Don’t Live According to Nature Like the Stoics. Do this Instead.

The ancient Stoics took for their motto, “live according to nature.” While this motto sounds appealing, it turns out to be terrible advice.

The problem is that while nature does seem to provide some guidance — we do have to eat, drink, and sleep, for example — nature’s guidance is ambiguous at best about how to make decisions about how to live in complex human societies, and at worst, plainly bad.

Part of this problem is that complex human societies are man-made things. “Man-made” is an antonym for “natual.” To live according to nature in what is man-made invites calamity.

Any investigation of various human societies will show that they vary considerably in their ideas of what is ethically proper. For example, some societies consider bribery to be a normal transaction. It’s how officials earn their living as they cannot live on what they are officially paid. Other societies consider bribery to be immoral. Countless other examples could be provided.

Despite the vast differences from society to society, the Stoics think that nature gives guidance on how humans should live in complex societies. Worse, the Stoics think that they are in a position to know what that guidance is. It is this false knowledge that in the midst of the mostly commonsensical advice written by ancient Stoics one occasionally encounters things that are simply whacko.

Even in antiquity there were Stoics who tried to shed some of this whacko stuff from Stoicism. The most famous examples of this are the passages from Zeno’s works that were later disapproved of by the Stoa and expunged from copies held at libraries. (Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno, 34).

What they were trying to expunge was some of the whacko stuff Zeno and Chrysippus advised. Perhaps most notorious among these were their endorsements of incest and cannibalism. (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Ethicists, 191–194). In addition to these, Zeno also believed that ordinary education was useless, that in an ideal society women should be held in common by the community (of men), and there should be no gymnasiums, lawcourts, or money. (Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno, 32–33).

What do all of these strange beliefs have in common?

They are in opposition to things man-made. Incest and cannibalism are man-made taboos. The ordinary education system is man-made. Marriage, gymnasiums, lawcourts, and money are all man-made. They don’t exist in nature.

Of course, it can be said that the later ancient Stoics got rid of the whacko stuff from the early Stoics. They did, after all, try to expunge these things. But the later Stoics continued to believe in whacko stuff.

Epictetus, one of the last of the ancient Stoics we know much about, said he’d rather have his head cut off than his beard cut off. He praised a man who preferred to die of testicular cancer rather than have life-saving surgery. He condemned a young man at length for having had hairs plucked from his body. (Discourses 1.1).

All of these beliefs are in support of what Epictetus thought was natural and against what he thought was man-made.

Today there’s a robust Modern Stoicism movement that echos the efforts of the later ancient Stoics to expunge what they see as whacko parts of ancient Stoicism — things such as the gods, the validity of divination, the divine logos, and the providential aspect of the universe — all things the ancient Stoics thought were features of nature.

The Stoic idea of “live according to nature” has been bad advice for over 2,000 years. The ancient Pyrrhonists — a school of philosophy that slightly predates Stoicism — give better advice. Here’s a line from Sextus Empiricus that neatly parallels the Stoics’ “live according to nature”:

Live without doxas according to vital observations. (as translated by Oleksiy Panych, excerpted from Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I.23. κατὰ τὴν βιωτικὴν τήρησιν ἀδοξάστως βιοῦμεν).

Doxas here is a transliteration from the Greek. In Pyrrhonist philosophy, doxas are unexamined firmly held beliefs about non-evident matters. Doxa is usually translated into English as “opinion” or sometimes “guess.”

Here’s another translation of the section this phrase was taken from:

Paying attention, then, to the things that appear, we live without doxas according to the routine of life, since we can’t be completely inactive. This “routine of life” seems to have four aspects: one is involved with the guidance of nature, one with the necessity of how we’re affected, one with the handing down of laws and customs, and one with the teaching of skills. Natural guidance is how we are naturally perceivers and thinkers; the necessity of ways we’re affected is how hunger drives us to food and thirst to drink; the handing down of laws and customs is how, as far as our lives are concerned, [i.e., as opposed to accepting these things as a matter of theological (or other intellectual) commitment] we accept being pious as good and being impious as bad; and the teaching of skills is how we are not inactive in the skills we take up. And we say all this without doxas.

The “things that appear” are phenomena — the way things seem to be, as opposed to claiming that things actually are that way. These are what people use in the routine of life: vital observations. In saying that he gives this guidance without doxas, Sextus is pointing to the fact that he is saying it is based on investigations of experience. He is giving empirical guidance.

These vital observations include things such as our society is broadly in agreement that incest and cannibalism are bad. That it’s generally better to cut off one’s beard than one’s head. That gymnasiums, lawcourts, and money all appear to be not only beneficial but necessary to our conception of civilized life.

The ancient Stoics claimed to know how things actually are. For example, they claimed to know that divination actually works, and they claimed to know how it works. Such claims now seem preposterous to most people, but in antiquity large numbers of people found them persuasive.

Claims like these the Pyrrhonists call dogmas. Dogmas are similar to doxas except that they are investigated firm beliefs in non-evident things, not uninvestigated ones.

This Pyrrhonist idea of living according to vital observation — according to the routine of life — has similarities with Zen Buddhist teachings about “ordinary mind.” Here’s an example of this from the Gateless Gate collection of koans. (#19)

Zhaozhou asked Nanquan, “What is the Way (the Dao)?”

Nanquan said, “Ordinary mind is the Way.”

Zhaozhou asked, “Should I turn myself toward it or not?”

Nanquan said, “If you try to turn yourself toward it, you turn away from it.”

Zhaozhou asked, “How can I know the Way if I don’t turn toward it?”

Nanquan said, “The Way is not about knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion; not knowing is blank.

If you actually reach the Way, you’ll find it as vast and boundless as space. How can you talk about this in terms of right and wrong?”

With these words, Zhaozhou had a sudden realization.

This can be restated in Pyrrhonsit terms as:

Timon asked Pyrrho, “What is the art of life?”

Pyrrho said, “Living in the ordinary way is the art.”

Timon asked, “Should I learn this art or not?”

Pyrrho said, “If you try to grasp the principles of it, you will never understand it.”

Timon asked, “How can I know the art of life if I don’t grasp its principles?”

Pyrrho said, “The art of life is not about knowing or not knowing its principles. Believing that one knows its principles is delusion and conceit. Not knowing is blank. If you actually discover the art of life, you’ll find it as vast and boundless as space. How can you talk about such a thing in terms of virtue and vice?

The Stoics have been ensnaring followers with this catchy-but-silly slogan for a long, long time. It’s bad advice. Trying to live according to nature just leads one astray. Pay attention to what is happening to you and other people, and let go of the idea that you or anyone else knows what nature or Zeus thinks you should do.

A Zen student once asked Master Ichu, “Please write for me something of great wisdom.” Master Ichu picked up his brush and wrote one word: “Attention.” The student said, “Is that all?” The master wrote, “Attention. Attention.” The student became irritable. “That doesn’t seem profound or subtle to me.” In response, Master Ichu wrote simply, “Attention. Attention. Attention.” In frustration, the student demanded, “What does this word ‘attention’ mean?” Master Ichu replied, “Attention means attention.”