The Stoics

Upul Abeyrathne,Dept. of Economics

University of RuhunaMatara

Stoic Conception of the Happiness

• Zeno is the founder of the school (32 B.C.). • Cicero, Seneca and Mrcus Aurelius were its

great representatives.• It has borrowed the ideas from Cynicism.• individual self sufficiency, independence of

society, self control and life according to nature. (Remember they gave these ideas a positive content)

• They agree to the Epicurean idea on life. i.e. aim is to achieve happiness.

• But differ on methods of achievement.• Epicurean allowed moderate indulgence of

physical and intellectual desires• Stoics advise against physical pursuit of

pleasure and recommend the pursuit of intellectual pleasure based on reason.

• Sensual desires to be suppressed because true happiness lay in virtue and true virtue consisted in following the law of nature .

• One must find happiness in satisfying those emotions and impulses which lie most deep in human nature.

• Real happiness is not doing what is pleasant but what is virtuous.

• A man is virtuous when he follow his intellect or reason, not the feelings.

• The man spend a happy life when he live according to nature.

• Stoics believed that law of nature definite, unchangeable and based on reason.

• To live according to nature is therefore to live according to reason.

• The greatest human need is to utilize reason and to lead a happy and virtuous life in accordance with reason.

• However, Stoic is against the individual reason. One must follow reason as shown by universal approval or judgment.

• Reason is the creative source of law. • Men endowed with reason are essentially alike

and subjected to the same natural law and equal rights

Natural Law

• They have given well defined direction and content to the words ‘Nature’ and ‘natural law’.

• “The nature is the manifestation of the single and homogenous spirit of the world.

• The World is composed of several phenomena and connected through the common law of right reasons.

Role of law of nature

• It, being the common, universal, divine and good rule of reason is to govern creatures combined in natural association

• Natural law is objective reason• Brotherhood of men depends on the observance of natural

law. • Civil law must be based on natural law. • Natural law is sovereign and immutable. • No law or no government can cotravene the natural law• Natural law served the common universal standards of right

and wrong.

Universal Brotherhood

• Stoics believed in order and regularity in nature because it is regulated by reason.

• Reason is universal and does not change in the face of time and place.

• There is only one way of life for whole of the mankind based on universal reason.

• Natural law based universal brotherhood and citizenship and human equality are the ideals of stoicism.

Individual and the State

• The stoics looked on the individual as a unit by himself, distinct from sociiety.

• Self sufficiency is a attribute of individual rather than that of state or society.

• Ethics, not politics is the regulative force between men.

• Good man is different from good citizen.• It negate any idea of inequality.• This has lead to the conception of world state

which represented the universal empire of reason.

• Stoic held that humanity regarded as a whole, is foolish and depraved, caring more for the satisfaction of immediate impulses than that of the deepest.

• This idea of depravity of human nature have foreshadowed the cardinal Christian Doctrine of Original Sin.

• It is this general depravity of human that work as the justification for state.

Consequence of Emphasizing Individual Happiness

• 1. Personal, i.e. individual independence, the pursuit of individual happiness lead people to think of their private life more than the public one. This took men away from public life. They gloried being private. Participation in politics was not highly regarded.

• 2. Social Unity. Even though the aim of life is individual happiness, reason tell them that individual is a member of a bigger entity, i.e. society.

What Equal Men should do?

• Unite togetherPromote the following to achieve that end.1. Justice: All men are equal, whatever his

station in life, give him what is due to him.2. Mercy: This very important as there was a

group of people who were slaves.

Thank You