A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

by William B. Irvine

ONE OTHER important sting-elimination strategy, say the Stoics, is to keep in mind, when insulted, that we ourselves are the source of any sting that accompanies the insult. “Remember,” says Epictetus, “that what is insulting is not the person who abuses you or hits you, but the judgment about them that they are insulting.” As a result, he says, “another person will not do you harm unless you wish it; you will be harmed at just that time at which you take yourself to be harmed.”7 From this it follows that if we can convince ourselves that a person has done us no harm by insulting us, his insult will carry no sting. This last advice is really just an application of the broader Stoic belief that, as Epictetus puts it, “what upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about these things.”8 To better understand this claim, suppose someone deprives me of my property. He has done me harm only if it is my opinion that my property had real value. Suppose, by way of illustration, that someone steals a concrete birdbath from my back yard. If I treasured this birdbath, I will be quite upset by the theft. (And my neighbors, seeing how upset I am, might be puzzled: “Why is he getting all worked up over a stupid birdbath?” they will ask.) If I am indifferent to the birdbath, however, I will not be upset by its loss. To the contrary, I will be philosophical—more precisely, I will be Stoical—about the incident: “There is no point in getting all worked up over a stupid birdb...