Stoics's Argument Behind Passions And Emotions

The Stoics argument behind passions and emotions being bad presents a good explanation behind how passions can negatively affect reason, however some proponents of stoicism neglect the possibility of the passions’ potential ability to coexist with rationality, furthermore, ambiguity engenders hesitations of the validity behind the argument. The Stoic definition of emotions is synonymously with passions, which are excessive impulses in response to objects or stimulus (Stoics, 1987). Most Stoic’s highlight that these passions are fundamentally contrapurposive to achieving and living a “good life” following the stoic doctrine. The main reasoning behind this is that by indulging passions, one’s reason is hindered. However, other Stoic’s suggest that passions can be enabled without it interfering with one’s ability to be rational and use reason (ibid.). From this we can judge that the stoic conception of emotions is grounded in sound logic and valid terms but the practicality is clouded by ambiguity and lack of unity for the philosophy which detracts from the argument that emotions are bad. …show more content…
The third passion, pleasure, comes from the object desired by appetite, or by avoiding fear; and the fourth passion is distress which is a result of failing to achieve the object of our appetite or experiencing the fearful stimuli (ibid.). Tied in with passions is reason, which is seen as the faculty capable of attaining knowledge and discerning truth, achieving this is a main tenet of Stoicism. The use of passions in stoic texts are used mostly in conveyance with negative connotations to denote occasions which result in a hindrance of the use of reason, and it comes from this that these passions (or emotions) are perceived by most stoics to be considered