Stoicism And The Cardinal Virtues: An 8-Week Online Class

join me for in-depth study of the Stoics on the virtues of wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance!

This is the second time around for me offering an online class focused on this topic of “Stoicism and the Cardinal Virtues.” Perhaps that course title has you a bit intrigued? Possibly you’re considering enrolling in the class? It’s an excellent opportunity for some deep, systematic, and practical learning about Stoicism and virtue ethics.

I’m not going to do the usual sort of post advertising an class right now. I’ll get to that sort of information in just a bit, so if that’s what you’re looking for, feel free to scroll down a ways, to the About This Class part. Instead, I’m going to indulge in a bit more of the kind of writing I’d rather do and tell you about why I particularly desire to offer and teach this class again.

Before I do that, I’ll give you two links:

• Here’s the class site, where you can enroll in the class, and also check out the curriculum

• Here’s an in-depth video about the class, where you can learn more about it

And I’ll just give this information up-front. The class meets via Zoom on Saturdays at 9 AM Central Time, starting on June 28.

Stoicism As Virtue Ethics

Anyone who regularly reads, listens to, or watches me knows that I have a longstanding interest in the family of approaches in philosophy we generally call “virtue ethics”. Most ancient and medieval Western ethics fit under this broad rubric, and it’s never really gone away, just perhaps been overlooked in some circles for a while.

I’d say its still the case that, when most people think of “virtue ethics”, Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition is more often what comes to mind. It turns out that there is a pretty vast variety of virtue ethics, some of which are more fully developed than others. In ancient times, quite a few of the other main schools and thinkers engage with, develop, and advocate for the virtues. These include the Plato and later Platonists, the Epicureans, the Cynics, eclectics like Cicero. . . and foremost among them, the Stoics.

Virtue is so absolutely central to Stoic ethics that it occasionally gets summarized with the claim “virtue is the only good” (a bit incorrectly, since it is certainly a main, but not the exclusive, good). Whether you look to the works of Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, or Marcus Aurelius, you will find not only a number of discussions of virtue itself as absolutely central to the good life, but also breakdowns of virtue into the four main or cardinal virtues. And you’ll find a number of references to what the Stoics called the subordinate virtues, which are more particular ways of living and acting in accordance with those cardinal virtues.

You might say: “that sounds kinda complicated”. And you’d be right! Anything important and real, when it comes to human life, is going to be complex, because reality is complex. What you really want, if your goal is to understand and cultivate the good qualities typically called” virtues” is a robust philosophical approach to them, not underdeveloped, oversimplified summaries or listings.

The Stoics (like most ancient philosophers besides Aristotelians) thought there were four cardinal virtues, generally called wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage. Each of these includes and encompasses a set of those just-mentioned subordinate virtues, which give the cardinal virtues fuller application and more specific focus.

So if you’re interested in studying and applying Stoicism as a philosophy, you can’t get very far without devoting a good bit of attention to what the Stoics teach us about the virtues. Even if you’re not particularly interested in Stoicism, but just virtue ethics approaches more broadly, or in some other tradition of virtue ethics, it’s very useful to know the basics about the Stoics’ conception of virtue.

Here’s Where It Gets Tricky

The Stoics assert that virtue is centrally important for ethics, for human happiness, for the good life. And they have a well-developed doctrine about what the virtues are, how we can cultivate them, and how they break down into the four cardinal and their many subordinate virtues. That’s awesome, right? Or at least promising, isn’t it, if you’re someone interested in Stoicism, ethics, virtue, or even the life of mind?

There’s some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we have a number of authors who are either themselves Stoics or who tell us a good bit about Stoicism, and we can go to their texts to learn what Stoic virtue ethics looks like.

Now here comes the bad news. There is no one single Stoic text, or even thinker, that provides a full overview of their teachings about the virtues. The situation is a bit more complicated. We do have several summaries of Stoic doctrine, and those do give you a skeletal overview of the cardinal virtues and subordiate virtues, but those don’t come anywhere close to fully fleshing out those key moral concepts.

Now here’s some good news. It is definitely possible to reconstruct a much fuller picture of what the classical Stoics actually thought and taught about virtue by reading across texts and thinkers, and making the right connections and correlations between what they say. We have works by Seneca, Epictetus, Cicero, Musonius Rufus, Arius Didymus, and Marcus Aurelius, each of whom contributes something useful or important.

And now, a bit more bad news. Doing that textual work required to develop a full Stoic perspective can be a bit time-consuming, challenging, and tricky. If you’re relying entirely on English translations, you’re at the mercy of the scholars who did that translation work, and you might not see connections that are there in the originals. It helps to be able to go to the Greek and Latin, since these texts are in both, and to recognize the connections between concepts.

Lest that prospect dismay you a bit, there is one bit of good news to end on. That work of studying Stoic texts and thinkers, and working out connections between them, is precisely what I’ve been engaging in for years now. And I’ve been doing that specifically on this topic of the virtues. In fact, I’m in the early stages of writing a book on the topic, as well as offering this class again, intended to help people better grasp what the full Stoic position on the virtues is.

So if you want to really grasp what Stoicism has to offer when it comes to virtue ethics, you can certainly do that difficult and painstaking work on your own, if you’d like to try that out. Or you can take advantage of the fact that someone else has been engaging in that groundwork and trailblazing, intending to make it a lot more manageable and easier for interested learners!

Common Concerns About A Class Like This

Given what I’ve written so far, you might feel a mixture of interest or excitement, on the one hand, and worry or concern on the other. If you’re someone relatively new to philosophy, or even just to Stoicism, perhaps you might ask: “Is this class at too advanced a level for me?”

The answer to that is No, for several reasons. We will indeed be engaging with primary sources in the class, but I’ll be providing students with a lot of useful resources, and I’ll be directing them to which parts and portions of the texts we’ll be focusing upon for each session. Add to that the fact that I have a quarter of a century of experience guiding thousands of beginner-level students through primary texts, and I think relative newcomers can feel rightly confident they’ll be able to get a lot out of the class.

But then, what if you’re at a more advanced level of study in philosophy or in Stoicism in particular? Won’t this class perhaps then not be challenging enough for those beyond the early stages of their studies? I’ll put it to you this way: There’s a lot of meat here to sink your teeth into and to digest. If you’re at an intermediate or even advanced level, you might even get more out of the class. I’ll mention that some of my students are fellow professors of philosophy who choose to study with me.

Another set of worries that people might have with an online class like this arise from the fact that we all have busy lives. What if you can’t make one of the class sessions, for one reason or another? Well, we videorecord each of the sessions, and I post them in the class site, where students enrolled in the class can watch them whenever, and as often, as they would like to. And not just during the eight weeks of the class. If you’re enrolled in any of my classes or seminars, you get lifetime access.

Some might balk at the tuition for the class, which is US$249.00. Depending on one’s life circumstances, that can be a little bit or a lot of money. I will say three things. The first is that it’s definitely money well worth spent, given what you get in the class. The second is that this is one main way I earn my living, helping people understand and apply challenging philosophical works. The third is that I deliberately keep my tuition costs quite low for what I provide. I highly encourage prospective students to shop around and see if they can find genuinely comparable classes for less (and if you can, by all means take those classes!)

About This Class

We will be meeting for 8 weeks on Saturdays, starting June 28 and running to August 16. Nearly of the texts that we will be looking at in the class are available in translation in the public domain, and the class site provides links to each of them.

Here is the schedule of the class sessions and the topics for each of them:

Saturday, June 28, 9:00-10:30 Central Time - Session 1: Introduction to the class. The Stoic Understanding of Virtue and the Virtues

• setup, goals, and approach for this class

• overview of Stoic texts referenced in this class

• some basics about Stoic ethics

• virtue as one of the main genuine goods in Stoicism

• comparison of Stoicism and other philosophical traditions on virtue

• how the virtues arise out of and fulfill human nature

• virtue and its connection to human happiness

• why there are four cardinal virtues for the Stoics

• cardinal virtues and subordinate virtues

Saturday, July 5, 9:00-10:30 Central Time - Session 2: The Stoic Understanding of Virtue and the Virtues (continued)

• common misconceptions about the virtues

• good things, bad things, and indifferents in Stoic ethics

• the bearing of Stoic virtues on the "indifferents"

• the Stoic theory of the emotions

• emotions, vices, and virtues

• how virtues and vices are developed by human beings

• priorities among the virtues

Saturday, July 12, 9:00-10:30 Central Time - Session 3: The Cardinal Virtue of Temperance

• incorrect and correct understandings and valuations of temperance

• the initial impulse to temperance as rooted in human nature

• what temperance is, includes, and involves

• why temperance is required for human happiness

• temperance and its relation to desires, emotions, externals, and indifferents

• matters in which temperance can and should be exercised

• how temperance enables a person to more readily practice other virtues

• subordinate virtues falling under the cardinal virtue of temperance

Saturday, July 19, 9:00-10:30 Central Time - Session 4: The Cardinal Virtue of Courage

• the initial impulse to courage as rooted in human nature

• what courage is, includes, and involves

• why courage is needed for human happiness

• the relationship between courage, emotions, aversions, pains, and troubles

• courage as a necessary virtue for the Stoics, also requiring wisdom and justice

• courage as bearing on use of indifferents

• courage and its relation to confidence and caution

• subordinate virtues falling under the cardinal virtue of courage

Saturday, July 26, 9:00-10:30 Central Time - Session 5: The Cardinal Virtue of Justice

• the initial impulse to justice as rooted in social human nature

• what justice is, includes, and involves

• why justice is needed for human happiness

• the distinction between justice in the strict sense and beneficence

• justice as a centrally important virtue for the Stoics

• justice in social arrangements and actions

• justice as a virtue bearing significantly on indifferents

• difficulties raised in determining what is just

• subordinate virtues falling under the cardinal virtue of justice

Saturday, August 2, 9:00-10:30 Central Time - Session 6: The Cardinal Virtue of Justice (continued)

• beneficence, kindness, and generosity as part of justice

• the nature of benefits and the importance of gratitude

• conditions for exercising beneficence with others

• beneficence as centrally important for the Stoics

• beneficence’s bearing upon indifferents

• is beneficence required or supererogatory?

• difficulties and problems arising from beneficence

• beneficence, roles, and relationships

Saturday, August 9, 9:00-10:30 Central Time - Session 7: The Cardinal Virtue of Wisdom

• Stoic virtue encompassing both wisdom and prudence

• the sage as the ideal wise person in Stoic philosophy

• the initial impulse to wisdom as rooted in human nature

• what wisdom is, includes, and involves

• why wisdom is needed for human happiness

• wisdom as the most guiding virtue for the Stoics

• subordinate virtues falling under wisdom

• wisdom and Epictetus' three disciplines

Saturday, August 16, 9:00-10:30 Central Time - Session 8: Criticisms of Stoics on Virtues and Stoic Responses

• criticism of the Stoic doctrine that virtue and vice have no intermediate

• Stoic defenses and reinterpretations of that doctrine

• criticism of the Stoic doctrine that there is no increase or progress in virtue

• Stoic defenses and reinterpretations of that doctrine

• the Stoic doctrine of the unity of the virtues

• whether virtues are living things in our souls or not

If you’re interested in enrolling in the class, here’s where you can do so. We already have about 1/4 of the seats for the course filled at this point, and enrollments tend to speed up in the last two weeks before one of my classes start. So if you’re particularly keen to secure a spot in the class, you might want to do that sooner than later.

I’ll close by noting that, as I think you can tell by now, this is a set of topics I am passionately interested in, and have been researching and teaching about for years. I hope you’ll consider joining me and the other students as we work through the Stoic texts on the virtues!