The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

by Ward Farnsworth

6. Desires and opinions. We turn from the Stoic diagnosis of desire to the remedies. The most direct antidotes, here and in most cases, are those introduced in the first two chapters of this book. One can work to view the object of a desire accurately, and thus seek detachment from it; attachments to externals are, in general, breeding grounds for envy and other vices. Or one can perceive a desire as just another misjudgment and, if the talent for doing so has been developed, simply dismiss it. To restate the point: the principle of Chapter 1 treats the mind and its opinions as responsible for what we want; it follows that any desire can be satisfied – or addressed, anyway – in two ways. One can go after the object of the desire, or one can get to work on the other half of the problem: the opinion that produces it. Solving the equation in this way (from the right-hand side rather than the left, as we might think of it) is standard Stoic procedure. Freedom is attained not by satisfying desires but by removing them. Epictetus, Discourses 4.1.175 No one can have whatever he wants. What he can do is not want what he doesn’t have, and cheerfully enjoy what comes his way. Seneca, Epistles 123.3