiss such principles as mere romantic posturing.
And if I muddy the water by dwelling upon the whims of fortune, I am compromising the superior for the inferior. Socrates, or Cato, or Regulus chose to focus on their own integrity, and in doing so they lived in the richest and fullest way possible: nothing further could be added to it, whatever the circumstances, and nothing could be taken away from it, without their free consent.
Once I object that their virtue was diminished by pain, or that their happiness was lessened by hardship, I am working from contradictory standards; once I wish to have it both ways, I will end up having it no way at all. If a state is complete in itself, in each of its moments, no supplement or reduction is required. Hume was mistaken to claim that comfort makes it nicer, just as Kant was mistaken to claim the discomfort makes it nobler—it is all of a one.
No, Socrates would not have been a better or a happier man free from prison, and Cato would not have been a better or a happier man by defeating Caesar, and Regulus would not have been a better or a happier man by remaining in Rome. Do not permit the obfuscations of scholars to convince you otherwise.
I do not know how embellished their life stories became over the years, and I honestly don’t think it matters to prove the point that character always rises above convenience. It is the mark of a misanthrope to question the honorable intent of legendary heroes, when dozens of similar cases can be found from everyday life, just outside his window.
—Reflection written in 9/2013
IMAGE: Benjamin West, The Departure of Regulus (1769)
_-_The_Departure_of_Regulus_-_RCIN_405416_-_Royal_Collection.jpg)
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