Wisdom will bring the conviction that there is but one good – that which is honorable; that this can neither be shortened nor extended, any more than a carpenter's rule, with which straight lines are tested, can be bent. Any change in the rule means spoiling the straight line.
Applying, therefore, this same figure to virtue, we shall say:
Virtue also is straight, and admits of no bending. What can be made more tense than a thing which is already rigid? Such is virtue, which passes judgment on everything, but nothing passes judgment on virtue.
And if this rule, virtue, cannot itself be made more straight, neither can the things created by virtue be in one case straighter and in another less straight. For they must necessarily correspond to virtue; hence they are equal.
Applying, therefore, this same figure to virtue, we shall say:
Virtue also is straight, and admits of no bending. What can be made more tense than a thing which is already rigid? Such is virtue, which passes judgment on everything, but nothing passes judgment on virtue.
And if this rule, virtue, cannot itself be made more straight, neither can the things created by virtue be in one case straighter and in another less straight. For they must necessarily correspond to virtue; hence they are equal.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 71
Whenever we form a judgment, there is always a standard by which we are judging, whether we are aware of it explicitly or assume it implicitly.
Over the years, as I saw all kinds of strange and wonderful things, I noticed how most of us just take certain benchmarks for granted, without giving them much deliberate thought, and I must sadly include myself in that group, on far too many occasions. Once the premise is accepted without question, catastrophe is bound to follow, as I have sadly learned the hard way.
If my experience is any guide, we tend to start with pleasure as the greatest good, and with pain as the worst evil. To his credit, Epicurus was at least describing how we tend to feel, even if he neglected to dig deeper about how we ought to think.
One part of me wishes to blame the philosophers of post-modernity for reducing us to creatures of subjective desire, but the other part, the better part, recognizes why this is a universal flaw, the weakness of accepting only the impression.
When I take the time to reflect upon my nature, I learn how the act of knowing, the very precondition for my sense of wonder, is what separates me from the beasts.
The other day, a clever man on the internet was claiming that man is hardly rational, and I could only laugh to myself as he employed reason to deny reason. Since I am a creature of mind and will, I have the power to make sense of my impressions, to find an objective meaning and value in my feelings.
From this, I can discover my purpose, to direct my actions by an understanding of the true, the good, and the beautiful. From this, I know myself to be defined by my virtues, which are the proper perfection of my powers.
The Stoic is certainly not alone in embracing virtue as the highest human good, but he stands above so many of the rest by making no concessions to convenience, by adding no conditions to the content of his character. Become honorable, in the deepest sense of the word, and you become what you were meant to be. The rest is trivial.
Virtue is straight, and it admits of no bending—you can’t get any humanly better than this, any more complete than this. Add a pleasure, and you have tickled the appetite, or add some fame, and you have stroked the ego, but a good man is a good man, regardless of the conditions in which you find him. He is happy because he is at peace with himself and with his world.
Though I now commit most of my personal study to Stoicism, my first love was for the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and that will never leave me. In my last year of college, I stumbled across a dusty old book by Fulton Sheen, written long before he became an American television personality. God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy helped me to rightly express the framework of measures, the rules by which we judge.
I had a sort of “eureka!” moment when I came to his conclusion, for while I was already beginning to understand why thought must conform to things, the mind agreeing with Nature, I was missing the final step, that all created things are ultimately measure by God:
—The Divine Intellect is a measure, not a thing measured.
—Natural things are both a measure and a thing measured.
—The human intellect is a thing measured, not a measure.
In other words, and in a more Stoic context, virtue is the perfection of our particular human nature, which is then itself measured by all of Nature as a whole, which is then itself measured by the Divine. Virtue is the excellence of what I am, and it can only exist through the excellence of all that is: my being is relative to Being.
I have yet to find a “modern” Stoic thinker who understands this, though I am sure there are one or two hiding away somewhere, with absolutely no worries about getting published or attending the next conference. What “modern” Stoicism, which adopts the name without the task, fails to grasp is that virtue is meaningless without the structure of Providence.
The measure of a man is his honor. The measure of a man’s honor is his service to the Absolute. Reduce virtue to something subjective, and you remove the carpenter’s rule. Yes, as a cradle Catholic, the pun is intended.
Whenever we form a judgment, there is always a standard by which we are judging, whether we are aware of it explicitly or assume it implicitly.
Over the years, as I saw all kinds of strange and wonderful things, I noticed how most of us just take certain benchmarks for granted, without giving them much deliberate thought, and I must sadly include myself in that group, on far too many occasions. Once the premise is accepted without question, catastrophe is bound to follow, as I have sadly learned the hard way.
If my experience is any guide, we tend to start with pleasure as the greatest good, and with pain as the worst evil. To his credit, Epicurus was at least describing how we tend to feel, even if he neglected to dig deeper about how we ought to think.
One part of me wishes to blame the philosophers of post-modernity for reducing us to creatures of subjective desire, but the other part, the better part, recognizes why this is a universal flaw, the weakness of accepting only the impression.
When I take the time to reflect upon my nature, I learn how the act of knowing, the very precondition for my sense of wonder, is what separates me from the beasts.
The other day, a clever man on the internet was claiming that man is hardly rational, and I could only laugh to myself as he employed reason to deny reason. Since I am a creature of mind and will, I have the power to make sense of my impressions, to find an objective meaning and value in my feelings.
From this, I can discover my purpose, to direct my actions by an understanding of the true, the good, and the beautiful. From this, I know myself to be defined by my virtues, which are the proper perfection of my powers.
The Stoic is certainly not alone in embracing virtue as the highest human good, but he stands above so many of the rest by making no concessions to convenience, by adding no conditions to the content of his character. Become honorable, in the deepest sense of the word, and you become what you were meant to be. The rest is trivial.
Virtue is straight, and it admits of no bending—you can’t get any humanly better than this, any more complete than this. Add a pleasure, and you have tickled the appetite, or add some fame, and you have stroked the ego, but a good man is a good man, regardless of the conditions in which you find him. He is happy because he is at peace with himself and with his world.
Though I now commit most of my personal study to Stoicism, my first love was for the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and that will never leave me. In my last year of college, I stumbled across a dusty old book by Fulton Sheen, written long before he became an American television personality. God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy helped me to rightly express the framework of measures, the rules by which we judge.
I had a sort of “eureka!” moment when I came to his conclusion, for while I was already beginning to understand why thought must conform to things, the mind agreeing with Nature, I was missing the final step, that all created things are ultimately measure by God:
—The Divine Intellect is a measure, not a thing measured.
—Natural things are both a measure and a thing measured.
—The human intellect is a thing measured, not a measure.
In other words, and in a more Stoic context, virtue is the perfection of our particular human nature, which is then itself measured by all of Nature as a whole, which is then itself measured by the Divine. Virtue is the excellence of what I am, and it can only exist through the excellence of all that is: my being is relative to Being.
I have yet to find a “modern” Stoic thinker who understands this, though I am sure there are one or two hiding away somewhere, with absolutely no worries about getting published or attending the next conference. What “modern” Stoicism, which adopts the name without the task, fails to grasp is that virtue is meaningless without the structure of Providence.
The measure of a man is his honor. The measure of a man’s honor is his service to the Absolute. Reduce virtue to something subjective, and you remove the carpenter’s rule. Yes, as a cradle Catholic, the pun is intended.
—Reflection written in 9/2013
Whatever their many merits, Becker, Pigliucci, Holiday, or Roberston are existentialists, because they begin with the self, and they end with the self. They are concerned with self-invention, as distinct from self-discovery, existence without a preceding essence. That's fine, but know what you're buying into.
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