The term “virtue” has become so overused that it is healthy to look at it with suspicion. Unfortunately, it often happens that people will invoke virtue to further their personal interests and then try to portray themselves as ethical paragons. Indeed, we should be sceptical of their high motives.
Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) had good intentions, but created vast ethical confusion. Although he routinely portrayed himself as a philosophical guru, he invoked virtue to promote a miserable lifestyle. In doing so, he steered large numbers of people in the wrong direction.
Am I exaggerating when I say that Seneca created massive ethical confusion? Not in the least. In his Letters to Lucilius, he gave the word “virtue” five different meanings, but each of them is incompatible with the others. Let us pass review to the different meanings employed by in those letters.
Seneca defined virtue as “living in accordance with nature.” He did so, for instance in his 5th Letter to Lucilius. His explanation of “nature” is equivalent to a lifestyle of simplicity and poverty.
Seneca employed the term “luxury” as opposite to the term “nature.” He took for granted that poverty is the normal destiny of human beings, and that poverty is virtuous.
Unfortunately, Seneca overlooked the fact that humans find “natural” to work and earn money. Why should we categorise their achievements and wealth as “unnatural”? Why should one favour a miserable lifestyle instead of a pleasant one?
Seneca’s definition of a virtuous life
Seneca also employed the term “virtue” to mean “living in accordance to reason,” but what did he mean by “reason”? I am afraid that he didn’t mean “logic” or “consistency”?
Seneca was giving rationality a meaning incompatible with the teachings of Aristotle (384-322 BC) in his “Nicomachean Ethics.” While Aristotle had meant “logic” and “consistency,” Seneca made “reason” equivalent to “passive acceptance.”
In his 67th Letter to Lucilius, Seneca praises Socrates (469-399 BC) as virtuous because he had accepted a death sentence calmly and then executed the sentence himself.
From this perspective, the rationality of Socrates consists of rationalizing the death sentence and carrying it out himself by committing suicide. Seneca considered that Socrates had acted in accordance with reason, but I have a different view.
Socrates, I posit, had done the complete opposite. Instead of contesting the death sentence, he accepted it passively. He did not seize the chance to escape and go into exile. He gave up far too easily and I do not see any glory in his killing himself.
Seneca’s virtue as inner freedom
Furthermore, Seneca uses “virtue” to mean “inner freedom,” but I think he should have called it “delusion” or “insanity.” When a person holds beliefs that are odds with reality, that is not a sign of “inner freedom” or wisdom.
That’s rather a sign of insanity or self-delusion, and I would resist any attempt to present those attitudes as “virtues.” Again, I want to insist that I am not exaggerating. Seneca is definitely promoting self-delusion when it fits his concept of virtue.
In his 9th Letter to Lucilius, Seneca expresses a high regard for the lifestyle of Diogenes (412-323 BC), who had subsisted in extreme poverty for years.
According to Seneca, we should categorize Diogenes as a highly virtuous person because of his inner freedom. Seneca is praising the alleged “inner freedom” that had enabled Diogenes to suppress all desires for wealth, comfort, and social status.
I fail to see any sign of virtue in Diogenes’ decision to lead a miserable life. In our century, Diogenes would have probably died of starvation. His “inner freedom” would not have earned him a living, and his passivity would have emerged as insanity or self-delusion.
Seneca’s virtue as resilience
Additionally, Seneca employed the term “virtue” to mean strength and resilience, mostly psychological. His 86th Letter to Lucilius is portraying Scipio Africanus (236-183 BC) as a virtuous man because he had achieved military victories against all odds, but then renounced luxury and retired to live in the countryside.
Similarly, Seneca extolled in his 66th Letter to Lucilius the virtue of Gaius Mucius Scaevola because of his refusal to give way to the threats of King Lars Porsenna, preferring instead to burn his own hand.
Scaevola had lived in the 6th century BC and the anecdote of his burning his own hand is dated by historians around 508 BC when the Roman estate was still emerging.
Indeed, Scaevola’s story is portraying a strong character, but is this the kind of virtue that we want to incorporate in our life? I cannot come up with a single example whether burning one’s own hand or doing something similar would lead to beneficial results nowadays.
Seneca’s virtue as thoughtfulness
Finally, Seneca is using “virtue” to mean “thoughtfulness” as the opposite of impulsiveness or recklessness. This meaning is the closest Seneca comes to Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics.”
I badly miss the words “rationality” and “logic” in all stories recounted by Seneca to illustrate this meaning of virtue. Even when he writes in the 83rd Letter to Lucilius about his personal habit of passing review to the day’s events every evening, he is not depicting such review as a search for effectiveness, success and happiness.
Similarly, Seneca promotes in the 8th Letter to Lucilius the morning habit of expressing gratitude for what we have. Such a morning habit may elicit reassuring emotions, but how can it help us grow in effectiveness, success and happiness?
Thoughtfulness loses all meaning if we decouple it from our lifetime goal of happiness. Seneca gets close to Aristotle’s idea of thoughtfulness as virtue, but fails to praise rationality, logic, and consistency as moral priorities.
The best illustration of virtue given by Seneca is a passage from Homer’s “Odyssey.” In this passage, the hero Odysseus opts for tying himself to the ship’s mast to resist the deathly allure of sirens.
Odysseus makes a logical, rational decision that protects his survival today and his happiness tomorrow. That’s an excellent example to imitate, even if Seneca had failed to recognise the rationality in Odysseus as the primary human virtue.
If you are interested in putting rational ideas into practice in all kind of situations, I recommend you my book titled “The philosophy of builders.”