Sénèque

It is not that we have little time, but that we waste much.

Stoicismvers 4 av. J.-C. – 65 ItalyStoicSpiritual guide (the Letters to Lucilius)Adviser to the emperor NeroAuthor of tragedies

Overview Arguments · 5 Works Quotes Lineage

On the Happy Life (De vita beata), c. 58

The happy life follows nature, hence virtue

What it claims

The happy life is the life of virtue, which is its own reward; the pleasure that accompanies it is only a surplus.

Why

Human nature is to be rational: living by reason and virtue is enough for happiness, with pleasure as a bonus.

Valid with an implicit premise

Everyone wants to live happily, says Seneca, but most people follow the crowd and take the wrong road. His answer, which he calls common to the Stoics: the happy life is the one that is in accordance with nature, and this means living by reason, hence by virtue. Pleasure may come with it, but it does not define it. Seneca was rich and an adviser to Nero: the charge of hypocrisy follows him, and he answers it himself in the same book.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P2, the computer finds a life in accordance with nature (in the sense of pleasure or instinct) that is not a life of virtue: exactly what those who make pleasure the aim would claim.

P1 defines the happy life by nature, but does not yet say what living according to nature is: P2 is needed (it is living by reason, hence virtue). P3 says virtue is enough, since the rest adds nothing. P4 rules out pleasure as the aim. Seneca does not state P2 as a separate premise; he explains it in passing (see for example 13, 5: human nature is to be rational).

Analogy. A student really works on a subject that fascinates him. He ends up with good marks and feels pleased with himself, but that is not why he started: asked "why do you work?", he would answer "because it is worth it". For Seneca, the pleasure of virtue is like the good marks: it comes in addition, and if you seek only it, you miss the point.

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

An adversary Seneca imagines (the friends of pleasure) 58 · attacks premise 4

"But you yourself only practise virtue because you hope to obtain some pleasure from it." In other words, even virtue would be a means to being content, and pleasure would come back through the back door.

Sénèque replies

Seneca Seneca's answer (the flowers in the field)

Pleasure is neither the reward nor the cause of virtue, but comes in addition to it, like the flowers that grow in a field ploughed for corn. We do not choose virtue because she gives us pleasure, but she gives us pleasure also if we choose her.

The debate goes on (our summary) The Epicureans (see the argument on Epicurus's sorting of desires, in preparation) disagree: for Epicurus pleasure is indeed the aim, but a sober pleasure that goes through virtue. Seneca admits as much in the same book (13, 1): he finds Epicurus's morality "upright and holy" and even "stern". The disagreement is therefore subtler than it seems: is virtue what we seek, or the means by which we get what we seek?

Seneca's critics (as Seneca imagines them) 58 · attacks premise 3

"Why do you talk so much more bravely than you live? Why do you consider money to be a necessary implement, and why are you disturbed when you sustain losses?" If money is not a good, why so many houses, lands and wines? Whoever preaches virtue and lives in wealth betrays his own thesis.

Sénèque replies

Seneca Seneca's answer (17, 3-4 then 18, 1)

I am not a wise man, and I will not be one. Do not require me to be on a level with the best of men, but merely to be better than the worst: I take away something from my vices every day.

Seneca He adds (18, 1)

This reproach was flung at Plato, at Epicurus, at Zeno: all declared how they ought to live, not how they did live. He speaks of virtue, not of himself.

The debate goes on (our summary) Seneca's answer separates the truth of a thesis from the conduct of the person who defends it: a thesis is not false because its author fails to follow it. But it does not answer the deeper question: if money is not a good, why hold on to it? Later in the book (23 to 25) he explains that the wise man may have wealth without his virtue depending on it. The accusations were not only imaginary: historians report that Seneca's enemies reproached him with his fortune during his lifetime.

Aristotle 330 BC · attacks premise 3

Happiness also needs external goods: it is impossible, or not easy, to do noble acts without the proper equipment. So these goods do not merely "add" a little comfort: they are among the conditions of happiness.

no reply

No reply possible: objection raised in -330, after the author's death (65).

The debate goes on (our summary) Aristotle died three centuries before Seneca and does not target him. Seneca treats the goods of the body and of fortune as "auxiliaries": one may use them provided they serve and do not command (8, 2). Aristotle would answer that these are then conditions of virtue in action, not unimportant details.