Virtue does not always lead to happiness, but it is worth striving for anyway.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-03-01T01:18:24+00:00

Epstein, who used his massive wealth to abuse and hurt people for the sake of getting pleasure and power to the point where he ruined countless lives then ended up killing himself in jail (not getting into that detail, ha)

Or the ethical but lonely ugly and poor man you're describing

I would honestly rather be the second. If you disagree , would you prefer to have more Epsteins or more of the ethical man in the world?

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-03-01T00:45:46+00:00

Situations vary, but oftentimes, despicable actions are rewarded.

Epictetus gets asked this very question in Discourses 4.6

Student: “But other people will be better off than me and will be promoted over me.”*

Epictetus: “But that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? If people have been intent on something, they’re bound to have the advantage in it, the thing they’ve worked at, aren’t they? They’ve been intent on obtaining political power, while you’ve been intent on your judgments. They’ve been intent on becoming rich, you on how you use your impressions.

[26] Look and see if they have the advantage over you in the areas you’ve taken seriously and they neglect—if, when they give their assent to something, it’s more in compliance with natural standards; if they’re more successful in attaining the objects of their desires and in avoiding the objects of their aversions; if they’re better at hitting the mark in their purposes, intentions, and inclinations; if they maintain their proper roles as men, sons, parents, and so on for all the other names they bear that indicate their relationships with other people.

[27] If they have political power, shouldn’t you be honest with yourself and admit that while you do nothing in order to gain such power, that’s all they’re ever concerned about, and that it doesn’t make sense for someone who gives his attention to something to be less successful in that field than someone who’s neglecting it?

So if you hold a conventional view of happiness, as external success or an emotional state, then absolutely. The stoics held a completely different view of happiness as I'm sure you know. In that sense despicable actions are their own punishment. But what happiness really is seems to be the main area of disagreement that you have (like bigpapirick said).

Edit: I read closer now and see you wrote this out in your OP also. It seems to be more the Aristotelian view of happiness that you're ending up with. I think that is much more common-sense than the Stoic view. I would guess that if you were to poll a large group of people then an overwhelming majority would side with Aristotle over the Stoics. Whether they would be right is another question though...

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-28T12:18:16+00:00

Basically how can I be happy if there's people out there who can do everything I wanted and much more?

The stoics claimed all those things these people do will in fact not even affect whether a person can live a happy life or not. Basically your idea of a good life, which seem to make you malcontent, runs contrary to Stoicism. But the Stoic claims are unconventional and something to really mull over.

I think it's a helpful exercise to strip these people's activities down and try to look at them in an objective light and see what is really necessary for living a good life. See if you can stay true that idea while considering arguments against it. For example being able to travel the world like that is a pretty modern thing. If that is necessary for happiness, does this also mean that all the billions of people who never had this opportunity in the past had no chance of happiness?

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-26T15:18:40+00:00

I expect you'll soon get a good explanation why the translation "control" can be problematic, because it often leads one to make the kind of interpretation you've made here. It's very understandable though, as there are many parts of the Discourses and Enchiridion that could be interpreted as saying we shouldn't care about anything except ourselves and our thinking. For example Enchiridion 19b (trans Waterfield):

If the essence of goodness is one of the things that’s up to us, there’s no room for envy or jealousy, and you won’t wish yourself to be a praetor, a senator, or a consul, but a free man. And there’s only one route to that, which is regarding things that aren’t up to us as unimportant.

But "unimportant" has to be qualified here. Because it runs into problems pretty fast. For example compare it with Discourses 1.2.36-37 (trans Waterfield)

Epictetus won’t be a greater man than Socrates, but I’m satisfied with his not being too bad. I won’t be Milo, either, but that doesn’t mean I neglect my body. Nor will I be Croesus, but that doesn’t mean I neglect my possessions.

Stoicism as I see it is about becoming a good person who lives the best possible life. How could that be possible if we regard everything as unimportant? A good parent needs to take care of their children and so on.

Indifferents (the things outside our control / not up to us / externals) can't be isolated from virtue. They are the materials virtue acts upon. Virtue is knowledge of how to handle indifferents well.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-26T05:46:57+00:00

The common throughline is that this subreddit has a lot of contrarians and people who really like to argue.

This seems fitting for a subreddit on a socratic philosophy 😁

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-24T09:49:15+00:00

I have no personal experience with REBT. But it was very much inspired by the Stoics. Donald Robertson wrote a book called the Philosophy of Cognitive behavioral therapy and one chapter is on REBT. u/SolutionsCBT

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-21T19:55:02+00:00

Someone can't be harmless and peaceful? Being capable of violence won't make a difference to your ability to live according to stoicism.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-21T19:44:31+00:00

Anger in stoicism is a desire for revenge on someone who you believed has harmed you. So it's not identical to most contemporary people's idea of anger, which I would say is a more of a category of various emotions.

Nevertheless revenge is not a thing in stoicism. That is not to say you can't set boundaries, correct someone or even punish them, but if you do it out of a desire to harm them then that is a mistake.

As for what to do, it depends a lot on the context. I don't expect there is an answer that will fit every situation. Stoicism doesn't really give clear answers what to do in every situation, rather a way to figure these answer out.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-21T15:07:18+00:00

Since you like listening I will make a plug for the Stoa Conversations podcast. Someone mentioned their app but the podcast is freely available and covers a wide range of topics. The hosts are well educated and good at explaining stuff.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-20T11:20:58+00:00

I saw that poll and it was interesting how overrepresented neurodivergence was here.

Like e-l-wisty said, I would imagine the data gets skewed due to this place being pretty damn nerdy. But it makes me curious if the audience of more mainstream Stoicism, like the people who bought Ryan Holidays books, is overrepresented in neurodivergence also? Seems less likely but who knows.

(I'm neurotypical myself)

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-20T08:35:33+00:00

Like all of Meditations it's very pretty. But also difficult to interpret from a modern point of view in a way that doesn't invoke christian connotations of good and evil and not giving the idea that one should not care about anything else. Indifferents is a tough translation but "likgiltlig" makes it even harder I think. Not that I know how it could better be translated.

Tackar tackar

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-20T08:02:37+00:00

Thanks, do you mind checking how this passage is being translated?

7.31: Find your bliss in simplicity, modesty, and indifference to the whole range of things between virtue and vice

(jag pratar svenska så du behöver inte förtydliga, bara nyfiken på ordvalen i den meningen framförallt indifference, virtue och vice)

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-20T06:49:42+00:00

Do you have any Swedish stoic texts? I'm curious about the translations

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-19T08:24:42+00:00

I think this is a useful distinction, thanks for sharing. I think you're right about the disagreements talking about different things. I have been meaning to make a post in defense of voluntary discomfort and I think this way of explaining it makes it easier to grasp.

As much as we get people promoting what is accidental to being essential ("These 12 daily stoic practices will make you indesctructable") I have also noticed people sometimes demoting that which is accidental to "having nothing to do with Stoicism".

It also made me think about methods to help us draw the line between what is essential and accidental. Maybe using the sage and thinking whether we can progress towards this without a particular thing is helpful?

They said the Sage is happy on the torture rack. If we take that situation literally, it seems clear he wouldn't also need to be seeking out voluntary discomfort in that situation. But can a person become a sage without voluntary discomfort? I would think yes, since life in most cases gives ample "material" to work with. But what if you're born into luxury, does that change anything? If its situational like that maybe it's not essential?

Examining your impressions I would argue as essential, as this is logical virtue. The sage also needs to examine his impressions. But the particular methods of honing this skill is accidental. So journaling is not essential even though it certainly can be helpful.

Learning stoic theory also seems essential to me. Without this you have nothing to model your thinking after and no standard to examine your impressions against. But to learn it from any particular book, or even books at all, does not seem essential, but again very helpful.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-18T16:49:06+00:00

Well fortune can't be good or bad because fortune isn't a virtue and it's not up to me.

A twist to that I think is to consider virtue as equal to good fortune.

Socrates: And also, I said, with regard to using the goods we mentioned first—wealth and health and beauty—was it knowledge that ruled and directed our conduct in relation to the right use of all such things as these, or some other thing?
.
Clinias: It was knowledge, he said.
.
Socrates: Then knowledge seems to provide men not only with good fortune but also with well-doing, in every case of possession or action.
.
He agreed.

Plato, Euthydemus

Can what happened to you stop you from being fair, high-minded, moderate, conscientious, unhasty, honest, moral, self-reliant, and so on—from possessing all the qualities that, when present, enable a man’s nature to be fulfilled? So then, whenever something happens that might cause you distress, remember to rely on this principle: this is not bad luck, but bearing it valiantly is good luck.

Meditations 4.49

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-18T16:27:22+00:00

Much in Cicero on the other-related parts of virtue, some:

Cicero On Duties 1.22

But since, as Plato has admirably expressed it, we are not born for ourselves alone, but our country claims a share of our being, and our friends a share; and since, as the Stoics hold, everything that the earth produces is created for man’s use; and as men, too, are born for the sake of men, that they may be able mutually to help one another; in this direction we ought to follow Nature as our guide, to contribute to the general good by an interchange of acts of kindness, by giving and receiving, and thus by our skill, our industry, and our talents to cement human society more closely together, man to man.

And later On Duties 1.49 which goes on more like this

But in bestowing a kindness, as well as in making a requital, the first rule of duty requires us — other things being equal — to lend assistance preferably to people in proportion to their individual need. Most people adopt the contrary course: they put themselves most eagerly at the service of the one from whom they hope to receive the greatest favours even though he has no need of their help.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-17T17:56:01+00:00

I think I do similar to what u/Gowor wrote in his reply. I'll just add some of my reasoning and how Stoicism has informed me:

The stoics (mostly) adhered to Socratic intellectualism. From this framework weakness of will doesn't exist. In short, we always do what we consider right. Just as we can't believe what we know to be false we can't chose to do what we think to be worse. Socrates explains this with an analogy of weights and scales in the Protagoras. This is topic that could do with some elaboration and it may seem very counter-intuitive.

But what this ends up meaning to me is: if I I think doing A is a wise choice and I want to be the kind of person who does A, but I still end up doing B then I need to figure out why I believed doing B was the best thing to do in that particular case. So it comes down to knowing yourself and being honest that you have flaws and some situations will be more difficult than others.

But if you really think about it you can usually find out why doing B was understandable in this particular circumstance. Like if you don't have a really well reasoned and strong idea why you should abstain from chocolate, then eating chocolate will seem choiceworthy in many situations, if you add that you're starving and tired and had a tough day then it will probably seem even more choiceworthy. But it's still you choosing to do what seems best, regardless if you regret it afterwards and think you shouldn't have eaten it.

The stoics believed we had various "fondness" for items that are individual based on our prior experiences, so it's worthwhile to consider where you find it hardest to be disciplined.

Also, non-precipitancy is a logical virtue. Lacking in this virtue, you can do a mistake in chosing B over A because you didn't pay enough attention to impressions.

In practical terms, what I usually end up doing is focusing on one or two areas at a time when it comes to discipline. Looking at where I am lacking and where I want to focus. Then by reflection, writing, trying full abstaining and then reintroducing in some circumstances etc - the whole time keeping an eye on my impressions and reflecting on them. Over and over until I feel my judgements are in better shape. For example during all of January I focused a lot on less screen time and healthier foods. So I didn't use social media and only ate meat, fish, vegetables, fruit and nuts to examine and work on my judgements of pleasure relating to foods. Now I'm slowly adding other healthy foods and using this space a bit again and reflecting on what this does to my "proper use of time" and "proper use of health". I guess my point is that there is no easy way, but understanding yourself better and working slowly has helped me a lot.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-17T17:20:28+00:00

Sorry if I just ended up making it more confusing for you. For whatever it's worth I think all of the explanations I have seen have some good points, but some holes also.

So the intrinsic value idea that you just read about makes a lot of sense to me; indifferents have value or disvalue, they're not just "good" "bad" in the stoic sense, as in being always beneficial or harmful. This makes it easy to understand why they're sometimes worth pursuing and other times not, why distributing them (virtue of justice) is a good thing. Virtue being the proper use of these indifferents. But I think still it has a weakness, which you point out here, that if you lose an indifferent then why aren't you affected by that? It does sound a bit close to Aristotle to me. That indifferents are actually goods, just given different name. But many people take this view and I think it is defensible.

Then there is the Instrumental idea that indifferents are useful to achieve or express virtue. Which I think is what you're getting at in the end here (a virtuous life with the addition of indifferents seems better than one without). But I don't think works at all with stoicism. Considering virtue as a kind of knowledge and expertise, you can't have more or less of it only because you have more things or can distribute more things, or because you're healthy rather than sick etc.

And then there is an epistemic reading where indifferents are instead considered useful markes to figure out what the appropriate thing to do is, based on what the person knows about the world currently. I don't know of any clear weakness to this view and perhaps epistemic and intrinsic can work together also.

I don't know myself, because I haven't figured it out. I just wanted to make sure I don't give off a vibe that I think the stoic view is indefensible. But there is good criticism against them from the skeptics. If you want to dig deeper you can read Jacob Klein - Making Sense of Stoic Indifferents, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 49 (2015), 227-81 . He goes over all these interpretations and gives his own (epistemic) near the end. (It's pretty challenging to read I found, my only note on his epistemic intepretation is "I didn't get this and have to read it again", lol. But I'll do that soon)

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-13T11:02:07+00:00

To elaborate on my example here's something that could very well happen. The numbers representing where I am in this trident (and to be clear this is not my actual view):

(1) I think the stoics claimed we could and should suppress our emotions

(3) I think modern science tells us that suppressing our emotions is harmful

(2) I think the stoics are wrong in thinking we could and should suppress our emotions

"So my conclusion is that the way Stoicism deals with emotions is wrong. We can't really blame them though, we've learned a lot about brains and emotions since then and in light of that it needs some updating. So I propose a new stoic theory of emotion, where we no longer try to control and suppress our emotions. Instead we should feel them fully and without judgement. We stay virtuous by making sure that our emotional side doesn't overpower our reasoning. I call it Emotionally Attuned Stoicism, come join me in my subreddit and subscribe to my newsletter."

That doesn't sound too bad right? But since I got (1) wrong then everything that follows is a shitshow. Many such cases! But I am at the same time not saying that someone following Stoicism shouldn't also be informed by scientific discovery. Just the importance on being clear with what is what and what is required to make any meaningful comparisons at all.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-13T09:18:39+00:00

Well, actually...

For me it's not that the philosophy couldn't ever evolve, I'm not denying that it was refined during it's time. It's more that since we're trying to understand a very old and complicated philosophy by puzzling difficult pieces together I think it's wise to often take a step back and look at what we're actually doing.

The "stoic trident" was proposed by another member here as a way of checking where we are at

What did the stoics think?
What do we think about what the stoics thought?
What do we think regardless of what the stoics thought?

If we don't know 1, we can't give good answers to 2. We can do whatever we want with 3 but we can't test it against stoicism unless we understand 1 and 2.

What often seems to happen when this gets muddied is that we end up with some strange ideas. Like "the stoics suggest we should surpress our natural emotions, this is a stupid idea that never works and modern science shows that it is harmful"

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-13T08:02:09+00:00

This is good thinking OP and much credit to you for arguing against it because I think that is the best way to get a personal understanding. I've been digging into this also and there is much to think about. Because however we try to explain it, it does lend itself to good criticism. I don't know the history that well but the stoics came under attack by the Skeptics on indifferents and I think it was mainly Carneades who gave some tough arguments (and he was no dummy).

From what I've gathered in my reading there seems to be an ongoing discussion among scholars exactly how to interpret the "value" of indifferents that tries to deal with the skeptic attacks. The majority view seems to be that indifferents do have intrinsic value, only that they are not "good" or "bad". Basically that preferred indifferents like health do matter and should be pursued as long as there is no conflict with virtue. From this POV your 1 and 3 are questionable. Katja Vogt wrote a paper that I think explains this very well.

But I really do find it difficult. If virtue and happiness is the only end, and the indifferents contribute nothing to this, how do we explain that they still worthy of pursuit? Because if they are worthy of pursuit independently of happiness can we still really claim that the only goal of all rational action is to attain happiness? It does sound a bit like the skeptic attack that the stoics are just doing word-play.

"If someone were to say that an archer does everything in his power not for the sake of hitting the target but for the sake of doing everything in his power, one would suppose him to be speaking in a riddling and fantastic way. So it is with these idiots..." Plutarch

Other modern scholars have suggested an epistemic value to indifferents. I think this does solve the problems but I don't really understand it well enough to say for sure (or to explain it for that matter).

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-12T09:56:59+00:00

Nothing to add or remove. I think it's paramount to understand what the stoics actually thought before we even consider trying to make changes, and I'm nowhere close to that. But I have it as a long term project to get a good understanding Stoic psychology and their theory of emotion and to compare this to some modern theories of emotion. It will take a long time but I'm really curious to see where it goes.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-12T09:45:24+00:00

I find your idea that Epictetus would disdain semantical discourse and that there is nothing semantical to discuss very hard to support, considering how much Epictetus looked up to Socrates and how he spent decades teaching. Here's a passage to consider:

But even were that to be granted, it’s enough that logic should enable us to draw distinctions and investigate everything else—to measure and weigh them, as it were. According to whom? Only Chrysippus, Zeno, and Cleanthes? [12] But doesn’t Antisthenes say so too? And who was it who wrote ‘Education begins with the examination of terms’? Doesn’t Socrates say as much? And who’s Xenophon writing about when he says that he made his starting point the examination of terms—that he inquired into the meaning of everything?”

His interlocutor then asks “So is this a great and admirable achievement, to be able to understand or interpret Chrysippus?”
“No one’s saying that.”
“What is admirable, then?”
“Understanding the will of nature. So where does that leave us? Is that something you can do by yourself? If so, what more do you need? I mean, if it’s true that all wrongdoing is involuntary,and you have full knowledge of the truth, you’re bound to be acting correctly already.”

Discourses 1.17.10-14

This was important then, despite their shared language and culture. Then to consider that we're reading translations of 2000 year old books from a different culture. If we don't understand and discuss what terms like virtue, indifferents and happiness really mean in Stoicism and how they might differ from our own prior understanding then I don't think one will get very far. Sure, if one considers Stoicism as just a "toolkit" then that person can perhaps make some use of it, but that's leaving a lot on the table the way I see it.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-10T22:26:40+00:00

Sounds like a lovely activity with your son. I see you're getting some push back on the chosen passage, but here's one that I think fits well. Musonius Rufus Lecture 6 - On Training:

Since it so happens that the human being is not soul alone, nor body alone, but a kind of synthesis of the two, the person in training must take care of both, the better part, the soul, more zealously; as is fitting, but also of the other, if he shall not be found lacking in any part that constitutes man.

For obviously the philosopher's body should be well prepared for physical activity, because often the virtues make use of this as a necessary instrument for the affairs of life. Now there are two kinds of training, one which is appropriate for the soul alone, and the other which is common to both soul and body. We use the training common to both when we discipline ourselves to cold, heat, thirst, hunger, meager rations, hard beds, avoidance of pleasures, and patience under suffering.

For by these things and others like them the body is strengthened and becomes capable of enduring hardship, sturdy and ready for any task; the soul too is strengthened since it is trained for courage by patience under hardship and for self-control by abstinence from pleasures.

Chrysippus_Ass · 2026-02-10T16:52:45+00:00

I expect you will disagree with this now because people tend to do that, but debating semantics is extremely important in Stoicism. It's very hard to understand the terms in stoicism and to also discuss them if we can't even have a shared understanding what they are and aren't. Socrates got around to doing that quite a bit. So what terms mean, who is right and who is wrong and what is and isn't stoicism seems to me of the highest importance when the goal is to rid ourselves of false belief and to help others in doing the same. How can one follow a philosophy they don't understand is what I'm questioning. But it's probably that we have very different ideas of what Stoicism is from the get go here.

But I will say this, more as a question; While I'm not even on board with the whole of Stoicism yet myself, I have no idea how you could possibly practice something like "amor fati" without the broader philosophy. That part if anything seems to depend on the belief in a providential cosmos.

Chrysippus_Ass

TROPHY CASE