Marc Aurèle
What is not up to you should not trouble you.
Marc Aurèle (121 – 180, Roman Empire) : stoicism. External things (pain, death, insults, poverty) cannot reach the soul: what troubles us is the judgement we pass on them, and that judgement is up to us. The only true good is to act justly and rationally, in the service of other people, who are all our fellow citizens in the great city of the world. On AskPhilosophy: 4 reconstructed arguments, 5 quotes checked word for word against the original texts, and 4 common beliefs examined; every text carries an authenticity badge (written by the author, posthumous, student notes, reported, apocryphal).
Why he matters
The most famous of philosopher-emperors (only Julian, two centuries later, also left philosophical writings). His private notes, never meant to be read, became one of the most widely read books of wisdom in the world. They offer a concrete exercise: every morning and evening, repeat a few principles to stay just and calm.
His times
Emperor from 161 to 180, he spent his last years at war on the Danube, against the Quadi and Marcomanni, while an epidemic ravaged the Empire. He wrote in Greek, the language of philosophy, often in his tent: book I is marked "among the Quadi", book II "at Carnuntum".
His positions
click a row to see the evidenceHe believes in the gods and in Providence, because he experiences their power everywhere. But his Stoic god is the reason present in the whole universe ("one god who pervades all things"), closer to a god-nature than to the creator God of the Bible. He sometimes leaves open the hypothesis of "atoms".
He offers no theory of knowledge. His method starts from what presents itself to the mind ("impressions") and asks reason to define and examine them one by one.
Modest about knowing the world: things are so wrapped up that even the Stoics find them hard to grasp, and our assent changes. On the other hand, he holds a few principles of conduct as certain.
He distinguishes in himself the flesh, the breath and the ruling part (the intelligence). For the Stoics the soul is still a physical reality, hence a value on the materialist side. But Marcus sets the intelligence apart: it is what the world's storm "will not carry away".
A Stoic compatibilist: everything happens according to the order of the world, but the soul moves itself and remains master of its judgements. A mind free from passions is a "citadel".
Good is beautiful and evil is ugly, by nature. Only what makes a person worse is an evil; death, pain, wealth or fame are neither goods nor evils.
His theology is rational: he believes in the gods from what he observes of their power. But he also practises traditional worship and thanks the gods for remedies received in dreams.
Every being is made for an end. The end of the rational being is living in community: we are made for co-operation, like the hands or teeth of one body.
Every morning he expects to meet dishonest or ungrateful people. But they do wrong out of ignorance of the good, and remain his kin through reason. Clear-eyed about people, he does not think them evil by nature.
The good of the community comes first: what is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee. Yet he keeps the ideal of a state with the same law for all and of a rule that respects the freedom of the governed.
An ethics of virtue: nothing that happens prevents you from being just, magnanimous, temperate, prudent, free. Being good means living according to one's nature as a rational and social being.