Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) had no understanding of the concept of justice, and what is even worse, he did not care. As a result, his version of Stoicism lost touch with the social and economic fibre of the Roman Empire.
It would have been easy for Seneca to endorse the doctrines of Aristotle (384-322 BC) on justice. In the “Eudemian Ethics” and the “Nicomachean Ethics,” Aristotle considered justice a major virtue.
A rational man aims at giving each person his due, Aristotle argued. Fairness and justice arise from the human capacity to think. Animals have no concept of justice, and no expectations thereof. Without rationality, we cannot determine who deserves what, who owns what, and who has earned what.
Seneca gained important insights on the subject of serenity, equanimity and happiness, but he would have done even better if he had devoted some time to reflecting about justice. He did acknowledge the problems caused by malfeasance and abuse, but without pointing to their root cause.
The 47th Letter to Lucilius exemplifies Seneca’s astonishing indifference to injustice. It recounts that Calvisius Sabinus, a Roman aristocrat, had mistreated his servants, but fails to rate Sabinus’ behaviour as evil.
Instead of condemning Sabinus for mistreating his servants, Seneca expresses his dislike for Sabinus’ ignorance in matters of literature and social decorum. The Letter demonstrates deep moral and social blindness on Seneca’s side.
Seneca’s Stoicism and justice
Obliviousness to justice is a general problem affecting Stoic thinkers. In the ensuing generations, Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) and Epictetus (55-135 AD) show slightly more sensitivity for justice than Seneca, but their passive acceptance of abuses remains worrying.
What about earlier Stoics? Zeno of Citium (334-262 BC), Cleanthes (330-230 BC) and Chrysippus (279-206 BC) had not remained insensitive to injustice, but they viewed it as a source of suffering that cannot be eradicated.
For Seneca, philosophy is a balsam for the victims of abuse, mistreatment and other injustices, but its effects are limited in scope. The balsam may heal existing injuries, but does nothing to prevent new abuses from occurring.
Due to Seneca’s underlying indifference for justice, I find it difficult to take his advice for victims seriously. The 47th Letter to Lucilius affirms that “only the practice of virtue can help us secure happiness,” but does not mention justice a single time.
Seneca systematically avoided social or economic criticism. I have not found in all his writings even a couple of paragraphs commenting on Aristotle’s theory of justice. The avoidance of this sensitive subject is of course deliberate, not unintentional.
In comparison, Seneca devoted hundreds of pages to issues of little importance. As a salient illustration, I can point to the 15th Letter to Lucilius, which criticises pointless exercise.
The banality of its contents barely justifies the cost of the paper that Seneca employed for writing it. In any case, I think that Seneca should have rather praised the benefits of moderate exercise.
Seneca’s low expectations of justice
Seneca arrives at the wrong conclusion that we should not expect too much from life. He regards failure and injustice as perennial and universal, as something we cannot avoid even if we deploy our best efforts.
The 67th and 78th Letters to Lucilius present shipwreck (in a figurative manner) as normal. We can choose a good pilot for our ship and he can deploy his best efforts, but a storm may appear out of nowhere and cause the ship to sink.
As philosophers, Seneca says, our job consists of fortifying our soul, so that we can cope with shipwrecks (setbacks). His most definite statement reads as follows: “Neither poverty nor suffering nor any other storm can have negative effects on wise individuals.”
I couldn’t disagree more and I regret that Seneca missed the point completely. Stoicism only works when it is firmly rooted in rationality. It calls for people to assess reality accurately and make good choices, which include avoiding injustice or at least helping to remedy it.
Indifference to injustice is psychologically destructive, truly incompatible with serenity, and unsustainable in every respect. For anyone considering adopting Stoicism as his philosophy, it is necessary to give sufficient thought to the subject of justice.
What happens when people get confused about justice? I am afraid that the consequences tend to be disastrous. The fact that Seneca ended up committing suicide should not be painted as a great philosophical victory, but as the catastrophic outcome of excessive lenience towards injustice.
Seneca’s insights and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) provides a modern, but equally pitiful example of the consequences of ignoring justice and focusing on side issues.
Rousseau spent the initial forty years of his life in profound ethical stupor, shifting professions from engraver, valet, music teacher, opera composer, and article writer. He performed none of those activities particularly well, nor did he seem to care.
He considered his poverty as a deep injustice, but closed his eyes to the fact that nobody is willing to pay much for services rendered by poorly-skilled people. If Rousseau had given some thought to this matter, he may have focused on one profession and exploited his talents better.
Seneca would have regarded Rousseau’s economic hardship as consubstantial to human existence, but such a belief defies reality. Rousseau possessed sufficient talent to earn a sizeable income. The problem is that he held delusional ideas about justice.
Rousseau’s delusions about the world’s unfairness only grew worse over time. When he was in his forties, he wrote five best selling books that could have earned him a fortune if he had let go of his fears.
I’m referring to Rousseau’s essays “Discourse about the arts and science,” “Discourse on the origins of human inequality,” and “The Social Contract,” and his novels “Emile” and “Julie or the New Héloise.”
Seneca never enjoyed the benefits of famous authorship due to the limited circulation of his works during his lifetime, but I cannot say the same of Rousseau. Unfortunately, he wasted a lot of opportunities and antagonized his friends and supporters.
In his sixties, Rousseau saw his health deteriorate, making his financial problems more acute. He felt victim of profound injustices, but without ever acknowledging his own mistakes. Only in his posthumous book “Confessions,” he took the blame for some of his failures.
Seneca’s disregard for justice found a superlative expression in Rousseau’s delusions about history, ethics and economics. It is not surprising Rousseau ended up in poverty because, even in his most lucid moments, he got almost everything wrong.
If you are interested in putting rational ideas into practice in all sorts of situations, I recommend my book “Asymmetry: The shortcut to success when success seems impossible.”
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