Beyond Theodicy: Spiritual Exercises in Moral Tragedy

Moral traditions have consistently addressed the tragic fact of unjust suffering. The most prominent among the ethical responses are Stoic ones, which counsel apathia, ataraxia, and self-mastery as antidotes. These strategies can nurse complacency in the face of injustice, absorb individual suffering to some overall good, and turn one’s attention away from the historical plane. I propose an alternative by drawing from Mencius and Thomas Aquinas, who are often mistakenly assimilated to Stoicism. By attending to the centrality of lament and protest in them, I suggest a set of spiritual exercises different from Stoicism. I commend these exercises, not because they make catastrophe explicable or justifiable through theodicy, but because they render suffering culturally thinkable. Rather than demanding mental accommodation in the wake of injustice, moral tragedy is more properly seen as material for mutual recognition and a call for collective redress.