Stoicism as an Ethical Guide

Reviewing the class text Criminal Justice Ethics, I was drawn to chapter 13 for my first blog contribution.  The chapter is titled "Egoism, Pleasure, and Indifference".   The section that really got my attention though was on "Stoicism"

The first thing of particular interest was discovering that stoicism came about during a period of great transition.   The major transition was the shift of a social-political environment of individual city-states into an environment of a larger environment of an empire, the Macedonian Empire.  It struck me as I read that, that the world right now is experiencing a major transition due to globalization and the changes brought about because of the information age as we moved from the industrial age.

The gist of the issues that facilitated the rise of stoicism is that in the city-state era, understanding of what was virtuous and good was the common understanding of the local community.  When the far reaching empire era came about, there had to be a more broader, universal understanding of what was virtuous and good.  As the old, local constraints of social norms were going away, new religions and philosophies such as Epicureanism and Stoicism evolved.   Stoicism promoted that individuals be driven by their own will to be good, and to be indifferent to external influences.  It would not be an excuse to do something wrong by saying you were only following what others were doing.  

I see the parallel to law enforcement this way, in the older days the law enforcement culture was more closed and controlled by leaders within the culture, which could be good or bad.  Now a days, what happens within one city or within a police department can be broadcast around the world in minutes using social media or other global media networks.  The one way to attempt to be consistently virtuous is to adopt an internal set of guidelines that will stand in the light of day for all to see.

As part of researching the issue for this blog, I read a journal article entitled How Ethical Theory Can Improve Practice: Lessons from Abu Ghraib (Snow, 2009).   The gist is that the abuses at Abu Ghraib by U.S. Military prison guards occurred because the environment was not seen as connected to the outside world, that they were in a closed environment that was dangerous (subject to mortar attacks and assaults by prisoners) and they started to take things in their own hands, also with the feeling that their superiors wanted the prisoners "softened up".   If the prison guards had been trained and groomed to develop a more stoic approach to their job, individually they would of been guided to take a more universal virtuous approach that could of prevented a mob mentality to develop that accepted bad treatment of prisoners.

Snow, N. (2009). How ethical theory can improve practice: Lessons from Abu Ghraib. Ethical Theory & Moral Practice, 12(5), 555-568. doi:10.1007/s10677-009-9180-8