Massimo Pigliucci

It's not to discount the negativity.

As I said, there are real problems, but real problems can be better handled if you actually have models of how to behave in a positive, constructive fashion.

Yes, the Stoics cultivate this attitude of being charitable toward other people and toward themselves, to be fair.

In fact, they think that moral blame is not particularly useful.

When you say that somebody is bad or evil or something like that, you just put a label on a behavior, but that label isn't particularly useful.

It only allows you to dismiss that person, perhaps even to dehumanize them at some level.

While on the other hand, what the listener did there is exactly the Stoic thing to do.

That is, here is somebody who is misguided.

Epictetus often uses words along the lines of misguided.

It's like, this person has problems of his own.

Who knows what they are?

We may or may not be able to find out what those problems are.

But he does have a defective faculty of judgment.

And that's the way one should look at it.

There are reasons why that faculty of judgment became defective, either temporarily or permanently.

And now the question isn't, you know, to label the person one way or the other.

The question is, what is it I can do here and now to at least ameliorate the effects of the situation?

So you focus on your intentions to make things better here.

and you act accordingly.

Blaming, it's not particularly useful.