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GUEST POST: Wrong Again? One more on Stoicism vs Epicureanism
by Catherine Wilson
Stoicism is a comprehensive philosophy reaching from logic and epistemology into metaphysics and ethics and Epicureanism is equally comprehensive. The Epicureans and Stoics saw themselves and were seen as rival schools, and their differences were the subject of important dialogues by Cicero. Kant mused that the Stoics had the better ethics but no account of moral motivation, while the Epicureans, in declaring pleasure to be the only true good and pain the only true evil, had worse ethics, but a better account of moral motivation, insofar as they claimed that crime never paid off in the long run. Massimo and I continue in this ancient tradition of dialectic, with reference to the moral and political issues of special interest to us today.
The final chapter of my book How to be an Epicurean was called “Should I Be a Stoic Instead?’ There I noted that Stoicism is “dignified, uplifting, and indeed optimistic,” that its assertion of natural human equality is praiseworthy, and that there are considerable areas of overlap between the two philosophies. The avoidance of mental distress, insofar as it is within our power, is a goal of both. But my aim was to show that there are real differences — that you have a choice. Above all, I wanted to show that Epicureanism was a substantial moral philosophy not reducible to atheism plus a frivolous hedonism.
Zeno of Citium, the original Stoic, contrasted virtue with pleasure. I see the pernicious effects of this contrast reverberating down through the centuries in such social evils as militarism, anti-feminism, and the indifference to human deprivation and suffering in conservative politics. At the same time, I am sure that if Epicureanism had been the favored philosophy all along, we might well be facing a different set of pernicious effects to which Stoic ideas would a serve as a bracing detox. For now, I’m just trying to enter a plea for my own side.
Massimo argues in his recent essay that, like many other commentators, I have got Stoicism wrong. He takes up three main points: my claim that the Stoics overestimated the powers of the mind, that they taught that all griefs and passions need to be repressed, and that their ethics is…
