The Daily Stoic - Daily Stoic Sundays: The Four Stoic Virtues

Episode Date: April 5, 2020

On today's episode, Ryan discusses the Four Stoic Virtues: Courage, Justice, Moderation, and Wisdom. Listen to find out why the Four Virtues are so important in today's world. And check out the new Daily Stoic Four Virtues medallion at https://geni.us/FourVirtuesThis episode is brought to you by Thrive Market, an online marketplace where you can get over 6000 products, whether it's pantry staples, food, wine, and other groceries, or cleaning products, vitamins, or even bath and body products. They have products for any diet or value system, whether it's vegan, non-GMO, paleo, keto, kosher, halal, non-FODMAP, and more. Visit thrivemarket.com/stoic to get 25% off your order today. ***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Ryan:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Sunday edition of the Daily Stood Podcast. My name is Ryan Holiday. For over a decade I've been writing and thinking and talking about stilicism and so each Sunday now We're going to be rolling out a special episode that will be either me riffing on a number of topics, maybe me riffing or expanding on an article that I've written or deep diving into an idea that I think's important that I think you'll benefit from. So I hope you like it. Support our sponsors who make this episode possible and of of course, keep studying, keep reading, and thank you. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward.

Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. For the Stoics, there's really sort of four tentpole values, sort of four dead rock ideas that the whole philosophy is built around. And as it happens, these are the same ideas that Christianity is built around, that Aristotle's philosophy is built around. They call these the cardinal virtues. And those four virtues are really straightforward. It's courage, justice, moderation, and wisdom.

We call them the four virtues at Deoistote, because Cardinal has the sort of religious connotations for people. Actually, all cardinal means that comes from the Latin word cardos, and cardos just means hinge. So the idea of these four virtues, is that life hinges on courage and temperance and justice and wisdom. I think that's totally right. It's impossible to be a good person and have a good life if you're a coward,

if you do the wrong thing regularly, if you're totally out of balance, and if you're stupid, if you're ignorant, if you're not pursuing wisdom. And so for the Stoic's life was about facing every situation, greeting every experience with one or four of those virtues. Courage, to me, is one of the most important, you know, there's that line in all the pretty horses. He says, the world wants to know if you have cajonas, if you're brave. And I think it's impossible to have a good life without bravery. If you run from challenges, if you're afraid, if you don't believe in yourself, if you lack confidence, if you can't meet the blows

that fortune he's at US, as Senaqa says. And so this idea of courage, the courage of a lion, that's how the Stoics tended to represent it, it's just essential. And then this leads into the next virtue for them, the virtue of moderation. You might think courage and moderation are opposites. Actually Aristotle believed that courage was in the exact middle between cowardice on

the one hand and recklessness on the other. And so this idea of balance, Marguerite Gossanore in memoirs of Hadar and she talks about how the Romans were poisoning themselves with excess. And so doing like depriving themselves of the true pleasure, the sort of simple middle ground, to just the right amount of things. And so for the still we have to find that right amount of things. And then what are the right things, right? This is the virtue of justice.

We go into the virtue of justice. So like if you're being courageous, but for your own good or for a bad cause, right? Julius Caesar and Cato are both courageous. Cato, the Stoic, is courageous for the right thing. The preservation of the Roman Republic, fairness, liberty, honor, duty. Julius Caesar is in this for himself.

And so for the Stoic, courage is meaningless. Moderation is meaningless if it's not aimed at the right goal. And then how the Stoic courage is meaningless, moderation is meaningless, if it's not aimed at the right goal. And then how do you find what that right goal is? This is the virtue of wisdom, the pursuit of wisdom. We live in times with unlimited information, but truth is truly rare. And so for the Stoics, it was Sophia, the love of knowledge, the love of wisdom, chasing truth that really mattered, finding what was right, finding great mentors, great teachers, great books, great philosophies in pursuit of that wisdom. And so this idea of the four virtues, it's like, there's

nothing better than those. Mark's really, he said, you know, try not to exchange these virtues for others. He said, like, if you ever find anything better than courage, justice, wisdom and temperance, like it must be extraordinary, I would argue that thing doesn't exist. So in my pocket, I carry the virtues coin, Sophia, that's the owl, that's wisdom. We have the scales of justice. We have a man watering down his wine. That was the symbol in the ancient world for moderation. And then we have the courage of the lion. And so courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom, try not to exchange these for others.

That's what Marcus Aurelius wanted. The idea is like, how do you have physical reminders of these ideas? I think very few people would argue that courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom are not important. The key is like, how do you call up those ideas in situations where they really count, or they really matter?

Virtue is erotic, which means excellence. Moral excellence is a part of that, right? Justice and moderation, but it's excellence period. No one watches a coward. No one watches George Costanza pushing women and children out of the way running from a fire and sign-feld and goes, that cowardice, that's excellence, right? No one sees a politician flip-fopping on an issue so they can stay in office. No one sees someone objectively embarrassing themselves to retain their, you know, a few more minutes of their 15 minutes of fame.

No one sees that kinds of cowardliness and solaceness and goes, that is a human being flourishing. That's someone being their best self. So to me, courage, injustice, and wisdom, and moderation, that is erotic. That is the human being being the best that you can be. And so I just always remind myself, like, is this situation an opportunity for one of these four virtues it always is? And if I'm scared about the consequences of doing that, of standing up for what I think is right,

of chasing some uncomfortable truth of saying, no to something, you know, of committing to a, you know, what I think is just or fair, it's like, look, life is way too short to do anything but these things. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. And if you don't get the Daily Stoke email,

go to dailystoke.com slash email. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Is this thing all? Check one, two, one, two. Hey y'all, I'm Kiki Palmer, I'm an actress, a singer, an entrepreneur, and a Virgo,

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