"A rational being is bound also to be a social being"
Meditations Notebook 10, the human connection, and our rational natures.
As a reminder, we’ll be wrapping up our reading of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations this month. In July, we’ll begin with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. As always, read-along posts are available for free — but if you want to support my work, consider subscribing.
Stoics are often painted as individualists, uncaring and detached from the physical and social worlds. If this were truly the case, Stoicism would not be a philosophy worth saving. The last thing the world needs is another rationalization of selfishness and atomism.
Luckily, it is fairly easy to show that Stoics are not individualists. We see it early in Notebook 10, where Marcus addresses his own soul.
My soul, will you ever be good, simple, single, and naked, brighter than the body that encases you? Will you ever know what it is to be the kind of man who feels love and affection for his neighbors? Will you ever be fulfilled, wanting nothing, craving nothing, desiring nothing animate or inanimate to satisfy your pleasures—not time in which to enjoy them for longer, nor a place or country or climate, nor congenial people? Won’t you instead be content with present circumstances and find pleasure in the company of whoever is present? Won’t you convince yourself that everything you’re presented with stems from the gods, and that all is well and will continue to be so, all that the gods are glad to give you and that they’ll continue to give you, because it contributes to the preservation of the perfect living creature, a creature of goodness, justice, and beauty, which generates everything, sustains and contains everything, and embraces all things that are disintegrated and in their turn give rise to other similar things? Will there ever come a time when you’re fit to be a citizen of the community of gods and men without finding fault with them or being condemned by them?
Observe what nature requires of you, as if you were subject only to nature, and then do it, and welcome it as long as your animal nature isn’t impaired. Next, observe what your animal nature requires of you, and accept that in full, as long as your nature as a rational being isn’t impaired. And a rational being is bound also to be a social being. Rely on these rules and don’t trouble yourself further.
This is a great example of Marcus’ simple, direct style. But the line which I want to focus on - “A rational being is bound also to be a social being” – is a curious one that we should try to unpack. If we can expound a bit on the meaning of this, then we’ll also have shown that Stoic individualism is a myth.
First, however, some brief words on friendship in the Meditations.
Marcus does not give a full theory of friendship in the Meditations. This is in contrast to some other ancient works, like Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, which give robust theories of the nature of friendship and the obligations it entails. But Marcus does reference friendship quite often.
In Notebook 1, which is the odd notebook in the Meditations, Marcus names four friends –Alexander the Platonist, Catulus, Severus, and Maximus – and expresses his gratitude for what they have taught. The list of friends sits just after Marcus’ list of teachers and just before Marcus thanks his father and the gods for all they have taught him.
Throughout the Meditations, friendship remains a common reference point. Marcus mentions friends at least two dozen times in the text, at least in Waterfield’s rendering. Friendship is mentioned thrice. In Notebook 11, which we’ll discuss this month, he writes that ‘there’s nothing more shameful than wolf-friendship.’ That is, there is nothing more shameful than false, calculated sincerity that masquerades as genuine friendship.
A man who did not value friendship could not write such things. But two questions remain:
How does Marcus justify this love of friendship on Stoic grounds?
How does this contradict an interpretation in which Marcus is still an individualist?
The first question is more interesting, so we’ll address the second first.
As I understand the term, an individualist is someone who recognizes no positive obligations to others other than obligations freely taken on. An individualist might recognize negative obligations – like the obligation not to punch you in the face for having bad breath – but they generally will not recognize positive obligations, like the obligation to take care of someone.
Individualists can and do vary in their severity. But we might conceive of this more like a spectrum: one can be extremely and totally individualistic, like Ayn Rand might be called, and one can be extremely and totally selfless. The more one recognizes that friendship confers upon you obligations that are not grounded in self-interest, the less one can be said to be an individualist.
But what is interesting about the Stoic position is that it challenges a individualist/selfless spectrum, because of its justification of friendship. Friendship for the Stoics flows from our nature as rational beings. To be good as a human being, then, requires that we have friendships. Our social relations are part of what it is to be a true, proper, flourishing human being.
And this brings us to the first question. How does Marcus, or any Stoic, justify friendship on Stoic grounds?
According to Diogenes Laertius, Zeno of Citium defined a friend as ‘another me.’ This strongly mirrors what Aristotle would say about the matter. To say that you have a friend is to say that you recognize yourself in someone so strongly that some philosophers compare it to having the same soul.
And this, in fact, may be behind Marcus’ thoughts about friendship. Marcus does talk about what we might call ‘special friendship,’ the bonds which we feel with particular friendship, but he also highlights what we might call ‘general friendship,’ the fraternal bond we should feel with all of humanity. By recognizing another human being as a rational being, we actually recognize that they have the same nature as us, that we share something peculiar and precious in common. When we engage in rational thinking, then, it cannot be limited to the processes of our own minds — it will be bound up in what other do, say, and think as well, because they possess those same rational faculties.
Rationality is in part social.
Now, to be clear, there is a sense of individualism (used very loosely) in Stoic philosophy. You as an individual have direct control over yourself. You do not have this kind of control over anyone else. And your own happiness, your own flourishing, is determined by how you choose to respond to life’s challenges. You always possess the ability to act virtuously. You are always capable of right thinking and right action. If you can do that, then you’ve lived well.
Reading this, one might suspect that Stoicism really is an individualistic philosophy. But what this emphasis on right action does, truly, is make it clear that you always have the ability to live up to your obligations. Those include social obligations — duties to family, duties to friends, duties to all of humanity in virtue of your kinship.
The individualist in the extreme is one who recognizes no obligations to others. Such an individualist is not a Stoic.