The ancient Stoics believed that when we reflect four virtues in our thoughts, beliefs, and behavior, we can find ourselves on the path of inner calm, a good and happy life, and becoming an effective person who builds the lives of others and contributes to the society that we’re a part of.

Every now and then I put up an open invitation to ask questions on Stoicism, the Stoics, and philosophy via our Orion Instagram page.

Much like the ancient Greeks that gathered to discuss philosophy under the shade of the Stoa in ancient Athens, the Orion community’s involvement makes us what we are, and for me, your involvement and your questions are some of the best ways to find out what I should write about.

Some of the questions that come back are amazing, and often make me stop and brush up on different areas of philosophy before I answer.

One question in particular comes up a lot:

How do I deal with situation X or Y?

Or:

How would the Stoics react to X or Y?

To find an answer to these types of questions, we’ll be exploring the four Stoic virtues that the ancient Greeks and Romans believed could guide our actions and help us do the right thing, regardless of what is going on around us.

  1. Wisdom

  2. Courage

  3. Justice

  4. Temperance

These virtues are essential qualities that help guide us toward living a fulfilling and meaningful life.

“To bear trials with a calm mind robs misfortune of its strength and burden.”

Seneca The Younger

The ancient Stoics used these 4 virtues as a guide for their actions, a compass to point them in the right direction during hardship, times of confusion, and everyday life. Some even went so far as to suggest that virtue is the path to happiness and that when you live a virtuous life in alignment with nature, you naturally become happier.

So, what are the Four Stoic Virtues, and how can you use them?

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The Four Stoic Virtues:

1. The Virtue of Wisdom:

Wisdom is all about understanding the world around us, seeing it for what it is, and putting aside our own judgments, biases, preconceptions, and prejudices in order to see things as they really are.

With that information, widsom then becomes about making sound decisions based on that knowledge. In the Stoic context, it involves recognizing the difference between what we can control and what we cannot, focusing our efforts on the things we do have influence over, and accepting the things around us that lie outside the reach of our control.

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own”

– Epictetus, Discourses, 2.5.4–5

Wisdom is also about learning from our experiences (and the experiences of others), reflecting on our actions, and using our understanding to navigate life’s challenges with clarity and insight.

The Stoics believed that wisdom can help us divide life into three categories: good, bad, and indifferent.

For example:

  • Good: This can be acting with virtue, and some Stoics believed that virtue is the only good, and that anything outside of virtue can only be indifferent or bad. Good can be showing courage in the face of fear, showing moderation despite the desire to be greedy or indulge in addictive behavior, and being just to those around us and not allowing our own incentives to get in the way of what is right.

  • Bad: This can be any action that is not virtious. For example; lying to someone to avoid responsibility, ignoring moderation and choosing laziness, greed, and bad habits. It could be ignoring justice and taking advantage of other people, or the community, to get ahead.

  • Indifferent: To the Stoics there were many things that fall under indifference. For example money, possession, fame etc can all be things that we can use for good or for bad. In and of themselves these things are not good or bad, they are simply indifferent.

In simple terms, the Stoics believed that virtue was good and vice was bad. Virtue, through leading a life of courage, wisdom, justice, and temperance, naturally leads to happiness, and vice pulls us further from it by eroding our character. Wisdom is simply our ability to know what is what, and in knowing this, we can guide our actions more deliberately.

Preferred indifference: The Stoics saw things like money, possessions, and fame as indifferent. They were not good or bad; they simply were.

However, Stoicism does split this up a little further. There are some things that are indifferent but preferred. Wealth is preferable to poverty, friends are preferable to solitude; health is preferable to illness; etc. The fact is that these things are not good or bad; the judgment of good or bad comes only from a person’s actions and intent.

2. The Virtue of Courage:

Courage is the opposite of cowardice. Courage is not the elimination of fear, desire, or anxiety; it is acting in the right way despite our fear, desire, and anxieties. It’s not just about physical bravery, but also about mental and emotional resilience.

“Don’t you know life is like a military campaign? One must serve on watch, another in reconnaissance, another on the front line. . . . So it is for us—each person’s life is a kind of battle, and a long and varied one too. You must keep watch like a soldier and do everything commanded. . . . You have been stationed in a key post, not some lowly place, and not for a short time but for life.”

– Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24.31–36

It’s the ability to face difficult situations, adversity, and challenges head-on without being overwhelmed by fear or uncertainty. In Stoicism, courage is about standing up for what is right, even when it’s difficult or unpopular, and staying true to our principles in the face of opposition.

Seneca once wrote:

“There are misfortunes which strike the sage – without incapacitating him, of course – such as physical pain, infirmity, the loss of friends or children, or the catastrophes of his country when it is devastated by war. I grant that he is sensitive to these things, for we do not impute to him the hardness of a rock or of iron. There is no virtue in putting up with that which one does not feel.”

By this, he means that a person who does not feel fear cannot conquer it, and therefore does not show courage. Courage is the act of overcoming those feelings that threaten to cause cowardice. It is doing the right thing even if we are afraid to do so.

There is an ancient story of a Stoic teacher on a boat in a terrible storm:

Travelling across the waters of the Ionian sea, a violent storm began to beat at the hull and the sails of a ship. The waves grew higher and began to fill the ship with water.

Among the passengers was a Stoic teacher from Athens. During the storm his face turned white, and the look of fear was strewn across the details of his face.

When the skies cleared and the sea calmed, another passenger approached the Stoic and asked him, “What does this mean, sir philosopher, that when we were in danger you were afraid and turned pale, while I neither feared nor changed color?”

The Stoic dismissed the man because of his disrespectful tone.

Later in the journey, another passenger approached the Stoic and respectfully asked him the reason for his fear.

The Stoic responded differently to this curious man and offered him a part of Epictetus’ work specifically related to fear.

In this work, Epictetus explains that the first stages of fear are unavoidable. The initial reaction to a falling building or a sinking ship is to panic and feel the grips of fear. A grip that can threaten to take hold of rational thought and a clear mind.

However, Epictetus explains that the wise man does not entertain these initial reactions. He does not consent to them, he condemns them.

Epictetus said:

“And they say that there is this difference between the mind of a foolish man and that of a wise man, that the foolish man thinks that such ‘visions’ are in fact as dreadful and terrifying as they appear at the original impact of them on his mind, and by his assent he approves of such ideas as if they were rightly to be feared, and ‘confirms’ them …. But the wise man, after being affected for a short time and slightly in his colour and expression, ‘does not assent,’ but retains the steadfastness and strength of the opinion which he has always had about visions of this kind, namely that they are in no wise to be feared but excite terror by a false appearance and vain alarms”

– The Discourses by Epictetus

So, courage is the ability to retain strength of character and our morals in the face of the fear and desire not to do so.

3. The Virtue of Justice:

Justice in Stoicism is broader than the way we define it in our language and legal systems today. For the Stoics, justice is our duty to our fellow man and to our society. It’s the morality behind how we act, specifically in relation to our community and the people within it.

“And a commitment to justice in your own acts. Which means: thought and action resulting in the common good. What you were born to do.”

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.31

Justice is all about fairness, kindness, and treating others with respect. It involves understanding our place within society and working to create harmony and balance within our communities. In the Stoic view, practicing justice means treating others as we would like to be treated, and upholding our responsibilities to our fellow humans, whether they be family, friends, or strangers.

Are we kind, courteous, understanding, respectful, fair, and generous? Do we provide support when people need it? Do we give back to our community, or do we just take?

Cicero, the Roman statesman and philosopher, said:

“Justice is the crowning glory of the virtues.” 

Justice guides all other virtues because it is your moral compass. It serves to focus your actions toward the betterment of the whole rather than just yourself.

Marcus Aurelius wrote:

“What is not good for the beehive, cannot be good for the bees.”

If we damage our community, we ultimately damage ourselves. Justice, then, is our ability to benefit the hive.

“It’s in keeping with Nature to show our friends affection and to celebrate their advancement, as if it were our very own. For if we don’t do this, virtue, which is strengthened only by exercising our perceptions, will no longer endure in us.”

– Seneca, Letters, 109.15

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4. The Virtue of Temperance:

“Pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishments.”

Seneca

Temperance can also be called moderation. It relates to self-restraint, self-discipline, and self-control. It is our ability to choose long-term well-being over short-term satisfaction.

Moderation is about finding balance and harmony in our lives, avoiding excess, and seeking contentment in simplicity. The Stoics believe that we should strive for self-control and manage our desires and emotions to maintain a sense of inner peace.

Through the practice of moderation, we can prevent ourselves from being swept away by external events or desires, allowing us to focus on cultivating our inner virtues.

“Since habit is such a powerful influence, and we’re used to pursuing our impulses to gain and avoid outside our own choice, we should set a contrary habit against that, and where appearances are really slippery, use the counterforce of our training.”

– Epictetus, Discourses, 3.12.6

Temperance helps us detach our well-being from extremes like a dependence on material goods, drink, drugs, social media, video games, porn, etc. Many Stoics chose to live lives of simplicity and frugality, refraining from buying expensive clothes, eating rich foods, sleeping on soft beds, or even warming themselves.

Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor of Rome, was known to sleep on a soldier’s bed. Seneca swam in cold water and took cold baths, and Cato the Younger was known for living a simple and frugal life despite being a Roman Senator.

“I, a great lover of cold baths, who used to celebrate the new year by taking a plunge into the canal, who, just as naturally as I would set out to do some reading or writing, or to compose a speech, used to inaugurate the first of the year with a plunge into the Virgo aqueduct [part of the Roman baths]”

– Seneca, Letter 83 (10) to Lucilius

Now, I’m not saying you should sell your TV and your car and move into the mountains to raise goats. But, I think you’ll agree with me when I suggest that moderation of comfort and pleasure is normally a good thing.

Seneca wrote about being overindulgent with our possessions:

“Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realise how unnecessary many things are. We’ve been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.”   

Why is Virtue Important?

Stoicism teaches us that the ultimate goal in life is to achieve happiness, or what they called eudaimonia (a deep sense of fulfillment and well-being).

As we’ve seen, to the Stoics, the path to happiness lies not in seeking external pleasures or material wealth but in developing and cultivating our inner character and striving to live a life in harmony with nature and reason. With this in mind, it’s easy to see the importance of virtue and stitching the four virtues above into our thoughts and actions.

Virtue, in the Stoic view, is the highest form of excellence and the best expression of human nature. Vice is the opposite of these things, dragging us down to the level of beasts, pulled this way and that by our desires.

Through living with the virtues of wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice, we put ourselves on the path of a good life, allowing us to navigate hardship, adversity, and uncertainty with peace of mind, resilience, and grace. A virtuous life helps us respond constructively to challenges, make wise decisions, and find a sense of inner peace, regardless of external circumstances.

The Stoics believed that reflecting these virtues in our own lives was important because we only really control our thoughts and actions, and if these things are within our control, they are our responsibility, and if they are our responsibility, then it is up to us to make sure they are good.

Moreover, living with virtue helps us foster healthier relationships with others, contribute to the well-being of our communities, and lead by example. When we practice virtues like wisdom, courage, justice, and moderation, we become better friends, partners, family members, and citizens. We create harmony and balance in our lives, and we contribute to the greater good of society.

All in all, the Stoics believed that living with virtue was important because it holds the key to achieving true happiness and well-being. Through developing our inner character and focusing on what’s truly within our control, we can navigate life’s challenges with wisdom and resilience. Virtue allows us to live well, foster meaningful relationships, and contribute positively to the world around us, hopefully allowing us to leave the world a little better than when we found it.

“If, at some point in your life, you should come across anything better than justice, prudence, self-control, courage—than a mind satisfied that it has succeeded in enabling you to act rationally, and satisfied to accept what’s beyond its control—if you find anything better than that, embrace it without reservations—it must be an extraordinary thing indeed—and enjoy it to the full.

But if nothing presents itself that’s superior to the spirit that lives within—the one that has subordinated individual desires to itself, that discriminates among impressions, that has broken free of physical temptations, and subordinated itself to the gods, and looks out for human beings’ welfare—if you find that there’s nothing more important or valuable than that, then don’t make room for anything but it.”

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.6

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