Friday — Relationships and the Circles of Hierocles.

Harvey Weir
Aug 25, 2017 · 2 min read

Today’s morning text is about relationships. It focuses on your attitude to the people around you, especially those who are “meddling, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, and unsociable.” Aurelius says that it is impossible to be harmed by these people, because they are human, just like you. He says that it is impossible to “be angry with my relative or hate him.”

The midday activity is called the Circles of Hierocles. This activity is a 5–10 meditation like activity, during which you imagine a circle of light emerging from your body, and moving to encompass all human beings on the planet. The circle of light is meant to symbolise “philosophical and philanthropic affection.”

So why stop at humans? The next rational step of Aurelius and Hierocles’ arguments — that you must eliminate the preconception of the “other” when considering your fellow human beings — is to include non-human animals.

There are some counter-arguments to the idea that animals should be given similar rights as humans.

There are the religious arguments, which are that non-human animals do not have an immortal soul, and that God gave humans dominion over animals. I do not want to extend into an argument over the existence of God, so for the sake of this discussion the assumption is that God does not exist.

There is also the argument that animals are intellectually very inferior to humans. This may be the case when comparing the average adult human with the average adult dog, but if you use intelligence as an argument for segregating animals and humans, then you are faced with a dilemma. The average adult dog, or dolphin, or meerkat, is significantly more intelligent than the average human baby or toddler. Does that mean that adult animals have more rights than infant humans?

Personally, the only way I can accept the idea that all humans are my relatives is if it is applied to all conscious beings.

The evening text addresses how certain types of people view favours. It says that one type of person will lend their friend $100, and then expect $100 in return. The second type of person will lend their friend $100, and then will act as though that friend owes them a favour. The third type of person will lend their friend $100, and do it because they care about their friend. They will not expect anything in return or any compensation. Aurelius says that the third person is the most good.

I believe that this is accurate, to the extent where the person doing the favour doesn’t harm themselves in any significant way because they are doing the favour. Once you reach that point, I would say that it is justified to expect at least minimal compensation for a favour that impacts you both negatively and significantly.

Stoic Week — How practical is it to live like Seneca?

I’m going to spend one week living like a Stoic, using the Stoic Week handbook. Hopefully by the end of the week I’ll have a greater understanding of Stoicism, and also whether or not it can be reasonably applied to the modern world.

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