Unfortunately, his characterization of Stoic friendship suffers from deeper mistakes. He writes that the Stoics construed self-sufficiency as “the proper performance of one’s part within a whole (rather than as any attempt to be a whole unto oneself).” This seriously distorts the Stoic conception of the individual. The Stoics quite deliberately present a consistent account of exactly how a human person strives to become ‘a whole unto himself’. It is precisely through the developmental process of maturation (known as oikeiosis) that a human being comes to identify his nature, that is identify himself, as a free, rational, and autonomous being. To be whole, the Stoics believe, is to organize all one’s activities, commitments, responsibilities, and desires into a coherent, rational plan that is consistently and uncompromisingly virtuous. Such a plan also harmonizes with the rational structure of nature itself. And such a project of resolutely perfecting oneself is an ongoing enterprise that can and usually does require a lifetime. If this doesn’t count as an attempt to be a whole unto oneself, I can’t imagine what would.
To argue that “the Stoic sage must be a friend in order to fully express his/her accordance with nature” is simply false. The Stoic sage is the person who, through an arduous process of self-reflection, practice, and rational-emotive therapy, has achieved the state of perfected reason and complete virtue. Virtue, the Stoics believed, was both necessary and sufficient for happiness. All externals, including other people, provide opportunities to display one’s virtue, but they are not true goods because they are not constitutive of the sage’s virtue. Material objects are like game equipment one uses to demonstrate one’s skill or excellence (Epictetus, Discourses 2.5.1-21). But the absence of a piece of game equipment in no way vitiates one’s excellence, since one’s virtue is a condition of one’s soul, and it cannot be lost once achieved. Every single action, no matter how trivial, is performed in accordance with the perfected virtue of the Stoic sage, whether eating a meal, getting dressed, or combing one’s hair. Whether the Stoic sage is alone or surrounded by others is totally indifferent to his state of happiness, which consists in perfected reason and complete virtue. That is, the Stoic sage depends on no one and nothing in living his life in accordance with nature. A more self-sufficient happiness is difficult to conceive.
Epictetus recognized that if two partners value any material possession or person more highly than their moral integrity and self-respect, then they cannot ever be real friends, because they will always be potential competitors for that external. If, on the other hand, they value fidelity, self-respect, self-control, forbearance, and co-operation more highly than the external (which, after all, has merely instrumental and conditional value), then they can freely pursue what is noble and virtuous together by identifying the good of each other as their own good. Mitchell correctly sees that the Stoic thereby removes the source of all possible conflict between himself and his friend. Yet valuing one’s own virtue above all else does not mean, as he claims, being totally indifferent to the external world. Nor does it mean merely bearing no ill will toward others. It means, rather, that one approaches all things in the external world with the intention of acting rationally. And dealing with externals rationally, the Stoics argued, entails treating other people justly, respectfully, kindly, generously, and peacefully. Therefore, Stoic friendship, like Aristotle’s perfect kind of friendship, is based on virtue, and not on utility or pleasure. But unlike Aristotle’s perfect kind of philia, Stoic friendship is not undertaken out of need.
Finally, Mitchell warns “The temptation to see in Epicurus’ work a flight from pain must be resisted.” Yet many, many Epicurean texts like the following make this temptation powerfully irresistible: “For we do everything for the sake of being neither in pain nor in terror. … For we are in need of pleasure only when we are in pain because of the absence of pleasure, and when we are not in pain, then we no longer need pleasure. And this is why we say that pleasure is the starting-point and goal of living blessedly” (ER 4.128). Mitchell construes the quotation “one must be willing to run some risks for the sake of friendship” (ER 6.28) as “a resolution to constancy in the face of chance and danger,” yet this interpretation is underdetermined by the sense of the text itself. For it is not at all clear that given the role of pleasure specified in Epicurean ethical theory an Epicurean could ever be justified in facing danger and enduring pain for the sake of his friend. How would such altruism be motivated by a necessary or natural desire? The textual evidence indicates that Epicureans hold that: (1) pain is always to be avoided; (2) virtue will always produce pleasure; and (3) friendship is a virtue. The problem is that, on Mitchell’s interpretation, Epicureans also hold that (4) friendship exposes us to risk and pain. Logically speaking, these four claims are mutually incompatible. Thus either Mitchell’s interpretation of Epicureanism is wrong because Epicureans do not, in fact, accept claim #4, or Epicureanism itself is logically inconsistent (because Epicureans simultaneously hold all four claims). Mitchell seems to anticipate this criticism of logical inconsistency when he writes in note #3: “Contradiction is not a damning charge for Epicurus, because truth stands in the service of life for him. The valuation of life over truth, this is the only doctrine of Epicurus.” This characterization, entirely unsupported by textual evidence, coupled with Mitchell’s explicit mention of Nietzsche at the end of his article, reveals that Mitchell’s Epicurean is ultimately just a poorly disguised Nietzschean. Since the removal of physical pain and mental terror is the paramount good for Epicurus, contra Mitchell, Epicurean friendship can only survive in times when pain is absent. For example, if an Epicurean’s friend needs him to perform a painful action, say helping to move heavy furniture, the theoretically consistent Epicurean would fly from such a painful, friendly act. If he does not, he is a good friend but no Epicurean at all.
William O. Stephens
Creighton University
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