Dying Well
The Stoic prepares throughout life for death, meeting it when it comes with the equanimity of one who has lived according to virtue.
For Stoics, dying well is the culmination of a life well-lived. The person who has valued only virtue has nothing to regret and nothing to fear in death. Seneca, facing forced suicide, modeled Stoic dying: calm, thoughtful, and at peace with a life fully lived. Death is not an evil but a natural completion.
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.
The Stoic art of dying (ars moriendi) influenced medieval Christian death preparation literature and modern palliative care philosophy.
Epistulae Morales
Written about in
- What Stoicism says about death
Dying well is treated as the last part of living well, prepared over a lifetime rather than faced at the end. Seneca eventually had to use his own advice, when he was ordered to die.