As a career law enforcement officer, this essay really hits home! Thank you. I agree with the Stoic reasoning here, but still am left with a couple of questions about the finer details. If I see that nothing outside of my capacity for moral choice can harm me, shouldn’t I hold others to that same standard as well? Even if they do not recognize or live up to this? From that, how are we defining injustice, if no one is actually being harmed by actions that superficially appear harmful? Is this answered by the view that externals still have recognized value, even when virtue is the only try good?
Those are some very deep rabbit holes I've tried to address elsewhere. The Stoics don't leave us much to work with here but this is what I (think I've) been able to piece together. 1) The people we deal with everyday won't be Stoics much less sages, and communication will suffer if we treat them as if they were. 2) If someone is within my (ever expanding) circle of concern, I should prefer for them what they would prefer if they were sages. 3) Just because you think something is unjust doesnt mean I have to agree with you, or agree with your prioritization of this injustice against others, and this would be true even if we were both sages. Reasonable people can and will disagree, and resolving these is the basic work of a society. I should treat my impressions skeptically and therefore be humble in my opinions. Justice is contentious. Plato's Republic is basically an extended debate where Socrates demolishes various confident opinions about what justice is and then never really arrives at a satisfactory answer.
That element of reasonable disagreement is critical. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Stoic appropriate action, and how a ‘correct’ or just decision can differ depending on our roles and perspectives. It’s very interesting to think that this would be true even among sages. As a cop, there is frequently a mismatch between the letter of the law and where actual justice lies. It makes virtually every response an exercise in ethical decision making. Sounds like I need to read some Plato for more insight! Thank you!
I hear this essay as a strong call for practicing the virtue of courage, and I applaud that as long as equal attention is paid to the other five cardinal virtues in the formula for being a good human: https://bairdbrightman.substack.com/p/what-is-a-good-person
I'm only surface-level familiar with Peterson and Seligman's work, but I'm not yet convinced there was a need to improve upon Plato's (and later the Stoics' and many others') construct of four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Peterson and Seligman append transcendence (I know many excellent humans who are not especially transcendent) and humanity, both of which I suspect have been well-captured by wisdom and justice for a good 2000+ years. But to your point-- yes, definitely! It is a call to virtue, period.
Yes, Occam’s Razor recommends the least few elements in a theory, so Plato’s 4 is superior to P&S’s 6! What I appreciate about the latter’s work is demonstrating the universality of these virtues across space/time, and framing them as having survival value which I think they do.
As a career law enforcement officer, this essay really hits home! Thank you. I agree with the Stoic reasoning here, but still am left with a couple of questions about the finer details. If I see that nothing outside of my capacity for moral choice can harm me, shouldn’t I hold others to that same standard as well? Even if they do not recognize or live up to this? From that, how are we defining injustice, if no one is actually being harmed by actions that superficially appear harmful? Is this answered by the view that externals still have recognized value, even when virtue is the only try good?
Those are some very deep rabbit holes I've tried to address elsewhere. The Stoics don't leave us much to work with here but this is what I (think I've) been able to piece together. 1) The people we deal with everyday won't be Stoics much less sages, and communication will suffer if we treat them as if they were. 2) If someone is within my (ever expanding) circle of concern, I should prefer for them what they would prefer if they were sages. 3) Just because you think something is unjust doesnt mean I have to agree with you, or agree with your prioritization of this injustice against others, and this would be true even if we were both sages. Reasonable people can and will disagree, and resolving these is the basic work of a society. I should treat my impressions skeptically and therefore be humble in my opinions. Justice is contentious. Plato's Republic is basically an extended debate where Socrates demolishes various confident opinions about what justice is and then never really arrives at a satisfactory answer.
That element of reasonable disagreement is critical. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Stoic appropriate action, and how a ‘correct’ or just decision can differ depending on our roles and perspectives. It’s very interesting to think that this would be true even among sages. As a cop, there is frequently a mismatch between the letter of the law and where actual justice lies. It makes virtually every response an exercise in ethical decision making. Sounds like I need to read some Plato for more insight! Thank you!
I hear this essay as a strong call for practicing the virtue of courage, and I applaud that as long as equal attention is paid to the other five cardinal virtues in the formula for being a good human: https://bairdbrightman.substack.com/p/what-is-a-good-person
I'm only surface-level familiar with Peterson and Seligman's work, but I'm not yet convinced there was a need to improve upon Plato's (and later the Stoics' and many others') construct of four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Peterson and Seligman append transcendence (I know many excellent humans who are not especially transcendent) and humanity, both of which I suspect have been well-captured by wisdom and justice for a good 2000+ years. But to your point-- yes, definitely! It is a call to virtue, period.
Yes, Occam’s Razor recommends the least few elements in a theory, so Plato’s 4 is superior to P&S’s 6! What I appreciate about the latter’s work is demonstrating the universality of these virtues across space/time, and framing them as having survival value which I think they do.