HOW TO DO THE RIGHT THING
Seneca trans Robert A. Kaster
ISBN 978-0-691-23854-7
Seneca shared the earth with Christ, apparently. We can be sure of the
existence of the former but not the latter. The Stoics made much of
magnanimity: a mind able to see things from wide perspectives, characterised
by what most of us recognise as virtues: generosity, tolerance, calm,
unbiased judgement. They almost certainly influenced the Christian creed. Is
it possible to say Seneca was a good man rather than a man who wrote about
being good? Probably not. It’s hard to judge unless we know people fairly
well, which is why it’s easy for public figures to be hypocrites. How cloely
Seneca came to his model of goodness we’ll never know, but his perspectives
are interesting. “What a fine and holy sight we’d see if we could observe
the mind of a good person.” It isn’t so difficult as Seneca suggests: we are
mind-readers by nature. According to neuro-scientific theory, mirror neurons
provide the capacity. In any case, we are able to recognise generosity,
kindness and so on when we encounter them. The question is, are we able to
rise to their level.
Cato the Younger was famous for his probity. He handled Rome’s finances
without a hint of corruption, which shows just how unlucky we are. Seneca
praises him for despising
office and distinction. “If you value freedom highly, all else must be
thought cheap,” he wrote. Perhaps this sounded as innocently high-minded to
the ancient Romans as it does today. Yet who would argue against it? The
problem lies in finding the means of setting freedom above all else. Seneca
is urging us to an inner strength external forces are constantly trying to
destroy. A good mind is available to all. Philosophy, by which he means
Stoicism, doesn’t stand on pedigree: trace everyone to their beginnings and
they came from the gods, or nature. It’s sobering to reflect the idea of a
given, shared human nature has existed for more than two thousand years, yet
our contemporary reality is organised around assumed distinctions of nature:
white people as against people of colour, men as against women and so on.
Had Seneca been taken seriously, the history of white supremacism wouldn’t
have happened.
Virtue, Seneca argues, is the unlearning of vice. We come to it only because
vice came first. This is akin to original sin, but conflicts with the
suggestion that nature equips us for virtue. It entails the idea that virtue
can’t be unlearned. Is he right?
Is a person who has worked through their thinking and feeling and
arrived at a virtuous mind exempt from vice? Seneca doesn’t consider the
power of circumstance. Who can say what a virtuous person might do under
torture. Yet the idea of having to learn virtue seems potent: our nature may
incline us to good, but we have to work out how to be good in particular
circumstances, and they are almost infinitely variable. If we have an inner
moral faculty, which looks an indispensable assumption, learning how to
apply it makes sense; and as learning to ride a bike, or more relevantly, to
use language, never leaves us, it may well be true that having conquered an
internal morality, we never (except perhaps under extreme conditions) lose
it. The question remains, why
do some succeed and others fail?
Stay calm and think clearly might be Seneca’s motto. Easier said than done,
of course, when thinking clearly gets you sent to the gulag or the
concentration camp, injected with Novichok or denied promotion. Seneca
catalogues the kind of minds which resist or fail to attain the calm which
is characteristic of rationality. There are, for example, people whose
desires outstrip their daring. Once again, who would argue against a calm
and rational mind? A great part of the difficulty is creating the conditions
in which it can survive, let alone prevail.
“If I ever want to be amused by a fool, I don’t have to look far,” says
Seneca, “I laugh at myself.” He knows he isn’t wise, though wisdom is what
he relentlessly seeks. In the former, if not the latter, he is like
everyone. We are blind to our own motivations, make excuses for our moral
backsliding, blame forces outside ourselves. The wise, however, are never
surprised by how things turn out, because they take for granted their
desires might not be realised. Fashion, however, has a hold over the general
mind (in which Seneca puts no faith): we do what others are doing rather
than thinking things through and choosing for ourselves.. Much human
behaviour is imitative. Seneca is right: this can lead people to copy bad
examples; on the other hand, it has a potentially positive side if they can
be induced to imitate good models.
“When I recall all I have said,” Seneca writes, “I envy the mute.” Perhaps
his greatest virtue is this capacity for self-criticism and modesty. He has
faith in our nature: we are provided by endowment with all we need for good
and happy lives, yet he is painfully aware how easy it is to be stupid or
foolish. We can do only what is within our power. The Stoics’ metaphor for
this was the archer: if he sets his arrow, draws and releases well, he has
done what he can. If the wind sends his dart off course, that is no
criticism. So should we live. We won’t always hit the target, but if we do
all we can, we have no reason for too much self-reproach, even if we must be
constantly aware of our shortcomings. Perhaps this isn’t merely the sense of
our permanent fallibility, but akin to Hume’s acceptance of the limits of
human cognition. Perhaps virtue is, first of all, the capacity to recognise
and accept the limits nature imposes. What we can genuinely call our own are
our motivation and effort.
“Everyone is a helmsman on a flat sea.” It’s when we are tested we show what
we’re made of. Seneca is thinking of moral tests as opposed to our culture’s
focus on the physical. The great moral test is universalism. When we are
born, we recognise no reality but ourselves. We have a right to our
narcissism, it’s how we survive; but growing up means leaving behind our
self-centredness and setting our neighbour’s interest as high as our own,
and by our neighbours Seneca means the whole of humanity. The rhetoric of
human rights is everywhere, but along with it “America First”, the conflict
of spheres of influence, corporate greed and control. We are a long way from
treating all others as well as we treat ourselves. In that regard, Seneca
reminds us that “not everything which offends us harms us.” Interesting in
the light of “cancel culture” and the refusal on the part of some States to
admit of the slightest criticism. The argument that books or films or plays
or speakers should be banned to avoid offence is dishonest: whatever doesn’t
cause offence to someone is probably not worth attending to.
To correct ourselves, we have to catch ourselves unawares. When we are in
the usual ruts of our thinking, we can’t perceive our mistakes; we have to
seize the unruly thought which shows us our faults if we are to improve.
Hence, the worst people have the greatest difficulty in being corrected. A
good person will welcome sensible criticism, indeed will want to be saved
from folly and evil. At the same time, how can we accuse others if we aren’t
blameless? How many judges condemn people for crimes no greater than their
own? Also, we have to distinguish intended from accidental injury. To take
action against someone who injures us accidentally is unjust.
The best way to live for yourself, is to live for others. Seneca recognises
what our political world still denies: that we are one humanity and by
living in the recognition of our shared humanity, we fulfil our own.
“Honourable behaviour,” he says “is not for hire.” Something of a problem in
a world based on employment. Also, he argues, a
bad name honourably won is a delight. Once again, at odds with our
prevailing culture. The gods, by which we could take him to mean nature,
never stint from distributing good. In other words, we are amply endowed by
nature to live well. Nor is there any need for harshness in correcting bad
behaviour: if punishment rains down, it loses its effect. To be too strict
is cruel, mercy is more effective.
Finally, Seneca reminds us that god has no money. Being rich won’t make you
more godlike. Someone should tell Bezos, Gates and Zuckerberg, but would
they listen?