Spinoza
Active member
The revaluation of external objects brings with it a tremendous sense of confidence and inner peace. Grief, fear, envy, desire, and every form of anxiety, result from the incorrect supposition that happiness is to be found outside oneself . Like earlier Stoics, Epictetus rejects the supposition that such emotions are imposed on us by circumstances or internal forces and are largely beyond our control. Our feelings, as well as our behavior, are an expression of what seems right to us, conditioned by our judgments of value . If we correct our judgments, our feelings will be corrected as well.
The analysis is applicable also to feelings like anger and betrayal which relate to the conduct of other people. The choices made by others are of ethical significance only for the agents themselves; to anyone else they are externals and so of no consequence. One should not, then, be angry at Medea for her bad decision. Pity would be better than that, though the really proper response, if one has the opportunity, would be to help her to see her mistake.
Epictetus' conception of emotional adjustment is not that one should be “unfeeling like a statue”. Even the wisest person may tremble or grow pale at some sudden danger, though without false assent. More importantly, there are affective responses it is right to have. “It is fitting to be elated at the good”; that is, at the goods of the soul , and one should also experience the aversive feeling he calls “caution” when considering potential bad choices.
