Practice like a Stoic: 9, Be careful what you call good and bad

Only one thing is truly good, and only one truly bad

An orange Lamborghini that Massimo spotted recently in the streets of Philadelphia.

[This series of posts is based on A Handbook for New Stoics—How to Thrive in a World out of Your Control, co-authored by yours truly and Greg Lopez. It is a collection of 52 exercises, which we propose reader try out one per week during a whole year, to actually live like a Stoic. In Europe/UK the book is published by Rider under the title Live Like A Stoic. Below is this week’s prompt and a brief explanation of the pertinent philosophical background. Check the book for details on how to practice the exercise, download the exercise forms from The Experiment’s website, and comment below on how things are going. Greg and/or I will try our best to help out! This week’s exercise is found at pp. 67-70 of the paperback edition.]

“True happiness, therefore, consists in virtue: and what will this virtue bid you do? Not to think anything bad or good which is connected neither with virtue nor with wickedness.” (Seneca, On the Happy Life, 16)

Evaluating circumstances that happen using strong value judgments can lead to strong emotions. When we use value-laden words such as “great” and “horrible” in describing our experiences, we’re not just reporting on facts. It isn’t a simple fact that your last month was “horrible”—horribleness is not out there in the world—it’s a value judgment that exists in your mind. On top of that, using strong words when we evaluate things can fire up our emotions in a vicious cycle; the words we use to describe them can make us feel more strongly about the thing we are describing. This is one reason why Seneca advises us to call only virtue “good” and vice “bad.” Virtue and vice are the main things we should feel strongly about, as they’re the most valuable things in life. Everything else should come after.

The type of preference ordering in which one set of things ranks more highly than others is known to modern economists as lexicographic preferences. This is much like sorting things in alphabetical order. We start with all words that begin with A first, then sort again within that class, then proceed to the letter B, and so on. Our preferences can behave in the same way; we group items in an A class, then move on to the B class, and so on. Things in our A set are always more important to us than things in our B set, which in turn outrank all things in our C set. Crucially, we are not willing to trade members of the A set for members of the B set.

Here’s an example: I love my daughter, who is in my A set. I also happen to love Lamborghini cars, which are in my B set. If I had a lot of money (also in the B set), I would gladly trade $150,000 of it for a Lamborghini, particularly an orange one. Since I’d be willing to trade at least some amount of money for a Lamborghini, it suggests that they belong in the same set. And the fact that I’d pay up to $150,000 for a Lamborghini suggests I value the Lamborghini more than that amount of money (but only if it’s orange!). But no way on earth would I ever trade my daughter for a Lamborghini. That’s not because it would be illegal (although it is), but because these rankings truly reflect my values, and those values are lexicographic to an extent. Studies have found that people sometimes order issues on the environment lexicographically, especially if they view environmentalism using a deontological (duty-based) ethical viewpoint. Other research suggests that lexicographic ordering extends beyond environmentalism, into other areas of preference.

“Now, the ancient Stoics thought that virtue (or to be more precise, the four virtues: practical wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance) ought to be in our A set. Everything else is in the B set. The things that most of us feel we should be happy about, therefore, are in the B set: our relationships, good times we have with friends, and our job. Could it be that we don’t feel satisfied because we haven’t taken good care of the A set—that is, we have not been virtuous?”

The Stoics went one step further than modern behavioral economists, arguing that things in the B set are not really good, they are just preferred (other things being equal). Likewise, if we do not have those things, it isn’t really bad, it is just dispreferred. Since these are outside of our control and not necessary for our happiness, they are known as preferred and dispreferred indifferents. Virtue is the only thing in the A set, because it is the only true good. It follows that acting unvirtuously is the only true bad.

The Stoics inherited this essential idea from Socrates, who defends it in the Platonic dialogue Euthydemus (from the name of a Sophist with whom Socrates is talking). Socrates argues that the only thing that can always benefit us is virtue, and the only thing that can truly hurt us is the lack of virtue. But wait a minute, you might say. Surely wealth, power, or fame is also good, no? Not really. They may be used for good or for bad. Being wealthy may be a conduit for doing good for humanity, but it may also be what enables you to do harm. The same goes for all the other preferred or dispreferred things. As Epictetus puts it: “What decides whether a sum of money is good? The money is not going to tell you; it must be the faculty that makes use of such impressions.” That faculty is reason, which tells us that virtue is the only true good.

There’s one more step to understand why we tend to experience big variations in our emotions due to changing external circumstances. Seneca suggested that true happiness consists in virtue. That’s because external circumstances, such as a job, friends, and even relationships come and go in life, so if we let our happiness depend on these circumstances, we risk being constantly at the mercy of luck or of other people’s decisions, which we cannot control. Note that all the things that we typically value are external; they are subject to the whims of fate. Virtue, however, will always repay us. It is always firmly within our control. If we aimed to call only virtue “good” and vice “bad,” and remove value judgments involving external things outside of our control, we would have a much more peaceful mind, the Stoics would claim.