The tremendous influence Stoicism has
exerted on ethical thought from early Christianity through
Immanuel Kant and into the twentieth century is rarely
understood and even more rarely appreciated. Throughout
history, Stoic ethical doctrines have both provoked harsh
criticisms and inspired enthusiastic defenders. The Stoics
defined the goal in life as living in agreement with nature.
Humans, unlike all other animals, are constituted by nature to
develop reason as adults, which transforms their understanding
of themselves and their own true good. The Stoics held that
virtue is the only real good and so is both necessary and,
contrary to Aristotle, sufficient for happiness; it in no way
depends on luck. The virtuous life is free of all passions,
which are intrinsically disturbing and harmful to the soul,
but includes appropriate emotive responses conditioned by
rational understanding and the fulfillment of all one's
personal, social, professional, and civic responsibilities.
The Stoics believed that the person who has achieved perfect
consistency in the operation of his rational faculties, the
"wise man," is extremely rare, yet serves as a prescriptive
ideal for all. The Stoics believed that progress toward this
noble goal is both possible and vitally urgent.
Table of Contents
(Clicking on the links below will take you to those parts of
this article)
1. Definition of the
End
Stoicism is known as a eudaimonistic theory, which
means that the culmination of human endeavor or ‘end'
(telos) is eudaimonia, meaning very roughly
"happiness" or “flourishing.” The Stoics defined this end as
“living in agreement with nature.” “Nature” is a complex and
multivalent concept for the Stoics, and so their definition of
the goal or final end of human striving is very rich.
The first sense of the definition is living in accordance
with nature as a whole, i.e. the entire cosmos. Cosmic nature
(the universe), the Stoics firmly believed, is a rationally
organized and well-ordered system, and indeed coextensive with
the will of Zeus, the impersonal god. Consequently, all events
that occur within the universe fit within a coherent,
well-structured scheme that is providential. Since there is no
room for chance within this rationally ordered system, the
Stoics' metaphysical determinism further dictated that this
cosmic Nature is identical to fate. Thus at this level,
"living in agreement with nature" means conforming one’s will
with the sequence of events that are fated to occur in the
rationally constituted universe, as providentially willed by
Zeus.
Each type of thing within the universe has its own specific
constitution and character. This second sense of ‘nature' is
what we use when we say it is the nature of fire to move
upward. The manner in which living things come to be, change,
and perish distinguishes them from the manner in which
non-living things come to be, change, and cease to be. Thus
the nature of plants is quite distinct from the nature of
rocks and sand. To "live in agreement with nature" in this
second sense would thus include, for example, metabolic
functions: taking in nutrition, growth, reproduction, and
expelling waste. A plant that is successful at performing
these functions is a healthy, flourishing specimen.
In addition to basic metabolism, animals have the
capacities of sense-perception, desire, and locomotion.
Moreover, animals have an innate impulse to care for their
offspring. Thus living in agreement with a creature's
animality involves more complex behaviors than those of a
plant living in agreement with its nature. For an animal
parent to neglect its own offspring would therefore be for it
to behave contrary to its nature. The Stoics believed that
compared to other animals, human beings are neither the
strongest, nor the fastest, nor the best swimmers, nor able to
fly. Instead, the distinct and uniquely human capacity is
reason. Thus for human beings, "living in agreement with
nature" means living in agreement with our special, innate
endowment—the ability to reason.
2. Theory of Appropriation
The Stoics developed a sophisticated psychological theory
to explain how the advent of reason fundamentally transforms
the world view of human beings as they mature. This is the
theory of ‘appropriation,' or oikeiôsis, a technical
term which scholars have also translated variously as
"orientation," “familiarization,” “affinity,” or
“affiliation.” The word means the recognition of something as
one’s own, as belonging to oneself. The opposite of
oikeiôsis is allotriôsis, which neatly
translates as “alienation.” According to the Stoic theory of
appropriation, there are two different developmental stages.
In the first stage, the innate, initial impulse of a living
organism, plant, or animal is self-love and not pleasure, as
the rival Epicureans contend. The organism is aware of its own
constitution, though for plants this awareness is more
primitive than it is for animals. This awareness involves the
immediate recognition of its own body as “belonging to”
itself. The creature is thus directed toward maintaining its
constitution in its proper, i.e. its natural, condition. As a
consequence, the organism is impelled to preserve itself by
pursuing things that promote its own well-being and by
avoiding things harmful to it. Pleasure is only a by-product
of success in this activity. In the case of a human infant,
for example, appropriation explains why the baby seeks his
mother’s milk. But as the child matures, his constitution
evolves. The child continues to love himself, but as he
matures into adolescence his capacity for reason emerges and
what he recognizes as his constitution, or self, is crucially
transformed. Where he previously identified his constitution
as his body, he begins to identify his constitution instead
with his mental faculty (reason) in a certain relation to his
body. In short, the self that he now loves is his rationality.
Our human reason gives us an affinity with the cosmic reason,
Nature, that guides the universe. The fully matured adult thus
comes to identify his real self, his true good, with his
completely developed, perfected rational soul. This best
possible state of the rational soul is exactly what virtue is.
Whereas the first stage of the theory of appropriation
gives an account of our relationship toward ourselves, the
second stage explains our social relationship toward others.
The Stoics observed that a parent is naturally impelled to
love her own children and have concern for their welfare.
Parental love is motivated by the child's intimate affinity
and likeness to her. But since we possess reason in common
with all (or nearly all) human beings, we identify ourselves
not only with our own immediate family, but with all members
of the human race—they are all fellow members of our broader
rational community. In this way the Stoics meant social
appropriation to constitute an explanation of the natural
genesis of altruism.
3. Good, Evil, and Indifferents
The Stoics defined the good as "what is complete according
to nature for a rational being qua rational being" (Cicero
Fin. III.33). As explained above, the perfected nature
of a rational being is precisely the perfection of reason, and
the perfection of reason is virtue. The Stoics maintained,
quite controversially among ancient ethical thought, that the
only thing that always contributes to happiness, as its
necessary and sufficient condition, is virtue. Conversely, the
only thing that necessitates misery and is “bad” or “evil” is
the corruption of reason, namely vice. All other things were
judged neither good nor evil, but instead fell into the class
of “indifferents.” They were called “indifferents” because the
Stoics held that these things in themselves neither contribute
to nor detract from a happy life. Indifferents neither benefit
nor harm since they can be used well and badly.
However, within the class of indifferents the Stoics
distinguished the "preferred" from the “dispreferred.” (A
third subclass contains the ‘absolute' indifferents, e.g.
whether the number of hairs on one’s head is odd or even,
whether to bend or extend one’s finger.) Preferred
indifferents are “according to nature.” Dispreferred
indifferents are “contrary to nature.” This is because
possession or use of the preferred indifferents usually
promotes the natural condition of a person, and so selecting
them is usually commended by reason. The preferred
indifferents include life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength,
wealth, good reputation, and noble birth. The dispreferred
indifferents include death, disease, pain, ugliness, weakness,
poverty, low repute, and ignoble birth. While it is usually
appropriate to avoid the dispreferred indifferents, in unusual
circumstances it may be virtuous to select them rather than
avoid them. The virtue or vice of the agent is thus determined
not by the possession of an indifferent, but rather by how it
is used or selected. It is the virtuous use of indifferents
that makes a life happy, the vicious use that makes it
unhappy.
The Stoics elaborated a detailed taxonomy of virtue,
dividing virtue into four main types: wisdom, justice,
courage, and moderation. Wisdom is subdivided into good sense,
good calculation, quick-wittedness, discretion, and
resourcefulness. Justice is subdivided into piety, honesty,
equity, and fair dealing. Courage is subdivided into
endurance, confidence, high-mindedness, cheerfulness, and
industriousness. Moderation is subdivided into good
discipline, seemliness, modesty, and self-control. Similarly,
the Stoics divide vice into foolishness, injustice, cowardice,
intemperance, and the rest. The Stoics further maintained that
the virtues are inter-entailing and constitute a unity: to
have one is to have them all. They held that the same virtuous
mind is wise, just, courageous, and moderate. Thus, the
virtuous person is disposed in a certain way with respect to
each of the individual virtues. To support their doctrine of
the unity of virtue, the Stoics offered an analogy: just as
someone is both a poet and an orator and a general but is
still one individual, so too the virtues are unified but apply
to different spheres of action.
4. Appropriate Acts and Perfect
Acts
Once a human being has developed reason, his function is to
perform "appropriate acts" or “proper functions.” The Stoics
defined an appropriate act as “that which reason persuades one
to do” or “that which when done admits of reasonable
justification.” Maintaining one's health is given as an
example. Since health is neither good nor bad in itself, but
rather is capable of being used well or badly, opting to
maintain one’s health by, say, walking, must harmonize with
all other actions the agent performs. Similarly, sacrificing
one’s property is an example of an act that is only
appropriate under certain circumstances. The performance of
appropriate acts is only a necessary and not a sufficient
condition of virtuous action. This is because the agent must
have the correct understanding of the actions he performs.
Specifically, his selections and rejections must form a
continuous series of actions that is consistent with all of
the virtues simultaneously. Each and every deed represents the
totality and harmony of his moral integrity. The vast majority
of people are non-virtuous because though they may follow
reason correctly in honoring their parents, for example, they
fail to conform to ‘the laws of life as a whole’ by acting
appropriately with respect to all of the other virtues.
The scale of actions from vicious to virtuous can be laid
out as follows: (1) Actions done "against the appropriate
act," which include neglecting one's parents, not treating
friends kindly, not behaving patriotically, and squandering
one’s wealth in the wrong circumstances; (2) Intermediate
appropriate actions in which the agent’s disposition is not
suitably consistent, and so would not count as virtuous,
although the action itself approximates proper conduct.
Examples include honoring one’s parents, siblings, and
country, socializing with friends, and sacrificing one’s
wealth in the right circumstances; (3) “Perfect acts”
performed in the right way by the agent with an absolutely
rational, consistent, and formally perfect disposition. This
perfect disposition is virtue.
5. Passions
As we have seen, only virtue is good and choiceworthy, and
only its opposite, vice, is bad and to be avoided according to
Stoic ethics. The vast majority of people fail to understand
this. Ordinary people habitually and wrongly judge various
objects and events to be good and bad that are in fact
indifferent. The disposition to make a judgment disobedient to
reason is the psychic disturbance the Stoics called passion
(pathos). Since passion is an impulse (a movement of
the soul) which is excessive and contrary to reason, it is
irrational and contrary to nature. The four general types of
passion are distress, fear, appetite, and pleasure. Distress
and pleasure pertain to present objects, fear and appetite to
future objects. The following table illustrates their
relations.
Table of Four Passions (pathê)
|
|
Present Object |
Future Object |
|
Irrationally judged to be
good |
Pleasure |
Appetite |
|
Irrationally judged to be bad |
Distress |
Fear |
Distress is an irrational contraction of the soul variously
described as malice, envy, jealousy, pity, grief, worry,
sorrow, annoyance, vexation, or anguish. Fear, an irrational
shrinking of the soul, is expectation of something bad;
hesitation, agony, shock, shame, panic, superstition, dread,
and terror are classified under it. Appetite is an irrational
stretching or swelling of the soul reaching for an expected
good; it is also called want, yearning, hatred,
quarrelsomeness, anger, wrath, intense sexual craving, or
spiritedness. Pleasure is an irrational elation over what
seems to be worth choosing; it includes rejoicing at another's
misfortunes, enchantment, self-gratification, and rapture.
The soul of the virtuous person, in contrast, is possessed
of three good states or affective responses
(eupatheiai). The three ‘good states' of the soul are
joy (chara), caution (eulabeia), and wish
(boulêsis). Joy, the opposite of pleasure, is a
reasonable elation; enjoyment, good spirits, and tranquility
are classed under it. Caution, the opposite of fear, is a
reasonable avoidance. Respect and sanctity are subtypes of
caution. Wish, the opposite of appetite, is a reasonable
striving also described as good will, kindliness, acceptance,
or contentment. There is no "good feeling" counterpart to the
passion of distress.
Table of Three Good States
|
|
Present Object |
Future Object |
|
Rationally judged to be good |
Joy |
Wish |
|
Rationally judged to be bad |
--- |
Caution |
For example, the virtuous person experiences joy in the
company of a friend, but recognizes that the presence of the
friend is not itself a real good as virtue is, but only
preferred. That is to say the company of the friend is to be
sought so long as doing so in no way involves any vicious acts
like a dereliction of his responsibilities to others. The
friend's absence does not hurt the soul of the virtuous
person, only vice does. The vicious person’s soul, in
contrast, is gripped by the passion of pleasure in the
presence of, say, riches. When the wealth is lost, this
irrational judgment will be replaced by the corresponding
irrational judgment that poverty is really bad, thus making
the vicious person miserable. Consequently, the virtuous
person wishes to see his friend only if in the course of
events it is good to happen. His wish is thus made with
reservation (hupexhairesis): "I wish to see my friend
if it is fated, if Zeus wills it." If the event does not
occur, then the virtuous person is not thwarted, and as a
result he is not disappointed or unhappy. His wish is rational
and in agreement with nature, both in the sense of being
obedient to reason (which is distinctive of our human
constitution) and in the sense of harmonizing with the series
of events in the world.
The virtuous person is not passionless in the sense of
being unfeeling like a statue. Rather, he mindfully
distinguishes what makes a difference to his happiness—virtue
and vice—from what does not. This firm and consistent
understanding keeps the ups and downs of his life from
spinning into the psychic disturbances or "pathologies" the
Stoics understood passions to be.
6. Moral Progress
The early Stoics were fond of uncompromising
dichotomies—all who are not wise are fools, all who are not
free are slaves, all who are not virtuous are vicious, etc.
The later Stoics distinguished within the class of fools
between those making progress and those who are not. Although
the wise man or sage was said to be rarer than the phoenix, it
is useful to see the concept of the wise man functioning as a
prescriptive ideal at which all can aim. This ideal is thus
not an impossibly high target, its pursuit sheer futility.
Rather, all who are not wise have the rational resources to
persevere in their journey toward this ideal. Stoic teachers
could employ this exalted image as a pedagogical device to
exhort their students to exert constant effort to improve
themselves and not lapse into complacency. The Stoics were
convinced that as one approached this goal, one came closer to
real and certain happiness.
References and Further Reading
Becker, Lawrence C. 1998. A New Stoicism. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
A daring exposition of what Stoic philosophy
would look like today if it had enjoyed a continuous
development through the Renaissance, the Enlightenment,
modern science, and the fads of twentieth century moral
philosophy. Brennan, Tad. 2003. "Stoic Moral
Psychology," in Brad Inwood, ed., The Cambridge Companion
to the Stoics, 257-294.
Cooper, John. 1989. "Greek Philosophers on Euthanasia and
Suicide," in Brody, B.A. ed., Suicide and Euthanasia.
Dordrecht, 9-38.
Inwood, Brad and Donini, Pierluigi. 1999. "Stoic ethics,"
in Algra, Keimpe, et al. eds. The Cambridge History of
Hellenistic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 675-738.
A detailed treatment of the
subject. Long, A. A. 1986. Hellenistic
Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics. 2nd ed. Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
A very readable introduction to the three
Hellenistic schools. Long, A. A. and D. N. Sedley.
1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers, Volume 1.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Readings from the main schools: Epicureanism,
Stoicism, Scepticism, and the Academics. Includes
commentaries on the readings. This is the standard primary
source text. Schofield, Malcolm. "Stoic Ethics,"
in Brad Inwood, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the
Stoics, 233-256.
A fine overview that argues that Zeno (founder
of the Stoa) systematized the Socratic and Cynic
philosophies. Two different types of projects in Stoic
ethics are identified: (1) laying out the definitions and
divisions of the key concepts in discursive ethical
discourse, and (2) trying to explain and establish by
argument the Stoic view on key ethical
subjects. Sorabji, Richard. 2000. Emotion and
Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian
Temptation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
A meticulous study of Stoic moral psychology and
much more.
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