To Become Happy, Transform Anger into Forbearance

 

Manjushri, the Boddhisattva of Wisdom who cuts through delusion with a flaming sword, was a favorite of the 8th c Buddhist monk and scholar Shantideva.

            I continue to find rich connections between Ancient Indian and Greek philosophies of life, especially Buddhist and Hellenistic (e.g., Epicurean, Stoic) schools of thought.  These philosophers developed therapies for the troubles we find throughout ordinary life.  We want to become happy.  But how do we do this?

            The Greeks debated whether we should completely eliminate harmful emotions, such as anger and fear, or instead find a balanced way to be angry or fearful.  The Stoics said we should get rid of these emotions, whereas Aristotle said we should beware the mistake or “vice” of deficiency even with anger and fear.  Most philosophers nowadays seem to side with Aristotle.  But I think it is worth developing and better understanding the Stoics’ point of view about this matter.

            Epicurus, too, said we should banish fear from our minds, especially those based on unhealthy, groundless opinions we’ve picked up from the society we grew up in.  Like the Stoics, he didn’t think we should simply eliminate unhealthy emotions.  We should transform them into healthy states of mind and character, or create and substitute good emotions (e.g., Stoic eupatheiai) for the unhealthy, imprudent, or unethical ones. 

            Below, I’ve adapted some insights from the Buddhist monk Shantideva, who lived in 8^th century India and developed his ideas at the university-monastery Nalanda.  Although I’ve re-worded things, and organized them into a different order, the insights belong to him, and ultimately to the Buddhist and Greek intellectual traditions.

 

[adapted from Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara, chp 6 “The Excellence of Forbearance”]

It takes effort to become happy, whereas suffering arises and persists with no effort. 

Moreover, it is only through suffering that we can learn to be happy.  If we don’t learn how best to deal with suffering, we will prevent ourselves from ever becoming happy.

            Discomfort, pain, and inconvenience will inevitably arise.  They are distressing.  But we can learn how to tolerate them, and we can learn how to stop perpetuating our distress. 

            By practicing with minor discomforts, we can learn to bear major discomforts more gracefully.  Eventually we can tolerate major discomfort as something bound to happen, or even as a welcome opportunity to practice our ability to deal well with suffering. 

             Also, it is helpful to see that our own choices produce and perpetuate suffering.  The more anger I feel, the more distressed I become.  And what good does it do?  Anger is always distressing in itself, and so a ‘negative’.  And it only rarely produces good consequences, despite our inclination to think that our outrage is merited and that it will help bring about our intended changes.

If there is a solution, then there’s no point in getting angry.  Just work towards the solution and don’t fret.  And if there is no solution, then it is better to adapt. Again, there’s no point in getting angry.

            When I choose to be angry, when I justify my anger (perhaps only to myself), I inflame it.  I get further stuck into it.  I stress myself out, and usually I stress out those around me, too.

            Although I do not wish for suffering, through my ignorance I do wish for the causes of suffering.  Yet I remain optimistic that I can develop deeper understanding and use it to transform myself and change my bad habits into something wiser.

             I can learn to become more patient.  My anger can give way to forbearance.  When I feel offended, I can reflect on the fact that my own interests are not the most important thing in the world, that I am prone to take offense in part because of the priority I give to myself and the confidence I feel in my own interpretations of events. 

Overview of Moral Theories

 

As we study and engage in moral philosophy, we need to appreciate some of the different moral theories that people bring up as they try to persuade us what we ought to do.

Recall from my previous post (What is Morality?) that morality is what we call upon to evaluate other norms such as legal, social, and religious norms.  Whenever we make a moral judgment, such as that capital punishment is wrong, or that it is justifiable, it makes sense to ask why.  Why do you think that?  Why should I believe you?  What are your reasons or arguments for your position? 

Answers to these questions usually at least implicitly invoke moral principles, of varying levels of generality.  Moral behavior and moral policies are principled when, and because, they are supported by good reasons which explain why we ought to do one thing rather than another.  But even if we restrict our attention to the principles that serve as good reasons for action, we must consider what to do when such principles conflict.  What are we to do, for example, when one principle calls us to be beneficent and another principle alleges that that would be unfair? 

This is the role of moral theories: to adjudicate conflicts between moral principles. 

It is helpful if we distinguish moral theories by their methods of resolving controversies.  Whenever two people disagree about right or wrong, or whenever two principles conflict by giving us different directions (e.g., one says ‘Do it!’ and the other says ‘Don’t do it!), we need an arbiter to decide between them or else the controversy will remain unresolved. 

Moral theories propose fundamental explanations of the answers to moral questions, and so they purport to have the last word.  There is no further explanation for why we ought to do what we ought to do.

 

Utilitarianism is a famous example.  The utilitarians claim that any moral controversy can be resolved with certain factual information about the effects of our actions, information about how our actions affect others.  They claim that there is one fundamental moral principle: to promote the interests of everyone affected by our actions as much as possible.  This is often referred to as the ‘principle of utility.’

The utilitarian method of resolving moral controversies appeals solely to the benefits and harms that would be produced by whatever actions or policies we are to choose between.  The dispute over a policy of capital punishment, for example, would be resolved by determining whether it would bring more benefit or prevent more harm than not having that policy. 

 

Egoism is often mentioned as another moral theory.  Like utilitarianism, it appeals only to the future effects of an action or policy, but egoism is not interested in how others’ interests are affected.  Only one’s own interests matter, according to the egoist.  The dispute over capital punishment would then be resolved by predicting the effect on one’s self-interest.  

Surely, however, that is a strange method of resolving the controversy.  Egoism seems like a nonstarter if it is understood as a moral theory.  Instead, it is better understood as a skeptical position on which there is no morality – nothing to arbitrate moral controversies.  With no moral reasons applying to us, the egoist says we are to make decisions based only on our self-interest.

 

A different kind of moral theory often called contractarianism claims that the one fundamental moral principle is to honor contracts.  Essentially, this means keeping your word, doing what you say you will do.  The relevant sense of ‘contract’ is meant to be broad enough to include both formal and informal agreements, promises, covenants, and the like. 

Of course, we can ask: what is good about honoring contracts?  I take it the answer is that people ought to be free to decide for themselves what they will do and how they will relate to others.  No one obligates them unless they do so themselves.  But then I wonder if it is really the norm to respect individual freedom that contractarians want to propose as the sole fundamental moral principle.  This leads us to the influential moral theory of Immanuel Kant.

 

Kantianism is best remembered as the theory on which morality reduces to respecting the autonomy of persons.  ‘Never treat others as merely a means to your ends.  Always treat them as ends-in-themselves’ - that's the most memorable formulation of Kant’s proposed fundamental moral principle (which he called ‘the categorical imperative’).  Autonomy is the basis of human dignity and the source of moral reasons, according to Kantians.

 

Notice that every theory mentioned so far has something in common.  They all propose a single fundamental moral principle that is supposed to resolve any moral controversy, by implying the answer to any moral question once the relevant factual information is provided.  (Which factual information is relevant is itself selected for by the proposed principle.  Utilitarians claim it is information about the interests of everyone affected, contractarians claim it is information about what was agreed to, etc.)

 

A pluralist moral theory is distinguished by proposing that more than one moral principle is fundamental, so that all moral controversies are to be resolved by appeal to a plurality of principles.  The different versions of pluralism differ over which principles they claim are fundamental.  Some claim there are two such principles: Beneficence and Justice.  Others claim there are more: the Oxford philosopher W. D. Ross famously proposed seven principles to serve as the foundations of ethics.  Pluralists will agree, however, that whenever we face a controversy over what to do, or which policy to approve, we ought to resolve it by appeal to a plurality of fundamental moral principles. 

This leads to a perplexing question that haunts every pluralist theory: what are we to do when the principles proposed by a pluralist themselves give us conflicting directions?  When Beneficence says to help, but Justice says to refrain from helping, the pluralist theory on which those are the two fundamental moral principles seems unable to resolve the controversy.  Moreover, it seems impossible for pluralism to resolve the controversy in a principled way.  For if we were to say that whenever those two principles conflict it is Justice that should be followed, it seems we would thereby propose that Justice is more fundamental, and so there would be a single fundamental moral principle after all (and thus we would no longer be pluralists). 

In response to this question about conflict between their proposed principles, it seems that pluralists have to give an unprincipled answer.  They might say that we can know in particular scenarios which principle to follow, but that there is no general answer. 

 

There are also moral theories that liberate themselves from moral principles.  Implicit in every theory mentioned so far is the idea that we need to consult a moral principle if we are to resolve moral controversies.  But this can be doubted.

Particularists claim that we can intuit what we are to do in particular situations without reference to a principle that applies to other situations.

Virtue ethicists claim that we should focus more on being good people rather than on what to do or which policies to approve.  Good people know what to do, but their knowledge doesn’t consist in knowing which rules to follow or principles to apply, according to virtue ethicists. 

Some feminists see the focus on principles and rules as a mistaken presupposition embedded in a male way of thinking. 

Some thinkers would even endorse a non-theoretical approach to morality, so that it is mistaken to look for a moral theory in the first place. 

An initial challenge for this diverse group of anti-principled approaches to ethics pertains to distinguishing their preferred approaches from an unthinking, irrational or gut-reaction method of resolving moral controversies.  Someone might answer ‘yes’ to the question about whether capital punishment is wrong without having any reasons at all for choosing ‘yes’ rather than ‘no’.  But surely it makes sense to ask for good reasons there, doesn’t it?  Morality concerns serious matters of life and death, in some cases.  If we reject the need to give principled answers, are we also rejecting the need to have good reasons supporting our moral judgments?

 

Finally, there is the question of how we are to decide between these moral theories, or others, since they give us conflicting directions about which principles to follow (or whether to follow principles at all).  Each claims that it is the final arbiter.  But which one do we trust? 

The only help we have here is our own psychological powers of discernment.  We have to think critically about these theories, and their implications in particular scenarios, if we are to decide which is the correct one.

What is Morality?

 

                            Detail from Raphael's School of Athens 

It is not so easy to define what morality is.  It’s easy to say that it’s the study of right and wrong, good and bad.  It’s easy to say that it employs the philosophical methods of rational argument and critical thinking.  It is somewhat harder to say anything substantive about what morality is without getting into controversies.  Perhaps we should simply define morality as the study of controversies over values and norms.  Nevertheless, I hope to convey here a better understanding of what we mean by ‘morality’ when we talk about it in moral philosophy or ethics. 

We’re familiar with talking of a person’s morality, or a culture’s morality, in the sense of the norms or mores they (perhaps implicitly) endorse.  But this is descriptive morality.  It’s what an anthropologist or sociologist or other empirically minded researcher might investigate by surveying people to find out which norms guide their decisions and judgments.  The philosophical study of morality is focused not on descriptive morality, but instead on normative or prescriptive morality: what we ought to do and why.  

 

It is easier to say what morality is not, than it is to say what it is.  Morality is not the same thing as the law, for example.  What the law requires of us depends on the authoritative acts of legislators and judges, and the history of precedents regarding what the law has been said to be.  It may be illegal, for example, in a certain place and time, for different races to mix in a restaurant.  But that doesn’t make it immoral.  In fact, we can judge such laws to be immoral in spite of their legality.  Likewise, morality is not the same thing as tradition, social conventions, or etiquette, since we can ask critical questions about whether and why we ought to do as tradition, or society, says we ought.  Morality is not the same thing as religion either.  Religion seems to always involve a moral code or value system, but it involves much more, too, like God or other deities, sacred texts, a creation story, gender roles, and more. 

Morality in the normative or prescriptive sense is what we appeal to when we judge that we ought, or ought not, to do what religion, or the law, or tradition, etc., says we ought to do.  Moral norms are what we call upon to evaluate other norms such as legal, social, and religious norms.

 

Once we’ve distinguished morality like this, we have to confront the threat of skepticism.  We might start wondering whether there truly is such a thing as morality.  We might be dubious of the idea that morality is something distinctive, as if it were out there in the universe waiting for us to discover the moral truths that tell us what to do and how to live.  What could such a thing be, exactly?  Where did it come from?  How do we know about it?  Might morality instead be a product of our imagination, or a construction of our social agreements?  These questions form the part of moral philosophy called metaethics.  They are descriptive issues, often abstract and conceptual ones, about the foundations of ethics.  Whereas normative ethics tells us about the content of morality (what we ought to do, and why), metaethics tells us about the status of moral judgments (can they be objectively true, and if so what makes them true?).

Fortunately, we can engage in moral philosophy without resolving these big metaethical issues first.  Even if morality is a human construct, with no objective basis, there is work to be done in constructing solutions to the problems of how to live, of what we and our society ought to do, and of who we ought to admire and emulate.  We need to answer questions about particular decisions or policies, including big questions like the sociopolitical values shaping our societies and governments and smaller yet still quite significant questions about consumer choices or where to go to school. 

Thus, we can think of moral philosophy as an activity, something that we do.  It’s the activity of formulating, examining, and assessing solutions to social problems and the problems individuals deal with in choosing how to live. 

 

Moral Principles and the Role of Moral Theories

When we rationally deliberate about what to do (or about issues like which policies to vote for, how to deal with our emotions, or how to raise children), we often appeal to principles that offer a somewhat general explanation.  For example, we might decide to help a stranger in need because we think that this is what should be done by someone with enough time and resources, or we might decide that the inconvenience would be great enough to excuse us from helping.  Either way, there seems to be a principle involved, perhaps implicitly, in thinking that our particular situation fits into some pattern or kind of situation that calls for either helping or not helping at that time.

Here are a few moral principles often appealed to in explicit or official rationales and decisions:

·       Beneficence: Help others when it is feasible and avoid causing them unnecessary harm.

·       Justice: Avoid unfairness and injustice, and treat like cases alike. 

·       Autonomy: Respect the free decisions of individuals who are capable of deciding for themselves.

            I only mention these as examples of moral principles.  No doubt we should examine these principles carefully once we start sifting through moral controversies.  Clearly, also, there are many more moral principles worth considering.  Some will be more general and others will involve more particular details, qualifications, or exceptions. 

It is good to think, and act, with principles.  But a big question looms regarding which principles to live by.  What should we do when our tried-and-true moral principles give us conflicting directions?  For example, suppose that Beneficence tells us to stop and help but Justice says no for that would create unfairness.  In such a situation, what are we to do?  Which principle ought we to follow? 

This is the role of moral theories: to resolve conflicts between moral principles, and to reveal the ultimate basis and justification for resolving any moral controversies.  Just as moral principles tell us what to do and often also tell us why we ought to do it, moral theories purport to offer fundamental explanations of right and wrong, good and bad.  They tell us which principles apply to us, and why.  Moral theories are thus not neutral.  They support some principles and undermine others. 

Perhaps skeptical doubts begin to arise again, once we consider that there are multiple moral theories competing to be the one that will help us resolve our controversies as they ought to be resolved.  Indeed, it is easy to think that nothing can establish one moral theory as better than another, since such questions of which is better than which are precisely part of the topic of controversy here.  But we can be more optimistic.  For one thing, we are sometimes rightfully confident about what to do.  Sometimes an ethical issue does not seem controversial at all.  Our confidence in preferring a fair outcome of a criminal trial, for example, seems well supported.  So, any principles that conflict with this more particular judgment are problematic to the extent that they conflict with it.  If we can trust some of our judgments (based on individual experience or values or intuition, or on social learning or tradition or…), then we have some leverage for rationally supporting some principles and theories over others. 

In effect, there is a back-and-forth to the activity of moral philosophy: we test principles and theories against particular cases (real or hypothetical), and we strive to solve particular moral controversies by appeal to principles and theories that seem well-supported.

Thanksgiving with Marcus Aurelius

            In the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving each year in November.  This is often wrapped up in a mythology of our country’s founding according to which friendly settlers shared food with the natives and invited them to a big party. 

            Spoiler alert: It didn’t happen that way. 

            Nonetheless, it is good to take time to give thanks.  It leads us to acknowledge good things about life, rather than taking them for granted.  It is also good for mental health, since being grateful can shift one’s state of mind in a very positive direction.  An attitude of appreciation brings all kinds of good feelings and makes one ready to spread them around.

            My students are reading from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations this week.  I chose this text because it is a major source of our knowledge of Stoicism, as well as providing an amazing example of a powerful individual practicing humility and reminding himself to live the values he has accepted.  I also chose for us to read it now because Book I is an exercise in giving thanks.  It is a gratitude-list divided into 17 sections according to whom Marcus is giving thanks.  He begins with his parents and grandparents, then includes teachers, friends, and finally gives thanks to the gods.

            The Meditations were likely written as a private diary on a military campaign.  Its author seems not to have intended to publish it.  It had no title.  It consists of private notes and reminders to himself.  In fact, it was given the title ‘Notes to Himself’ for a while.  The text was preserved by an unknown, fortuitous chain of events.

            As we read, we can witness Marcus trying to improve himself, and we are implicitly challenged to examine our own lives.  Marcus continuously exhorts himself to live his philosophy of life, which was profoundly influenced by Stoicism and in particular by the teachings of the former slave turned Stoic teacher, Epictetus.  Marcus thanks his teacher for introducing him to these ideas:

From Rusticus I received the impression that my character required improvement and discipline...and I am indebted to him for being acquainted with the discourses of Epictetus, which he communicated to me out of his own collection.[1]

            In the rest of the Meditations, Marcus reminds himself of what he believes, who he wishes to be, what he chooses to do, and how he can improve.  He reflects on the nature of the self.  He considers his own mortality, and the death of his loved ones and the men he most admired, as part of the Stoic exercise memento mori to prepare for the inevitable.  He reminds himself continually to be indifferent towards the worthless things we usually seek such as fame, wealth, lavish living, longer life, and pleasure.  And he reminds himself to focus inwardly on his rational abilities and to “despise the body.”^[2]

            Among the many things I am grateful for this Thanksgiving in 2018, is that the following hymn to Nature survived the ravages of history:

Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, O Universe.  Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee.  Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature: from thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. ...^[3]

            Nearly all of Stoic philosophy was lost as papyrus burned or decayed, and as Christianity became a dominant ideological force in the Roman Empire.  Marcus lived an austere philosophy of life while commanding remarkable power.  He was well-respected despite his Stoic values, which were not very popular at the time. 

            But we should remember that history’s heroes have warts.  History is the result of selectively remembering what happened.  We remember Marcus Aurelius through his humble diary, but we also know about the devastation wreaked by the military campaigns he ordered and oversaw. 

           No matter what the historical person, Marcus Aurelius, may have done, the author of his Meditations sets an admirable example that challenges us to be mindful of how we can improve our own lives and those around us.

            We can improve our own state of mind, and become better persons, by eschewing the tendency to be a mindless creature of habit.  We can be more aware, in this very moment, of what is happening inside us and around us.  We can better appreciate our ability to maintain peace of mind.  And we can remember to be grateful.

---

[1] Meditations I.7

[2] Meditations II.2. 

[3] Meditations IV.23

Ancient Greek Philosophies of Life

(Image: Goya's portrait of Athena appearing to Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos)


What is a philosophy of life?
  This phrase ‘philosophy of life’ is used in the popular vernacular, but rather loosely and without a precise meaning.  In more scholarly or academic contexts, its meaning is clarified or sharpened, but still remains a somewhat elusive concept.
  A philosophy of life is different from moral philosophy and ethics.  It is somehow more comprehensive.  Each of them is inherently practical, insofar as it tells us what to do, how to be, what to admire and respect and aspire to, etc.  Ethical theories are characterized by how they define or determine what is good and what is right, what we owe to others, and what we ought to do.  But it is not clear if ethical theories are meant to tell us what to do at every waking instant, or how often we are to act in a deliberate manner.  A philosophy of life, on the other hand, aims to guide everything one does at all times.  It thus typically involves a small set of principles that can guide one’s every decision, like a handbook or map that can be pulled out anytime for instruction.
  Living is an activity, and it can be a deliberate activity with increased awareness of what one is doing and why.  One lives a philosophy of life.  This is more than just an intellectual grasping of the truth, but the intellectual part is quite important, too.  Living according to a philosophy somehow synthesizes intellectual and practical affairs, so that one’s actions proceed from tenets that have been rationally tested, and it is precisely the understanding and accepting of these tenets that commences and sustains one’s activity of living deliberately.
  Living according to a philosophy of life thus becomes lived wisdom.  People lived the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Epicurus, and other Ancient Greek philosophers in the six centuries surrounding the start of the Christian Era, whereas nowadays they are studied as a mostly intellectual enterprise.

Philosophy, Religion, and Spiritual Practices
  These pagan philosophies of life functioned in ways that we now associate with religion.  Today’s Catholics, Episcopalians, and Muslims parallel the ancient Stoics and Epicureans, to choose only a few examples, in being cultures explicitly unified by an ideology and ethos.
  Still, a philosophical way of living should be distinguished from religious ways of living, even if they can be similar, or tied to one another, in practice, and even if some ancient philosophical communities, such as the Epicureans, came to look somewhat cult-ish.  As John Cooper’s Pursuits of Wisdom distinguishes things, religious living characteristically allows that sacred texts, tradition, prayer, divine revelation, feelings of conviction or of a personal relationship with the divine can play a fundamental role in organizing one’s life (p. 17).
  Living according to a philosophy of life, on the other hand, will not grant a fundamental role or authority to such things.  Only a reasoned understanding will do.  There will indeed be important texts, but these are accepted because they exemplify “reasoned ideas about the world and one’s own place within it”, and have been “argued through, rationally worked out, rationally grasped, and rationally defended” (Cooper, 17).  Religious and philosophical ways of living are not mutually exclusive, though.  Early Christianity was framed as a philosophy, and it incorporated parts of Stoicism and Platonism.  The Epicurean philosophical community developed cultural traditions that are hard to distinguish from religion.  And Judaism is arguably a good example of both a religion and a philosophy that has unified a culture over many centuries.
  Despite the need to distinguish philosophical from religious ways of living, one can speak of a philosophy of life as “spiritual”, if we keep in mind that ‘spirit’ can serve as a translation for Greek psuche or Latin animus, which also translate as ‘soul’ and ‘mind’.
  Pierre Hadot expounds on the “spiritual exercises” of Greek philosophies of life, which we might understand more easily if we think of them as mental exercises akin to meditation and concentration.  He claimed that ancient philosophy in Ancient Greece and Rome was “a method of spiritual progress which demanded a radical conversion and transformation of the individual’s way of being” (Hadot "Philosophy as a Way of Life", 265).  Philosophizing was an activity that became indistinguishable from living, so that one’s actively practicing a philosophy of life became one’s life itself.
  According to Hadot, “In Stoicism, as in Epicureanism, philosophizing was a continuous act, permanent and identical with life itself, which had to be renewed at each instant.  For both schools, this act could be defined as an orientation of the attention” (268).  In Stoicism, attention was oriented toward the purity of one’s intentions.  In Epicureanism, by contrast, attention was oriented toward pleasure.
  And you thought that mindfulness was a new, modern fad?  No, of course, we all have known that meditation and the deliberate increasing of awareness of inner life are ancient practices.  But you might have been thinking of Eastern religions or philosophies, and you might be surprised to hear that Ancient Western civilizations included rational-monks aiming at enlightenment through controlling their attention, inner life, and mental activity.

Stoic and Epicurean Philosophies of Life
  Both the Stoics and the Epicureans advised us to live in the present, and to avoid the troubles involved with holding onto the past or dwelling on bad memories, as well as not to worry about uncertain future events.  They emphasized that there is infinite value in each instant, so that lived wisdom was complete, in each moment, no matter when it is cut short by death.  A philosophy of life must be practiced continuously at each instant.  There is no reason to delay; this very moment is the time to begin.
  Wisdom brings peace of mind (ataraxia), inner freedom (autarkeia), and the “cosmic perspective” of being aware of one’s place in the universe or cosmos, as a part of that cosmos.
  Epicurus reduced it all to the pleasure of having eliminated all bodily pain and mental distress.  This is the sole fundamental value and the goal of life, which can be achieved by rationally and prudently pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain and distress.  The Epicureans were thus hedonists, though not at all the stereotypical hedonists that this name now evokes.
  The Stoics claimed that excellence or virtue (arete) is the goal, while allowing for more complex instructions on how to live.  They thought the universe is divinely ordered and inspired, with each part playing a unique and ineliminable role in the whole: “At each instant the ancient sage was conscious of living in the cosmos, and he placed himself in harmony with the cosmos” (Hadot, 265).  The sage will perceive everything as happening in the universal context, and will never cease to have the whole in mind, while being aware of his or her particular place and part in it.
  That’s not to say that the sage knows what will happen next, but instead that whatever happens next is placed into the context as fitting just so.  It is greeted with open arms as a divine gift.
  These ancient philosophies of life advise us to live in a way that could not be troubled no matter what happens.  We can control our inner peace, and thus our happiness and well-being, no matter what uncontrollable forces come our way.

   Cooper, John 2012 Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy Princeton University Press

   Hadot, Pierre 1995 "Philosophy as a Way of Life" translated by Chase, Michael in Davidson, Arnold (ed) Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault Blackwell Publishers

Philosophy of Education

I teach philosophy courses at the college level.  One of my goals in class is to disabuse students of a popular model of education in which students learn passively, absorbing information and knowledge from hearing a lecture.  In this simplistic model, the teacher is the fount of information, or even an expert, transferring knowledge by initiating a process not unlike osmosis.
This model is popular at least in part because there is something right about it.  In a lecture setting, it is possible to transfer information through a simple process of speaking and listening.  So, it is not completely wrong.  Yet even what this model gets right is easily misunderstood, as listening is an activity and not merely a passive reception of information.  Listening takes effort, and attention, and when done well it involves critical thinking and even something like a dialogue in the mind of the listener.

Active Learning
I advocate an alternative model of education that emphasizes the active role of a student.  Learning, too, is an activity.  It is something that students do.  Teachers cannot themselves “learn” students, as in: bring it about that students learn.  (The ungrammatical feel here seems telling – ‘learn’ is an active verb, but it is not comfortably used with a person as its object.)   The old adage You can bring a horse to water but you cannot make it drink often seems appropriate in educational contexts.
Students must learn for themselves.  We learn by engaging with what we read, hear, and observe.  A disengaged student cannot learn, and this disproves the osmosis-model of education.
There are levels to educational engagement.  To be fully engaged, first, one must pay attention, which seems increasingly more difficult as technology like cell phones distracts us and prevents us from focusing for extended periods.  Second, one must articulate and consider which questions are being addressed by the information one is observing: What is the issue?  This too is an activity, noticing an issue at hand, although it is usually done automatically or unconsciously.  Third, one must consider how those questions could be addressed differently, or whether other questions ought to be put forward as an issue at hand.  (I do not pretend this is an exhaustive list.)
I believe that learning depends, in part, on natural and acquired abilities (to read, to listen, to think critically and intelligently, etc.).  However, it also importantly depends on the effort that students make to learn and to actively engage.  A student’s engagement is the key factor under their control in the classroom, in the library, and outside the traditional contexts of learning.  Indeed, it is outside such contexts where acquired information becomes solidified into something like learning or knowledge, as one continues (automatically or deliberately) to think about and engage with the issues that one actively noticed were raised.
In sum, engaged learning requires an active, inner dialogue.  Recognizing this may help us all, teachers and students alike, improve as thinkers and learners.

Humble Teaching

My alternative model of education also acknowledges the ignorance of teachers.  While teachers can be expert in some things, like math, the notion of expertise is problematic in the courses I teach such as ‘Social and Political Philosophy’, ‘Ethical Theory’, and ‘Critical Thinking about Moral Problems.’  A teacher’s perspective can be more informed, or more reflective, than a student’s, but there is no in-principle privilege to any person’s perspective on the fundamental questions of justice, freedom, equality, morality, and values.  Also, we should not pretend that teachers are fully informed and fully reflective.
If a teacher can honestly confess to lacking knowledge, as the prelude to demonstrating a sincere search for it, it helps put the teacher on a closer level with students as they engage together in the process of learning.  I claim that humility is a virtue in a teacher, and that recognizing one’s own ignorance can set a good example for students.  (Some students may be prone to see humility as a weakness, but honesty and forthrightness are clear strengths.  Also, remember that students may need to be disabused of their stereotypes of education.)  I take this insight from Plato’s Socrates, while leaving behind any idea that philosophers are naturally privileged with better access to important truths.
To clarify, I do not deny that some perspectives are objectively better than others at accessing the truth.  The implication is instead that we all are fallible when it comes to understanding, appreciating, and then acting according to reasons for accepting or rejecting claims about values, morals, justice and injustice.
     We teachers ought to take up the role of learners in our own classrooms, and be forthright about that.