Reading Group on Stoicism (Post #3)

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (BOOKS 9-12 summary)

 This is my final book summary for the philosophy Meetup reading group on MA’s Meditations, covering books 9-12.  Those interested in the two earlier summaries can find my notes for Books 1-4 here, and 5-8 here.

These final chapters touch on a number of foundational elements of MA’s stoicism, as well as a few new topics.  Book 9 starts with a new and important topic- justice.  Unfortunately MA provides scant details on what he thinks justice is.  The short reflection which starts Book 9 simply states what constitutes injustice:

1. Injustice is a kind of blasphemy. Nature designed rational beings for each other’s sake: to help—not harm—one another, as they deserve. To transgress its will, then, is to blaspheme against the oldest of the gods. And to lie is to blaspheme against it too.

 

I think there is some internal tension between this comment about injustice and other aspects of MA’s stoicism.  MA seems to be saying that “transgressing the will of Nature” is an injustice, that it prevents people “getting what they deserve”.  And yet throughout the Meditations MA constantly says that things unfold the way they were suppose to, according to Nature/logos, and that we should just accept what “is” and “meant to be”.  This strikes me as paradoxical.  MA asserts that if someone betrays another they have “transgressed the will of Nature”.  But MA also consoles that we should see such actions as “their problem, not ours”.  It was not clear to me what MA thought our responsibility was for correcting injustices.  Do we just accept them, as part of the “flow of life” that was meant to be, in its imperfection?  Or should we aspire to ensure people get what they deserve, by preventing injustice from occurring, and rectifying injustice when it does occur? 

In the translator’s notes, the editor notes that MA does not provide an account of justice.  And thus the reader will be left somewhat unsatisfied on this point.  The translator (full video lecture with translator is here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?173488-1/meditations-marcus-aurelius)  argues:

Marcus never defines what he means by justice, and it is important to recognize what the term implies and what it does not. All human beings have a share of the logos, and all have roles to play in the vast design that is the world. But this is not to say that all humans are equal or that the roles they are assigned are interchangeable. Marcus, like most of his contemporaries, took it for granted that human society was hierarchical, and this is borne out by the images he uses to describe it. Human society is a single organism, like an individual human body or a tree. But the trunk of the tree is not to be confused with the leaves, or the hands and feet with the head. Our duty to act justly does not mean that we must treat others as our equals; it means that we must treat them as they deserve. And their deserts are determined in part by their position in the hierarchy. Stoicism’s emphasis on the orderliness of the universe implies a similar orderliness and harmony in its parts, and part of its appeal to upper-class Romans may have been that it did not force its adherents to ask difficult questions about the organization of the society they lived in. (34-35)

 

While the topic of justice remains somewhat elusive in Meditations, what is prominent once again is the theme of “acceptance” vs “attachment to outcomes”, which is re-stated early in book 9:

 

1….  And to pursue pleasure as good, and flee from pain as evil —that too is blasphemous. Someone who does that is bound to find himself constantly reproaching nature—complaining that it doesn’t treat the good and bad as they deserve, but often lets the bad enjoy pleasure and the things that produce it, and makes the good suffer pain, and the things that produce pain. And moreover, to fear pain is to fear something that’s bound to happen, the world being what it is—and that again is blasphemy. While if you pursue pleasure, you can hardly avoid wrongdoing—which is manifestly blasphemous.  

 

This prescription stands in sharp contrast to the utilitarianism ethic which prescribes we seek to maximize happiness.  I have in mind Jeremy Bentham’s famous declaration that

 

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.  It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do (An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation)

 

While Bentham assumes it is our nature to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, MA seems to believe it is in our nature to just “be present and accepting” of what is, for what is is simply what is suppose to be.  I can see both appeals and limits of with both ethics.  Bentham’s hedonism, if applied to the pursuit of trite goods like excessive wealth and fame, would be a recipe for disaster.  And yet MA’s acceptance of what is appears to potentially undermine the possibility of aspiring to improve both our individual and collective wellbeing.  It is perhaps a matter of degree, that “acceptingness” can be a virtue when of the right degree and the proper kind, but a vice when those conditions are not met.

 

MA also returns to one of his favorite themes again early in Book 9- death.  He remarks:

 

3. Don’t look down on death, but welcome it. It too is one of the things required by nature. Like youth and old age. Like growth and maturity. Like a new set of teeth, a beard, the first gray hair. Like sex and pregnancy and childbirth. Like all the other physical changes at each stage of life, our dissolution is no different.

 

So this is how a thoughtful person should await death: not with indifference, not with impatience, not with disdain, but simply viewing it as one of the things that happen to us. Now you anticipate the child’s emergence from its mother’s womb; that’s how you should await the hour when your soul will emerge from its compartment.

 

21… Think about life with your grandfather, your mother, your adopted father. Realize how many other deaths and transformations and endings there have been and ask yourself: Was that so terrible?  Then neither will the close of your life be—its ending and transformation.

 

 Death is perhaps a good example to illustrate my point above regarding the degree and kind of acceptingness.  “Welcoming death” can be both a virtuous display of character, but also a vice.  For example, an example of the former would be displaying courage and grace after receiving the news that you have a late-stage fatal disease.  After anger and denial has subsided, I think some people come to accept (indeed embrace, as MA suggests) this fate.  They find some inner peace, and demonstrate great courage and resilience in the face of their prognosis that others find inspiring.  But there are other cases when “welcoming death” seems ill-advised and problematic.  A smoker who refuses to quit smoking and simply says “something has to kill you.  I am a good stoic, I see my nicotine addiction as “part of nature”, it was simply meant to be, as is any possible adverse health effect from my smoking.  If smoking reduces my lifespan that makes no difference, we all end up deceased.  Death (even by lung cancer) is simply something that happens to us”.  In both these cases the people seem to express sentiments endorsed by MA, but in my view only the former is sage, the latter is simply self-rationalizing their addiction. 

 

One of my favorite quotes in Book 9 concerns MA’s description of how to pray.  I think this strategy of reframing our aspirations can have a genuine benefit in helping us get over the pain of unfulfilled goals/aspirations.  It is this passage here:

40.  Start praying like this and you’ll see.

 Not “some way to sleep with her”—but a way to stop wanting to.

 Not “some way to get rid of him”—but a way to stop trying.

 Not “some way to save my child”—but a way to lose your fear.

 Redirect your prayers like that, and watch what happens.

 These prayers tap into the wisdom of “acceptance and commitment therapy”.  When we attach deep value to “ends” that cannot be realized we suffer unnecessarily.  So I certainly agree with MA that such ends should be redefined in a way more conducive to our inner peace and flourishing. He gives the example of Epicurus who, when faced with his own illness and death, kept his mind on philosophy vs his failing health:

41. Epicurus: “During my illness, my conversations were not about my physical state; I did not waste my visitors’ time with things of that sort, but went on discussing philosophy, and concentrated on one point in particular: how the mind can participate in the sensations of the body and yet maintain its serenity, and focus on its own well-being. Nor did I let my doctors strut about like grandees. I went on living my life the way it should be lived.”

I will share a personal story that I think resonates with this stoic insight.  When my father (who was the most avid reader of this blog!) first received his cancer prognosis he (understandably) was focused on the loss represented by this tragic development.  In particular, the future events (e.g. grandchildren’s careers and marriage, etc.) with family he would not be able to share with us.  Because I knew he valued connections with the family so deeply, I suggested he try an exercise and write out a personal narrative from an important event in every decade of his life, something most of the family did not know that we would learn about him after he was gone.  He ended up taking this suggestion much further, writing out his complete life story from childhood through to the end of his life, highlighting different achievements and travels, and the evolution of the family, from his children to his grandchildren.  Leaving “his story” for the family, in his own words, I think was therapy for him during his last year of life.  It enabled his mind to become immersed in the gratitude of the achievements of his actual life vs ruminating about the loss of things in the future that had never happened.  I think this exercise gave him some solace, and made accepting his fate more palatable. 

In Book 10 MA offers a short list of epithets:

8. Epithets for yourself: Upright. Modest. Straightforward. Sane. Cooperative. Disinterested.  Try not to exchange them for others.  And if you should forfeit them, set about getting them back

Keep in mind that “sanity” means understanding things— each individual thing—for what they are. And not losing the thread.

And “cooperation” means accepting what nature assigns you—accepting it willingly

And “disinterest” means that the intelligence should rise above the movements of the flesh—the rough and the smooth alike. Should rise above fame, above death, and everything like them.

I wonder where personal ambition and political aspirations fit into the picture here.  In 25 MA claims that “When a slave runs away from his master, we call him a fugitive slave” and thus one of the problematic aspects of MA’s appeals to “Nature” and “accepting the way things are” is that it can be construed as a prescription for accepting one’s subordinate position in a hierarchy and societal injustice.  Sure stoicism might sound like an emancipatory personal ethic for a Roman Emperor, but I think it has more dire consequences when it is invoked as a personal or collective ethic for those who should aspire for a better future when the status quo is grossly unjust. 

In Book 11 MA reflects on the good life:

16. To live a good life:  We have the potential for it. If we can learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference. This is how we learn: by looking at each thing, both the parts and the whole.  Keeping in mind that none of them can dictate how we perceive it. They don’t impose themselves on us. They hover before us, unmoving. It is we who generate the judgments— inscribing them on ourselves. And we don’t have to. We could leave the page blank—and if a mark slips through, erase it instantly.

 

The key for MA is our capacity to self-author the narratives of our lives vs being imprisoned to beliefs, desires and goals that frustrate, anger and depress us.

MA highlights anger a few times, and seems to be of the view that it is a toxic emotional response to life events. He remarks:

26. To be angry at something means you’ve forgotten:  That everything that happens is natural.  That the responsibility is theirs, not yours.

Overall, I have really enjoyed reading and engaging with MA’s Meditations.  These final four Books provide us with many topics to discuss:

(a)   What is justice/injustice?

(b)  Should we be “accepting” of death?  Is there a difference between a healthy acceptance of our mortality vs eschewing public health measures which could prolong life?

(c)   Are the epithets of being upright, modest, straightforward, sane, cooperative and disinterested.  Do you agree with this list?  Are there other things missing from it? 

(d)  Should we pursue happiness and try to avoid pain? Why/why not?

(e)   What do you think of MA’s “re-framing” exercise for prayers?

There is a lot I like about stoicism as a philosophy, and parts I have reservations or disagree with.  I hope to read a few more primary sources in the months to come.  Next on the list is Epictetus!

 

Cheers,

Colin