What’s in it for me? An introduction to an often-overlooked Stoic.
From ancient Greece to imperial Rome, early Christianity to the contemporary boardroom, few philosophical doctrines have had greater influence in the Western world than Stoicism.
That’s hardly surprising – Stoicism’s focus on living well is both practical and actionable, and those traits have long made it appealing to a broad audience.
So what’s it all about?
Although often overlooked, there’s no better place to start answering that question than the surviving work of the Roman Stoic Musonius.
In these blinks, you’ll learn why philosophy is at the heart of the good life; how a simple diet can make you happier; and why Stoicism is ideally adapted to human nature.
Stoicism is a practical lesson in living well.
What is the purpose of philosophy?
Virtually all philosophers, past and present, agree that it helps us understand the world.
The Roman Stoic Gaius Musonius Rufus was no exception, but he thought it could do more than that.
Philosophy illuminates the world, he believed, but what really counts is what we do once we’ve seen things clearly.
The key message here is: Stoicism is a practical lesson in living well.
Stoics in the Roman imperial era didn’t spend much time debating the technical aspects of philosophy.
What they were really interested in was ethics – the principles governing behavior.
As they saw it, activities like listening to philosophical lectures and learning to craft clever arguments had little intrinsic value.
Theory had to be connected with practice, and doctrine with daily life.
Take one of the most famous tenets of Stoicism – the idea that reasoning correctly is the key to virtue and that this kind of virtue is the only real good in life.
Stoics begin with a theoretical claim.
The world, they argue, is divided into things we can control and things we can’t.
Almost everything we conventionally value – wealth, pleasure, and health, for instance – falls into the latter category of the uncontrollable.
Fate, after all, is fickle.
Pleasures are fleeting, fortunes can be wiped out in an instant, and even the healthiest body can be overtaken by crippling illness.
Similarly, the apparent evils we seek to avoid – poverty, pain, and death – are also beyond our control.
But this fact shouldn’t cause us to despair.
In Musonius’s words, the gods have given us power over the best thing of all – reason.
Put differently, we can decide how we respond to uncontrollable events and what kind of judgments we form about them.
Of course, health is preferable to sickness, just as a full stomach is better than an empty stomach – but if we can’t be sure of avoiding hardships, the real question is how we deal with them.
Will we add misery and self-pity to penury and illness, or will we face such challenges with serenity and cheerfulness?
Will we mindlessly pursue wealth and live in fear of death, or will we spend our time cultivating virtue?
This, Musonius argues, is the choice that confronts every human.
To choose philosophy is to choose the second path – the path that leads to true happiness.
Striving to be virtuous is part and parcel of human nature.
Philosophy’s purpose, it seems, is to help us live virtuously, but this conclusion leads us to another question.
What exactly is virtue?
Musonius uses the Greek term aretê, which in English is usually rendered as “excellence.
” Virtue, for him, is what allows us to live well or “excellently.
” This isn’t a quality, but rather a kind of practical skill – something you do rather than something you simply have.
As we’ll see, Stoics typically divide aretê into four interdependent skills – but that isn’t the only interesting claim they make about virtue.
What sets Stoicism apart from other philosophical schools is its insistence that all of us are, by nature, capable of living virtuously.
Here’s the key message: Striving to be virtuous is part and parcel of human nature.
What skills do you need to live well?
Musonius, like other Stoics, believes that virtue has four aspects.
First off, there’s the love of truth.
If you want to lead your best life, you must seek wisdom and listen to what other, wiser people have to say.
Then there’s justice, which means treating others fairly and kindly.
Courage is the third skill, and it’s honed by actively confronting your fears and sticking up for yourself as well as others.
Finally, there’s self-control – learning to master your desires, and living moderately.
Practicing these four skills is the key to living a noble life free from error.
But, Musonius insists, this kind of existence isn’t restricted to some philosophical elite or class of sages – it’s open to all of us.
Think, for a moment, of other skills, like piloting a ship or playing the harp.
No one is born with these abilities; they have to be learned, and only a relatively small number of people are capable of acquiring them.
As a result, no one except the people who actually possess such skills goes around claiming to be an excellent pilot or harpist.
Virtue, though, is different.
Ask anyone if he’s just or unjust, temperate or intemperate, good or bad, Musonius notes, and that person will tell you that he’s just, temperate, and good.
Why is this?
Well, Musonius takes it as evidence that every human wants to be these things, which in turn suggests that they’re hardwired into human nature.
This isn’t to say that everyone is virtuous – only that we all can become virtuous.
As we’ll soon see, the key to making that leap from desire to reality is training.
When it comes to virtue, practice really does make perfect.
Musonius begins one of his lectures by asking his audience to imagine two doctors.
The first is a learned and talented speaker who confidently holds forth about the art of healing.
He cites well-known experts and demonstrates his familiarity with the latest medical theories.
But there’s a catch: he’s never treated a single patient.
The other doctor isn’t as eloquent as her colleague, but she does have one thing to her name that he doesn’t – she’s actually treated real patients.
Which physician, Musonius now asks, would you seek out if you were ill?
The answer is obvious – the second.
Why?
Well, practice trumps theory.
But this principle doesn’t just apply to medicine; it’s also true of virtue.
The key message is this: When it comes to virtue, practice really does make perfect.
Musonius continues his lecture by asking his audience several follow-up questions.
Say you needed to find someone to pilot a ship.
Would you pick someone who had sailed a great deal and piloted many vessels, or someone who had spent years studying the theory of navigation?
What if you wanted to hire a musician – would you choose a harpist who couldn’t read music, or someone who could but had never picked up an instrument?
These questions are more or less rhetorical, of course – no one who gives the matter serious thought is likely to plump for theoretical knowledge over real-world experience.
Having driven home this general point, Musonius shifts the focus to the argument he actually wants to make.
What he wants to ask us is whether virtue is any different.
If we accept the general principle just outlined, shouldn’t we conclude that it’s better to be, say, self-controlled in all one’s actions than it is to speak well about self-control?
Again, the answers are clear, but we’ve reached a bit of an impasse – we’re theorizing about the shortcomings of theory.
What we really need to do is to apply our insight to the real world.
But how do we do that?
Musonius’s answer is that, like would-be doctors and musicians, the person who wishes to be virtuous can only learn by doing.
Take two of the four Stoic virtues, justice and courage.
To be just, you must behave justly by rejecting selfishness or greed in your daily life.
To be courageous, you have to confront fearful situations – for instance, by talking openly about frightening things like death.
Practicing virtues in this way, Musonius claims, is the only way to give them substance.
If philosophy promotes virtue, both men and women ought to study it.
Musonius argues that every human can lead a life of virtue.
But does he really mean it?
Remember, the ancient world was anything but egalitarian.
Even philosophers like Aristotle, who made similar claims about human nature, concluded that only free males were truly capable of such a life, thus excluding women and so-called “natural slaves.
” These views were widespread.
Musonius’s contemporary, the Stoic Seneca, even comments approvingly on his father’s decision to limit his mother’s philosophical studies.
Like many Romans, he believed that women who studied became arrogant and forgot their true – that is, domestic – duties.
Musonius doesn’t have much to say about slavery, but he develops a startling and novel argument about the equality of men and women.
The key message here is: If philosophy promotes virtue, both men and women ought to study it.
Musonius devotes a lecture to the question of whether women should study philosophy.
Like Socrates, who also enjoyed surprising his listeners, Musonius begins by turning a common assumption on its head.
Men, he begins, invariably claim that they’re superior to women.
But surely those who are superior are more self-controlled than those who are inferior.
Why, then, do men expect women to display greater self-control and temperance in sexual affairs than they do themselves?
A husband would be appalled to find that his wife had been sleeping with one of the household servants.
And yet, despite his claims to superiority, he allows himself the moral leeway that he denies his supposedly inferior wife!
Musonius isn’t content simply to point out hypocrisy, though.
The crux of his argument is more radical: both men and women are equally capable of virtue.
This shouldn’t surprise us, Musonius continues, since the gods have made men and women more alike than unlike.
Both sexes possess the senses of sight, smell, hearing; both have heads, legs, arms, and torsos.
Most importantly, both share the power of reason – the faculty that allows us to distinguish between good and evil.
The real question, then, is, Why shouldn’t women study philosophy?
It’s in their nature, just as it is in men’s, to live virtuously.
Musonius concludes that a society that denies women the means of training themselves in virtue – which is what he takes philosophy to be – deprives itself of the citizens it needs.
It needs people who reject greed, who think it’s worse to do wrong than to be wronged, and who love their children more than their own lives.
The rewards of living virtuously outweigh the costs.
The virtuous path recommended by Stoics isn’t an easy one.
Those who walk it choose discipline over indulgence and generosity over self-interest.
Instead of a quiet life, they confront injustice and willingly risk the consequences of taking a stance.
Musonius doesn’t attempt to sugarcoat this aspect of the Stoic life, but he does try to put it into perspective.
Yes, cultivating virtue is hard – but what about the alternative?
Think of the turmoil and suffering people will endure for the sake of extramarital affairs, say, or the endless toil others accept in their quest for wealth or fame.
Virtue and vice, it appears, are equally strenuous, which is why we should pick the former.
Here’s the key message: The rewards of living virtuously outweigh the costs.
According to Musonius, people expend as much effort pursuing evil ends as it would cost them to pursue noble ends.
Now, that alone might not convince people to give up doing whatever they want – but here’s something that might: by choosing vice over virtue, you also forgo the rewards that virtue alone can guarantee.
For example, the effort involved in seducing someone’s husband or wife might be equal to the effort of disciplining your desires.
But only that second course of action will give you something from which you will profit throughout your life.
Similarly, isn’t it wiser to train yourself to make do with little rather than endure a life of hardship for the sake of money?
Or consider how much time and energy people waste mulling over ways to injure someone they envy – energy and time they could have used learning not to envy anyone.
Finally, wouldn’t it be better to accept the suffering that’s part and parcel of maintaining true friendships rather than acting the sycophant and slaving away to win false friends?
As Musonius sees it, choosing vice in these kinds of situations isn’t just morally wrong – it’s downright absurd.
In return for fleeting and dubious short-term rewards and pleasures, you’re sacrificing your long-term happiness.
He compares this exchange to that made by acrobats who somersault over upturned swords or balance on tightropes strung between high buildings.
For a “miserably small recompense,” they risk everything, knowing that a single misstep means certain death.
Compared to this kind of life, isn’t a little hardship for the sake of complete happiness the only sane choice?
A simple diet isn’t just healthier – it’s conducive to the good life.
As we’ve seen, Musonius is a pretty practical thinker.
It’s no surprise, then, to find that he spends a great deal of time talking about everyday matters.
Take moderation or temperance, which is one of the virtues he most admires.
For him, this isn’t just a matter of abstract philosophical debate – it’s rooted in something we do every day.
As he puts it, the beginning and foundation of temperance lie in our relationship with food.
The key message is this: A simple diet isn’t just healthier – it’s conducive to the good life.
Musonius is scathing about the manner in which many people eat.
In fact, he thinks they’re often worse than unreasoning animals.
Animals are also driven by their appetites, which, like a whip or a lash, can compel them to eat to excess.
But, unlike humans, these animals have the virtue of not fussing over food.
They don’t spend days preparing elaborate meals or waste hours discussing the merits of different cooking techniques or the skill of various chefs – they simply eat what they find.
Musonius takes this dim view of the culinary arts because he believes they’re artificial, meaning that they’re contrary to nature.
Let’s break that down a little.
Consider what happens when we eat.
Of course, taste plays a role – everything we consume must pass through the mouth and over the tongue, after all.
But this fleeting moment of pleasure is nothing compared to the long, slow work of digestion – the physiological process that actually nourishes us.
If the gods had intended eating to be a pleasure, Musonius reasons, digestion – rather than chewing and swallowing – would be pleasurable.
The fact that it isn’t shows that the gods intended food to fulfill a different purpose: sustaining life.
When we focus on pleasure, we end up neglecting this purpose, and that’s detrimental to our health and happiness.
To satisfy the body’s need for energy, a meal need only be nutritious; it doesn’t have to be elaborate or expensive.
As Musonius notes, readily available, quick-to-prepare ingredients like raw vegetables, nuts, and honey would satisfy these criteria.
If you want your meal to be primarily pleasurable, by contrast, you’re much more likely to resort to heavier, pricier, and more time-consuming ingredients like meat, grains, and fats.
This kind of diet, needless to say, is worse for your health, slows you down, and undermines your ability to work, think, and – most importantly – act virtuously.
An old man once asked Musonius if he had any advice on how best to live out the man’s remaining years.
Stoicism allows us to reach our full potential as humans.
There was nothing he could tell him, Musonius answered, that he wouldn’t also say to a young man.
Why?
Because when it comes to living well, the same rule applies to all: regardless of your age, you must live in accord with nature.
The key message here is: Stoicism allows us to reach our full potential as humans.
What, then, does it mean to live in accord with nature?
To answer that question, we first have to note that Greek-speaking philosophers in the ancient world didn’t use the word “nature” in the same way we do today.
While we look at what something is – that is, what it actually does – to understand its nature, thinkers like Musonius looked at what it could be.
Take human nature.
If we were asked to define what is essentially human, we might look at how humans around the world behave.
Some are good and some are bad; others fall somewhere between these two poles.
Our conclusion?
Human nature is complex and context-dependent.
Musonius wouldn’t have been satisfied with this answer.
To understand human nature, he thought, you have to look at what the best humans are like.
The nature of something, in other words, is revealed in its most perfect realization.
So what are the best humans like?
Musonius begins by comparing our species to other animals.
Cows, horses, and dogs, he says, are inferior to humans, and yet we don’t say that any of these animals reaches its full potential by spending its life eating, drinking, and mating without restraint.
It would be odd, in that case, to say that humans – who are superior to such animals – reach their potential by pursuing pleasure.
But if we don’t exist for the sake of pleasure, we must exist for the sake of something else.
Each animal, Musonius claims, has its distinctive virtue, which reveals its purpose.
Excellent horses, for example, are fast just as excellent lions are fierce.
These are their characteristic virtues, and when they live in accord with nature, they excel in these things.
The distinctive virtue of humans, by contrast, is our ability to reason.
In this, we resemble the gods – the only other beings who possess this unique power.
To live in accord with nature, Musonius concludes, is to devote our lives to virtues that reason makes possible – wisdom, courage, self-control, and justice.
Final summary
The key message in these blinks: Stoics argue that humans are hardwired to seek a virtuous life.
The gods, after all, have given us reason – the faculty that allows us to tell good and evil apart.
Look around, though, and it’s easy to see how few of us live up to that potential.
The solution?
Philosophy.
At its best, philosophy is deeply practical.
It trains us in the use of reason.
This helps us recognize that the path of virtue isn’t just better than that of vice – it’s also the only path that leads to true happiness.
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