Can a Stoic Want Money, a Promotion, or Success?
Epictetus asks more of a student than pursuing wealth while occasionally remembering that it might be lost.
He questions the judgment that wealth makes a person good, secure, or free.
In his discussion of freedom, he examines people with status and possessions who remain governed by fear, dependence, and frustrated desire. A powerful position has not freed them if they are prepared to act shamefully to retain it. Discourses 4.1
This does not settle every practical question about earning or spending. Money buys things, supports households, and can be used to help others. The philosophical question is what place it occupies in your judgment.
Consider someone seeking a promotion.
They may have sound reasons to consider the position. But suppose obtaining it requires taking credit for another person’s work. If they accept that bargain, they have treated the promotion as more important than acting justly.
Calling the promotion a means to support their family does not remove the need to examine how they pursue it.
Epictetus is particularly strict with beginners. He advises temporarily suspending desire while learning what is genuinely good, and undertaking appropriate pursuits with reservation. This is a course of training for someone whose desires are not yet well ordered. It is considerably more demanding than wanting anything you please while describing yourself as detached. Enchiridion 2
An examination of ambition therefore needs more than “Why do I want this?”
You might discover that you want money for admiration, comfort, or power. Discovering that preference does not establish that it should govern your life. It gives you another judgment to examine.
What do you think possessing the money would make possible? What do you fear its absence would mean? What would you refuse to do to acquire it? Could you act well if the expected gain did not arrive?
Epictetus locates progress in the education of desire, choice, and judgment. The amount acquired cannot establish that this education has taken place. Discourses 1.4