One of the most notorious of the Stoic ethical claims is that since virtue is the only good, health is adiaphora. Adiaphora in this usage gets translated to English as “indifferent.” It’s not a perfect fit. With “indifferent” the focus is on the person making a judgment. In their judgment, they don’t value A any differently than they value B. With the ancient Greek term adiaphora, the value is inherent to the object being valued. A’s value is not different from B’s value.

Except for the Stoics' fellow travelers, the Cynics, pretty much every other ancient Greek philosopher thought this was nuts.

I’ve been sick for 18 days. It started off as a normal cold - something I figured I’d shake off in a few days. Ten days later, my wife and daughter came down sick with the same symptoms. Our daughter has already shaken it off and is back at work. My wife still has a bad cough, but she says otherwise she’s about 90% of normal. I’ve been to urgent care once, one doctor’s visit, and one phone consultation with my doctor. And last but not least, my wife is a physician! She writes a lovely Substack of her own - much more popular than mine - about being a doctor. It’s a mix of storytelling about patients, practical medical advice, a window to what’s going on in a doctor’s mind about how to treat the patient, and an occasional dash of philosophy. My illness has caused me to be featured in one of her recent articles.

The Stoics get accused of playing a word game with the adiaphora. While they claim that the adiaphora lack the inherent quality of being good or bad (with respect to virtue, which they say is the only good), the adiaphora have situationally instrumental value. In other words, in most situations, one will be better able to perform virtuously if one is healthy. Because of this, health has some situational value with respect to virtue.

Having spent nearly three weeks now miserable - by the way, we were supposed to go on vacation this week, but that had to be canceled - my experience is that health is not adiaphora.

I’m hardly the first person to notice this. This nonsense about health being adiaphora was pointed out in the early days of Stoicism. The Stoic philosopher and student of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, Dionysius of Heraclea once became very ill. This pushed him to explore and reconsider the Stoic dogma that health is adiaphora. He concluded that the Stoics were wrong. He quit being a Stoic and joined the Cyrenaics, finding them to be more sensible.

That’s not to say that illness is definitely bad, either. If I were not sick, I probably would not be writing this article. This article, it seems to me, may be able to do some good in the world, to dispel some dogmatic nonsense.

A nice point of comparison here for something sensible is Buddhism’s attitude towards health. One of the most basic Buddhist practices is called “metta” or “loving-kindness” meditation. It’s very simple. Just get into a comfortable seated position and recite in your mind (or say out loud) the following phrases (there are many variations on this):

May I be safe, healthy, and happy.

May I be filled with loving-kindness.

May I be peaceful and filled with joy.

Then, think about some people you care about. Pick one, then recite:

May my wife be safe, healthy, and happy.

May my wife be filled with loving-kindness.

May my wife be peaceful and filled with joy.

Then, think about someone neutral to you. Pick one, then recite:

May Stoics be safe, healthy, and happy.

May Stoics be filled with loving-kindness.

May Stoics be peaceful and filled with joy.

And finally, pick someone you are having difficulties with. Then recite:

May the person who slandered me on social media be safe, healthy, and happy.

May the person who slandered me on social media be filled with loving-kindness.

May the person who slandered me on social media be peaceful and filled with joy.

Notice how health is central to all of this. No one wishes to be ill.

To all readers of Ataraxia or Bust, may you enjoy good health.