250401 What I learned in my studies this morning 5

Today's Meditation(s):

Letters on Ethics by Seneca, LXXX.1 (Graver)

This reminds me of the gatekeeping I see in many Stoic groups online. Be it FB, Reddit, or what have you, some contemporary Stoics feel that if you don't accept everything the ancient Stoics said, even the nonsensical ideas they have for cosmology and physics, then you aren't a Real Stoic™.

Seneca seems to disagree here. If something doesn't work, we are free to abandon it or modify it as necessary.

We should be reluctant to get rid of even part their guidance, however; only giving it up after thorough investigation shows it to be hopelessly incorrect. These are the well-executed thoughts of people much wiser than we are and have been tested through the ages by countless adherents. None should be tossed aside out of hand.

But that doesn't mean that we must take all of it as gospel. Just like most people recognize that we shouldn't take all the words in the Bible or the Torah or the Koran or the Upanishads literally.

For instance, the idea that the universe is somehow provident doesn't survive modern science. The universe simply is. It follows rules, but there is no goal behind it or hand holding the lever. It does not intend anything. 

The Stoics thought it did and used this as a basis for believing their moral deductions correct.

Can Stoicism survive the loss of an interested, guiding universe?  Yes.

Before, Stoic thought that, if you believe the cosmology and the physics, you would naturally accept the ethics. Now, however, it is a choice people must make despite there being no underlying force which gives meaning to their actions. They must give meaning to their actions and their lives. Nothing ineluctable forces us to be moral.

We. Must. Choose. It.

Freely.

To me, this makes it all the more praiseworthy since now people must do for themselves where prior folks needed an inevitable, literally universal, reason to behave morally.