Welcome to How to Be a Stoic! It began back in March ’15 as a blog to track my personal journey into modern practical Stoicism. The blog has now moved to Patreon and I hope you will follow me there. However, the full archive of 425 posts and a whopping 4,600 comments will remain permanently […]

There are different ways to understand and practice Stoic philosophy, and this is true not just for the differences between ancient and modern Stoicism, but even within ancient Stoicism itself. After all, the philosophy evolved over a course of more than five centuries from Zeno of Citium to Marcus Aurelius, and it is still evolving […]

Vegetarianism is a big deal, ethically speaking. It was put on the map in terms of public philosophy by utilitarian Peter Singer, with his landmark Animal Liberation, published back in 1975. In truth, utilitarians have been very clear on the subject from the beginning. The founder of the approach, Jeremy Bentham, famously said that when […]

[Feel free to submit a question for this column, addressing it at massimo at howtobeastoic dot org.] V. writes: My question is: can Stoic virtues be used as excuses to conduct evil deeds? I’m asking this question for several reasons. First, in the current political climate, the term “loyalty” frequently comes up and is often […]