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Is “X” Stoic?
Since I started practicing and writing about Stoicism, one of the most frequent questions I see asked around is: “is X Stoic?,” where “X” can be anything from an annoying internet meme to a scene in a movie, to a major philosophical or ethical position, like vegetarianism, or feminism. Let us therefore get down to figure out once and for all what the proper answer to this vexing question is…
One way to answer “is X Stoic?” is that the question itself is not Stoic, in a sense. Stoicism is a philosophy of personal development, which means that the moral agent (that’s you, or me, or whoever is asking the question) is at the center of it. This is to be understood in contrast with universalist philosophies like Kantian deontology and utilitarianism, which seek a “view from nowhere” in order to answer moral questions regardless of specific circumstances. Kant’s categorical imperative is valid always and for everyone (well, everyone who follows Kantian deontology). Similarly, utilitarian calculus makes no distinction between people, it is supposed to be applied at the level of the entire population.
But virtue ethics — of which Stoicism is one instantiation — is not about answering general moral question. It’s about how to become a better person. So, really, the proper way to phrase things would be: “is X going to make me a better person?”
Let’s take a specific example: feminism. For the purposes of the current discussion, I am understanding feminism in a minimalist fashion, essentially adopting the Oxford definition: “the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.” Rather than asking whether the notion of equality of rights is a Stoic concept, we should ask whether favoring equality of rights makes us better persons. The answer, I think, is unequivocally positive. Why? Because one of the fundamental doctrines of Stoicism is cosmopolitanism, the notion that all human beings are endowed with a capacity to think rationally, and that we ought to use this capacity in order to build the most flourishing human society that is possible to build. Moreover, one of the cardinal virtues is that of justice, dikaiosynê which Plato defined, in part, as:
The state that distributes to each person according to what is deserved; the state on account of which its…
