Donald J. Robertson

A famous physicist once said that the opposite of every profound truth is very often another equally “profound” truth. I think that’s usually the case with proverbs and folk wisdom: “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”, they say; but they also say “He who hesitates is lost.” Often folk wisdom is so vague it’s bound to be contradictory.

When you’re thinking about your career, it seems to me that the people giving sage advice fall into two camps. The first group say that the most important thing in life is to be able to adapt to circumstances, spot opportunities when they arise, and seize them with both hands. The second group say that the most important thing in life is to have a sense of personal identity, a fundamental goal in life, to make yourself totally committed to fulfilling your dream or destiny, and to remain unswayed by external events. Now, on the face of it, those both sound like reasonable pieces of advice. However, they also appear at odds with each other: we should be both flexible and inflexible about our goals.

I’ve heard or read this advice many times. Usually a person will go to one extreme or the other, and they always sound very wise, even when they’re saying contradictory things! So what’s the alternative? Now, I should say that I’m generally no fan of the Golden Mean. Aristotle said that the best course of action is often the middle way (via media) between two extremes. I remember one of my old philosophy professors at Aberdeen telling me that was interesting but “not very helpful”. “If I was holding a dinner party,” he said, “and wanted to know how much wine to buy, Aristotle’s advice would be ‘don’t buy too much but don’t buy too little either; get an amount somewhere in-between’.” That’s common sense, but unsatisfactory and vague.

Nevertheless, the best advice I can offer here, if only to remedy the bad advice that comes from clinging too much to one extreme, is that we should be neither too rigid nor too flexible but somewhere in-between when it comes to our goals in life. I believe that both the “profound truths” I mentioned at the start are true, in their own way. If you want to have a good life, you should pay attention when opportunity comes knocking at your door and be ready to change your plans, and adapt to your changing fortune, but not so much that it derails pursuit of your fundamental goal. Likewise, it’s wise to have a definite goal in life and remain passionately focused on it, but not so intransigently that you become a numbskull, and overlook compromises that might contribute to your longer-term happiness and wellbeing. You need to be on the lookout for opportunities and seize them when they arise, but only ones that are ultimately consistent with your fundamental vision, your destiny in life. You’re also going to have to suck it up sometimes and allow some incredibly tempting good fortune to pass you by, if clinging onto it would sweep you too far off course. So in a sense, I think wisdom consists in doing both of these things in harmony, and folly in doing neither of them, or in doing one of them too much.

People who appear merely wise cling to one extreme but in their case it’s only chance that determines whether that will turn out well or badly for them. One man sticks rigidly to his goal, ignores everything else, and becomes a huge success by following this rule of life, another does the same thing but ruins himself by being too rigid. One man watches fate like a hawk, pounces on good fortune when it appears, and flourishes as a result, another following the same principle ends up all over the place, and living a life completely out of kilter with his true values. Be cautious when listening to the advice of fortunate people because often they follow rigid philosophies of life, which only worked out for them by chance. If we only had to do one simple thing, life would be easy. What we often have to do is walk a tightrope, maintaining a delicate balance along the way. That’s hard work, although it’s also, in a sense, just one task. It’s a composite task, though, and though certain principles and ideas can guide us, many difficult decisions, requiring sound judgement, have to be made. That’s why nobody can tell you how much wine to buy. They can remind you not to get too much, nor too little, but you’re the only person who knows enough about your meal, and your guests, to decide what the right amount is. When you’re thinking about your future, don’t be led too much by events, and don’t stick too rigidly to your original goals. More specifically: keep comparing these two things to each other, weigh up each event carefully against the supreme criterion of your fundamental goal in life and ask yourself: “Will this contribute to my long-term happiness and well being, or not?”

The Stoics recognise an important place for feelings such as joy and tranquillity in their philosophical system, and they very frequently refer to them.  However, from the writings of the earliest Stoics onward these “good feelings” (eupatheiai) appear to have been regarded as merely “supervening” upon virtue, i.e., side-effects of the good rather than intrinsically good themselves (Lives and Opinions, 7.94).  The principle that “virtue is its own reward” (virtus ipsa pretium sui) was fundamental to Stoic Ethics.  Many subsequent authors have been inspired by this doctrine.  Spinoza and Kant held similar views to the Stoics, in this regard.  Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:

The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.  (Heroism)

Likewise, according to Diogenes Laertius, Cleanthes (or possibly Chrysippus) said that “Virtue is a harmonious disposition, worthy of being chosen for its own sake and not from hope or fear or any external reward.”  Elsewhere he reiterates this:

And virtue in itself they hold to be worthy of choice for its own sake. At all events we are ashamed of bad conduct as if we knew that nothing is really good but the morally beautiful. (Diogenes Laertius)

Julia Annas sums up the Stoic attitude toward virtue and tranquillity in her scholarly analysis of Hellenistic philosophies, The Morality of Happiness,

If we are tempted to seek virtue because it will make us tranquil and secure, we are missing the point about virtue that is most important [according to the Stoics]; it is virtue itself that matters, not its results. (Annas, p. 410)

P.A. Brunt wrote in his essay on Late Stoic Moralists:

Strictly indeed both spiritual calm and joy do not constitute the summum bonum [the supreme good], which is virtue; they are ‘consequential on and not perfective of it’. But this is a scholastic caveat; it is clear that Seneca conceived of the happy life as necessarily comprising them.

However, Seneca does explain several reasons why he thinks this distinction is of practical importance.

The French scholar Pierre Hadot wrote:

Unlike Epicurean pleasure, Stoic joy is not the motive and the end of moral action: rather, virtue is its own reward.  Virtue seeks nothing above and beyond itself; instead, for the Stoics, joy, like Aristotelian pleasure, comes along as an extra surplus in addition to action in conformity with nature, “like beauty for those in the flower of youth”. (The Inner Citadel, p. 240)

He quotes Seneca who dedicates one section of On the Happy Life to this issue, where he addresses it very clearly:

But, in the first place, even though virtue is sure to bestow pleasure, it is not for this reason that virtue is sought; for it is not this, but something more than this that she bestows, nor does she labor for this, but her labor, while directed toward something else, achieves this also.  As in a plowed field, which has been broken up for corn, some flowers will spring up here and there, yet it was not for these poor little plants, although they may please the eye, that so much toil was expended — the sower had a different purpose, these were superadded — just so pleasure is neither the cause nor the reward of virtue, but its by-product, and we do not accept virtue because she delights us, but if we accept her, she also delights us.

The highest good lies in the very choice of it, and the very attitude of a mind made perfect, and when the mind has completed its course and fortified itself within its own bounds, the highest good has now been perfected, and nothing further is desired; for there can no more be anything outside of the whole than there can be some point beyond the end.

Therefore you blunder when you ask what it is that makes me seek virtue; you are looking for something beyond the supreme. Do you ask what it is that I seek in virtue? Only herself. For she offers nothing better — she herself is her own reward. Or does this seem to you too small a thing? When I say to you, “The highest good is the inflexibility of an unyielding mind, its foresight, its sublimity, its soundness, its freedom, its harmony, its beauty, do you require of me something still greater to which these blessings may be ascribed? (On the Happy Life, 9)

Likewise, in one of his Letters to Lucilius, Seneca argues that although virtue is the only true good, we also refer to the consequences of virtue as good in a looser sense, insofar as they derive from it.  This includes the healthy expansion of the soul that tends to follow wisdom and virtue.  (The Stoics interpret healthy and unhealthy emotions, in part, as expansions and contractions of the soul.)  “Sometimes as a result of noble conduct,” he writes, “one wins great joy even a short and very fleeting space of time”.  We can glimpse Stoic joy in moments of action because it is a “delight” to contemplate our own virtue.

But that man also who is deprived of this joy, the joy which is afforded by the contemplation of some last noble effort, will leap to his death without a moment’s hesitation, content to act rightly and dutifully. (Letter 76)

Virtue is the only real motive for the Stoic’s actions.  Someone who posits the joyful feelings, which supervene on virtue, as his goal in life would be morally compromised in certain difficult situations.  He would hesitate in the face of danger, because pleasant feelings are often inaccessible in the heat of battle, and he may die before ever reaping these fruits of virtue.  The Stoic does not wait for a warm glow to descend on him before taking action because his only goal is virtuous action, and the feelings which may (or may not) follow are merely an added bonus, or side-effect – they’re irrelevant to his motivation.

Likewise, in On Benefits, Seneca writes:

What can be more base than for a man to consider what it costs him to be a good man, when virtue neither allures by gain nor deters by loss […] You will gain the doing of it – the deed itself is your gain.    Nothing beyond this is promised.  If any advantage chance to accrue to you, count it as something extra.  The reward of honourable dealings lies in themselves. (On Benefits, 4.1)

Later he says: “If you wish for anything beyond these virtues, you do not wish for the virtues themselves” (On Benefits, 4.12).  If we’re virtuous for the sake of some other word then, arguably, that’s not really virtue at all.  It’s essential to the concept of virtue that it’s an end in itself, rather than merely a means to an end, or what’s known as an “instrumental” good.  By definition, something that’s merely instrumentally good, isn’t really good at all, in itself, it’s morally indifferent.  Again, “All our arguments start from this settled point, that honour is pursued for no reason except because it is honour” (On Benefits, 4.16).  He opens On Clemency by stating “the true enjoyment of good deeds consists in the performance of them, and virtues have no adequate reward beyond themselves” (On Clemency, 1.1).

Hence, Epictetus asks his students “Do you seek a reward for a good man greater than doing what is good and just?” (Discourses, 3.24).  And elsewhere he puts the concept that “virtue is its own reward” forward very strongly indeed:

So, you say, what good do I get [from virtue]? But what more good do you want than this? Instead of being a shameless man you will become a dignified man, instead of chaotic you will become organized, from being untrustworthy you will become trustworthy, instead of being out of control you will become sane. If you want anything more than this, keep on doing what you are already doing: not even a God can now help you. (Discourses, 4.9)

Marcus Aurelius also frequently returns to this theme.

These are the properties of the rational soul: it sees itself, analyses itself, and makes itself such as it chooses; the fruit which it bears itself enjoys- for the fruits of plants and that in animals which corresponds to fruits others enjoy- it obtains its own end, wherever the limit of life may be fixed. Not as in a dance and in a play and in such like things, where the whole action is incomplete, if anything cuts it short; but in every part and wherever it may be stopped, it makes what has been set before it full and complete, so that it can say, I have what is my own. (Meditations, 11.1)

He says elsewhere that when we feel others are ungrateful rather than blaming them we should rather blame ourselves because when we conferred some kindness upon them we expected an external reward and did not act in such a way as to have received from the very act itself our reward in full (9.42).

Virtues like justice, are their own reward, and we need ask for nothing further because in doing them we have fulfilled our nature, and are flourishing.

Have I done something for the common welfare? Well then I have had my reward. Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop doing such good. (11.4)

Likewise, the Stoics claim that virtue is synonymous with what is beneficial, or rewarding in itself.

No man is tired of receiving what is beneficial. But it is beneficial to act according to nature. Do not then be tired of receiving what is beneficial by doing it to others. (7.74)

Frank McLynn, biographer of Marcus Aurelius, writes:

To act morally brings joy, which is a key motif in Marcus’s writings, and denotes the emotion we feel when we are truly fulfilling the function for which we were put on the Earth, and when we consent to the reality of Providence, pantheism and the ‘city of the world’. Here we see that virtue is truly its own reward, for joy is not the end of moral action, as the Epicureans thought. The sage does not choose virtue because it causes pleasure, but it is a fact that, if chosen, virtue does cause pleasure. (McLynn, p. 235)

Cicero likewise, in the famous passage from his Republic known as “The Dream of Scipio”, portrays the Stoic Scipio Africanus learning this teaching from the spirit of his grandfather:

Pay no attention to what the common mob might say about you and place none of your hopes in human rewards. Let virtue herself by her own allurements draw you to true honor.

Brad Inwood, a leading academic authority on Stoicism, provides a concise scholarly account of the history of this idea:

In broad outline, [the Stoic] theory of the good life for human beings, which is what ethics by and large amounted to for most ancient philosophers, falls into the family of theories associated with Socrates and his followers. This tradition includes Plato and most Platonists, Xenophon, the Cynics, Aristotle and later Aristotelians, all of whom share the view that virtue, the excellence of a human being, is the highest value and (as we would say) is its own reward. It stands in contrast with a tradition, going back to some of the sophists in the 5th century bce, that values the virtues essentially for their ability to help us to obtain other good things, such as pleasure, wealth, social recognition, and personal safety. That instrumentalist theory of virtue was best represented in the Hellenistic and later periods by Epicureans, who are the most consistent foil for Stoics in this area. The distinctive position of the Stoics becomes clearer if we think of the challenge put to Socrates at the beginning of book 2 of Plato’s Republic. Is justice valued and worth pursuing (a) because of the extrinsic benefits it produces; (b) because of the intrinsic benefits it produces; or (c) because of both? An Epicurean chooses option (a); Plato, Aristotle, and most other ancient theorists choose (c); Stoics choose (b). Not only is virtue its own reward, but any additional benefits it might produce are not similarly valuable and cannot be a reason for choosing virtue. In fact, most Stoics would say that it would somehow degrade or taint virtue to choose it even in part for that sort of reason. Stoics aren’t alone in taking this extreme and even counter-intuitive position—the loosely defined group known as Cynics would join them and push the paradoxes even further on occasion; but Stoicism is the school that provides the best worked out and most credible version of the position. (Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction)

When I wrote The Philosophy of CBT: Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy (2010), in 2009, I wanted to provide a fairly comprehensive list of every example of a “therapy technique” to be found in Hellenistic philosophy, particularly Stoicism.  I was building on the seminal work of the French academic Pierre Hadot, who outlined “spiritual exercises” in ancient literature.  My contribution, as a psychotherapist, was to show how these often prefigured modern therapy techniques, especially those employed in cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT).  Since then, I’ve been on the outlook, assuming that I must have missed at least a few.  Of course, there are many different examples of the same handful of techniques that I didn’t include.  However, I was slightly surprised that, as I continued reading, I didn’t spot many examples of new techniques: ones that had been completely overlooked in my first book on the subject.

Recently, though, I stumbled across a fragment attributed to Epictetus that caught my eye.  It’s by no means a completely new technique but it does seem to very explicitly describe the use, by a famous Stoic called Paconius Agrippinus, of something that’s clearly a technique of moral and psychological self-therapy, slightly different from the ones I’d documented in The Philosophy of CBT.  Agrippinus was one of Epictetus’ heroes – he mentions him several times to his students as an exemplary Stoic role-model.  He was an esteemed Roman statesman, contemporary with Epictetus’ own teacher Musonius Rufus, and both were persecuted for their commitment to philosophy, and their political views, by the tyrant Nero.

According to Epictetus, when Agrippinus encountered some problem in life, like fever, exile, or damage to his reputation, he would write a letter to himself praising the situation.

For this reason it is right to praise Agrippinus, because, although he was a man of the very highest worth, he never praised himself, but used to blush even if someone else praised him.  His character was such, said Epictetus, that when any hardship befell him he would compose a eulogy upon it; on fever, if he had a fever; on disrepute; on exile, if he went into exile.  And once, he said, when Agrippinus was preparing to take lunch, a man brought him word that Nero ordered him into exile; “Very well,” said he, “we shall take our lunch in Aricia.” (Epictetus, fr. 21)

Now, I would say that this isn’t a complete revelation because I and my colleagues had made educated guesses that the Stoics probably used similar techniques.  The technique of writing philosophical consolation letters is very well-known, and particularly associated with the Stoic school.  Seneca’s Letters and Essays provide many fine examples, although the genre goes back at least as far as the early Platonic school.  The Axiochus of pseudo-Plato (probably one of Plato’s immediate students) provides one of our earliest examples but it is also exceptional in that instead consoling someone over the loss of a loved one, as most letters in this genre do, it employs similar concepts and arguments to console an individual in relation to his own imminent demise.  The author, curiously, attribute some of the arguments it contains about death to the Sophist Prodicus, a friend of Socrates.  Although this isn’t explicitly stated, I think it’s reasonable to speculate that the Stoic letters Agrippinus allegedly wrote to himself, praising adversity, must have been of a broadly similar nature to the surviving examples of “consolation” literature.  (John Sellars pointed out to me that Cicero also wrote a consolation to himself, when his daughter died, which is thought to be the first self-consolation but is now lost.)

Indeed, the typical consolation letters, although purportedly addressed to individuals other than the author, can potentially be read as self-directed guidance, i.e., as attempts to persuade both another person, a friend or loved one, and the author himself of some philosophical insight that brings calm in the face of adversity.  (It’s also possible that some of these “letters” were never sent/published, or even that their recipients were fictional.)  The Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius, written much later, in the sixth century AD, consists of a dialogue which perhaps serves a similar purpose in that it may have been intended to provide philosophical consolation to both others and the author himself.

Another well-known example of Stoic literature as therapy is provided by The Meditations (“To Himself”) of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.  However, these consist of numerous short, aphoristic sayings, rather than the kind of sustained argument that we find in letters of consolation.  Pierre Hadot has argued at length in The Inner Citadel that despite their superficially informal appearance, these passages are the product of a systematic approach to philosophical training through repeated verbal reformulation of key Stoic doctrines.  Of course, it’s nevertheless notable that both Agrippinus and Marcus appear to have employed writing as a very deliberate way of helping themselves  cope philosophically with life’s problems.

So, although Epictetus only provides us with a passing, fragmentary reference to Agrippinus Stoic technique of writing in praise of adversities that befell him, it’s natural to wonder whether those writings lay somewhere between the consolation letters of Seneca and the personal meditations of Marcus, in terms of their style and format.  Indeed, it’s difficult to imagine how they would have been composed without employing fairly similar arguments to those found in the consolation literature, albeit directed toward the author himself in this case.

Part of my reason for being so interested in this fragment is that it provides an excellent example of a way in which Stoic philosophy could be used today for moral and psychological self-improvement.  The Stoic consolation letters provided by Seneca, and other Stoic-influenced authors such as Plutarch, provide a very clear example of how to go about applying Stoicism to specific situations, in a therapeutic manner.  However, Agrippinus’ example allows us to infer that even in ancient times similar methods were employed by Stoics not just to help (“console”) others, but also themselves, i.e, as form of self-help, self-therapy, or self-improvement.

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus liked to present his students with examples of Stoic role models from recent Roman history.  One of his favourite moral exemplars appears to have been the Roman statesman and Stoic philosopher, Paconius Agrippinus, a prominent member of the Stoic Opposition faction.  Epictetus tells this anecdote in which Agrippinus exhibits a typical Stoic attitude toward justice:

When Agrippinus was governor, he used to try to persuade the persons whom he sentenced that it was proper for them to be sentenced.  “For,” he would say, “it is not as an enemy or as a brigand that I record my vote against them, but as curator and guardian; just as also the physician encourages the man upon whom he is operating, and persuades him to submit to the operation.” (Epictetus, fr. 22)

Agrippinus lived during the reign of the Emperor Nero, in the middle of the 1st century AD.  He was exiled from Italy around 67 AD following the execution of the Stoic Senator Thrasea, by Nero.  He sounds like a formidable character.

For this reason it is right to praise Agrippinus, because, although he was a man of the very highest worth, he never praised himself, but used to blush even if someone else praised him.  His character was such, said Epictetus, that when any hardship befell him he would compose a eulogy upon it; on fever, if he had a fever; on disrepute; on exile, if he went into exile.  And once, he said, when Agrippinus was preparing to take lunch, a man brought him word that Nero ordered him into exile; “Very well,” said he, “we shall take our lunch in Aricia.” (Epictetus, fr. 21)

The town of Aricia was apparently the first stop outside of Rome, for those travelling south and east.  Epictetus likewise concludes the first of his Discourses, ‘On what is under our control and what is not’, with the following anecdote:

Wherefore, what was it that Agrippinus used to remark?  “I am not standing in my own way.”  Word was brought him,

“Your case is being tried in the Senate.”

“Good luck betide! But it is the fifth hour now” (he was in the habit of taking his exercise and then a cold bath at that hour); “let us be off and take our exercise.”

After he had finished his exercise someone came and told him,

“You have been condemned.”

“To exile,” says he, “or to death?”

“To exile.”

“What about my property?”

“It has not been confiscated.”

“Well then, let us go to Aricia and take our lunch there.”

This is what it means to have rehearsed the lessons one ought to rehearse, to have set desire and aversion free from every hindrance and made them proof against chance.  I must die.  If forthwith, I die; and if a little later, I will take lunch now, since the hour for lunch has come, and afterwards I will die at the appointed time.  How?  As becomes the man who is giving back that which was another’s. (Discourses, 1.1.28-30)

Epictetus also tells a story about Agrippinus giving advice to another Roman politician, who was swithering about whether to contribute to a festival in honour of Nero, by performing some part in a tragedy.  (Possibly Gessius Florus, the notoriously unpopular procurator of Judea.)

Wherefore, when Florus was debating whether he should enter Nero’s festival, so as to make some personal contribution to it Agrippinus said to him, “Enter.”  And when Florus asked, “Why do you not enter yourself?” he replied, “I? why, I do not even raise the question.”  For when a man once stoops to the consideration of such questions, I mean to estimating the value of externals, and calculates them one by one, he comes very close to those who have forgotten their proper character.

Come, what is this you ask me?  “Is death or life preferable?”  I answer, life.  “Pain or pleasure?”  I answer, pleasure.  “But unless I take a part in the tragedy I shall be beheaded.”  Go, then, and take a part, but I will not take a part.  “Why not?”  Because you regard yourself as but a single thread of all that go to make up the garment.  What follows, then?  This, that you ought to take thought how you may resemble all other men, precisely as even the single thread wants to have no point of superiority in comparison with the other threads.  But I want to be the red, that small and brilliant portion which causes the rest to appear comely and beautiful. Why, then, do you say to me, “Be like the majority of people?”  And if I do that, how shall I any longer be the red?  (Discourses, 1.2.12-13)