Kant repeatedly describes the moral theory and practice of the Stoics as “sublime,” indeed as eliciting “the most sublime sentiments that have ever existed.” This is often understood as an expression of approval, since what is sublime is said to arouse our admiration. I argue, however, that the description is not a generic expression of approval, but a specific description of Stoic moral theories and their peculiar appeal. For however much we admire the thoughts and actions Kant calls “sublime,” our attraction to them is always accompanied with repulsion. To be sure, attraction and repulsion both belong to Kant’s representation of moral duty, which elevates us as it humiliates our self-conceit. Its very name he calls “sublime.” Yet in the end, moral goodness is not so much sublime as beautiful. In coming to appreciate this, we may deepen our appreciation of Kant’s interpretation of the Stoics, and his distance from them.

Kant presents his conception of the highest good as steering a path between Epicureanism and Stoicism. However, in spite of his differences with Stoicism, namely, his rejection of the ideal of the sage as unattainable for human beings and his insistence upon a conception of freedom of the will that is absent from the ancient doctrine, Kant’s position, especially in the 1790s, ends up being closer to original Stoicism than he recognizes, or at least lets on. Contrary to Kant’s interpretation, the Stoics did not reduce happiness to consciousness of one’s virtue, but allow for the pursuit of happiness as ordinarily conceived within the limits of nature – and so does Kant. Yet Kant’s later conception of the highest good as happiness to be realized in the natural history of the human species, thus in nature, is close to the Stoic doctrine. And, contrary now to some commentators, while Kant still thinks that the possibility of the highest good on this conception needs a theistic underpinning, this is definitely not a specifically Christian position, because it involves no salvific role for Christ.

The chapter studies the several accounts of the wise person’s joy that are found in Seneca’s works, arguing that these can give insight into his working methods as a philosopher. Seneca is clearly invested in the idea that the fulfillment of one’s rational nature would result in a life filled with joy, the virtuous counterpart to the problematic pleasure or delight of ordinary agents. Yet his explanations of how wise joy relates to objects of value are interestingly dissimilar, reflecting different views of the phenomenology of joy, the nature of its objects, and its dependence on social interactions. Graver argues that these discrepancies reflect a tendency to preserve ideas found in his various reading materials without attempting to impose a system, and, further, that the Stoic tradition itself must have had room for divergences of view concerning some specifics of moral psychology, as long as core principles were maintained.