The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

by Ward Farnsworth

We have seen Seneca and Marcus Aurelius refer to the value of compassion. That is a nuanced topic for the Stoics. Their philosophy calls for a felt sense that all of humanity are their relations. It also calls for help to those who need it. But the Stoic does not favor compassion in the different sense of feeling sorry for other people and making their sadness one’s own – that is, becoming despondent because others are despondent. Seneca’s position was that good Stoics will do all that would be done by anyone who feels pity for others, but that they will not feel the pity themselves; pity is considered a form of distress that serves no purpose and impairs good judgment. Sorrow is not suited to seeing things accurately, to understanding how to get things done, to avoiding dangers, or to knowing what is just. So the wise man will not indulge in pity, because there cannot be pity without mental suffering. All else that those who feel pity are inclined do, he will do gladly and with an elevated spirit; he will bring relief to another’s tears, but will not add his own. To the shipwrecked man he will give a hand; he will give shelter to the exile, and charity to those in need. Seneca, On Mercy 2.6.1–2