In this episode, I respond to a challenging and emotionally heavy listener question: how can Stoicism claim that only Virtue is Good and only Vice is Evil, even in the face of horrific acts like rape? This isn’t a theoretical exercise in cruelty—it's a serious inquiry into Stoic ethical nuance. The heart of the issue is understanding what Stoicism means when it calls something "indifferent," and why it insists that moral value resides not in actions themselves, but in the moral character of the person choosing them.
I explain the two definitions of indifferents in Stoicism: one refers to things that don’t affect our own character (if we’re not the actor), and the other refers to things whose moral value is undefined until context is applied. Through that lens, I show how horrific acts like rape are always unjust—and thus always vicious—not because of the physical actions involved, but because of the context in which they occur.
This episode isn’t easy listening, but it’s essential for any serious student of Stoicism who wants to understand how Stoic ethics holds together even in the hardest moral cases.
NO MEDITATION CITED THIS EPISODE
THREE TAKEAWAYS
— Stoicism distinguishes between actions and contexts; moral value is always determined by context.
— Rape is not an indifferent in the moral sense; it is always an act of injustice, and thus always vicious.
— Virtue and Vice remain the only true Good and Evil because context—not action—defines moral quality.
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