"They have gone blind in their most important faculty—the ability to tell right from wrong. Should we be angry with them, or should we pity them?"

In the 1980s, an African American musician named Daryl Davis decided to do something that many considered insane. He began attending meetings of the Ku Klux Klan. Davis did not go to protest. He did not go to fight. He went to talk. He sat down with men who claimed to hate him solely because of the color of his skin.

One of the men he befriended was Roger Kelly, a Grand Dragon of the KKK in Maryland. Davis treated Kelly with respect and curiosity. He asked questions about Kelly's beliefs. He listened patiently to the hateful rhetoric. Over time, Kelly began to realize that his prejudices did not match the reality of the man sitting across from him. The hatred he had held for decades began to crumble under the weight of simple human interaction.

Eventually, Roger Kelly quit the Klan. He gave his robe and hood to Daryl Davis. Over the course of his life, Davis convinced over two hundred Klansmen to give up their robes. He did not do this by screaming at them or attacking them. He did it by viewing their racism not as a monster to be destroyed, but as a blindness to be cured.

This story perfectly encapsulates the Epictelian view of vice. Epictetus argues that human beings are rational creatures who always pursue what they believe is "good" for them. If a person does something evil, it is because they are mistaken about what is good. They are operating with faulty data. They are intellectually blind.

If you saw a man walking down the street who was physically blind, you would not get angry at him if he accidentally bumped into you. You would likely apologize or guide him. You would feel compassion for his lack of sight. Epictetus asks us to apply this same logic to moral blindness.

The racist, the thief, and the liar are suffering from a disability of the soul. Their "ruling faculty" is damaged. They cannot see the truth that virtue is the only good. When we understand that bad behavior is a result of ignorance rather than malice, our anger naturally turns into pity. We realize that the wrongdoer is the primary victim of their own actions because they are destroying their own character.

Errors & Corrections

• Don't equate pity with arrogance. Pity in the Stoic sense is not looking down on someone. It is recognizing that they are deprived of the most valuable human possession which is a sound mind.
• Don't assume "ignorance" means a lack of education. A person can have a PhD and still be morally ignorant. Moral ignorance is a confusion about what is truly good and what is truly bad.
• Don't believe that understanding excuses the behavior. You can understand why a person is "blind" without allowing them to harm you. You act to stop the harm but you do it without hatred in your heart.

Applications to Modern Life

Politics

It is common to view political opponents as evil enemies who want to destroy the country. This view leads to rage. Try to view them instead as people who mistakenly believe their policies are the best way to help the country. They are not trying to be villains. They are "blind" to the facts that you see. This perspective allows you to debate them calmly instead of demonizing them.

Work

You may have a boss who is a micromanager. It is easy to view them as a tyrant who enjoys making you miserable. However, it is more likely that they are driven by anxiety and a fear of failure. They are blind to the fact that trust produces better results than control. When you see their behavior as a symptom of fear, it becomes easier to tolerate.

Interpersonal Relationships

When a friend lies to you, it feels like a personal attack. The Stoic view is that the friend believes the lie will protect them or gain them some advantage. They are mistaken. They have traded their integrity for a short-term gain. They have made a bad trade because they do not understand the value of character. Treat them as someone who has made a foolish financial error.

Social Media

Internet trolls often post offensive content to get attention. They believe that negative attention is better than no attention at all. This is a profound error in judgment. They are damaging their own reputation and peace of mind for a fleeting moment of engagement. Do not hate them. Pity the fact that they are so starved for validation that they will act like fools to get it.

Maxims

• No one chooses to be wrong.
• Treat the vicious like the sick.

In-depth Concepts

Socratic Intellectualism

This is the ethical theory that no one does wrong willingly. Socrates, and later the Stoics, believed that all human action is motivated by a desire for what we perceive to be "good." Therefore, if we do something bad, it is because we have confused a "perceived good" (like money or revenge) with the "true good" (virtue). This means that vice is an intellectual error, not a malicious desire to be evil.

Amathia (Stupidity/Uncultivation)

The Stoics used this term to describe a specific type of ignorance. It is not a lack of book smarts. It is a lack of wisdom regarding how to live. A person suffering from amathia cannot distinguish between what is up to them and what is not up to them. This condition causes them to value external things (wealth, fame) over internal things (character), leading inevitably to anxiety and bad behavior.