Don’t Live According to Nature Like the Stoics. Do this Instead.

The ancient Stoics took for their motto, “live according to nature.” While this motto sounds appealing, it turns out to be terrible advice.

The problem is that while nature does seem to provide some guidance — we do have to eat, drink, and sleep, for example — nature’s guidance is ambiguous at best about how to make decisions about how to live in complex human societies, and at worst, plainly bad.

Part of this problem is that complex human societies are man-made things. “Man-made” is an antonym for “natual.” To live according to nature in what is man-made invites calamity.

Any investigation of various human societies will show that they vary considerably in their ideas of what is ethically proper. For example, some societies consider bribery to be a normal transaction. It’s how officials earn their living as they cannot live on what they are officially paid. Other societies consider bribery to be immoral. Countless other examples could be provided.

Despite the vast differences from society to society, the Stoics think that nature gives guidance on how humans should live in complex societies. Worse, the Stoics think that they are in a position to know what that guidance is. It is this false knowledge that in the midst of the mostly commonsensical advice…