The Stoic Generation

For an ancient philosophy, Stoicism is wildly popular right now. Silicon Valley tech barons and young men in weight rooms across the country are searching for guidance, and they often find it among the maxims of Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. Something about these tough-minded thinkers satisfies their souls’ longings.

But Baylor philosophy professor Thomas M. Ward believes this toughness is not enough. In his engaging new book, After Stoicism, he argues that the Stoic pursuit of inner tranquility falls short of true happiness. While he concedes that the philosophical school certainly has its merits, it does not provide the one thing human beings need most: hope. Ward instead turns to the “last of the Roman philosophers,” Anicuis Manlius Severinus Boethius, and his great book The Consolation of Philosophy for a more hopeful vision of human flourishing.

To his very great credit, Ward writes not just as an academic philosopher but as someone concerned with how we live our day-to-day lives. As such, he shows immense sympathy to those attracted to Stoicism as a guide for self-improvement. In an age of comfort and luxury, this ancient school’s enjoinders to practice virtue can dislodge us from the unreflective and decadent stupor that seems to surround us. The doctrine of self-mastery preached by these sages, Ward acknowledges, has serious merits.

Despite these advantages for living, though, Ward concludes that Stoicism is finally a “noble despair.” Metaphysically, it adopts a sort of fatalism and looks doubtfully at the idea of free will. And ethically, Ward writes, “it encourages a ghastly sort of detachment even from close friends and family.” Stoic apathy isolates adherents and turns them into something almost inhuman. In its most extreme forms, it even inspired many to commit suicide. Surely this is not the highest peak of flourishing to which human nature aspires.

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