What Do the Stoics Mean by “Live According to Nature”?
Chrysippus, Zeno, and Epictetus on what it means to live according to nature
One of the more perplexing ideas handed down from the ancient Stoics is the motto, “live according to nature.” It’s a nice-sounding motto, but it is less than obvious what it really means.
Perhaps the ancient Stoics provided thorough explanations about what “live according to nature” meant, but, sadly, these have not survived. The closest thing we have to that comes from Seneca in his fifth letter to Lucilius:
Our motto, as you know, is ‘Live according to Nature;’ but it is quite contrary to nature to torture the body, to hate unlaboured elegance, to be dirty on purpose, to eat food that is not only plain, but disgusting and forbidding.
Decoding What “Live According to Nature” Means
A helpful pointer about what “live according to nature” meant to the ancient Greeks is that in ancient Greek the concept of nature had a commonly used antonym typically translated as “convention.” What is opposite to nature is what is conceived of by man — what is by convention. So, to “live according to nature” means that one should defer to nature over convention.
Epictetus gives an example of how one should disregard conventions about how one should feel about the…
