Did the Stoics really think all emotions are bad?

Accepted answer

1. Giulia Ferrante 4 weeks ago

   ✓ Accepted answer Fellow

   The short answer is no, though the vocabulary makes it easy to misread.

   The Stoics distinguished pathē (passions) from eupatheiai ("good feelings"). The passions, such as distress, fear, appetite and pleasure in the excessive sense, are judgments that something indifferent (money, health, reputation) is truly good or bad, accompanied by an excessive impulse. Those they wanted to remove.

   The good feelings are the wise person's healthy versions: joy instead of excessive pleasure, caution instead of fear, wishing instead of craving. Notably there's no good counterpart of distress.

   There are also first movements (propatheiai): involuntary reactions such as flinching, going pale, a lump in the throat. Seneca discusses these in On Anger Book II. Even the sage has them; what matters is whether you give assent to the judgment that follows.

   So the ideal is not numbness. It's freedom from emotions based on false judgments, with room for deep and steady feeling.

   1. Elin Hedqvist 4 weeks ago

      Fellow

      Giulia, the "first movements" explain why Seneca can say he wept for a friend without contradicting himself. I'll go back to the letters with this in mind.