Discourses · Chapter
XI: Of Natural Affection explained
Epictetus challenges a magistrate who abandoned his sick daughter, arguing that true natural affection must align with reason.
What happens
Epictetus challenges a magistrate who abandoned his sick daughter, arguing that true natural affection must align with reason. He demonstrates that the man's flight was neither affectionate nor rational, and traces all actions to the will and opinion, not external causes.
Themes in this chapter
Rationality and Self-Examination
Epictetus insists that natural affection must be examined by reason; the magistrate's behavior is shown to be irrational and therefore not truly affectionate.
Dichotomy of Control
The chapter emphasizes that our opinions and choices are in our power, while external events (like a child's illness) are not; the cause of action lies within the will.
Desire and Aversion
The magistrate's aversion to his daughter's suffering led him to flee, but Epictetus shows that such aversion, if not guided by reason, produces harmful results.
Characters to notice
- Epictetus
Engages a magistrate in dialectic to expose the inconsistency between his claim of natural affection and his act of deserting his sick child.
- Achilles
Cited as an example: his lamentation for Patroclus was caused by his own choice, not by the death itself.
- Patroclus
Mentioned as the companion whose death prompted Achilles' lamentation, illustrating that the cause lies in opinion, not the event.
Key passages
“Does affection to those of your family appear to you to be according to nature and to be good? ... Whatever then we shall discover to be at the same time affectionate and also consistent with reason, this we confidently declare to be right and good.”
Epictetus argues that genuine familial love must be tested by reason; only actions that are both loving and rational can be considered truly good and natural.
This establishes the Stoic criterion for evaluating natural affection.
“This then was the cause of Achilles’ lamentation, not the death of Patroclus; for another man does not behave thus on the death of his companion; but it was because he chose to do so.”
Achilles grieved not because Patroclus died, but because he chose to grieve; the same event would prompt different responses in different people, showing that our own judgment is the true cause.
Epictetus uses Achilles to illustrate that our reactions stem from our own choices, not external events.