Progressively Stoic
Stoicism and the Western Political Tradition by Lisa Hill and Eden Blazejak
This book's topic is narrower than its title would suggest. It is not a history of every Western intellectual movement (like the Neo-Stoics) that received influence from the ancient Stoics. The authors' narrower thesis is that the philosophy of Stoicism influenced the development of several things they approve of: egalitarianism, cosmopolitanism, utilitarianism, universal (secular) human rights, and feminism. The focus is on intellectuals in early modern Britain who gifted the world with these Enlightenment ideas. Hill and Blazejak discuss the influence on these intellectuals of the Roman Stoics Seneca, Epictetus, Musonius Rufus, and Marcus Aurelius, along with such fragments or summaries as we have of the earlier Greek Stoics.
As the authors note, Stoicism is undergoing a modern revival, but this revival often focuses on individual Stoic spiritual and mental attitudes: focusing on what is within our control and not suffering anxiety over what isn't. But as the authors emphasize, classical Stoicism had a political dimension, and it is this dimension that allegedly influenced Hill and Blazejak's favorite intellectuals.
The authors allude to the fact that Stoicism made its way into Western consciousness in part "via the atmosphere of another mercy tradition that borrowed heavily from it—Christianity." They do not develop this idea in their book. On the contrary, they wish to emphasize that the particular intellectuals whom they study took their Stoicism straight from the Stoic sources listed above, "not filtered through a Christian or other lens."
Traced Through Themes
Among the better-known figures the book says were influenced by Stoicism are the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, John Locke, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill. Some of these intellectuals cited Stoic sources, and each of them, the authors demonstrate, had access to classic Stoic works, generally in their private libraries. So even if—like Locke and Shaftesbury—they didn't extensively credit the Stoics in their published work, the Stoic influence can be traced (to Hill and Blazejak's satisfaction) through the similarity of themes.
Locke's vision of self-ownership, the basis of his philosophy of human rights, is, say Hill and Blazejak, linked to the Stoics' ethic of self-sufficiency and their rejection of the idea that one human being could be in subjection to another. This means challenging slavery—the ultimate subjection of one human to another—and allowing suicide—the ultimate exercise of autonomy (though Locke, more timid than the Stoics, did not accept suicide as a legitimate exercise of freedom).
Adam Smith's connection to the Stoics comes through the latter's promotion of the concept of the "cosmopolis"—the community of all human beings. Each human being literally contains a portion of God (Zeus), thanks to the reasoning faculty, which is divine. Hence, even if the human race is geographically divided into separate countries, the unity of the human race in the cosmopolis is philosophically superior to any of these smaller political organizations. This Stoic-proclaimed unity has also, to Hill and Blazejak, had an influence on modern conceptions of internationalism. But Adam Smith did not, like the Stoics, proclaim human solidarity as an inherent quality of the universe. He preached human unity as a useful consequence of greater commerce among peoples. This is the context of Smith's views on free trade—it would create a commercial version of the cosmopolis, tying the world together by trade.
John Stuart Mill tried to refine and improve the Utilitarian philosophy developed by Jeremy Bentham. Bentham's philosophy was focused on increasing the amount of subjective happiness among the greatest number of people. Under Hill and Blazejak's analysis, this pleasure principle was Epicurean (a rival school to Stoicism), and Mill added some elements of Stoicism to improve Utilitarianism's moral tone. To split the difference between Epicurean and Stoic approaches, Mill emphasized individual happiness, like Bentham, while prioritizing the superior philosophical pleasures of pursuing truth and virtue.
In Service of Feminism
Hill and Blazejak tie in Stoicism to early modern feminist authors via the old Stoic philosophers. The early Greek Stoics Zeno and Chrysippus believed in free love—which the authors call a "progressive view." Along with Cleanthes, these Greek Stoics are described as the most consistent defenders of women's rights—"Stoicism in its best and most principled mood." The Roman Stoics declined from these feminist heights—they "fall short in challenging traditional gender roles," the authors lament, and they sometimes slipped into unfortunate misogynistic remarks. Yet Hill and Blazejak cut them some slack; these practical Romans "recogni[zed] that the nuclear family was an institution particularly difficult to eradicate," so their focus was on improving the family while leaving it intact. Even Musonius Rufus, the most feminist of the Roman Stoics, had to take his "powerful and conservative audience" into account, they write.
Despite their unfortunate sexist handicaps, the Roman Stoics promoted feminism by urging that women should be taught philosophy. Since all human beings were obliged to "live according to nature"—serving the rational and moral purposes embedded in each human being as a fragment of God himself—both men and women must develop the proper philosophical (Stoic) attitudes, and they are equally obliged to learn and practice true philosophy. This paved the way for women's education, "the surest pathway to reproductive freedom and liberation from domestic drudgery and marital tyranny," the authors declare. But the latter were only potentialities—the actual Roman Stoics were sufficiently mired in patriarchy that they contemplated philosophical women becoming better wives and mothers.
This is where early feminist thinkers influenced by Stoicism come in. For the authors, Mary Astell, Elizabeth Montagu, Mary Chudleigh, Mary Darby Robinson, and Catharine Macaulay (who influenced Mary Wollstonecraft) are the key figures here. They drew inspiration from the Stoics as they advocated for women's education and opposed husbands tyrannizing over their wives.
Not that early modern intellectuals always used Stoicism in a feminist and liberating way. Elizabeth Carter, the scholar who translated Epictetus' Discourses into English, wanted to "Christianiz[e]" Epictetus and make him "merely a support for the status quo and patriarchy." Hill and Blazejak bemoan the fact that Carter was even more religious than Shaftesbury (if you can imagine). And many early modern women were urged to read the Stoics, not so they could smash the patriarchy, but so they could endure the trials of life with a better philosophical attitude (the same use that many men made of Stoicism).
Stoic Works in Circulation
In addition to the presence of Stoic books in particular intellectuals' libraries, the authors look at the circulation of Stoic works in early modern Britain as a whole. Not only were versions available in the original Latin during this period, but new English translations of several of these works were coming out. For instance, Epictetus' short Enchiridion was translated early, but his longer Discourses were not put into English until Elizabeth Carter's mid-eighteenth-century translation. Overall, Hill and Blazejak believe that the broad British public was skeptical or contemptuous of Stoicism, at least until the intellectuals described in their book translated Stoicism into Enlightenment principles.
Hill and Blazejak could have taken a broader view of Stoicism's popularity in the early modern period. They do mention an English translation of Guillaume Du Vair's The Moral Philosophy of the Stoicks. They also mention a Latin edition of Justus Lipsius's De Constantia in John Locke's library, but take no further notice of Lipsius's work. Yet English translations of De Constantia were issued in 1595, and again in the turbulent 1650s and 1670s. Lipsius's Christian adaptation of Stoicism included a section warning against undue attachment to one's own country—a Christian version of Stoic cosmopolitanism. Why have excessive regard for the spot of earth in which one was born, when "heaven is our true and rightful country"? (Justus Lipsius, On Constancy,Sir John Stradling, trans., 2006).
Joseph Hall, a minister and later bishop who was familiar with the Stoics, tried both to draw on and to transcend the Stoic philosophers in his Neo-Stoic Heaven Upon Earth. This popular work went through several editions in England. Reinforcing what Hill and Blazejak would call Stoic egalitarianism, Hall said the poor could easier endure the loss of their meager possessions as compared to the rich with their extensive properties (Joseph Hall, Treatises Devotional and Practical, 1834).
To the same effect, George "Bluidy" Mackenzie, better known as a persecutor of Presbyterians, published Stoic works in Scotland. In a book aimed at the aristocracy, Mackenzie tried to curb their pride by curing them of attachment to their possessions, suggesting that, spiritually, they would be at least as well off without them as with them (George Mackenzie, Moral Gallantry, 1667).
The Gap Left Unfilled
The modern Stoic revival, in its use of Stoic sources, tends to skip rather quickly from Marcus Aurelius in the second century to Admiral James Stockdale in the twentieth, giving little attention to developments in between, including the attempted Neo-Stoic union of Stoicism and Christianity. Hill and Blazejak's book, with its broad title, at first suggests that it will fill that gap. Instead, it is a Whiggish account, focusing on Stoicism mostly to the extent it allegedly influenced modern liberal ideas.
Max Longley is a writer in Durham, North Carolina. He is the author of Quaker Carpetbagger (McFarland, 2020), For the Union and the Catholic Church (McFarland, 2015), and numerous articles.
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