Replies
A – Marcus Aurelius is the embodiment of a man who contradicts the saying “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He was the living epitome of Stoicism, where one lives to their own standards of the best version of themselves, and care less about anything outside of their control. If we put Marcus Aurelius into the story of Gyges’ Ring, he would be a man that does not use the ring for evil. He would pursue virtue for virtue’s sake, and he would not act selfishly as to desecrate his own name. The idea of Epictetus and Aurelius that mankind should live “naturally,” stood out to me in its irony. Marcus Aurelius would argue that one should not give in to temptations and irrational desires, yet if one is born with temptations, irrationality, and desires, or in other words, they naturally hold these attributes, then doesn’t it contradict the stoic principle to control the natural tendency of the man?’
B- The example of Marcus Aurelis does support that the wise individual would not use the ring for evil and I say it does because as he explained Marcus has everything. He had all the power, he had all the acres, the money, the gold, he even had power over who lives and dies. Just like Gyges did he took the ring to seduce and have power, Marcus showed you have control over everything you do.
Does the example of Marcus show that “virtue is its own reward?” I would say yes it does. When someone have virtue it means to have high moral standards or to be morally good. When you think of how Marcus handle things, he wrote everything down in his book. There were things from how he was feeling and how people made him feel. I say that this is a perfect example of doing something morally good because he could of done things to hurt them but he chose the high road.
Yes the example of Marcus disprove that everyone acts selfishly. The professor explained Marcus to be not hypocritical and not unfair. If he was unfair then he would have a quality of selfishness.
One thing that stood out to me in this video is that he explained that Epictetus: Slave or Marcus Aurelius: The Emperor, it doesn’t matter your position they both have the same level of equality and could share the same mutual respect.