Anja Godo 20130844 Meditations debate Marcus Aurelius Meditations is a defense of individual liberty and individuality and thus

a call to minimize the State. I think that Meditations is in favor or individual liberty and individuality because throughout the book he talks about men being responsible for their own actions and in not to criticize others. Marcus Aurelius emphasizes nature a lot, not only in ones nature and how you shouldnt betray your own nature because you were made a certain way and for a reason, but he also talks about nature in the gods and how if you are aware of nature and you never betray who you are in nature you are also following what the gods want because gods are in nature. For the first point he talks about being yourself and if other people are not the same as you to show them to be better but in a patient and understanding way, dont get angry because people are not like you. This doesnt mean to think that you are always right and try to teach others but also if you are wrong to be open for learning and changing if you need to. For the second to live according to nature because that way you will always behave the way you are supposed to, the way that the gods intended and it wont matter where you are you will always be yourself. Since the world is a whole state in itself and those rules of nature that apply to one person can be applied to all. In the case of the phrases that he uses which may seem to oppose his arguments I think that since Marcus Aurelius was an Emperor managing an empire was also part of his life. I think that in his arguments he is trying to minimize the state in the sense that if everyone is responsible for themselves then the state is not needed to take care of people but instead focus on other things that can be more important, like fixing and making the empire better.

Opposing view, not minimizing the state I think that Marcus Aurelius does not want to minimize the state but rather to make people responsible for their own actions so that he is able to control them in a better way. He does this in a subtle way because he does not explicitly try to control them but rather than that he mentions from time to time how what is good for the state is good for the citizens of the state. Also by everyone taking responsibility for their own actions and having this degree of patriotism and protecting their state will also push them to take care of the empire itself. Keeping the empire clean and orderly, helping other improve and improving themselves are all things that the state will benefit from and Marcus Aurelius could actually use his time to conquer other states and focus on what he wants as an emperor. Moreover if people listen to him and actually take it upon themselves to create an environment of self-governance and they see that it does work because everyone is responsible for what they do and make the empire better then that gives Marcus Aurelius space to manipulate other however he pleases. If being responsible worked then whatever he suggests could also work as well as it previously did. If, for example, Marcus Aurelius chooses to conquer another state then he can just tell the people to help this community be responsible for their actions because they are all part of the world and the people will follow him, since he is helping the citizens and is not looking for more than that (or so they think). Marcus Aurelius is an evil genius controlling a whole empire without them even noticing what is going on and his statement of the world being a state might be true until you wonder, whose state does the world, belong to? What he never mentions in his book is that he was trying to conquer the whole world so that they were all Romans.

In Favor This faculty promises freedom from hasty judgment and friendship towards men, and obedience to the gods.

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Nature which governs the whole will soon change all things which thou seest [] in order that the world may be ever new.

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For the movement towards injustice and temperance and to anger and grief and fear is nothing else than the act of one who deviates from nature, common also is the reason which commands us what to do, and what not to do; if this is so, we are fellowcitizens; if this is so, we are members of some political community; if this is so the world is in a manner of state.

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Opposed I shall do nothing unsocial but I shall rather direct myself to the things which are of the same kind with myself, and I shall turn an my efforts to the common interest, and divert them from the contrary Just as thou mayest observe that the life of a citizen is happy, who continues a course of action which is advantageous to his fellow-citizens, and is content with whatever the state may assign to him. That which is not good for the swarm, neither is good for the bee

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let this first be established, that I am part of the whole which is governed by nature

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live as on a mountain. For it makes no difference whether a man lives there or here, if he lives everywhere in the world as in a state (political community). Let men see, let them know a real man who lives according to nature. Man, thou hast been a citizen in this great state (the world): what difference does it make to thee whether for five years (or three)? For that which is comfortable to the laws is just for all.

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from him I received the idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity {constitution} administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed That which does not harm to the state, does no harm to the citizen. In the case that every appearance of harm apply this rule: if the state is not harmed by this, neither am I harmed, but if the state is harmed, thou must not be angry with him who does harm to the state. Show him where his error is. But in rational animals there are political communities and friendships, and families and meeting of people; and in wars, treaties and armistices {truce}

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Where is the hardship then, if no tyrant nor yet an unjust judge sends the away from the state, but nature who brought thee into it?

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love the art, poor as it may be, which thou hast learned, and be content with it; and pass through the rest of life like one who has intrusted to the gods with his whole soul all that he has, making thyself neither the tyrant nor the slave of any man. For of what other common political community will anyone say that the whole human race is members? How close is the kinship between a man and the whole human race, for it is a community, not of a little blood or seed but of intelligence. And thou hast forgotten this too, that every mans intelligence is a god, and is an efflux {flowing out of a particular substance} of the deity. Living according to nature, though not observing the admonitions {warnings} of the gods and I may almost say, their direct instructions that my body has held our so long in such a kind of life [] after having fallen into amatory passions, I was cured [] I never did anything of which I had occasion to repent To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away.

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And from thence, from this common political community comes also our very intellectual faculty and reasoning faculty and our capacity for law; whence do they come?

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A man when he is separated from another man has fallen off from the whole social community. Neither in writing nor in reading wilt thou be able to lay down rules for others before thou shalt have first learned to obey rules thyself. Much more is this so in life.

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Now the food for the reasonable animal is society; for that we are made for society has been shown above.

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For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.

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Of necessity a man must be altogether in state of perturbation who wants any of these things; and besides, he must often find fault with the gods. But to reverence and honor thy own mind will make thee content with thyself, and in harmony with society, and in agreement with the gods, that is, praising all that they give and have ordered For whatsoever either by myself or with another I can do, ought to be directed to this only, to that which is useful and well suited to society.

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