The Daily Stoic - Dr. Jennifer Baker on Teaching Stoicism and Virtue Ethics to the Next Generation

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

How can Stoicism be applicable for Gen Z and generations to come? As a Professor of Philosophy, Dr. Jennifer Baker has an insider's look into what resonates about ancient philosophy with college students today. Jennifer joins Ryan to discuss how she teaches the next generation about Stoicism, why Stoicism is a timeless tool we can all turn to, and the common misconceptions around virtue ethics. Dr. Jennifer Baker is a Professor at the College of Charleston. Her research is on virtue ethics, and she looks to ancient ethical theories as positive examples of how ethics ought to be done today. She teaches courses on ethical and political theory, environmental ethics and philosophy, business ethics, bioethics, and American philosophy.💡 Ryan Holiday’s MasterClass, Using Ancient Wisdom to Solve Modern Problems, is out on November 13! Head to dailystoic.com/masterclassCheck out Jennifer’s blog on Psychology Today: For the Love of Wisdom🎥 Watch Jennifer Baker’s first interview on The Daily Stoic on YouTube!✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the daily Stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcast. I've been traveling a bunch for the tour that I'm on and I brought my kids and my wife with me when I went to Australia. When I'm going to Europe in November, I'm bringing my in-laws also. So, we're not staying in a hotel. We're staying in an Airbnb. The first Airbnb I stayed in would have been in 2010, I think. I've always loved Airbnb, that flexibility, size, location. You can find something awesome. You want to stay somewhere that other guests have had a positive experience. I love the guest favorites feature that helps you narrow down your search to the most popular, coolest houses. I've been using Airbnb forever. I like it better than hotels. So I'm excited that they're a sponsor of the show.

And if you haven't used Airbnb yet, I don't know what you're doing, but you should definitely check it out for your next family trip. We've got a bit of a commute now with the kids and their new school. And so one of the things we've been doing as a family is listening to audio books in the car.

Instead of having that be dead time, we wanna use it to have a live time. We really wanna help their imagination soar and And listening to Audible helps you do precisely that. Whether you listen to short stories, self-development, fantasy, expert advice, really any genre that you love, maybe you're into stoicism. And there's some books there that I might recommend by this one guy named Ryan. Audible has the best selection of audiobooks without exception and exclusive Audible originals all in one easy app. And as an Audible member, you choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog. By the way, you can grab Right Thing Right Now on Audible.

You can sign up right now for a free 30-day Audible trial and try your first audiobook for free. You can get Right Thing Right Now totally for free. Visit audible.ca to sign up. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits

that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their lives. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. A couple of months ago, I drove out to Taylor, Texas, a town I hadn't been before to do something I don't usually do, which is sit down on a film set. So walking in this film set, it's like a music venue bar that they've kind of converted into a, like a homier looking film set.

And I get there and I notice there's like a lot of Los Angeles themed stuff. I'm looking at the counter and they've got a copy of John Fonte's Ask the Dust, one of my favorite novels. You know, I've raved about it a bunch of times. And as it happens, the name of the venue was the Black Sparrow, which was named after Black Sparrow Press, which was a publisher

that published a lot of Bukowski's works and also Fontaine. The reason I was there is I was doing a masterclass. Masterclass had reached out and asked if I wanted to teach a course about ancient philosophy, which I was pretty excited about. And so I did. And one of my favorite people was there as part of the course.

That's who I'm talking to in today's episode, Dr. Jennifer Baker. She's a professor of ancient philosophy at the College of Charleston, where she teaches stoicism and ethics and political theory. She was back on the Daily Stoke podcast in December of 2022, and it was just a delightful chat. Basically for masterclass,

I wanted to not just talk about stoicism, but ancient philosophy as a whole. What can Aristotle teach us? What can Socrates teach us? What can the cynics teach us? What can the Epicureans teach us? And that's what we put together. The masterclass is called Using Ancient Wisdom

to Solve Modern Problems. But after we shot the episode, Jennifer and I both hopped in cars and we drove all the way to Bastrop, Texas, initially quite a drive, and we sat down and shot this episode of the podcast, which I'm delighted to bring to you. Anyways, we dig into virtue ethics in this episode,

testing your principles in action and how to turn young people on to stoicism. Dr. Baker holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Arizona and a BA in philosophy from Brown. Her specialty is virtue ethics, where she looks at ancient ethical theories as positive examples of how ethics ought to be done today. And she has a delightful little blog on psychology today called For

the Love of Wisdom. And you can check out this course at dailystoic.com slash masterclass. The course is going to drop in four courses over the next couple of weeks. I'll link to that in today's show notes. If you don't subscribe to Masterclass, it's pretty awesome. I think you'll like it. I'll give you a link there to sign up for Masterclass also. And anyways, I hope you enjoyed this. I really enjoyed doing Masterclass and I think you're really going to like this.

I'm proud of it and I hope you check it out. Isn't Stoicism just supposed to be for men? Isn't it just a masculine philosophy? I mean, I first learned about it from Martha Nussbaum and Julia Annis. I mean, they're the like examples of womanhood I have. So I probably never gotten that rut. That's so wonderful. Yeah, this impression of stoic philosophy being hyper masculine, hyper tough, sort of grit your teeth and bear it.

I don't know, when you actually dig in to the stoic literature, to the lies of the stoics, it's so much more diverse, it's so much more accessible, it's so much more universal. Yeah, right. It's weird to have the Epicureans and the Stoics, just those two words mean essentially the opposite of what the philosophy actually meant. I know, I know. I mean, one way I think of it, and you've probably helped me think of it this way,

is that they had so many small-s Stoics back then. I mean, it was just the default to be militarily trained. And so I do think of our Stoics as the philosophers, the ones who went against the grain and were doing this academic work. Oh, interesting. Yeah, even then probably there was that distinction between lowercase Stoic and uppercase Stoic.

There's that story about Marcus Aurelius where one of his tutors dies and he's crying when they tell him the news. And one of the philosophers, one of his teachers goes up and says, hey, you can't be doing that. You know, this isn't befitting a stoic. And Antoninus, who seemed to have a much more well-rounded relationship with these things,

says like, let the boy be human. And I love, yeah, that even then, they were probably dealing with that stereotype. Yes, yeah. And even like, I mean, you know, some of the Greek heroes, they weren't like big readers. Yes. You know, so there's like an egghead stereotype too.

Yeah, that's right. Maybe they weren't ashamed of it, but it wasn't what everyone was doing. It wasn't what all the athletic heroes were doing. They weren't. Yeah, they're probably making fun of these kids for loving their books and worshiping some philosophical hero instead of some Olympian

that it was weird and different then too. Yeah, and it takes a lot of, like for Plato to have had those thoughts, like he had a lot of, he for Plato to have had those thoughts, he did have time where he's just reflecting. He's not goofing around and hanging out with the guys all the time because we have the evidence of how thoughtful he was and how intricate all that argumentation was. We even think about when philosophy comes from Greece to Rome, none of the Stokes are

there yet, but Cato the Elder, the great-great-grandfather of Cato is there. And he hears these people talking about these ideas. He hears one of the philosophers sort of arguing one thing one day and another thing the other day. And he's just like, get these people out of here. He wanted them banned from the city. So he was having that kind of lowercase,

S relationship with Stoicism and philosophy He wanted them banned from the city. So he was having that kind of lowercase, S relationship with stoicism and philosophy that it was impractical and contradictory and not what like real men should be doing, not what a Roman should be doing. And thankfully he loses that battle, but I imagine it took some time for people to sort of absorb this way of being and thinking. Yeah, right.

And so often I think people just assimilate the philosophers we know from ancient times with the time. And it's like, no, they had a difficult time. Like this was not mainstream. Yeah, yeah. I mean, during the master class, we're talking about Socrates. It is important to remember, like, I mean, during the master class, we're talking about Socrates. It's like, it is important to remember, like,

they killed him. Like, he was not well liked or well received, and people didn't understand it, and it didn't fit in. And they wanted it to go away. Yeah, that's right. I've surprised classes before, not college classes, but teaching some high schoolers, telling them about Socrates.

They're like, oh, it sounds good, sounds good. And then his execution comes as a total shock. They're like, you're kidding me. They didn't do that to him. I'm like, they did. Yeah, there's this tendency to appreciate the people long after they're gone, but in the moment they're deeply transgressive.

I mean, it's funny even they're not in any way, you know, they had very different missions, but like when you look at some of the approval or favorability polling done on like Martin Luther King during his time, he was not just unpopular with white people, but he wasn't even beloved by all black people. Like when you're doing something that's new,

it is by definition challenging to people who, yeah, a lot of people are dissatisfied with how things are, but for it to be the status quo, it's good for some percentage of people. And they don't like being challenged or criticized. And so there's always that hesitation and reluctance. Yes, and then like poor excuses for why they are threatened, which like sends you down different paths

because they just say things that aren't even true. Yeah. I wish we had more leaders today. Yeah, I mean, I wish we had more philosophically inclined politicians, too. When I was just in Australia, the vice premier of Victoria, which is one of the states, came to the talk.

And everyone recognized him, but I had no idea who this person was. And so it was this weird thing, but you're just like the idea of politics and philosophy going together seems anathema to us today. Like one of the most famous moments in American politics is Stockdale saying like, who am I? Why am I here?

As he tried to explain that later, he was saying he meant it like philosophically. It was so beautiful. It was such a beautiful thing to say. Yeah, and then we laughed him off the stage. Like probably the exactly the kind of, I mean, a person who actually led people in a real sort of crucible and terrible human experience

and come out of it, you know, I mean, he wins the Medal of Honor, but he comes out of it, you know, having served others more than himself. Like exactly the kind of person you would want in politics. And we're like, doesn't he get how the game is played? You know, what an idiot not understanding

how this would seem on television. Right, what are you, an egghead? Yeah. I don't want my debate to be about existential questions. Right. I want you to be throwing zingers at the other two people on stage. Right, I want to be ready for everything you say. I want it to be something I instantly know I agree with and not have to think.

That's so depressing. It's very depressing. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes people go, like, if I mention political things on Daily Stoke, and they'll say stuff like, what would the Stoics think about you politicize? And I'll go, well, considering they're all literally politicians,

I'm not sure they would have a problem with it. I just think you've done such a good job on that. I loved your most recent book. I had to stop at points and I paced in the room. And I don't remember, I was literally asking people who are around me forever, I'm like, have I done this before? And I think it was James Joyce, like portrait of him.

Oh wow, well thanks. It was a good experience. I mean, it was just like your prose was on fire and it was just so, you know, everything so couched with academics. So I never get that feeling when I'm reading about the ancient Stoics from academics. I guess that's just not their job to put it directly.

So it was like undiluted. It was like, oh, this is finally. Why do you think they don't think that that's their job though? Like what is it about philosophy today where the idea of writing philosophy that regular human beings would read, understand, and apply to their life, that's like the opposite of the job of a modern philosopher.

Yeah, I do have thoughts on that. I mean, one is kind of just negative, but I think philosophers like others are just hyper worried about their immediate peers. So I mean, I do that too. Like, you know, we're just imagining like the critic will probably have. So you're writing for other philosophers, okay, fine. But I think another problem that's been looked at is that we do try and write for the public sometimes, and then we're not good at it. It's so mean. Like, we must think we have these good thoughts. But when we, it was like some hip magazine

and they were like, I can't believe how many submissions I get from academic philosophers and they're really like juvenile, like these really dumbed down ideas. And my thought about that was those may be the ideas. Like we get in a different mode when we're, if you're writing philosophy, you've got everything around, you got every resource.

So it's not like stuff off the top of our head. So I don't know how to fix that. Like it's good to build on, but it's just not gonna be entertaining reading. Yeah, sometimes, I mean, obviously being good at something is that you make it look easy. That's like a sign that you've done something well, but sometimes it is funny,

like people who are more educated than me or have a more prestigious background than me or just don't like what I'm doing, they sort of, they will dismiss it as if it's like anyone could do it. And my response to that is usually like, by all means, like, you know, I would like give it a shot. A lot of other people have written books about stoicism

and they've, you know, sort of cumulatively sold 20 copies. The audacity, like the audacity. Cause I think most people do try and write, you know, they try and write op-eds and stuff, like things don't catch on and good luck. I mean, you know, that's like a really complicated formula and they know they've failed at that. That's a horrible thing for people to say.

We should go back though, and I think we should credit, I mean, it makes it more impressive in retrospect that, you know, Mark Cirillius writing to himself in Greek could produce it, not expecting it to ever be published, would publish a work that would last for 20 centuries. Or that, you know, Seneca knew he was writing for an audience, but I mean, he was writing for the elite of the elite in that time.

And again, it endures for all these centuries. There's been a lot of philosophers since the ancients who had a lot more time, a lot better technology. They got the benefit of everything that came before and they haven't surpassed it. And it kind of blows your mind that these people in Greece and in Rome, managed to get to the essence of these things.

And we, for the most part, have not done better since. Yeah, right. I wonder if some of it is intimidation. Like, Marcus Aurelius didn't have many people to worry about. I mean, you're like, they, I even like how privileged their status was in the culture, probably good for philosophy. You know, I mean, you know, Plato today might be, you know, serving food for 14 hours a

day or something. So, I mean, that's possible, right? It was a good environment. They felt free to speak their mind, you know, and they got this tutoring and philosophical topic. So, yeah, maybe it was like a unique combination of factors. Yeah, sometimes people go like, would Seneca sell what he's writing?

And it's like, well, Seneca lived in an estate tended by slaves. So the founders too, there was something when we sort of marvel at these breakthroughs in their writing, it's like, well, someone was doing all the work. This is why the Spartans were such good soldiers also. It's like they had a slave economy

of which they were the creme de la creme. And so maybe the artifice of that was conducive to just thinking all the time. There was a leisure and subsequent people. It's more of a, it's a battle. Yeah. And it's a harder, it's hard to just be a full-time philosopher these days.

Yeah, and if they didn't have peers back then or had a set, like maybe Seneca did, that's different than today, I guess. No one's in that position today. So I can see how that slows people down. But some philosophers today are just very shy. I was a British philosopher, and I think I suggested something.

I was like, oh, you should put that on you. People could really just blush, like so embarrassed. So I think there might be a personality type attracted to the work also. Yeah, in the ancient world, philosophy wasn't this sequestered thing, and I think that is something that gets lost. I think it's fitting that Zeno sets up the Stoapuchile

in the Agora, like where the people are. He's not retreating to a forest or a monastery or some remote location where we talk about these things. He's like right in the middle where the people are. And that's not where philosophy is today. Philosophy is in the tower. Yeah, right. Yeah.

I have enough trouble. There aren't even that many virtue ethicists among us philosophers. And the evidence that we need for it would be people trying it out for themselves. I mean, I don't know how we would do it without you. You really are the conduit to the public. There's like nothing I would recommend, you know, that's academic that would replace these introductions.

Like, you know, people would just be turned off or not have contacts. Like, you know, we have to threaten to get students to read this stuff, which I'm not even sure they do. I was looking back over some of my student notes when I taught Stoicism. I'm not even sure they did do the reading, but over some of my student notes when I taught Stowes, I'm not even sure they did do the reading, but it's such a, like the incentives are so particular.

Do you want a good grade? Do you want a good grade? I mean, that's not like organic. I'm not sure that's- There's not this hunger for like, how am I supposed to live? How do I know what to do? What's important?

There does seem when, and maybe this is such an unrepresentative sample, but when we think about Athens and Rome, we characterize it as this, they were fastened, these were the big questions, these were the breakthroughs, these were the people, people were interested in this stuff. And obviously, the vast majority of people

probably could not care less. Yeah, totally, yeah, my students, yeah. Some schools have been managing, like Notre Dame's done a good job at this, like they do have students try and live a philosophy, but you know what allows them to do it? It's a religious school. Like there's some business I will not get into

of my students. I'm not gonna make them journal for class. There's just some public school about me, like I don't wanna know, and I'm not asking for that. But like there, they don't mind it whatsoever. They do foster these closer relationships, I think, between the professors and the students and it's working for them.

Yeah, that is interesting. The school basically says like, we're not interested in your spiritual life, right? We're not interested in you finding meaning or purpose. We will not bother you about that. Yeah, right. And that was like the sole purpose of philosophical instruction. Yeah.

Even I've looked at like 19th century pedagogy. I can't remember why. I think it was philosophy of sports. The report cards they used to give kids at the British, are they the public schools? And that they're just about their character. Yeah. And you're kind of bullying, just like, the boys are not laughing at your jokes and that, you know, just about their character. Yeah. It's just like, and kind of bullying, you know, just like the boys are not laughing at your jokes

and they find you tedious. It's like, oh my God, this is a teacher, like getting so into their business. But they saw it as their job to, you know, direct them in those ways. What's the first step to growing your business? Getting people to notice you. But how do you do that? Two words. Constant contact. Your struggle with expensive, slow, and unmeasurable approaches to marketing your business is over. With constant contact, get email marketing that helps you create and send the perfect email to every customer.

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Sean Diddy Coombs had it all. Gotta keep him there. Right. He ain't locked on the door. Now he faces multiple federal charges in New York. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three count incitement. I'm DailyMail.com journalist Marjorie Hernandez and over the last six months I've been investigating this incredible story. Freak out sometimes lasts days at a time.

Welcome to the trial of Diddy. Listen now, forever you get your podcasts. Well, I've been reading about this, I'm writing something about Lincoln right now. And so we have some of the books that Lincoln had as a, that Lincoln would like his stepmother brings this like one anthology textbook with her. And he reads it like hundreds of times. And it's, you. And it's not filled with like facts and figures. It's filled with like, here's a passage from Shakespeare and here's from the poet Robert Burns.

And then, here's one of Aesop's fables. And then here's a moralistic quote from some- They're like moral lessons. Yes, and it's actually an elocution textbook. So like the purpose of all this stuff was to learn speaking and talking, but the content is moral. So like Seneca, that was what's so fascinating about Seneca.

His popularity for like hundreds of years was you were forced to learn him in Latin class because he has these pithy little epigrams. You're just, the byproduct of that is also the moral instruction. You're repeating these things over and over again. That's what old fifth graders, like learning their Latin and also getting Cicero,

just like, okay, we should have rule of law. But when I learned Spanish in high school, they're like, I'm wearing socks. Like, I am from California. Like, you're saying nonsense, basically. Like, it reduces you into, like, you're learning a language. So linguistically, you're being challenged, but you're being reduced to like an infant, you know?

So intellectually, you're not being stimulated at all. So linguistically, you can learn grammar and structure and the definitions of words. Whereas they're once, maybe they just didn't know to do this, so all they had was the greatest thinkers from antiquity to practice on. And it's these major issues that you, of course, will have to, you're gonna have to be with or against.

I mean, maybe you become this provocative objector to what they're saying, but yeah, it's like real close to the bone stuff. Yeah, that makes total sense to me. Now, I mean, I know they've done this even with prison rehabilitation. There was a lawsuit earlier in the 20th century, back in the 20th century,

about whether people have a right to not be rehabilitated. It's like, don't I have a right to decide what I'm gonna be? What are you gonna train me in? And if that has had an influence on our society, I kind of see my colleagues in psychology and wellness picking up the slack. And it's a little strange. Like one difference with philosophy is that,

ancient philosophy, virtue ethics, is that we would test it ourselves. I mean, I know you know consequentialism. I used to have passages from books of consequentialism that I would show my students, even if we weren't reading the book, where the philosopher author would say, please don't look at my life as any kind of example.

I'm a greedy bastard. Like, let's get to ethics, you know? Like, I'd have to do that to calm them down because like right away they're, but when it comes to like wellness, I never think the professors teaching it are good examples themselves. And I don't know if that matters.

I also kind of worry about how, like we're kind of taking a, what's wrong with this anxious generation approach. And it's just a percentage of young people report, you know? So it's like, it's one size fits all. It seems very unphilosophical to me. Tell me more about that. Like if we just have to follow the most recent studies

on wellness, it just doesn't recognize, I don't know, our agency, ways to opt out, you know, trade-offs, even the data itself, you know, I mean, these studies like, you know, come and go. You mean like smartphone usage with kids and all that kind of stuff? Yeah, that kind of, or for college students, you know, just like life advice that's not tied to philosophy

kind of creeps me out. Yeah, no, I get it, it's right. It's like, okay, we have the phones, the phones are the problem, we'll ban get it. It's right. It's like, okay, we have the phones, the phones are the problem, we'll ban the phones. And then instead of going, how do you raise kids who can thrive in a phone environment, phone free environment?

Limit their own phone use, yeah. And it makes me worry that like, now I'm thinking about parenting, but I had a few friends who were real cute about admitting because they did attachment parenting, they thought they'd have no problems with their kid. It's just like, that was the deal, that was the deal. And sometimes we give advice

in the psychology classes about happiness. And I worry, I assume the formula won't work. Let's say that. I feel there's not a lot of evidence the formula works. But if you're told this is the formula, and then it doesn't work, where are you left? It's like, if you're philosophical, you can handle anything.

And I wish they would teach them those skills. Yeah, yeah. Like, there's this thing in Plutarch that I've been thinking about as a parent. He says, like, let's say you have an estate to leave your children when you die. So parents will spend a long time trying to craft the perfect will

that says, if this happens, do this. And then the money goes- With incentives. Yeah, the money goes in a trust and these are the guardians. Yeah, right. Because we wanna make sure that our kids are taken care of,

we think about this legal document that will do X, Y, or Z. Yeah. Instead of, he's saying, you know, like raising kids who have good hearts, good ethics, good relationships with each other, who are self-sufficient, who can just handle it, you know? So we're sort of infantilizing the kids going like,

this is too much for them, they won't be able to handle this. So like, let's get the law involved. Let's get this document involved. Do you wanna solve all your kids' problems or do you wanna raise them to be problem solvers? Yeah, for sure, problem solvers. Of course.

I know. There's something too I think we aren't very stoic about as a culture with all the focus on just our kids. I mean, I know I sound like a 1950s coach or something, but like, what happened to liking all the focus on just our kids. I mean, I know I sound like a 1950s coach or something, but like what happened to liking all the kids and you know, coaching all the kids, hoping all the kids do well in baseball. I miss that.

I see it once in a while, I see an old guy like yelling at a bunch of kids at once. I'm like, I can't even tell who his grandkids are, but the way we like specialize our parenting, I worry. Yeah, yeah. I forget who said this, but I was reading something once and they were saying, you know, in golden age, if someone said,

we need to put a pool in for the kids, they meant a community pool. Now, if you heard someone say that, you'd think they're building a pool in their backyard. Now, this totally belies the fact that the pools were segregated and nicer neighborhoods had better pools, et cetera. But the idea that let's build something for the community

versus let's do something that's good for everyone or I need to get advantages for my kids. Yeah, right. And I mean, like, I hope this doesn't sound wishful. It sounds a little bitter, but like according to my kids, it doesn't work anyway. Those sorts of provisions don't work to make a happier kid. So once in a while they'll tease me,

they wish they had something and then they'll make a joke. Like, well, at least I have my mental health as if there's like a correlation. But thinking of the Epicureans, I would not be surprised if there was a correlation. Like if you aren't happy with little things, like we always had, Charleston's interesting, we have wealthy people and broke people. And so you'd kind of get to see what happened to the kids after a holiday. I mean, some of the people in our community,

the kids hardly get anything for holidays. And then some of the kids get so much, like we go to see, I mean, it was a tree house once, you know, like, surprise. Like, I made you an actual, there's a real tree with the tree house all of a sudden. And the kids who got a lot of things just could have cared less about them. Now, maybe they were so young at the point that they didn't know to fake things or whatever, but it was just such an Epicurean lesson.

Like, you don't want them spoiled. Like, you really don't want them spoiled. They can be excited about little things and that's such a sign of health to me. Just little simple things. It's totally unfair. Epicurus has this reputation as this hedonist glutton and there's a letter he writes where he's at. Some rich friend says like,

I'll give you anything you want. And he's like, I'd like this little pot of cheese. You know, his appetites, instead of doing what the Stoics claim to do, which is like suppress the appetite, eliminate the appetite, he just has these very small, easily satisfied appetites. And I think about this sometimes,

like just how nice like a glass of ice water is. Like the little pleasures are wonderful. And when you can celebrate them as if they are big pleasures they become big pleasures. And those things are part of a life worth living. They really are. I mean, it's like, you can feel that joy and appreciation throughout a day if you're recognizing that kind of stuff.

I do see it as red flags. Like if my kids, they're cute, like they'll tell us to go out and see a sunset or something. And they do appreciate little things. And I just take it as such a check positive, you know? I mean, there could be a lot of things going on if they aren't appreciating those little things,

but it is a red flag. Yeah, the ability to find happiness in the ordinary things is incredible. And I think also the skill, I see this as a through line in Mark Sturlus' meditations, his ability to find beauty in ordinary things. So it's one thing to look out over the Grand Canyon and be sort of awed by the majesty of it.

Or yeah, a beautiful sunset. There are amazing things out there, but the ability to see beauty and symmetry and artistry in ordinary, regular things is that's a much more resilient and necessary skill in a ugly world. And like in people's behavior, you're making me think that's included too,

to be tickled by someone's behavior. And it's just kind of an everyday thing that happens, but it's not the worst thing somebody could have done. That's good, too. But the hard part about, I mean, I always joke someone should write a book on how to do Epicurean parenting, and then Epicurean scholars are like, Jen, they said don't have kids. We can just put that in there.

Just get past that. I mean, what if you showed up to the philosophy with the kids already? I'm always trying to work around it. But it's a weird thing to imagine in a contemporary situation, because for the kids to enjoy the simple things, they're probably being denied some other regular things that are a little more thrilling.

I guess. And you never think of, that's not like the trend these days, to deny the kids so that they like simple things. I'll give you an example. Like I used to joke that my kids were happy if there was milk in the fridge and people would get really mad.

Like it would come up like weeks later, like Jen, are your kids okay? I'm like, yeah, they're okay. Like they didn't- Well, you're not supposed to drink milk anymore. They did, oh yeah, right. No one's drinking milk. Right.

I am in Charleston, South Carolina. But it's like, that sounds horrible, like negligent parenting, but of course they can handle it. And then of course they are grateful when the milk is there. Well, I also think as a parent or just as a person, just the practice of noticing little things

and being actively grateful for them prevents that sort of creep of entitlement where you're like, this is the new baseline, this is the new baseline, this is the new baseline. And then like today, this thing, it's cool and it's whatever, but I also try to be like, this is not normal, this isn't gonna happen again. This doesn't say anything about you.

Because you don't want that to be the baseline. Right, yeah. There'll be that hangover, the unpuffing, yeah, right. It's not easy to adjust after, yeah. And you'll be a little dissatisfied after if you get attached to those thrilling things. But we love to thrill kids. Like we love to Disneyland and all that.

I don't know if that's like our childhood. We're trying to get something back, but it's the trend, right? To thrill and surprise the kids. And the Epicureans would be like, don't thrill and surprise the kids. But kids are good at kind of humbling you in that sense. Like we just took our kids somewhere and, you know, it was this trip and we planned it, it was expensive.

We get there and like, they're like, there's two beds in this hotel room. And they're like, I can jump. And they're just jumping from here to there. Just, you know, and then it was like, guys, stop having fun. We have to go do the trip. It was some serious work to do. Yeah, and like, and you're like, oh wait,

it's like when you, you know, you get something for your cat and they're excited about the box. Yeah. And you realize, oh yeah, my definition of what the thing is, is artificial and silly. Anything can be the gift if you have fun with it. Yes, right. And I try to go like, it's all part of the trip. Yes.

You know, it's all the trip. The pillow fight in the hotel is more of a treat than the, I picked this dinner you're going to like. Yeah, right. I mean, that's where the stoicism comes in handy though, is like, here's what we do on this trip. You know what I mean? There just are some norms. Like what we're gonna do is see the sights. Like it's not gonna be as gratifying as a pillow fight,

but that's what we're gonna do. There's no reason to not pursue these aims here. Yeah. Well, it's that it's like quality time is made up. It's all quality time. If you decide to be present for it. that we have the power to define what this thing means to us is a really important thing. And I think that's a really important thing. And I think that's a really important thing. And I think that's a really important thing. And I think that's a really important thing.

And I think that's a really important thing. And I think that's a really important thing. And I think that's a really important thing. And I think that's a really important thing. And I think that's a really important thing. And I think that's a really important thing. And I think that's aonsensical. And then sometimes we have these positive opinions that are nonsensical. But the idea that we have the power to define what this thing means to us is a really important skill. It is.

And I mean, just as you're talking, I'm thinking about that example. And it's like, the Epicureans, maybe they do have a tough time getting to adulthood. Because if you just, like, if the pillow fights are fun and your buddies are fun, like like some of this anxious generation stuff They act like kids never play out in the woods But I do know people who who really grew up unsupervised and played in the woods and nothing like magic happens

You know that you couldn't like detect them from the rest of us at 40 or whatever So the epicureans if they want to satisfy that easily what they are not gonna be able to encourage is like The training I mean the drag stuff, you know, like even learning guitar is a good example, like that is gonna subtract some nice time you could have had in your teen years if you learned to play guitar, you're gonna be alone and like annoyed with yourself, but what a successful thing to have learned to do

for when you're older. You can kind of argue that the Epicureans were in this like state of arrested development. Where they're like, Terry here in this garden, everything should be wonderful, everything should be fun. Let's talk with each other, let's drink and be merry. And the Stokes are like, this is all great, but who's in charge?

Like who's protecting us from being overrun by the barbarians? Who's milling this grain that you're eating, who built the aqueducts. You know, like, I think there is an adultness to stoicism. And the idea of Mavis Pericles said something like, your disengagement is only possible by way of the increased engagement of someone else.

And so when the Epicureans sort of check out and say, we're gonna be over here, you guys are all taking this too seriously, that has two effects. Either it makes someone else have to be extra responsible or I think this is kind of the situation we're in now, the irresponsible people who are not aware that they're irresponsible, they're in charge.

Like the worst people step up and fill positions of government, influence, culture. No interest in explaining it to the rest of us, I mean. Or helping, no standards, no virtue. Like if you're not gonna do it, who's gonna do it? And chances are it's gonna be a worse person. Yeah, it's hard. Like, I And chances are, it's going to be a worse person. Yeah. It's hard.

I mean, I just don't know personally, but some of the people operating politically, I do wonder if they're kind of self-righteous. Maybe they just think they know what's best for all of us, but they won't tell us that, and they won't engage with us with those arguments. We aren't even worthy of them. I mean, it would have to be that.

We aren't even worthy. And it makes me appreciate how the ancients included at least who they did. I mean, explaining yourself, assuming other people can understand argument. I guess Frank's speech was a way to protect people's civil rights because you would hear back from other people about policies. And some of the political maneuvering

where we aren't consulted or what's going on in authoritarian governments, it's just such an insult to each of us. Like, aren't we moral lights too? Like, we don't get an explanation of what's going on here. And I think some of them think, no, you do not get an explanation of what's going on here.

One of the, we do sometimes idealize the ancient world. Like, Socrates supposedly lives in this golden age, but a big chunk of his life was during the Peloponnesian War. And then there's this period of the 30 tyrants and then there's the democracy, but then he's put to death by the democracy. So you're like, smart people have always woken up in a world that was deranged,

weird and falling apart. And decisions hidden. Yeah, yeah. Probably been the norm more often than not that people are like, what is happening? And that philosophy is kind of trying to make sense of that. And clearly there was something going on where the Stoics said,

like, let's just focus on what we control, which is us. Even when they were in positions of power and influence. Like Marcus really, when I read meditations, it doesn't come across as a guy who, it doesn't feel like he felt like he was in control. Like even he kind of felt like he was, events were in the saddle. Yeah. But he was open to accountability. Yeah.

Yeah. So virtue ethics. Yeah. What is that? So there are kind of three main, sometimes people say four, and they include like pluralism, which would be a combination of all of them. But three main approaches that kind of survived into contemporary philosophy today. So one is Kantianism, which is worked on by some really smart people. It doesn't look real good once you approach it initially, because if you read Kant, I mean, you know, he's like racist and the arguments are so complex. I had one professor who asked the class to lift up their texts back when we would bring

text to class, which is probably a golden era. And he ripped his, he was like, we're done, we're doing something else. He got so frustrated. And he had kind of agreed, he was a great epistemologist, but he agreed to teach Kant to learn it. But it's had a huge influence on the way we respect people's rights, like in medicine. So the idea that you can't violate someone's autonomy, no matter what, you might literally know better than the patient, but they get to make that call, that's really Kantian. And then consequentialism, which I know you know well,

was a 19th century invention to keep us from doing costly things for reasons that we couldn't explain well. I think the example is always like the penalty for defacing the power of the Tower of London was death. A utilitarian can explain, that's ridiculous. Literally to my students sometimes they'll be like, it kind of makes sense. You want people to not do it. A utilitarian will actually figure out the harm you're doing and for what. A utilitarian will actually figure out the harm you're doing and for what. So that's a really powerful approach.

And economists use it by default, and Peter Singer has used it so effectively. I think he might have had the biggest influence of any philosopher in recent memory. And then virtue ethics gets really beat up. I mean, I can't believe- What's the third one? Oh, virtue ethics would be the third. Pluralism is just some combo of them. I mean, I can't believe... What's the third one? Oh, virtue ethics would be the third pluralism is just some combo of them.

I shouldn't insult it because it's very sophisticated, but it's just literally a swirl of all of them. So you pick whatever aspect you like. And then virtue ethics would be inspired by the ancients and also Confucius. And so there's like religious traditions, like we borrow all of that with virtue ethics, but it gets really mocked by the other practitioners

and the other areas of ethical. Why, because it's, what, stodgy and old fashioned or what? That's part of it. Sometimes they just memorize something false, like that it's circular. I've caught people teaching that just like, so Aristotle had stupid ideas about it's good to be virtuous because it's good to be virtuous.

It's like, how could you? Like of all the other things he said, you're going to think he was that dumb in that regard. So I think sometimes they assume it assumes an account of human nature where we're really ethical. So they'll refute it by pointing out how unethical we are. But virtue ethics shouldn't have a problem with that. You know, some of us are very pessimistic. They've used psychology against virtue ethics,

trying to point out that we're so easily manipulated that there's no way that we could take control of ourselves the way virtue ethics suggests. And then the most recent thing I've seen is just probably that it sees us as too like rationalistic, you know, it's just like we are emotional creatures and they're trying to deny that that part of ourselves. You know, we can't be explained all the time. Yeah. But yeah, there's a lot of dislike for it. In early 1607, three ships carrying over 100 English settlers landed on the shores of present-day Virginia, where they established a colony they named Jamestown. But from the start, factions and infighting threatened to tear the colony apart. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham,

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Yeah, it was funny when I was writing the Justice book because when you read books about, you're like, oh, I'll read this book, I'll read this one. And I would read them and then I'd get to the end and I'd be like, does justice exist? Is it even possible? And you're like, who is this good for? Do you know what I mean? Like when you study the trolley problem and you're just sort of like, wait,

so like both choices are bad, you know? And then it's this way of kind of reducing everything to this complexity that then makes it impossible to, it's funny, it not only makes it impossible, but then like when you go, well, what do you do in your life? And they're like, well, I do X, Y, Z. Like, you're like, oh, you're dispensing with this entire, this is just this weird thought experiment.

Superstructure, yeah. Like thing, but it's like not real. You're like, oh, you're dispensing with this entire, this is just this weird thought experiment. Yeah. Like thing, but it's like not real. Well, I don't know what it is. What are we doing here? Justification, like the justification of a system and they don't always tell you what system. It's like, well, you could throw in any system.

It's like, I'm like, that one thing I loved about your book was how you gave, I feel like these are very rare, but you gave examples of what I would call like Stoic samples, like literal descriptions of what it would be good to do. And so if I remember like, right, one example would be, you know, I don't cross the picket line or something like that.

So like that might be a case where the person themselves generates the rule. It lasts as long as they think it should last, you know? They fit it with everything else. It might not fit, and that's gonna nag at them, and then they'll reconcile that, and time would be this optimism about virtue ethics. But those sorts of down-to-earth examples are so rare.

And I've seen virtue ethicists misinterpreted because the other ethical theorists will assume we're talking about highfalutin principles, and somehow hiding them too. You know, just like I can't tell you what it is. It would be a paragraph of a sentence. I mean, Kant has principles like that, so maybe that's what.

But you gave examples of what I have found like in Mussonius Rufus, like, you know, simple things like educate your daughters like your sons. Like, let's run with that. Let's try that. Like that reconciles some things, you know. I love that because that's so useful in a life. Like I've really done ones like my kids and I will always stop to buy a little palmetto rose

from a kid that's selling them on the street. Like it's like, that's like our rule. We know it's, you know, it's gonna be overridden. I love rules like that. Like I don't recline my seat on airplanes. That's awesome. Just like where you go, okay, I thought about this and everyone else does it this way,

but that's not the kind of person that I wanna be. And so what are the rules that you set for yourself that you try to stick to? And it can be, I think, part of, people seem to think their job as a philosopher is to poke holes in that. I heard a vegetarian talk once about how people seemed to be much more adamant about them being a vegetarian

than they were. So they'd be like, I'm a vegetarian. And then they'd be like, well, do you eat fish? And instead of just going, oh, you have this moral framework, this set of rules, this thing that you try to do more often than not, oh, you have this sort of moral framework, the set of rules, this thing that you try to do more often than not. Good for you. We're like, well, let me show you how that doesn't matter.

Like, let me show you how that's contradictory. Let me show you how, well, have you heard about this? You know? So distractive. Oh, you drive an electric car? Let me tell you about cobalt mines. You're actually a garbage person.

There's a way to do this. And like, I think the purpose of it is to just make everything a confusing morass of shittiness that you just do whatever's easiest. And like, if we feel like someone else has some moral clarity, instead of going like, that must be nice, good for you, we go like, let me muddy that up for you

so then I can just do whatever I want. It's a horrible situation. I mean, I didn't really see it coming, but I do see it. Like people are so, the way I interpret it is they're so sensitive to any moral criticism. So maybe they do the criticizing, you know, or they're trying to be, you know, do things have exact opinions,

but it's not about their behavior. I'll see it on, you know, women my have exact opinions, but it's not about their behavior. I'll see it on, you know, women my age were on the Facebook and I've gotten criticism for sharing a memorial service where balloons will be released. You know, so these are like grieving parents and people will point out to me the harm done by the balloon, like right there where the parents can see it. It's like that kind of like, yeah, they're so frozen

and whatever they're doing, it's not changing their behavior. Yeah. I don't know what is going on. Yeah, there's like this sort of high-minded version of it where philosophers sort of make it clear that like everything is confusing and contradictory. Yeah. And then like there's the Facebook version of it

where like, what about this? Yeah. Like why haven't you said anything about this? You know, what about this? Think about how passive you are while you're writing that. Just like, I'm not gonna memorialize these kids or anything. Well, we call it what aboutism, right? And so it's like somebody's doing this,

somebody has clarity, someone's speaking up about some cause and they go, but what about this? And that's, both things can be important. Or this one is important to this person. You have no moral obligation to care about literally everything that's happening in the world. We all have to pick our battles. or this one is important to this person. You have no moral obligation to care about literally everything that's happening in the world.

We all have to pick our battles. And by the way, if we all did pick our battles and we all made a positive difference somewhere, it would cumulatively have an enormous impact. We all have to be on the same page. Yeah, it's a great, like, you know, when people gather the data about our choices, like, yeah, I feel like a Stoic should suck that up.

You know, I mean, I think there was recently some work by economists on conscious consumption. You know, maybe it doesn't always work the way you expect. Okay, great, you know, just like that's, you couldn't figure that out on your own. You know, you need people to gather the data. But the idea that anyone doing something thinks it's perfect is so strange.

Like, it's like, we all know what balloons are, you know? Like, we kind of weighed the cost of it. I'm not going to interfere with this culture where I live to make that pointer to stop that harm from happening. And the idea that we don't know that, or even the idea, I don't know how this seems reflected in those sorts of criticisms. But maybe people like that are very fearful that they're not

doing everything perfectly. But a stoic assumption should be, of course, but maybe people like that are very fearful that they're not doing everything perfectly. But like a stoic assumption should be, of course we're not doing it. You know, just like, we just made, I just made up this rule. You know what I mean? Just like, I literally, I made it up. So like, I've been trying it for a few years,

but yeah, trust me, I know I maybe couldn't be modified, abandoned, or you know, perfected. Yeah, Cato seems to have been in this, Cato's this fascinating figure to me because you can't help but admire his principles and his steadfastness and his commitment. And then he's also, it seems utterly exasperating and impossible to work with.

And Cicero said something like, he thought he lived in Plato's Republic and forgot he lived in the dregs of Romulus. Like he lived in Rome, a flawed, broken, hegemonic empire. And because he couldn't compromise, because he wouldn't work with people, ultimately he's such a logjam in the system that enough pressure builds up

that Caesar destroys the whole thing. And so like your sort of moral purity and what we would today call virtue signaling can come at the expense of actual virtue. Like I see this now with a bunch of political issues that I for not even to talk about because I don't wanna deal with the emails coming in. But like the alternative is much fucking worse.

So like instead of trying to persuade or incentivize the person to do a little bit better and accepting that by the way, there probably isn't going to be an ideal situation here. You're willing to throw it to the much worse person. And how do you think that's gonna go for the people that you claim to care about? It's like a clean hands thing, right?

It's like, I mean, I get crabbier in my older age and it's like, I really respect people out there doing stuff, you know? I mean, you get to a point where it's like, there's a lot of talk that goes on for a long time. I mean, I just get disappointed by it. Like in our little community, we'll have so many events like against gun violence, nothing wrong with it. Like who's against and against gun violence?

This could unite us all and people won't like leave their houses to go. I figure everybody's watching TV or something, but there has to be something behind your opinions. You have to test them in action, right? Or they're just... Well, I mean, America, you look at... When you look at the very strong opinions that people have,

and then you look at like the percentage of people who vote, and you're like, this doesn't add up. And you have confused having the opinion with being the contribution. And then you can't do literally the smallest thing to potentially contribute to a solution. Yeah. Someone told me once that what stuck out the most

to them about Americans is that we got offended if people argued with us. I didn't really see Americans that way. It's like, seems like we're arguing all the time. But I do have to take care with, you know, if people argued with us. I didn't really see Americans that way. It seems like we're arguing all the time. But I do have to take care with, I have to be gentle in telling my students they're wrong. I do get the sense people get pretty offended

by being corrected. I mean, maybe I even, you could see that on social media, I guess you have to be kind of gentle or people just take it so personally. And that's like, there's potential there. Cause if we took it less personally when we got corrected, there really could be better arguments made, shared back and forth.

Yeah. When you talk to young people, what's your way in on stoicism? That's a question I get the most. Like, how do you, I wanna talk to my teen, I wanna turn my teenager onto stoicism, right? I wanna talk to my kids about it. They're like, I wish I'd heard about this earlier, how can I do better?

And you talk to high school students and college students, like what seems to flip the switch on for them? I mean, I feel like you're the one who knows the answer to that, because I do not. It's not like my students have liked it so much. So I'll teach an advanced philosophy class in it. And at that point, they've kind of already gotten used to the philosophy they like.

It's not going to be stoicism. It's not in philosophy 101 courses. It's so difficult to read. They have to get into the secondary literature, which that's pretty advanced. That's grad student kind of work, and I've got these undergrads. So what happens is that I always have a batch of students,

I'll put it in philosophy 101, that they recognize it from their families. It's so adorable. That's what my grandparents were like. There is something about Stoicism that feels familiar if you know or admire someone who's pretty old. Yeah, right. I'm thinking of stories growing up on a farm. You know, it's like, yeah.

And that's very beautiful, because they'll be like, I didn't even know there was a description for this kind of thing. And they also kind of tend to be good at it, they kind of have a sense of it, so they can figure the rest of it out. But it's a hard sell.

I mean, so my way in lately to like get them to be, I don't know what, I don't know what, I'm not really lately to get them to be, I don't know what, I don't know what, I'm not really trying to get them to be anything, but I've been using critical thinking class in a way that I think is wholesome. They begin by taking an argument that annoys them from somebody, like a real person, so not just a soft thing they imagine.

I guess we do a lot of imagining of arguments that haven't been made. And then they have to steel man it, they have to make it really strong, and then they refute it in a paper. So calm, so careful. And I just wrote a paper on how that is so similar to practical rationality.

Like that's what we should be doing ourselves. Seneca has some examples of arguing with himself, you know? I mean, we should be doing that with our own claims. I mean, I've always admired that about Seneca, like his familiarity with the schools that he disagreed with, that he could clearly quote much of Epicurus from memory. You're like, oh, this guy, he's reading the competition.

Yes, for sure. As opposed to just the same confirmations of his arguments. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that is like the way, I mean, I really, like I always had some friends who worked on academic skepticism and that's a pretty cool way to learn stuff too. Just kind of follow something until it makes sense.

Not interfering early on. I think a lot of my students who aren't into stoicism, they're interfering early on, like not interested in being stoic, just like, I don't even want to like this, right? I mean, I'm with a Pagle or whatever, you know, so not doing that is a really good methodology. Yeah, the preconceived notions get in the way

of so many things that could change us. Or that you have to like approve or not before you're done. You know what I mean? Like, I don't really like it. It's like, hold on, like hear them out. I mean, I think a lot of the scholars who work on ancient philosophy, they have that kind of academic skeptical style

because they'll really detail like Epictetus on roles, but you don't know if that's, you don't know if they internalize that or if they, you know, I'm always dying to know, but you can't really tell what their own thoughts are because they're just laying out the arguments. That has been interesting to me. I've talked to Martha a couple of times

and obviously I like her work, but I don't get the sense that like she likes Stoicism necessarily. Like she's written about it eloquently and she knows it backwards and forwards, but I don't think she would say like, I am a Stoic or even that I agree with Stoic philosophy, which there is something odd about that to me

in the sense of like, well, you only get one life when you dedicate it to something that you're- I think it's just so weird. I mean, I think it's just so weird. I mean, I think it's just so weird. I mean, I think it's just so weird. I mean, I think it's just so weird. I mean, I think it's just so weird. I mean, I think it's just so weird. I mean, I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird.

I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird.

I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird.

I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. I think it's just so weird. And so I'm just like, you just spent eight years writing about this person you have an ambivalent opinion about, like I can tell. I do feel like I'm sort of like asking myself, why am I reading this? I'm sensing your ambivalence. I don't know, I just, I feel like you gotta decide whether you like it or not. There's also like, I mean,

one thing I think you're doing is like building the view. Like, you know, we don't have to pretend these views are dead. Like, let's keep improving them. I mean, I love Larry Becker's work, A New Stoicism. You know, that was new and convincing to people who never would, you know, some people just don't have a taste for ancient philosophy. And that was convincing to a lot of philosophers

who have never picked up something translated. So we don't have to be done with it. You can like fix what you don't like. It's pretty simple. The idea that it was already old by the time Seneca got to it and Cicero got to it and Marcus Aurelius got to it. Like, I mean, you're talking about a thing

that's four or 500 years old. So they obviously didn't think it was done. They were adding all sorts of stuff to it. The idea that like Marcus Aurelius is the pinnacle of Stoicism and nothing can be added or subtracted. I mean, there's stoic physics. I think we all agree that's nonsense, you know?

And we don't even dignify it by talking about it. There is a small group of modern stoics who actually. But I'm just saying it's like physics without a microscope, like who cares, you know? So like stoic ethics before, you know, we could agree that slavery was wrong is slightly insufficient. Yeah, right.

And we've had these breakthroughs and understanding since that should color and inform what we take and don't take. Yeah, it's like, we're all philosophers. I mean, that's like, we all have that role to play. Yeah, I guess it's hard for me to understand why people wouldn't do that. Well, the Stokes give us explicit permission to understand why people wouldn't do that. Yeah. Well, the Stokes give us explicit permission to do this.

They're like, Seneca's talk, he says, you know, so and so said this, so and so said this, so and so said this, but what have you said? He's like, the way you honor these philosophers is by adding to it. Yes. And so we shouldn't see it as a dead philosophy. It's very much in a live philosophy

and that there is space and room for everyone to contribute. It's not dogma, you know, it's like what Plato introduced. And with Newspom, I mean, my take is just that the ethical theory is restricting for her. You know, she just doesn't see the need for it. It helps discipline my thoughts. I mean, I'm not like a good stoic, but like, I really like having it as a framework

because then when I do, like, I'm very angry at my colleagues right now. Like, at least I know it that I know how to make sense of it, you know, I don't like endorse it. But she's just so careful at looking at whatever she wants to look at. I can see how people might see this constricting like, wait, why would I have needed it again? I understand it. I can I can pull on it if I want. You know, she's now on it if I want.

She's now using it to explain emotion. So, you know, but she can borrow from it what she wants. I kind of get that. Yeah, that's true. No, I mean, she's great. She's made numerous contributions to philosophy, whether she likes it or not. But Cicero is similar where it's sort of like,

he's like, here's what they all said, but he was clearly ambivalent at some level. He's like, it's not for me. I know it all and I use some of it, but it seems tough. Right, he doesn't need it to be a framework the way I need it to be a framework. Maybe that's just where people end up. What do you need?

So you're working on a book? Yeah, it's so hard. The Sepulchrean parenting book or no? No. Oh, that'd be a good book idea. I'll probably never get permission. You don't need permission? The joke is that it would be like, you open it and it's like, don't.

First, don't. It's like, take it easy. First, don't. Very stressful. If you disregarded step one, okay fine. Oh yeah, that would be good. Yeah, that would be the next part. Yeah, I'm working on like stoic economics

and I've made it so complicated. So I need to simplify it, which is hard. I mean- Stoic economics, what do you mean? Like the idea that material goods are indifferent and the way that that might help us, we have trouble explaining what economists are doing. Frankly, economists have trouble explaining,

like that's what I've been looking at. Like they're, once they finally tell us in simple English, like how it doesn't all fit together. And I think the Stoics have a really good solution for it. And it's that economists can model whatever they want, but please don't bring in like ethical claims. It's they're modeling like our preferences in regard to indifference.

And it sounds so simple, but we have spent a lot of time trying to apply. I mean, some wonderful philosophers have tried to like impose ethics on economics. And I just kind of see it as a study of indifference. And I mean, that's how the Stokes put it. So I'm just like pushing their line, I guess. I don't know how much he talks to about it, but I know Adam Smith was very's how the Stoics put it. So I'm just like pushing their line, I guess. I don't know how much he talks about it,

but I know Adam Smith was very informed by the Stoics. And one of his teachers was like a translator of the Stoics. Yes, I have not read it. I keep being told I have to read his teacher to understand him. It's like, darn. Have you read a theory of moral sentiments? Yeah, it's so hard for me

because the Stoicism comes in and out. Yeah. Like, I kind of, you know, to me the ancients are hard enough. Sometimes I'm like, I've got to stick with them. I can't learn Schopenhauer because I'm going to mix them up with everyone. With him, it's particularly hard for me because if I have this right, he admires Stoicism and thinks it's descriptive of a few people.

But then the rest of us, he's like, don't worry. Don't worry about it. Like you're just gonna follow these. There's an economist who calls it like a bourgeois virtue. And that seems to be like what the rest of us get. Like we show up on time, we do our jobs, we're honest. You know, we have a duty to our job, but it's not the real thing.

It's not like she calls it. It's not ethics by its true name or something. So it's hard for by its true name or something. Hmm, all right, well, I can't wait to read it. Yeah, yeah, that's hard. Well, this was awesome, thank you very much. Thank you, I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review

on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode. If you like the daily stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey on Wondery.com slash survey. Did you know that after World War Two, the US government quietly brought former Nazi survey. to the public. These might sound like conspiracy theories, but they're not. They're well-documented

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