Stoicism is not unemotional

How not to be like a man made of oak or stone

The misconception that Stoics are unemotional like a robot or, as they put it, a statue is so widespread that I’ve decided to put together some brief notes to summarise the opposing view, taken with modifications from my book Stoicism and the Art of Happiness (2013).

The modern word “stoicism” (lowercase) means someone who has a stiff upper-lip, or more specifically someone who suppresses or conceals unpleasant or embarrassing emotions. The word “Stoicism” (capitalized) denotes the ancient Greek school of philosophy, which has a much more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of human emotion. People often confuse these two concepts, though, and the Internet is awash with blog posts and podcasts in which stoicism, the unemotional coping style, is confused with Stoicism, the philosophy. In this article, I’ll explain the difference, and show how the Stoics, borrowing language from Socrates, consistently rejected the idea that their philosophy was about eliminating our feelings.

Socrates, Antisthenes, and the Cynics

In Plato’s Apology, during the trial that led to his execution, Socrates says to the jury that some of them may judge him harshly because he does not throw himself at their feet, begging for mercy and weeping profusely, as others have in the past. To these men, he would say:

My friend, I too have relatives, nor I am, as Homer has it, “born of an oak or a rock,” but of human parents. (Apology, 34d)

In other words, although Socrates was famous for his equanimity, even in the face of danger, he was nevertheless a human being, of flesh and blood, and had natural feelings, such as concern for the welfare of his wife and children.

We’re told that Antisthenes, one of Socrates’ friends and students, learned apatheia, or freedom from unhealthy passions, from him, and that his work later inspired the Cynic tradition.

From [Socrates], having acquired his endurance and having emulated his freedom from passion [apatheia], he was the first to inaugurate Cynicism.

Diogenes Laertius goes on to say that the Cynics and Stoics derived some of their teachings from Antisthenes, presumably including their conception of apatheia, which does not mean “apathy” or being unemotional, like a tree or a rock, but having feelings appropriate to a human being, and being free from unhealthy passions.

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Apatheia in Stoicism

Diogenes Laertius therefore emphasized that the founders of Stoicism did not mean what some people think by their use of the word apatheia, which literally means “free from passions”.

They say the wise man is also “free from passions”, because he is not overcome by them. But the bad man is called “free from passions” in a different sense, which means the same as “hard-hearted” and “insensitive”. (Diogenes Laertius, 7.117)

Today we might perhaps say that someone wise is “unemotional” in a good way, meaning they have overcome unhealthy fears and desires, but we may also call certain unwise people “unemotional” in a bad way, meaning that they are merely unfeeling and callous. Despite the fact that the Stoics explicitly sought to correct this misconception. It’s still extremely common today. We see several ancient authors openly rejecting the idea that the goal of Stoicism was to be unemotional, in the sense of being apathetic and insensitive, and in doing so they often use similar language to Socrates.

For instance, Epictetus repeatedly says that Stoics ought not to pursue freedom from passions (apatheia) in the sense of trying to be unfeeling “like a statue”. He links natural feelings with “appropriate action” and maintaining one’s natural and acquired relationships, as a family member and a citizen (Discourses, 3.2). To be completely devoid of feelings may, therefore, be natural to a statue but not to a human being.

Neither then is it possible for a man completely to lose the movements [i.e., feelings] of a man; and even those [eunuchs] who are deprived of their genital members are not able to deprive themselves of man’s desires. (Discourses, 2.20)

Cicero likewise portrays the Roman Stoic Laelius as saying that it would be the greatest possible mistake to try to eliminate feelings of friendship, because even animals experience natural affection for their offspring, which Stoics viewed as the foundation of human love and friendship (Laelius, 13). We would not only be dehumanising ourselves by eliminating natural affection between friends, he says, but reducing ourselves below animal nature to something more like a mere tree-trunk or a stone and we should turn a deaf ear to anyone who foolishly suggests that the good life entails having “the hardness of iron” in terms of our emotions. This even more clearly echoes the Homeric quote (”born of an oak or a rock”) used by Socrates in the Apology, to explain the nature of his feelings.

Seneca makes the same point, employing similar language, saying that the Sage is still a man and should not be imagined having the emotional “hardness” of a rock:

There are misfortunes which strike the sage – without incapacitating him, of course – such as physical pain, infirmity, the loss of friends or children, or the catastrophes of his country when it is devastated by war. I grant that he is sensitive to these things, for we do not impute to him the hardness of a rock or of iron. There is no virtue in putting up with that which one does not feel. (On the Constancy of the Sage, 10.4)

This final point is, I think, decisive for the Stoics. The man who feels no trace of fear or desire can hardly be said to exhibit the virtues required to overcome them. How can someone be called courageous who is simply incapable of experiencing fear? How can someone be considered temperate, or self-controlled, who has no more feelings of desire than a rock does? Ironically, the Sage must have at least incipient feelings in order to exercise the cardinal virtues of fortitude and temperance. The Stoics refer to these incipient, automatic, feelings as “proto-passions” or as the “first movements” of the psyche in response to an impression.

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Against the Epicureans

For this reason, Seneca elsewhere explains that whereas the goal of Epicureanism is “a mind immune to feeling”, this “unfeelingness” is actually the opposite of what the Stoics desire.

This is the difference between us Stoics and the Epicureans; our wise man overcomes every discomfort but feels it, theirs does not even feel it. (Letters, 9)

The virtue of the Sage consists in his ability to endure painful feelings and rise above them, with magnanimity, while continuing to maintain his relationships and interaction with the world. Seneca returns to this point several times:

I do not withdraw the wise man from the category of man, nor do I deny to him the sense of pain as though he were a rock that has no feelings at all. I remember that he is made up of two parts: the one part is irrational, — it is this that may be bitten, burned, or hurt; the other part is rational, — it is this which holds resolutely to opinions, is courageous, and unconquerable. […] You must not think that our human virtue transcends nature; the wise man will tremble, will feel pain, will turn pale, for all these are sensations of the body. (Letters 71)

The Epicurean ideal, usually described as ataraxia, or freedom from all disturbance (such as pain or anxiety), is normally contrasted with the Stoic ideal of apatheia, freedom from being overcome by passions not complete insensibility. As we’re told Zeno put it, what the Stoics meant by a “passion” is “an irrational and unnatural movement [feeling] in the psyche” and “an excessive impulse” or desire. Stoic apatheia therefore specifically means freedom from unhealthy, irrational, and excessive desires and emotions.

This may be one reason why Stoicism has become popular with modern psychotherapists, whereas Epicureanism has not. The Stoic position corresponds much better with the goal of mental health as defined by modern psychology. Epicureanism sounds closer to what researchers today call “experiential avoidance”, meaning an urge to get rid of unpleasant or painful feelings. The excessive effort to avoid emotional disturbance has been found to correspond, not with emotional resilience, but with greater vulnerability and poorer mental health outcomes in the long-run. The Stoics, in other words, were closer to the truth than the Epicureans.

Conclusion

The English philosopher, James Harris, attempted to refute this misconception of Stoicism at some length, citing numerous ancient passages as evidence.

The word παθος [pathos], which we usually render a passion, means, in the Stoic sense, a perturbation, and is always so translated by Cicero; and the epithet απαθης [apathes], when applied to the wise man, does not mean an exemption from passion, but an exemption from that perturbation which is founded on erroneous opinions. The testimony of Epictetus is express to this purpose. I am not, says he, to be apathetic like a statue, but I am withal to observe relations both the natural and adventitious; as the man of religion, as the son, as the brother, as the father, as the citizen. – Harris, Dialogue Concerning Happiness, 1744

Prof. Margaret Graver’s book Stoicism and Emotion, analyzes the ancient sources in great detail and concludes that feelings always played a role in the psychology of the wise, the Stoic goal or ideal.

The founders of the Stoic school did not set out to suppress or deny our natural feelings; rather, it was their endeavor, in psychology as in ethics, to determine what the natural feelings of humans really are. With the emotions we most often experience they were certainly dissatisfied; their aim, however, was not to eliminate feelings as such from human life, but to understand what sorts of affective responses a person would have who was free of false belief.

Recently, Prof. Brad Inwood, one of the leading academic experts on Stoic philosophy today, has made this point very clearly in his book, Stoicism: A Very Brief Introduction, where he states:

There is a stereotype of Stoicism familiar to everyone, the claim that Stoicism involves being relentlessly rational, but without a trace of emotion—Mr Spock from Star Trek, only more so. That this isn’t the right view of Stoicism is now generally understood, and specialists will even point out that the passions (pathē) from which the Stoic wise person is said to be free are not what we mean by emotions but a more narrowly defined group of states of mind that are by definition pathological. The wise person may well be perfectly rational, but that doesn’t deprive him or her of all affective or emotional experience.

Another excellent introduction to Stoicism by a leading academic scholar in this field, Lessons in Stoicism by Dr. John Sellars, arrives at the same conclusion.

In modern English the word ‘stoic’ has come to mean unfeeling and without emotion, and this is usually seen as a negative trait. […] When the ancient Stoics recommended that people ought to avoid emotions, it was these negative emotions [such as anger] that they primarily had in mind.

He adds,

Contrary to the popular image, the Stoics do not suggest that people can or should become unfeeling blocks of stone. All humans will experience what Seneca calls ‘first movements’. These are when we are moved by some experience, and we might feel nervous, shocked, excited or scared, or we might even cry. All these are quite natural reactions; they are physiological responses of the body, but not emotions in the Stoic sense of the word. Someone who is upset and momentarily contemplates vengeance, but does not act on it, is not angry according to Seneca, because he remains in control.

And he concludes,

The Stoics certainly do not envisage turning people into unfeeling blocks of stone. So, we’ll still have the usual reactions to events – we’ll jump, flinch, get momentarily frightened or embarrassed, cry – and we’ll still have strong caring relationships with those close to us. What we won’t do, however, is develop the negative emotions of anger, resentment, bitterness, jealousy, obsession, perpetual fear or excessive attachment. These are the things that can ruin a life and that the Stoics think are best avoided.

I hope these quotes from modern scholars, as well as those from the primary sources above, are enough to clarify the Stoic concept of apatheia, a word which implies something close to the outcome of psychotherapy — overcoming desires and emotions that are unhealthy, excessive and irrational.