Book 2, Chapter 12

“But why be angry with the poets?

28 “Even teachers of virtue, philosophers, have been found to call pain the supreme evil. Yet you, young man, when you said a little while ago that this was your view, abandoned it at a word when I asked whether pain was worse even than dishonor. Ask Epicurus the same question: he will tell you that a moderate pain is a greater evil than the greatest dishonor, since dishonor itself contains no evil unless pains follow it. What pain, then, follows Epicurus when he makes this very statement, that pain is the supreme evil? I can imagine no greater dishonor in a philosopher. You have therefore given me enough in answering that dishonor seems to you a greater evil than pain. Hold fast to that alone, and you will understand how firmly pain must be resisted. We need less inquiry into whether pain is an evil than strength of mind to bear it.

“The Stoics spin out their little syllogisms to prove that it is not an evil,

29 “as though the trouble concerned a word, not a reality. Why do you deceive me, Zeno? When you deny outright that what seems horrible to me is an evil, I am captivated: I long to know how something I consider utterly miserable is not even an evil. ‘Nothing is evil,’ he says, ‘except what is disgraceful and vicious.’ You return to nonsense. You do not remove what tormented me. I know pain is not wickedness; stop teaching me that. Teach me this: that it makes no difference whether I suffer pain or not. ‘No difference at all,’ he says, ‘to a happy life, which rests on virtue alone; still, pain is to be rejected.’ Why? ‘It is harsh, contrary to nature, difficult to endure, grim, hard.’”

“But why are we getting angry with poets?

28 “We even find philosophers, supposedly our teachers in goodness, identifying pain as the worst thing of all. You said you thought so yourself just now, young man. But I only had to ask, ‘Worse than disgrace, too?’ and that one word shifted your position. Try putting the question to Epicurus. Even a moderate amount of pain, he’ll answer, is worse than the deepest disgrace. Disgrace has no badness of its own: only the pain that might follow makes it bad. Well, what pain does Epicurus get from this very assertion that pain is the worst thing? No philosopher could say anything more disgraceful, as far as I’m concerned. Your answer that disgrace seems worse to you than pain was therefore enough for me. Keep that conviction, and you’ll see what resistance to pain is called for. Strengthening the mind to endure matters more than debating whether pain is bad.

“The Stoics work out little arguments to prove that it isn’t bad.

29 “You’d think we were struggling with terminology rather than reality! Zeno, why this trickery? When you refuse to call a thing bad that I find terrifying, you draw me in. I want to learn how what’s utterly miserable in my eyes can fail even to be bad. His answer is, ‘Only shameful, vicious conduct is bad.’ Back to nonsense! My trouble is still there; you haven’t lifted it. I already know pain isn’t wickedness, so give up that lesson. What I need you to teach me is that having pain or not having it makes no difference. He says, ‘It never makes any difference to happiness, which rests entirely on virtue. All the same, pain is to be turned down.’ Why is that? ‘It’s rough, unnatural, hard to put up with, distressing, severe.’”