It ain’t no fallacy: on living according to Nature

Epictetus explains exactly why the famous Stoic motto is not logically fallacious

The human heart typically operates “in accordance with Nature,” that is as Nature “intended.” Even though Nature doesn’t actually have intentions.

Sometimes I’m asked to provide a capsule version of Stoicism. Or a bumper sticker version. Or an elevator speech version. You know, the whole thing in a nutshell. The bottom line. It’s incredible how many phrases American English has for “simplify to the essence.” Except that sometimes things are just a bit too complicated to be written out on a bumper sticker or explained during an elevator ride.

“Live according to Nature” is one such thing. It is, Diogenes Laertius tells us, the standard motto of the Stoic school:

“Zeno … said that the goal is to live in harmony with Nature, which means to live according to virtue; for Nature leads us to virtue.” (Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 7.87)

This, in my experience, is both one of the most powerful and most easily misunderstood concepts of Stoicism. Even many who practice Stoic philosophy don’t seem to quite get it. I’ve written about it in the past, but let me try again, from a different angle.

Specifically, people confuse living according to Nature with a common informal logical fallacy, the appeal to Nature. If the Stoics really meant that whatever is natural is ipso facto good then they would indeed be very poor philosophers, and horrible logicians. The fact that Chrysippus, one of the preeminent logicians of antiquity on par with Aristotle, like Zeno also tells us to follow Nature is more likely to hint at the fact that the Stoics meant something different with that phrase.

Indeed, recently I was reading the excellent The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook, by Ward Farnsworth, when I run into a fascinating passage from Epictetus. To set the stage, he’s having a dialogue with a father whose daughter is sick. The father couldn’t stand it anymore and left the daughter with her mother. Epictetus chides him:

“Well then, do you think you were right to have acted in that way? ‘I was behaving naturally,’ he said. But that is the very thing that you must convince me of, replied Epictetus, that you were behaving in accordance with Nature, and I will then convince you that whatever is done in accordance with Nature is rightly done. ‘That’s how all fathers feel,’ said the man, ‘or least most do.’ I don’t dispute that, said Epictetus, but the point at issue between us is whether it’s right to feel like that. For in that case, one would have to say that tumors develop for the good of the body just because they do in fact develop, and, in a word, that to fall into error is natural just because almost all of us, or at least most of us, do fall into error.” (Discourses 1.11.4–7)

This passage is usually discussed in the context of Epictetus’s role ethics, as the father is supposed to consider his role as a parent and act accordingly. But my interest here is different.

Notice first of all that we are witnessing an example of Epictetus’s modification of the Socratic Method (again, Farnsworth’s book is highly recommended!). Socrates typically asked questions to his interlocutors in order to generate aporia, i.e., confusion, so that they would be less sure of what they thought they knew. Epictetus, by contrast, wants to lead the student to a specific conclusion, but instead of telling him straight out he nudges the student by way of a series of questions, so that he will eventually arrive at the conclusion on his own. (In fact, this is also what Socrates does in Xenophon’s writings, as distinct from Plato’s, and let’s not forget that it was Xenophon’s Memorabilia that influenced Zeno, the founder of Stoicism.)

Second, and more to my point here, Epictetus very clearly makes the distinction between following Nature and appealing to nature. Let’s rewind slowly:

“That is the very thing that you must convince me of, that you were behaving in accordance with Nature, and I will then convince you that whatever is done in accordance with Nature is rightly done.”

Here Epictetus is simply reasserting the Stoic motto to the distraught father: live in accordance with Nature. To which the father meekly replies:

“That’s how all fathers feel, or least most do.” Which follows his earlier statement that he was “behaving naturally.” Epictetus at this point makes an important move, which is still controversial today:

“I don’t dispute that, but the point at issue between us is whether it’s right to feel like that.”

He dares question the man’s feelings! Nowadays that’s a no-no. It’s considered outrageous and insulting to question the way someone feels. In fact, that’s not only possible, but in some cases it is therapeutically necessary. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which developed from an inspiration provided by Stoicism, does precisely that, all the time.

The idea is that our feelings, or emotions (I’m using the two terms interchangeably here, though technically they are distinct [1]), have a cognitive component. We feel in a certain way because we think in a certain way. Change your thinking and, eventually, you will change how you feel.

You may have experienced that. Say you find yourself in a tense situation and you feel your frustration begin to mount because a relative is making a series of annoying or disturbing comments at dinner. Then someone else intervenes with a joke that suddenly releases the tension. You laugh because you realize that the relative in question didn’t mean it, or was acting his usual foolish self, and it’s not worth getting al worked up about it. Stoicism, and CBT, apply this concept of reframing a given situation all the times.

The coup de grace is then delivered by Epictetus in the last bit of the above passage:

“For in that case, one would have to say that tumors develop for the good of the body just because they do in fact develop, and, in a word, that to fall into error is natural just because almost all of us, or at least most of us, do fall into error.”

The two examples he brings up, the tumor and the fact that we make reasoning mistakes, are instances of things that are natural but not in accordance to Nature. Tumors are caused by cells that get out of control (though Epictetus didn’t know the details), that is, cells that act not in the way they are supposed to act. Reasoning mistakes are made when our brains do not function the way they are supposed to function.

Here is another example: the heart is supposed to pump blood when it works in accordance with Nature. But of course from time to time the heart malfunctions and one gets a heart attack. Heart attacks are natural, but not in accordance with Nature. See the difference?

The (fallacious) appeal to nature says that anything that is natural is also good, which is obvious nonsense. To live according to Nature, by contrast, means to act as Nature intended.

Now, for the ancient Stoics Nature literally intended things, because Nature, or God, or Zeus, or Fate, or the web of cause-effect (all equivalent terms for the ancient Stoics, see Diogenes Laertius, 7.136), was regarded as a living organism endowed with reason (the Logos). Presumably, most people nowadays don’t believe in an intelligent living universe, but that doesn’t change the reasoning much.

In evolutionary biology we still talk of the function of different organs as if they were the result of intelligent design. They are not, they are the outcome of a process of natural selection. But that doesn’t alter the fact that it is perfectly meaningful to say that the function of the heart is to pump blood, or that the function of the eyes is to see.

Biologists use plenty of faux anthropomorphic talk, which is fine so long as we understand that such talk is short for long, unwieldy sentences like: “a process of natural selection has led to the survival and differential reproduction of organisms equipped with hearts, eyes, etc. because such organisms are capable of pumping blood, seeing, etc.” Since that kind of talk would be a mouthful, biologists shortened it to anthropomorphic-sounding talk, which is understood not to be taken literally.

We can do the same in modern Stoicism: we talk as if Zeus / Nature / Fate meant to do this or that, but we understand that this is just a shortcut. In reality to live in accordance with Nature just means to understand and respect the way a living organism of the Homo sapiens type functions and thrives (here is a philosophical treatment of this concept, and here is one from the point of view of evolutionary biology). Just like your doctor looks at the health of your heart or eye from a functional perspective without invoking an intelligent designer.

So not only it makes perfect sense to say that we should live according to Nature. Not only this is not the same as the fallacious appeal to nature. The Stoics, as demonstrated here by Epictetus, were perfectly aware of the difference and exploited it cleverly in discourse and effectively in daily life.

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[1] Antonio Damasio, in “Fundamental feelings,” published in Nature 413, 781 (2001), distinguishes the two in the following fashion:

An emotion, be it happiness or sadness, embarrassment or pride, is a patterned collection of chemical and neural responses that is produced by the brain when it detects the presence of an emotionally competent stimulus—an object or situation, for example. The processing of the stimulus may be conscious but it need not be, as the responses are engendered automatically. Emotional responses are a mode of reaction of brains that are prepared by evolution to respond to certain classes of objects and events with certain repertoires of action.

A working definition of feelings is a different matter. Feelings are the mental representation of the physiological changes that characterize emotions. Unlike emotions, which are scientifically public, feelings are indeed private, although no more subjective than any other aspect of the mind, for example my planning of this sentence, or the mental solving of a mathematical problem. Feelings are as amenable to scientific analysis as any other cognitive phenomenon, provided that appropriate methods are used. Moreover, because feelings are the direct consequences of emotions, the elucidation of emotional neurobiology opens the way to elucidating the neurobiology of feelings.

If emotions provide an immediate response to certain challenges and opportunities faced by an organism, the feeling of those emotions provides it with a mental alert. Feelings amplify the impact of a given situation, enhance learning, and increase the probability that comparable situations can be anticipated.

If the above is right, when the Stoics talk about propatheiai (pre-emotions) they are talking about what Damasio calls emotions. When the Stoics use the terms pathē and eupatheiai (unhealthy and healthy emotions, respectively) they are talking about what Damasio calls feelings.