To Use Stoicism as a Tool vs Stoicism as According to their Virtues
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 2 votes and with 7 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- Two weeks
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
- Voting period
- Six months
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
"Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that the practice of virtue is both necessary and sufficient to achieve eudaimonia (happiness, lit. 'good spiritedness'): one flourishes by living an ethical life. The Stoics identified the path to eudaimonia with a life spent practicing virtue and living in accordance with nature.
Alongside Aristotelian ethics, the Stoic tradition forms one of the major founding approaches to virtue ethics.[1] The Stoics are especially known for teaching that "virtue is the only good" for human beings, and that external things, such as health, wealth, and pleasure, are not good or bad in themselves (adiaphora) but have value as "material for virtue to act upon". Many Stoics—such as Seneca and Epictetus—emphasized that because "virtue is sufficient for happiness", a sage would be emotionally resilient to misfortune. The Stoics also held that certain destructive emotions resulted from errors of judgment, and they believed people should aim to maintain a will (called prohairesis) that is "in accordance with nature". Because of this, the Stoics thought the best indication of an individual's philosophy was not what a person said but how a person behaved.[2] To live a good life, one had to understand the rules of the natural order since they thought everything was rooted in nature."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism
If a purpose of Stoicism be to achieve happiness, to flourish,
By virtue of good character and action.
Then I argue as a tool, it fits finely into place.
Dominate one's business rivals,
Pick up romantic partners,
Play the crypto market,
Drop bombs in war.
People have different values, ideals,
Stoicism itself changed early on,
"Early Stoics differed significantly from late Stoics in their views of sexuality, romantic love and sexual relationships."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism
Are Stoic view of living in tune with nature to be held on 'exactly,
So often one hears fallacy, fallacy, about that in debates,
So then let Stoicism be flexible.
I argue at it's core is contained,
Self control,
Objective thinking,
Distance from 'pure passion ruling oneself.
Then I argue it works well as a control, a tool,
And let the individuals virtues be as they reason, not dogma,
Is happiness, good spiritedness not 'felt, not passion?
I found Pro's arguments a little thin. I think the concept of atheist Christian was fantastic, and if developed more, could have won the argument. Con did a better job explaining their position, although ran into some potential problems with the moral and intellectual bankrupt claims. Unfortunately Pro did not attack those concepts. Con had a much harder argument to make, and based on the narrative was the winner. Conduct and Sources a tie.
The bar joke was funny, however, the zoo joke was the better of the 4 jokes.
There is a huge gap between Pro and Con. While I am ideologically aligned with Pro which is my bias, Con approaches this with superior knowledge and authority on the subject that it makes me favor his side.
Pro is arguing for using stoicism selectively, picking and choosing which values to adopt to enhance your own life. His side therefore seems to support an independent and more individualist way of thinking where you take and learn from separate ideologies. That overall, it’s better for someone’s mindset to prioritize diversity over putting Stoicism on a pedestal. Pro’s argument is that stoicism and hedonism aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
Con argues that it is insufficient to cherry-pick beliefs and that Stoicism requires a full commitment in order to obtain true happiness. In round 1, Con implies I must vote down Pro because him using the description as his Round 1 argument and the limited character count puts him at a disadvantage. I’m not going to oblige this request for two reasons.:
1. It’s not against the rules for debaters to use their description as their round 1 argument.
2. It’s a silly demand.
Con argues that devotion to one school of thought is inherently better than being indecisive and following multiple schools.
Pro had one good example, regarding the MMA fighter but he didn’t do a very good job at supporting his side or defending against Con’s brutal attacks. So Con wins for arguments.
Spelling & grammar is a tie.
Both sides utilized sources for their points, so it’s a tie.
Conduct is a tie.
Ah, I recognize that guys face,(Jreg)
After I just looked him up on YouTube,
Does a 'lot of videos on various ideologies,
Ran for mayor in a city.
The Youtuber (Jreg) talks about how we should commit to frameworks. One of his direct quotes is "if it's the one you die with is irrelevant", which leads me to believe it's less about any specific framework, but simply saying people should commit to a "way of being" instead of passively accepting the status quo. It was more interesting to reinterpret their work as a critique of the concept of cherry-picking pieces of frameworks as opposed to being passively nihilist.
Yeah, any philosophy that says their internal salvation is more important than external good is probably not a good idea. Like, I want to live humbly and all that jazz, but if I'm suffering, I'll be up in arms, you know? Too materialistic for my own good, maybe.
I think the poetics are less that it's a formal poem that rhymes or anything like that, but when I read it, you seem to be conversing in an "abnormal" way, which makes me reconsider this as a medium. For example, you are much more willing to engage in grammatical "errors" and weird spacing, but reading your arguments is easier (for me at least) than traditional writing. I think, and maybe I'm reading way too much into it, you force me to question what makes "good" communication, and if the norms we've developed in this community and writing habits writ large are natural or imposed.
I did notice it was a theme in the debate.
Does the Youtuber speak of a specific framework being cherrypicked,
Or framework pieces in general, being picked and chosen?
Of 'true Stoicism, I don't know much,
But could argue they were concerned with not being enslaved by their own mind,
Rather than their outer condition.
Of thought, typing, I'm uncertain.
. . .
Those three dots, well,
Were in my mind,
A pause, a moment thinking,
I 'think it's more typing out, than thought though.
I like separating out points or places, where a breath of air would feel appropriate in life.
Easier to read, I'd imagine.
I've heard it pointed out before, but what 'exactly is poetic in my speech, misses me a bit.
If the words all rhymed I'd get it,
Or perhaps I'm alliterative in parts,
But I don't much consciously see it.
No, thank you! This was really interesting because, I don't know if you could tell, but my argumentation about cherry-picking parts of a framework is really interesting to me. I do feel like it's a bit of a copout since it wasn't dealing with stoicism directly, but my favorite Youtuber talks about it a lot, so it's on my mind.
I find stoicism kinda goofy, personally, but that's because I find self-suffering philosophies "slave morality" as Nietzsche would call it. The comic you sent made me laugh out loud in class today when I finally looked at it in the mini description, which made me then have to pretend to laugh at something in class.
I love how you type out things. It's like poetry, which makes it really interesting to debate. If you don't mind me asking, and please don't take offense, do you do it intentionally, or is this just how thoughts come into your mind?
Thanks,
And thanks for accepting the debate,
I enjoyed it,
Let me air my thoughts,
Let me hear another's views,
Learn more about Stoicism.
Backstory,
I forgot to put in description, on 'reason for debate,
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/484 - Modern Stoic Philosophy, and the authors comments right below the webcomic.
Debate,
Hm, from my view I lack fine details and organization, in debates.
Still, I like a number of my examples, myself,
And don't think my logic is all in the wrong direction.
For you, I think you did a good job laying out what a Stoic historically is, their beliefs and what.
Connecting their ideas to one another,
Arguing against passion/self interest,
And kept on any points you previously made, asking they be specifically addressed, than generally handwaved.
Of debaters claiming points during a debate,
Such as saying they successfully refuted an opponents argument,
Or that an opponent failed to do this or that,
I'm unsure, such 'can be true,
'Can be useful in making a point,
But I think of it like boxing a bit,
The boxers don't call out their own points and score, the judges do, at the end.
A person can always 'claim such, even if they didn't,
Such can create an illusion of they 'did.
I'm so happy our jokes will be deliberated for six months. I loved your second one.
Wanna wager the grammar point on who can tell the best two jokes, one in each round?
Yes, I'd be up for that.
Let me read your third round and I'll say yay or nay in my third round post so it's official. Wanna wager the grammar point on who can tell the best two jokes, one in each round?
Well, I've pretty much said my piece,
And beginning to feel a 'bit repeated.
If you're inclined, we can waive rounds 4 and 5,
Which is my preference,
Or we can keep going in rounds 4 and 5,
Which 'might be your preference,
Which if so, I don't mind continuing in 4 and 5.
I like having max rounds,
As debates can develop unexpectedly,
More space if needed, but can always be finished early.
More it would be on Con to argue that using Stoicism without adhering strongly to it's ideology is bad.
While Pro would argue that much of the ideology can be thrown out if convenient, yet still be classified as Stoicism, if many of it's methods and ideas are used.
. . .
I suppose an example could be an Atheist using and following much of the Bible,
To gain advantage.
I imagine many might say they are not a Christian,
And/Or not using Christianity.
I suppose I 'might agree with the not a Christian,
But that there 'are Atheistic Christian,
The Jefferson Bible pops to mind, as something in that direction.
Direction though,
People aren't certain on Jefferson's beliefs I think.
I'm really interested in this debate, but I want to understand it a bit better. Just to clarify, you're defending that stoicism as a tool is good, but stoicism as an ideology in itself is bad?
And if that is correct, is the Con's burden to prove it is good as an ideology in itself or is proving it as a bad tool also sufficient of the Con's burden?