The Basis of Stoic Ethics

The Basis of Stoic Ethics
Author(s): Nicholas P. White

Source: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology , 1979, Vol. 83 (1979), pp. 143-178
Published by: Department of the Classics, Harvard University
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THE BASIS OF STOIC ETHICS
NICHOLAS P. WHITE
THE origins of Stoic ethics are not open to easy view. The historical
break conventionally marked by the deaths of Alexander the Great
in 323 and Aristotle in 322 has long discouraged the drawing of lines of
influence from the Classical to the Hellenistic period. In presentations
of the history of philosophy, the tendency to see discontinuity has been
strengthened by the idea that after Aristotle philosophy was decadent
and undistinguished, far beneath the level of past achievements. This
idea has been strengthened in turn by the paucity of evidence about
Hellenistic philosophy, which itself renders difficult the drawing of any
historical lines at all. Understanding of the origins of Stoic doctrine has
also been thwarted by the nature of the evidence that does remain. It is
predominantly doxographical: bits and pieces giving what our sources
and their sources believed to be the highlights of Stoic thought, rather
than sustained reports of the Stoics' positions and the arguments for
them. The result is that we often cannot tell which of their views the
Stoics thought central and which they thought peripheral. No philoso-
pher ever regards all his beliefs as on a par: some are basic while others
are part of the superstructure of corollaries and elaborations. But the
nature of our evidence about early Stoicism hinders us from drawing
this distinction. In consequence there is a blurring of the historical as
well as the philosophical picture. Not knowing in many instances which
beliefs the early Stoics took as basic to their doctrine, we are poorly
situated to tell which of their agreements and disagreements with
previous thinkers seemed to them vital and which were taken by them
to be less crucial. Thus, the clearer we can make the structure of their
philosophical doctrine, the better informed we can be about which
historical connections are most important.
Although the scholarly situation has improved in recent years, work
on the Stoics is still heavily under the spell of the doxographical tradi-
tion, in many ways continued by von Arnim's influential collection of
Stoic remains, the Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta. It is a pressing task

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144 Nicholas P. White
to break with this expository tradition - while ma
instead to present as more than a mere heap of scat
sophical doctrine that in antiquity was renowned f
and cohesiveness (Cic. De Fin. 111.74).
In the field of ethics and moral psychology, it is
who has made the most elaborate effort in recent tim
basic forces in Stoic thought.1 According to Poh
direction of thought of the founder of the Stoic sch
was set by his opposition to Epicurus, and especially
the good for man and the motives governing hum
advocated a kind of hedonism, both as an ethical an
psychological doctrine. That is, he held both that h
in some sense to pursue (a certain sort of) pleasure
fact pursue it, although they often fail in their pursu
and bad strategy.3 Moreover, Epicurus thought
pleasure ought to be pursued could be bolstered by s
that all human beings do strive for it, but also tha
birth.4 The reasoning behind this idea was that infan
yet influenced by the opinions and conventions of a
fore be viewed as in some important sense "natura
According to Pohlenz, Zeno agreed with Epicurus
method, inasmuch as he agreed that in order to di
for a man one must discover what men strive for
earliest infancy.6 But he differed with Epicurus, P
what he regarded as a misguided assimilation of me
Zeno, thinking of man as by his nature different fr
1 The summing up of Pohlenz's views is made in Die Sto

1970-72), which builds upon earlier articles and monograph
below. On the origins of Stoicism in general, see I, 9-36 and
I59-I67.
2 Ibid. 113. Though I shall be disagreeing with much of Pohlenz's account,
I shall remain neutral on his claim that Zeno was concerned to attack Epicurus.
8 Diogenes Laertius X.Iz8-z29, I3I; J. Rist, Epicurus: An Introduction
(Cambridge I972) I21 (on the fact that Epicurus did not thus distinguish
between ethical and psychological hedonism), and A. A. Long, Hellenistic
Philosophy (New York 1974) 61-64.
4 D.L. X.I37; Cic. De Fin. II.3 I-32.
5 D.L. X.I37, 127-z29, and Pohlenz, I III-II9 passim. Both Epicurus and
Eudoxus before him made the further claim that all animals pursue pleasure
(see Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea X.2, 172b9g-I 5).
6 In the light of Pohlenz's views on this point (p. i 13), it is difficult to see how
he can say (p. i i8) that it was Zeno who first formulated the question "Welches
ist der Urtrieb der menschlichen Natur?"

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The Basis of Stoic Ethics 145
to identify man's fundamental spring of action with somethin
pleasure, that was common as well to nonhuman creatures. Th
fication, Pohlenz continues, would in Zeno's eyes fail to take
account of the fact that the peculiar essence of man is his reaso
possession of which he surpasses beasts and approaches divine
The argument appears to be that in Zeno's view, first, the goa
must be in some sense the fulfillment of man's nature, and,
man's nature must involve what distinguishes him from other
Thus, Zeno would have been anxious to attribute to human b
their natural and earliest aim not pleasure, but something mo
priate to their special position among animals.
At this point, Pohlenz introduces the factor that in the Stoi
moral development occupied the place in Epicureanism of the
pursuit of pleasure. It is what is called oikeiosis, which is imp
translate into English (Cicero used conciliatio, commendatio,
ciated words) but which can be roughly paraphrased by somet
"a process of taking something to oneself, or accepting or appr
it or making it one's own."9 The proper idea can be gained, in
by understanding the whole theory of development within w
term has its place. An important part of the idea, however, is t
things initially pursue not pleasure but self-preservation and
tenance of their own existence, whether accompanied by ple
not. To this end they avoid what is inimical to their self-pre
and are attracted to what abets it, and this attraction, and th
to which it leads, constitute oikeiosis. Tied in this way to the
self-preservation, oikeiosis was a vital component in the Stoi
the development of human moral psychology.10 Indeed, Pohle
far as to call it "der Ausgangspunkt wie der feste Grund der s
Ethik."n1
So far, however, the claim that men are subject to oikeiosis at the
beginning of life is not enough to distinguish men from beasts, because
we find it expressly stated that other living things aim at self-preserva-
7 Die Stoa 113, 115, 118--119.

8 See pp. 113-119, esp. p. 118, "das spezifische Wesen des Menschen."
Pohlenz has in mind principally Zeno's explanation of the telos as d4oAoyovgtdvVws
qv; see section VII.
9 On this problem of translation, see S. G. Pembroke, "Oikeiosis," A. A.
Long, ed., Problems in Stoicism (London 1971) 115-116.
10 That the notion of oikeiosis goes back at least to Chrysippus is fairly clear,
but it is less certain than Pohlenz believes that Zeno had it; see nn.92-93.
11 Grundfragen der stoischen Philosophie, Abh. d. G6tt. Ges., phil.-hist. KI., 3.
Folge 26 (Gdttingen 1940) 11.

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tion just as humans do.12 Therefore, Pohlenz under

oikeiosis as applied to human beings must involve s
to them. It may be true that every animal aims at se
what counts as self-preservation depends on what so
The distinguishing fact about human beings, the a
that they have logos or reason,13 and therefore the ur
tion in human beings must, at least when the reason
manifest itself in a life in accordance with reason.
account concludes, Zeno will have given due attent
status of human beings as rational creatures.
This account of Zeno's preoccupations provides th
ethics with a firm historical setting. In the first place
as reacting to the hedonism of Epicurus and produ
of human motivation. In the second place - and
Pohlenz does not emphasize - they turn out to
interesting affiliations with Aristotelian ethical doct
view (in many parts), the Stoic view turns out to be
called a "self-realizationist " view;14 that is, it fixes up
of a human being that are thought to constitute its
nature and urges that those features be developed.
thought in Aristotle's use in ethical discussions of t
is to be a man.15 On the present account of oikeiosis
preservation, combined with our discovery that we
to a desire to develop our reason and to lead life in
so as to preserve and to develop our true selves. Th
outlook would not obliterate all difference between S
ethics.16 But it would give us a historical connection
and the Stoics, 7 and it would satisfy our need to u
ground of Stoic ethical thought.
12 D.L. VII.85; De Fin. III.I6 with Die Stoa 114-116. S
of the oikeiosis doctrine of the Stoic Hierocles, which dea
as with men (ed. von Arnim, Berliner Klassikertexte, IV
13 This translation of Aoyos, while not the only possibl
context, is the one which is relevant here, i.e., to Die Sto
14 H. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. (1907) 90
15 Esp. E. N. II78a7, 8, I178b5-7, with Io97a34, bzz22 ff.
differently, however, at 1177a14-I6, b28-29; cf. W.
Historical Philosophies of Education (Glenview, Ill. 1965
16 See esp. Long, "Aristotle's Legacy to Stoic Ethics," Bul
of Classical Studies, 15 (1968) 72-85, esp. 74-76, 79-82.
17 Without, however, going as far as von Arnim did, wh
the Stoic view of moral development was due, through Po
(Arius Didymus' Abriss der peripatetischen Ethik [Vien

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Unfortunately, however, this historical setting is not one

early Stoics will fit. At least in the early Stoa, the ethical doc
not a self-realizationist one. There was indeed a self-realizationist view
with which the Stoic view tended later on to be confused and which
may even have been taken over by Stoics in the time of Panaetius and
after. But early Stoicism pursued a different line of thought.
In demonstrating this fact it will be useful to start late and move
backward toward the beginning. A mistaken reading of the evidence
from Cicero is an important factor in perpetuating the self-realizationist
interpretation of Stoic ethics (and in fact in some of his writings
Cicero fell into the same misinterpretation). But the advantage of using
Cicero is that he does provide something more than fragments: he
provides an extended description of Stoic views on human moral
development and a debate about them. A careful reading of his discus-
sion will enable us to distinguish the Stoic view from a quite different,
genuinely self-realizationist view with which it tended to be conflated.
But once we see that, despite blurring, the distinction between these
two views could still be registered in Cicero's time, we shall be en-
couraged to look further back, to see if we can find independent support
for attributing to the earliest Stoics that same view that is recorded as
Stoic in Cicero. The account in Cicero does indeed follow firmly the
early Stoic tradition of Chrysippus and Cleanthes, perhaps with certain
additions. Moreover we shall see that whatever ethical view the earliest
Stoics (including Zeno) may have held, it was certainly not a self-
realizationist view. When these facts become apparent, we shall find
the way open to proper understanding, through further research, of
how Stoic ethics arose.
II
The scene shifts, then, to the first century B.C., where we find a dis-
cussion directly pertinent to these themes in Books III-V of Cicero's
De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum. In Book III we see a sketch of Stoic
ethics, with considerable attention to oikeiosis and moral development;
in Book IV the Stoic doctrine is attacked, with the same focus; and this
attack is followed in Book V by an exposition of another ethical doctrine,
157-161); Dirlmeier followed with an argument to much the same effect, with
particular emphasis on the notion of oikeiosis (" Die Oikeiosislehre Theophrasts,"
Philologus suppl. 30 [I937]). The idea was effectively rebutted by Pohlenz,
Grundfr. 1-81.

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in many ways similar to the Stoic one, but apparentl
views of Antiochus of Ascalon, one of Cicero's philoso
Like Book IV, Book V is in large part motivated by a
Stoic views and is launched from the same point of v
section V). The line of attack has two major parts th
here. One is that Stoic ethics are very largely derived
from the ethics of the Academy and the Peripatos.x9
what changes the Stoics did make were merely termin
as to result in obvious falsity or inconsistency, or both
The attack contained in these two books is centered
of oikeiosis, and more particularly on the Stoic claim to
how moral motivation develops in human beings to m
time goes by, of prizing what is claimed in fact to be
chus, if it is he, maintains that in spite of appearances
what the Stoic doctrine lacks is precisely a coherent
developing human being could really be motivated to
by Stoic ethical views, that is, how what they regard a
could ever be valued by anyone developing as they
beings as developing.21
Antiochus' own disagreement is not directed at the
early development. For that part of their view appea
correct, and indeed to be identical with the views he
have accepted from "the ancients" of the Academy
agrees with the Stoics about is essentially their view
what is good for a man.23 He believes that they, in co
self, accepted the idea that a man's initial impulse is to
and to act in accordance with his nature; and he hold
accepted this idea, they should have gone on to re
accordance with human nature as itself the human g
however, seem to him to have gone off the track in th
development and to have ended with a view setting up
18 De Fin. V.7-8. Antiochus is represented as believing

indeed as being, in essential agreement with "ancient" Ac
tetics (those mentioned by name are Speusippus, Xenocrates
and Aristotle).
x9 Both of which are said to be in important respects identic
IV.24, 56; V.7, 14, 22.
20 IV.56, 60-62, 72-74; V.22.
sx IV.26-29, 43-45, 46-48, 68-71.
22 IV.45; V.7.
28 IV.26-29; V. i5-I7.
24 IV.25-26, 29-31, 46-48, 78-79; V.15-17.

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different as the human good and moreover something whos
ment was at variance with the initial impulse that they the
posited.
The Stoics did in fact advance a view of the good according to which
the only good was, as some translations say (cf. n.34), virtue, namely a
certain state of the soul which was in a certain way independent of the
goals of a human being at his initial stage of development. They believed
that most if not all the things for which human beings naturally and
initially strive are not themselves good in the strict sense.25 Rather, they
held that, roughly speaking, the things that human beings naturally
strive for are merely "preferable" (rrpoqypC'va), whereas their opposites
are "dispreferable" (to use a term that matches the clumsiness of the
Stoic term adroirpogyp'va). This view has always seemed rather strange,
and modern scholarship has not, in my opinion, managed to make sense of
it, if indeed there is sense to be made of it. Moreover their view of the good
did indeed place a severe strain, as Antiochus saw, upon their account of
the development of human moral motivation, and produced a problem
with which they had to reckon.26 They came to be seen as having mis-
takenly grafted their view of the good onto an account of the initial stages
of human development which it could not fit, and Antiochus believed
that their notion of oikeiosis ought naturally to have led them to a quite
different view of the good, namely one of the sort that he himself adopted.
III
From the foregoing it appears that Antiochus regarded the St

theory of oikeiosis, in its initial stages, as identical with his own views
early human development. Many modern scholars also tend to think
the theories of development in De Fin. III and V as strongly similar
each other and even sometimes not to distinguish them from ea
other.27 But although there are indeed important similarities, it be
25 For this view and some of its attendant problems, see, e.g., Long, Hellenisti
Philosophy 189-I99.
26 We do not know, in fact, who originated this line of objection to the St
account. (I suspect that the question is in a way pointless, since I think that t
originator of the account, whether he was Zeno or Chrysippus or someone e
must from the start have been aware of the possibility of this sort of objecti
so obvious is it.) For the idea that Posidonius criticized Chrysippus for depict
the psychologies of children and adults as implausibly different from one an
other, see Pohlenz, Die Stoa I, 199-200.
27 Thus one finds Pohlenz, among others, citing Book V without any warni
as evidence for claims about Stoic doctrine (e.g., Grundfragen 95).

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hooves us to look carefully at the differences too
Book III exhibits an account of development cruci
that of Book V and one that throws more light th
on the way in which the Stoics thought that thei
was related to their theory of oikeiosis.28
Let us look now at Book V. The account of devel
in c. 24, where the first claim is that every anim
preservation (ut se conservet) and also both to pres
in the best condition in accordance with nature (se
sit affectum ut optime secundum naturam affect
redundancy of this description seems to betoken
and it is unclear here, and in the next chapters, wh
keep oneself in the best possible condition, in add
viving, is coordinate and coeval with the impulse
or instead succeeds it and is somehow based upon i
evident that on this account, the desire for perfec
its parts is an element of an animal's motivation, o
very early stage.3'
After some arguments in support of this first
are then presented with the observation that
"nature" is dear to him (this being regarded as one
first point), we need to know what the nature of
hominis natura, c. 34). The idea is that if one is goi
and perfect oneself, one needs to know just what t
to be preserved and perfected. The account o
expected to tell us the answer, and is accordingly p
It informs us what the various faculties of a man
body and those of his soul (animus),32 while insistin
of the human being as a whole requires that his b
his soul, and be judged in some sense less importan
28 See section IV.

29 See N. Madvig, ed., M. Tullii Ciceronis De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum
Libri Quinque, 3rd ed. (Copenhagen 1876) ad. loc. 644-645.
80 The former interpretation is recommended by c. 43 (... is animi appetitus
a principio fuit ut ea quae dixi quam perfectissima natura haberemus.. .). One
might argue that c. 37 (Nam cui proposita sit conservatio sui, necesse est huic partes
quoque sui caras esse, carioresque quo perfectiores sint et magis in suo genere lauda-
biles) tends the opposite way, though it could also be read so as not to do so.
See also c. 41 and II. 33-34.
" See also cc. 26, 34, 35-36, 39-40, 41, 46-47.
32 See cc. 34, 37.
88 Cc. 34, 38 (ita fiet ut animi virtus corporis virtuti anteponatur . .).

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The Basis of Stoic Ethics I51
On this basis an account of the motivation underlying the moral
virtues (honesta) is developed,3 these virtues being in particular justice,
bravery, temperance, and prudence (c. 67). In conformity with the
account so far, it is said that we have even as children certain impulses
to virtuous actions that are like sparks or seeds of the virtues, which
develop later (it is not said just how) with the acquisition of greater
knowledge." The point is that these impulses represent faculties that
we have from birth and whose development is part of the process of
perfecting the person as a whole.3
At c. 46, a new turn in the argument is announced. Up to now, it is
said, its basis was in the prima commendatio naturae, the first attraction
(oikeiosis) of nature. Now, however, not merely the fact that each of us
is dear to himself, but the fact that each part of our nature, both body
and soul, possesses a faculty of its own, will be used to show that when
we exercise such faculties we are acting in the highest degree willingly
and of our own accord.37 The force of this contrast is unclear enough
for Madvig to have declared that there really was no contrast at all, and
that Cicero seems non satis attendisse ad continuationem et tenorem disputa-
tionis Antiochi.3 It is more likely, however, that Cicero is trying to be
faithful to an articulation in his source for Antiochus' line of thought
that he did not fully understand, than that he is introducing an articula-
tion of his own. What ultimately worried the author of the argument was,
quite plainly, the fact that he wishes to commend various virtues even
when they are inimical to self-preservation and self-love, and what he
wishes to show is that our impulses toward the exercise of these virtues
84 In another context I would not be content with this translation of honestum

or associated Latin and Greek words, but for present purposes it will do, since
discussion of the notion expressed by "moral" will be unnecessary.
35 See c. 43, virtutis quasi germen and virtutum quasi scintillas. Cf. Aristotle on
Ovasc aperg, esp. E. N. Ii44biff., I151ai8.
36 Esp. c. 44. It is always a problem for such views to say why the perfection
of the uniquely human faculties exploited in, say, burglary and embezzlement
are not to be developed.
37 This difficult sentence reads: Nunc autem aliud iam argumentandi sequamur
genus, ut non solum quia nos diligamus sed quia cuiusque partis naturae et in corpore
et in animo sua quaeque vis sit, idcirco in his rebus summe (summa MSS) nostra
sponte moveamur. The phrase "when we exercise such faculties" must be the
force of in his rebus. Summe is good enough for the impossible summa (cf. Madvig
69o-691), though I suspect that the corruption is deeper, and that we may have
lost a clause between summe (or summa) and nostra. Alternatively, Cicero may be
translating an original that is very compressed, or may be compressing heavily
himself.
38 Madvig 688-689.

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are nevertheless natural to us, and therefore (in ac
principle that what is aimed at by a natural impulse is
that acting in accordance with those impulses is a pa
though they run counter to our impulse toward sel
break at c.46 prepares the way for the attack on thi
The break accordingly marks the beginning of a d
sort of motivation. Up to this point, we have be
possess virtues (of both body and soul) because o
however inexplicit, that possessing them is part of t
development of our nature. Now, however, it is clai
possessing them propter se, for their own sakes,4
considerations of self-love.41 Thus, for example, w
tions to be just: one is our reflection (particularly, a
we have attained a certain awareness of what our n
just is to exercise a faculty that is a part of our nat
attraction to justice tout court, without regard to the
of our nature. Analogous pairs of types of motivat
virtue.4
It is important here to avoid confusion. When one is impelled to be
just by the second motivation, one's reason for being just, as it presents
itself to one, is not that being so is a part of one's nature, much less that
being so is conducive to one's self-preservation or self-perfection.
Rather, one is simply attracted by the idea of being just, merely for its
own sake. However, being thus attracted to and motivated by justice
for its own sake is itself a part of one's nature, and it is for this reason
that being thus motivated by justice is claimed to be a part of our good.4
The difference between the first and the second motivation, therefore,
is the difference between being just because being so is to perfect one's
nature, and being just for its own sake, as one's nature in fact demands
that one be, but not because it does so demand.
This distinction having been made, Antiochus is in a position to say
** Cc. 89 (bonum appello quidquid secundum naturam est, quod contra, malum),
66, 15-17.
40 Cc. 47, 6o.
41 Cc. 58-61, 47, 63-64, 55.
42 Hence the apparent repetitiousness of cc. 46-72 as against cc. 34-44 (and
esp. cc. 65-67 vs. 38, 43), noted by Madvig, ibid, and mistakenly taken by him
to be pointless.
48 Hence the emphasis on the naturalness of virtue in cc. 58-60, 65-66, long
after the new argumentandi genus has begun in c. 46, and in spite of the claim
there that it will not be based upon the prima commendatio naturae, which was
the impulse to self-preservation and self-perfection.

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that different natural impulses can come into conflict, as in particular
when the impulse to self-preservation conflicts with the impulse to be
just. Examples of such conflicts appear in c. 64, and they are said to be
resolved by the fact that the happiness arising from moral virtue is
sufficient to swamp all rival considerations." But all the impulses at
work here are claimed to be natural to man, and the entire basis of the
ethical view outlined in Book V is based upon the claim that the
development and realization of human nature, that is, of the impulses
and faculties that nature has engendered in human beings, is the human
good.
IV
To the wary eye it takes only a little care in the reading of Book III
to see that the structure of its argument is quite different from that of
Book V. In brief, the point is that Book III does not rest ultimately
upon a self-realizationist doctrine as does Book V, and that the account
of moral development in the former contains a crucial idea entirely
lacking in the doctrine of Antiochus in the latter.
The first step of the account of development in III indeed looks the
same as that of the account in V: all animals are said to strive for self-
preservation (c. 16, ad se conservandum) and to avoid what is inimical to
that end. As a part of this striving they are said to have "sense of self "
(sensus sui), without which they would not be able to strive for self-
preservation.45 What is distinctly lacking, however, is the insistence of
Book V that coordinate with, or arising immediately out of,46 the
impulse to self-preservation is a desire for perfection of one's parts and
of oneself as a whole. Indeed, the injunction to make oneself or one's
parts "perfect," while frequent in Book V, is conspicuously absent from
Book III.47 The same can be said of the idea, basic to Book V, that in
order to follow the injunctions of nature, the first thing that we must
do is to determine what the nature of man is (V. 34)- Man does indeed
have a special place in the scheme of Book III,48 to which we shall later
turn (section VIII), but that place is not accurately represented by
saying that on its doctrine, a person's good is simply the development
44 Cc. 71-72, 76 ff. I leave aside the question whether the view involved
ultimately is paradoxical or self-contradictory.
45 C. 16; cf. D.L. VII.85.
4" Cf. n.3o.
47 In Book V see cc. 26, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39-40, 43, 44, 59--60. (The occurrence
of perfectione at III.32 obviously has nothing to do with the present matter.)
48 See cc. 21 and, in a different connection, 63, 66, 67-68.

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of human faculties. While Book III does indeed r
Book V would count as such development, the
presented in III is founded on importantly diff
After the brief treatment of self-preservation a
cc. i6-I7, we are told that at an early stage we
too are to be adopted for their own sakes (propt
are is a difficult problem concerning Stoic epis
what at a loss, here suggests cognitiones, compr
tiones all as possible translations). But the claim
somehow value knowledge, and the account con
also value artes.49 It would appear from the ph
esteem of knowledge is not regarded as derive
self-preservation, and it is immediately said as
those parts of the body possessing usefulness (u
such as the peacock's tail, bestowed by nature n
(nullam ob utilitatem) but as a sort of ornamen
ornatum). But rather than continue as Book V w
ing that, since these things are natural to our m
good to develop and exploit them, the argume
different direction.
In c. 20 it is said that what is correctly called
be understood at a stage at which one's selectio
becomes constans consentaneaque naturae.50 The
to do with "appropriate acts" or officia (C
KaOKov7a),51 the first of which is said to be t
49 The Greek must be -rixvat, which is explained by t
avaTl/La KaTaA77oJewv and the like; see SVF 1.73; 11.56
50 This period (Initiis ... possit dici) is preceded by
of what is aestimabile that does not clearly fit into t
has placed it; see A. L6rcher, Das Fremde und das
De finibus bonorum et malorum und den Academic
however, Lorcher far overestimates the incoherence
responsibilities for the difficulties that it does contai
of LSrcher, Philologische Wochenschrift [19131 598-
51 Following Rackham I use "appropriate act" to r
clumsy, it is less misleading than others. "Duty" is un
many misleading modern connotations. Long's transl
istic Philosophy 188-189, 187) is in my opinion inac
taken interpretation of Stoic ethics. His argument fo
the normal meaning of the Latin word officium, whi
"function," but are not to the point. Because Cicero is
of art to translate the Greek kathekon, what we rea
that word (in technical Stoic contexts), one that will
doctrine which, even as of Cicero's time, had its prim

45.5.164.17 on Tue, 23 Aug 2022 04:39:47 UTC
naturae statu and the second to seize what is in accord with nature and
to reject the contrary. The long period constituting c. 21 is intended to
explain this idea (note enim). The first conciliatio (oikeiosis) of a man, it
says, is to things that are in accord with nature; but as soon as the man
has understanding (intelligentia) or, better, cognizance (notio) and sees
the order and, so to speak, harmony of conduct (rerum agendarum
ordinem et ut ita dicam concordiam), he values this order and harmony
far more than all the other things that previously attracted him. More-
over, it is said, he realizes through the use of intelligence and reason
(cognitio and ratio)52 that in this order and harmony lies that highest
good that is to be praised and sought for its own sake.
It is not difficult to see that this passage, which describes the turning
point in a person's understanding of and attraction to the good, does
not express the same self-realizationist view that we have seen in Book
V. The crucial event here is not a realization by the person of what his
own nature consists in, but rather an awareness of the "order and
harmony of conduct "; and his understanding of the good does not
involve the understanding of how he may preserve and develop his own
self, but rather how he may keep himself in a state of "poAoyla with
nature, notably through such things as the performance of honeste
facta.53
Commenting on this passage, Madvig was worried by the fact that although
the word officium occurs first in the clause primum est ... officium, the phrase cum
officio selectio a few lines later seems to suggest that only at a later stage does a
person actually perform officia (Madvig 372; cf. H. Rackham, trans., Cicero, De
Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass. 1931) 238n.). If one
does think that only what is done at the later stage can be an officium, then one
will take the first occurrence of the word to be misleading. In fact, however, the
Stoics saw no need for a creature to have reached any maturity or mental power
before it could perform officia or kathekonta. A kathekon, in their view, was some-
thing that, when done, had a plausible defense (ElEAoyov oaX4E d&roAoytaCpdv in D.L.
VII.Io7, and edAoyov &7roAoylav XE' in Stob. Ecl. II 85, 14-15, SVF I.230), but
this did not require that the creature who had done it be actually in a position
at the time to give that defense, as is shown by the fact that they allowed kathe-
konta to be performed by plants and lower animals as well as men (loc. cit.).
52 Intelligentia and notio are Cicero's suggested translations of Vwvota; cognitio
and ratio must respectively translate Ka-rac7~ArpL and AOyos. Cicero's frequent
need here to translate and even to explain terms from Stoic epistemology (cf.
also n.49) indicates that his immediate source at this point was a work pre-
supposing, or perhaps containing at an earlier point, some epistemological
material.
" The Stoic idea of honestum as the sole bonum is picked up later, as in cc. 26,
58, but it does not loom large in this book. When it does appear it is connected,

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This difference between Books III and V establi
the further question what exactly the "order and
is. It is an order and harmony of conduct (rer
means that it is not the full universal order that th
manifest in the workings of nature as a whole, as
dwelt on in Book II of the De Natura Deorum (see
and which we shall observe playing an important
thought (sections VI-VIII). But what conduct is in
claimed to see order and harmony (avpowvla) var
human action. For example there is the methodica
ter of 7mTeq84V'-ra, "pursuits," and rc'Xvca, "

Ecl. II 67, 5-12 Wachsmuth = SVF III.294); there is
T6V &pETJv, the reciprocal implication of the virtu
having one virtue has them all (D.L. VII.I25-I2
296 if); there is the dcpovoEcv and avp0cowv4v of
II 93,19-94, 6 = SVF III.625 and II io8, 5-25 = SVF III.630);
there is the fact that virtue or &pETr is explained as a 8uL0cWEs vX-is
od , wvov aVTV rEpt 1Aov 'vy fItov (Stob. Ecl. II 59, 4 = SVF III.262;
cf. Clem. Al. Paed. I.3, p. I6oP., SVF III.293); and there is the fact
that a city or wrroA is said to be a auvarrnLa of citizens (cf. n.49) to which
the whole Kdyos/o, an EK OVEW KaL &vOpdnov lut-rpa, is comparable
(Stob. Ecl. I 184, 8-11, SVF II.527, with Ar. Did. ap. Euseb. Praep.
Evang. XV.I5, pp. 817-818, SVF II.528). All these, and combinations
thereof, are in some degree possible candidates for being the order and
harmony of conduct mentioned here, though no one of them is irresist-
ibly compelling, since none of them is thrust upon us by the context.
Another possibility, which does arise from the context, is that the con-
duct in question consists in those very actions that the person performs,
at the initial stage of preserving himself in naturae statu and of seizing
what is in accord with nature. The order exhibited in this conduct
would simply be the striking fact already noted, that one is so con-
stituted by nature as to seek by impulse the very things that will preserve
one's natural state. One's relationship to one's environment is in
this sense an orderly one, in showing a fit between one's natural
in a manner standard for Stoics but too involved to be discussed here, with the
notion of 6 oAoyl, as in c. 21. Associated with this notion is the phrase constans
consentaneaque naturae, in which Madvig (pp. 373, 375) rightly took constans to
express self-consistency, and consentanea naturae to have to do with consistency
with nature. (That these two ideas were linked by the Stoics is well known; see
Stob. Ecl. II 75, 11-76, 8, Madvig 374-375, and Pohlenz, Die Stoa I I16-118;
see section VII.)

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impulses and one's best chances for survival.54 It would, t
order that impresses itself on the developing person's min
the understanding that in order of this sort lies the good,55
the way for later comprehension of the order of nature as
only thing that is strictly perfect.56
But whichever sort of order lies behind Cicero's wor
difference between this account of human moral developm
one in Book V remains. The point of the present account is
good consists in satisfying natural impulses (nor, certainly,
pleasure from so doing). Nor is it that one must discover
nature in order to develop one's true self. It is that there is
pattern in conduct, which we notice as we develop, and to w
"6 " It was not likely," says D.L. VII.85 (with von Arnim's additi
"that nature would estrange (&XAoTpcZcoa&) an animal from it
once it had made the animal, it [nature] would neither estrange it
dear tonot
would itself (olKEL7OaL)."
be oikeiosis, givenThe point
that must
nature be that
operates byit is not(see
design lik
assumption which D.L.'s source is taking as established already.
'6 Perhaps the point is strengthened by the phrase qua inventa selec
although difficulties plaguing the sentence in which it occurs make
weight on it inadvisable. (I assume that Madvig and subsequent
been right to read qua here for the more widely attested quae, but e
be questioned if the text were supposed to be more deeply cor
appears - not an impossibility.) If inventa alludes to a process
aware of, then it may be being claimed here already that one's ne
the principle of selection and rejection, which one formerly follo
impulse, helps lead to a later understanding of what is truly good
not be so if (as the anonymous reader points out and as Reid inter
instead means simply that the procedure has been arrived at or a
Fin. 1.23). Against this latter interpretation there is the following: w
c. I6 that the officia described in primum est officium ... contraria a
immediately from birth (cf. n.5i), so that it would be very odd t
principle of selection involved as arrived at or acquired. However
this word, severe problems remain. Some kind of selectio and reiec
But then something follows (sequitur), apparently described by t
officio selectio. But it would be very strange if this selectio were t
one just mentioned, which it seems to follow. But if it is differen
the difference? Its being in some sense cum officio whereas the o
But this hypothesis seems to conflict with the fact, just noted (and
the person has been performing at least certain officia all along.
unclear, and there seems to be confusion in the passage. Fortunat
the main point of the view of moral development is clear enough
poses without the evidence of this sentence.
" See the sentence of the De Nat. Deor. cited in n.78, along wit
and Plut. St. Rep. o154e-f (SVF II.550); Cic. De Nat. Deor. II
11.641).

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attracted (at least if everything works out properly5
thing at which our impulses were initially directed
we now esteem as good, all other things are said n
their own sakes (propter se expetendum). In standar
these things are said to be "indifferent" (&Stctqopa
of them, that is, those in accord with nature, are "
"dispreferred " (cf. p. 149) and on that account have
(&ela, aestimatio) and "disvalue" (&7rcajta).58
The theme of harmony is harped on throughout
do not lose sight of the idea that the universe form
and that orderliness is something to which we ar
c. 18 we have already been told that we esteem arte
contain an element of the rational and the met
ratione constitutum et via).59 In c. 23, our appetitio
our ratio are said to be given to us non ad quodvi
quandam formam vivendi. The same theme fits, to
cc. 33-34 that the notion of goodness differs from
degree but in kind (genere, non magnitudine). Rath
valuable thing among others, goodness is regarded
arrangement and structure of everything else. In th
of the book emphasizes that what attracts one abou
its marvelous structure and astonishing order (adm
incredibilisque ... ordo), and the fact that it is so com
and coagmentatum (c. 74). The same theme appe
bonds among human beings are discussed (cc. 62-71
the relationship of one man to another is comp
different parts of a human body, some of which a
for the sake, not merely of themselves, but of other
57 Not everything always works out properly or at least

to from a limited human perspective (see, e.g., Plutarc
II. x8x1). But the whole problem of evil, and of imperfe
is skirted in De Fin. III.
58 On the general idea, see with cc. 20o and 34, SVF III.x17-168; Long, Hell.
Phil. 189-204. Just what the distinction between goodness and value really
amounts to is a question that can be ignored here.
59 For the notion expressed by via, see the Stoic definition of 6'aLt as rr0p
TEXYKOv,
Deor. Oi flaGaov
11.57) through els y'EV
the words (D.L.
ignem esse VII.I56), rendered
artificiosum by Cicero
ad gignendum (De Nat.
progredientem
via; see also Cicero's remark just afterwards (11.58) that nature is artificiosa on
the ground that habet quasi viam quandam et sectam, and in particular Quintilian's
report that according to Cleanthes, ars est potestas viam, id est ordinem efficiens.
Also pertinent
concordia in Deare SVF
Fin. 1.72, 73
111.21); (cf. n.49),
11.413. 497 (d08K
See section VI. Ka Qov1dvws) - cf. ordo et

45.5.164.17 on Tue, 23 Aug 2022 04:39:47 UTC
meant to think, for example, of the fact that the hands carry f
mouth, so that the whole body is nourished)." In c. 64, the fa
put the common advantage of man before our own is sa
" natural consequence " (natura consequi) of the fact that the u
as the Stoics claim, a common city and state of both men an
which is ruled by the gods but of which each of us is a par
By clear and emphatic contrast, this theme of order and ha
not a part of the argument in Book V, either in the discussio
virtues or in the account of human nature. By the same tok
emphasis on the idea of perfecting oneself as a human being
knowing one's nature in order to do so, which occupies a pr
place in Book V,62 finds no counterpart in Book III, exc
thoroughly incidental invocation of the maxim se noscere, am
such sayings, in the coda of the book in c. 73-
This is not to say, of course, that Book III has no place for a
to do what is in some sense suited to human nature. Mention of this
sort of consideration is rare in Book III, but it does occur, late, in c. 73-
Even here, however, it has no special place of its own:
Nec vero potest quisquam de bonis et malls vere iudicare nisi omni cognita
ratione naturae et vitae etiam deorum, et utrum conveniat necne natura
hominis cum universa.
Nor can anyone judge truly of what is good and bad unless he knows
the whole plan of nature and also of the life of the gods, and whether or
not man's nature accords with nature in general.
The injunction to exploit one's own nature as a human being is here

derived from a more general injunction to conform to nature as a whole
(see section VIII).
In no other work is Cicero so concerned as he is in the De Finibus to

distinguish between an ostensibly orthodox Stoic position and the
position of people like Antiochus, and so it is not surprising to find that
the distinction is in many other places quite blurred. Let us survey the
60 Cf. Plato Rep. 462c-d and SVF II.Io3; cf. section VIII.
61 Mundum autem censent regi numine deorum eumque esse quasi communem
urbem et civitatem hominum et deorum, et unumquemque nostrum eius mundi esse
partem ...; cf. SVF 11.527, 528.
62 Cc. 24, 34, 37, and see n.47. Note the emphasis in c. 26 on the fact that the
nature in question there is different for each species - an idea which is absent
from Book III (see section VII).

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16o Nicholas P. White
situation in other works and then return to reexamine the distinction as

it appears in the De Finibus, to see what questions are to be asked about
it and what conclusions are to be drawn.
The blurring of any such contrast is particularly noticeable in the
more philosophical portions of the De Re Publica and the De Legibus.
There, Cicero is anxious to show that justice is in some sense natural
rather than arbitrarily conventional, but he is not much interested in
details of moral psychology or its development.Y1 In De Legg. 1.54,
Antiochus is cited for the view that Zeno differed from older philoso-
phers only in his terminology (see also c. 38), a view we have seen in
De Fin. V. This fact does not show that the whole of the former book
is written under Antiochean influence, but it does show that it is not
written entirely without it. Moreover, that the book does not represent
orthodox Stoicism is shown by, inter alia, the fact that in c. 60 prudence
is concerned with the selection and rejection of goods, whereas we know
that the Stoic view was, at most, that it would have to do with the
selection of natural and preferred indifferents." On the other hand, in
c. 23, we have the Stoic idea that the universe is a common polity of
men and gods.65 The De Re Publica gives us even less that is clear cut.
In 1.39, for example, the talk of the common good is not sufficiently
spelled out for one to pinpoint its source. The Academica are infertile
territory for the present investigation, since they contain no exposition
of Stoic ethics, and there is in them nothing suggestive of the salient
ideas of De Fin. III.66 With regard to the issues we are examining, the
Tusculan Disputations (as we would expect from the warning at V.82-83)
present a philosophically eclectic picture, and moreover they too, while
very much occupied with questions of psychology and motivation, say
little about its early development. An example of the former point: in
V.37-39 there is a passage that in its emphasis on the desirability of
being a perfect specimen of one's kind reminds one of De Fin. V, and
that acknowledges agreement with Aristotle, Xenocrates, Speusippus,
and Polemo.67 In V.70, on the other hand, Cicero is perhaps following
63 See esp. De Rep. 111.32 ff; De Legg. I, passim.

6" Stob. Ecl. 76, 9-13; 82, 11-84, I; 84, 24-85, II; Plut. De Comm. Not.
io6ob-e (SVF 111.141-142, 124-125, 128; I.192; 111.146).
65 De Fin. 111.64 and above, section IV.
66 Ac. 1.23 is reminiscent of the doctrine of De Fin. V, as one would expect
it to be, since it is in a section expounding the views of Antiochus (c. 14); it also
contrasts the vita beata with the vita beatissima in the way that is crucial to the
Antiochean argument against the Stoics in De Fin. V.8I ff.
67 C. 37: . . in suo quidque genere perfectum esse voluit; c. 39: Et, si omne
beatum est, cui nihil deest et quod in suo genere expletum atque cumulatum est, idque

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The Basis of Stoic Ethics I6I
something like the line of thought in De Fin. III.2o ff, though he
it after only a little discussion.
More interesting is the case of the De Officis, since it purports
largely inspired by Panaetius, a Stoic of the second century B.C.
however, is usually recognized to have made substantial chan
though we do not know just what all of them were - in Stoic tea
ings."s The views that we have seen in De Fin. III are by and larg
present in the De Officiis. The reason is unclear. It need not be t
Panaetius disbelieved them; it could as easily be the fact that the
Officiis is neither much concerned with the early development of m
and moral psychology, nor with the concept of goodness as oppose
that of officium. Moreover, the extent to which this focus is the r
of Panaetius' idiosyncratic outlook, rather than simply the annou
subject-matter of the work, is another question I do not profess
able to answer. I think it important, however, that although De
I.14 attributes to human beings a naturally implanted sense of or
propriety, and moderation (ordo, quod deceat, modus), these noti
not only do not here play the crucial role in which we saw them
De Fin. III.2o ff, but moreover are merely said to be "combin
(conflatur) with other impulses, such as the efforts to gain truth a
be free from domination, so as to yield the notion of moral good
(honestum).69 This would be strange as even a very compressed des
tion of the process discussed in De Finibus III, and so I am incline
think that Panaetius' picture of moral psychology may well be diff
from the one presented there. This suggestion would also fit with
fact that in c. 105, it is said that in every inquiry concerning offic
should always be mindful of the degree to which man excels the lo
animals, and in c. 107 it is said that all morality and propriety (hon
decorumque) is derived (trahitur) from that nature of ours by whic
excel those same beasts.70
The same suggestion, however, tends to be confirmed by a comparison
of what Panaetius says about the end or telos with what Posidonius is
known to have said about it somewhat later. Our report says that in the
opinion of the former, the end is " to live in accordance with the starting
virtutis est proprium, certe omnes virtutis compotes beati sunt. Et hoc quidem mihi
cum Bruto convenit, id est, cum Aristotele, Xenocrate, Speusippo, Polemone.
68 See in general the treatment of Pohlenz, Die Stoa I 191-207. On the debt
of the De Off. to him see II.6o, 111.7.
69 Cf. n.34.
70 On the matter of the duae naturae in Panaetius, see Rist, " The Innovations
of Panaetius," Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge 1969) 187-191.

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points given to us by nature" ;71 Posid

it was to live with regard for and kno
ment of the universe, and insofar as p
of it.72 It has been said that compare
be seen to be returning to the view of
connection between human activity an
as a whole, while Panaetius is apparent
of Stoic teaching.t And indeed it is p
certain, that in Panaetius' ethical the
nature of the universe as a whole was
It may be true, too, that in Panaetiu
this idea brought with it, in his ethics
uniqueness in nature, and the importa
by virtue of which he possessed it. W
idea, in De Off. 1.105, 107, and Panae
as having stressed it.74 Moreover, lat
too, as we may gather from Seneca's r
ing the nature of man75 and from p
vein.'" But the history of this matter in
here.7
Of all Cicero's philosophical works, the one closest to the standpoint
of De Fin. III is Book II of the De Natura Deorum, which is devoted to
expounding Stoic theology. It is claimed here that perfection is to be
strived for in all areas, 78 but it is also emphasized that, as was standard
T71 TO V KaTd& Ta& E oo.Lvas-g ~,ptV EK OaEWoS OOpptcs, Clem. Alex., Strom. II.xxi,
129, 4. On &aopLat here see Rist, 188-189.
72 ? -iqv &WPOiv-i-a -rciv rcicv Awv &OetLav Kati TLatV Kal aVYKa-raaKKEVa'?ovTa cu7IrV
KaTa To 8vva8rov, Clem. Alex. loc. cit.
7. See B. N. Tatakis, Panitius de Rhodes (Paris 1931) 163 ff with 164 n.2;
E. Br6hier, Chrysippe et l'ancien stoicisme (Paris 1910; 2nd ed. 1950) 225-226;
Rist 186-187.
74 Thus Rist, 200 and, in a rather different way, Pohlenz, e.g., Die Stoa I
204-205.
5 Ep. Mor. 121.3, 14 (though notice that the latter comes from the mout
of Seneca but of the interlocutor).
76 See, e.g., Diss. II.vi.14, I. xxviii.20-2I, III.i.24 i ff, though note tha
certain ways I.ix goes in a rather different direction, more like that of De Fi
7 Nor am I concerned with the, to my mind, quite different question wh
Stoics after Chrysippus began to adopt a more relaxed attitude toward th
called indifferents (see I. G. Kidd, "Stoic Intermediates and the End for M
Long, ed., Problems in Stoicism 150-172).
78 Neque enim dici potest in ulla rerum institutione non esse aliquid extr
atque perfectum, c. 35.

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Stoic doctrine, only the universe as a whole is perfect79 and th
perfection in human beings is ruled out,80 although a man is
contemplate and imitate the perfection of the universe as a w
which he is a part.81 But although this book thus jibes with De
in not describing or prescribing an effort toward self-perfecti
pendent of the order of nature as a whole,82 it says little abo
motivation resulting from a man's appreciation of the natural
any part thereof. The closest it comes is c. I53: "Having looked
[celestial phenomena], the soul reaches knowledge of the gods
which arises piety, to which is joined justice and the other virtu
which is constituted a blessed life equal and similar to tha
gods."83 This account, concise as it is, shares with De Fin.
and 73 a concern with the impact made upon men's minds
orderliness of the universe ;4 but the account is too compressed
to say that it uses this concern in the same way, and of cours
characteristic terminology and setting of oikeiosis are lacking.
We come finally to De Finibus IV, which clearly aligns itself
Book V. From c. I9 onward, its theme is the question why Zeno
from the older philosophers when he allegedly had nothing sign
new to say and why, after accepting the beginning of Polemo's
of human moral development, he then groundlessly disagreed w
about later stages, in denying genuine goodness to the things a
by our primary impulses, so as to emerge with the paradoxical
parodied by the ironic exclamation, "So to live in accordan
nature is to depart from it! "85 This complaint, of course, is th
to the theory of Book V, which purports to be Antiochus' ada
of Polemo's views, freed from unwanted distortions. Moreove
Book V, this book views nature as impelling us primarily to p
79 Ibid.: ceteris naturis multa externa quo minus perficiantur possunt ob
universam autem naturam nulla res potest impedire, propterea quod omni
ipsa cohibet et continet; cf. cc. 37-39; Plut. De St. Rep. 1o54e-f = SV
and Long, Hell. Phil. 170, I80.
80 C. 39: Nec vero hominis natura perfecta est, et efficitur tamen in homine
quanto igitur in mundofacilius ...
81 C. 37: ... ipse autem homo ortus est ad mundum contemplandum et imi
nullo modo perfectus, sed est quaedam particula perfecti; cf. c. 140o.
82 C. 35, universam ... naturam.
83 ... Quae contuens animus accedit ad cognitionem deorum, e qua orit
cui coniuncta iustitia est reliquaeque virtutes, e quibus vita beata existi
similis deorum.. .
84 Note the words finitus, cognitae, predictae.
85 IV.4I: Ergo id est convenienter naturae vivere, a natura discedere;
cc. 44-45.

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and perfect our nature as members of our kind.86 N
take a quite different turn in cc. 20 ff, but it most
introduce any drive toward perfection at the initial st
in the manner in which Book V did.87
In the light of these facts, what is preeminently
fact that Book IV should claim that the Stoic accoun
ment coincided with that of Polemo (for our pu
pounded in Book V) even through its initial stre
accounts differ so crucially. And this point leads to
the question why the crucial turn taken by the ac
c. 20 ff should be almost completely ignored both
Stoicism in Book IV and in the directly competing
It is not quite completely ignored, however, because
of the Stoics:
... sic isti, cum ex appetitione rerum virtutis pulchritudinem aspexissent,

omnia quae praeter virtutem ipsam viderant abiecerunt, obliti naturam
omnem appetendarum rerum ita late patere ut a principiis permanaret ad
fines, neque intellegunt se rerum illarum pulchrarum atque admirabilium
fundamenta subducere.
This passage registers the crucial turn taken by the Stoic account, but
only in the most cursory way. What it leaves unexplained and un-
answered is the Stoic contention that their theory of oikeiosis really does,
in the manner represented in III.20 ff, explain how a human being can
make the transition from the initial impulses implanted by nature to the
later attraction to virtue. As we saw in section IV, the Stoics think that
this transition is made via the appreciation of a certain pattern or order
in conduct, possibly consisting in the fact that following natural im-
pulses is conducive to survival. But the Stoic claim that the transition
is in some such way to be made intelligible is not confronted with any
directness by the anti-Stoic account of Book IV; and for the most part
the book simply expresses surprise at the Stoics for turning away from
the primary impulses (c. i9) and proceeds as though the Stoics had
never attempted to make clear even wherein they disagreed with
Polemo's story of moral development (c. 45)- So we must ask why it is
that Antiochus, or anyone else, could have given such meagre attention
to the ways in which the Stoic account differs from the one advanced
in Book V.
6s See cc. 32-39, esp. c. 37, and the opening sentence of the account in
c. I6.
87 See section IV.

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One possible explanation is guile - and the desire to make th
look unoriginal and inept. Perhaps this is correct, at least in p
perhaps, too, there was genuine misunderstanding. Certainly th
in Book IV of Stoic doctrine is consistent in presenting it as an
to base moral psychology on the same principles that Antioch
ployed. Thus, in c. 33 it is suggested that Chrysippus' own acc
the good for man was arrived at by reflection on the question w
part of him was by which he surpassed other animals and on th
that the good must have to do with the use of that part, namely th
It is not clear that critics of Stoicism would have wished to go
without some warrant from Stoic texts, and we ought to consid
that warrant might have been. The first point to notice is that P
may well have adopted a doctrine quite like the one that Anti
criticizing, which did place stress on the uniqueness of human
and the desirability of perfecting it. So there would be an exc
Antiochus' taking this doctrine to be at least a standard Stoic
this explanation will get us only so far, because the Stoics
Antiochus is attacking include Chrysippus himself, and indeed
directs its fire as far back as Zeno.89
We are now at the point at which we must ask how far back into the
origins of Stoicism we can reasonably trace the doctrine of De Fin. III.
If it is not an early Stoic view, and especially if it is an aberrant Stoic
view, then Antiochus cannot be severely faulted for failing to hit it when
aimed at Stoicism proper. If, on the other hand, Book III is moderately
faithful to early Stoicism, then what we see in discovering that it is may
help us explain why Antiochus failed to represent it correctly.
VI
To what extent does De Finibus III represent a doctrine of oikeiosis

held in the early Stoa? The evidence is in large part indirect, but we
can have some confidence that the book does present the views of
Chrysippus and perhaps even, to a lesser extent, those of Zeno.
In the first place, we can be fairly certain that Chrysippus had the
notion of oikeiosis and a theory surrounding it. The point is generally
accepted, on the basis of Plut., St. Rep. I0o38a-c, D.L. VII.85-86, and
the fact that the notion was almost universally viewed in later times as
88 See esp.... Tale enim visum est ultimum Stoicorum . . ., which might simply
be Antiochus' interpretation, rather than a faithful report of Chrysippus' view.
89 IV.3, 14, 19.

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a central part of Stoic ethics.90 That it

somewhat less certain, and it is less cer
the term itself. Philippson and Pohlenz
notion,91 but the evidence for Zeno's us
extent the argument for attribution of
back fairly heavily on the centrality tha
school that Zeno founded, and the fact
would have been little Zenonian ethic
herited.93 At any rate we shall be on t
Chrysippus employed the notion but r
Our question, then, is whether Chrys
line of thought described in De Fin. III
followed that course in the crucial resp
what we find in De Fin. V. Here the ev
crucial point to notice is that the idea
90 See Pohlenz, Die Stoa II, 65-66, and Gru

91 In, respectively, "Erste Naturgemiisse,
Die Stoa, loc. cit. The strongest evidence fo
probably Cic. Ac. II. 131 (SVF II.x81), and P
Stoa II 65.
92 The term oikeiosis is never directly associated with Zeno's name, even at
SVF 1.197 (which, nevertheless, is frequently used as support for the attribution
of the idea to him, as in Die Stoa II, 65, and Philippson 450, though the latter
is cautious there). The Latin conciliatio naturae, however, is used in connection
with Zeno's name at Ac. 11.131 (cf. n.91), though one might entertain some doubt
whether the quod-clause in which it occurs is meant to be a direct attribution to
Zeno.
g9 Thus Pembroke 139-140, who also cites the fact that a (perhaps somewhat
different) use of the verb oLKELOV is associated by Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Math
VII.i2 = SVF I. 356) with Aristo of Chios, a pupil of Zeno (though in im-
portant respects a maverick). There is no support available, on the other hand,
from the Mantissa ascribed to Alexander of Aphrodisias, 150, 28-33 Brun
(SVF 111.183), cited by Philippson in this connection, p. 455. These lines say
that according to some Stoics oikeiosis is directed toward oneself, whereas the
XaPLdoe~POv SOKOVVTES AYEL . . Ka. . L Aov SapOpo$v say that it is to one'
avao;raLS
these lines Kal n prqas,
to show whichStoic,
that some is what we find
probably at D.L. VII.85.
Chrysippus, revised Philippson takes
the notion of
oikeiosis in response to the difficulty, arising from a claim of Aristotle's, that one
cannot be flAos to oneself. This being the case, Philippson suggests, an earlier
Stoic must have advanced a doctrine of oikeiosis that neglected this point. That
earlier Stoic, he concludes, must have been Zeno. But this argument fails. Plut.
St. Rep. 1o38b-c reports Chrysippus speaking in the manner condemned by
Alexander, and the latter's judgment of the superiority of the one way of des-
cribing oikeiosis over the other (which itself probably was influenced by Aristotle,
as Philippson says) need reflect no change within Stoicism.

45.5.164.17 on Tue, 23 Aug 2022 04:39:47 UTC
nature as a whole was a part of Stoicism from the beginning, no
in Chrysippus, but before him in Cleanthes and Zeno as well.
we have Cicero's testimony that according to Zeno natura is art
quod habet quasi viam quandam et sectam, quam sequatur, a
ipsius... mundi ... natura is plane artifex, ... consultrix et
utilitatum opportunitatumque omnium; and A6tius ascribes to Z
view that Ejkappv'V can equally well be called tv'ats or 7rp

Likewise, Sextus says that Zeno held -- rTayv to be K&L~TOV
cnrv &rTELpymaUCl'vov pyov.95 And the same idea and related
even more firmly attributable to Chrysippus. He is cited by Ci
the idea that only the universe (mundus) is lacking in nothing,
everything else, even man, is imperfect (De Nat. Deor. 11.37-3
he is cited along with Zeno by Diogenes Laertius for saying tha
KdOULos and the opavods is the ov''ta OEOV (VII.I48 = SVF
Moreover, the idea that the universe is an ordered and perfect
consistently treated by the sources as Stoic doctrine.96 Clearl
already an important part of the position of Cleanthes, before C
pus, a fact noted by Pohlenz.97
It is also easy to see the notion of orderliness entering into
thought in connection with his idea about politics. If the repo
Plutarch and Athenaeus are correct, Zeno placed some emphas
Politeia, reported to be his first work, on the idea of o'dvoLa
like, and on the desirability of there being E-s flos ... Kat; da
all men.98
We saw that the crucial fact about the doctrine of oikeiosis in De Fin.
III, in contrast to Book V, was the vital role played in it by the develop-
ing human being's perception of order and harmony, ultimately within
the universe as a whole. We have a doctrine of oikeiosis as far back as
Chrysippus. We also have stress on the idea of the orderliness of the
universe. Let us ask ourselves how likely it is that the latter did not
9' Cic. De Nat. Deor. 11.58; AMt. Plac. 1.27.5 (= SVF I. 1.171, 176; see in general
on this idea in Zeno SVF 1.171-177); cf. n.59.
9' Adv. Math. IX.Io7 = SVF I.IIo. Likewise, the KdO'cLOs is 1 upbvXO0 and
voEpds (IX.Io4 = SVF I.iii, and in general SVF 1.109-I14).
96 Thus, e.g., SVF II.1oo9 (AMtius Plac. 1.6), 1027 (1.7, 33) with D.L. VII.i56
and De Nat. Deor. II passim, with n.59.
97 "Kleanthes' Zeushymnus," Hermes 75 (194o) 117-123, esp. 119-12o. See
also Cleanthes' hymn (SVF 1.537) esp. 11. 2, 7-8, 12, 24, and Clem. Strom. V.8,
48 (SVF 1.502), which says that the sun otov irA'4caawv rv KdOaLOV ELS EVapPLOVLOV
ropdaEv yet (cf. the concordia of De Fin. 111.21).
98 SVF 1.262, 263. Cf. also Stob. II, Io3, 24 ff, I50, 5-10o, on the unsociability
of the OaOAos, and above n.6I.

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somehow figure in the former. The an

unlikely. If we want direct evidence o
thought between the kosmos and mor
the words (St. Rep. io35c = SVF 111.
ov yap EOTLV E~vpE V T77S' v ICCU0CsLOa 7?
T71V EK TOV ALO'S' K(C 777V E'K T)7S KOLV7S #
TO7LOVTV T77V POXrjv EXELV, El V LEAOPLEV OdpO L CO pEVrP tv 7rpl yaO?y V KCO KKaKWV,
It is impossible to find another source of justice or source of its develop-
ment than the one coming from Zeus and the common nature; for it is
thence that everything of this sort must have its source, if we are to speak
rightly about what is good and what is bad,
and (SVF 111.68):
ov yap ErTLV AOS OV'sUCEOLKELOTEPOV E7TEAGELV 7TL V T x(' ' y v K' L

KKWv Ad'yov o08"' 7'r r-rs apiEr(S o38"' 1E)Tl -)v EV&MLoVuxv, ' A(A' ia r rTOT7S'
KOLV77S' OVUEWSC C K(Ua TO T77S' TOV KOU1LLOV &OLK77aEWS',
nor is there any more proper road by which to arrive at the account of
what is good and what is bad, nor at the virtues nor at happiness, than
the one which leads from the common nature and the arrangement of the
universe.
These remarks occur in a passage aiming to show how crucial for ethics
Chrysippus regarded the fact that "the universe is unified and finite
and is held together by a single power (rod avvEXeaeL dO c t8vvCdXLE 7rv
KOrLOV EMV TV7X Kal rTErTEpaUCLrVOv). That the bearing of this idea upon
ethics should not have been linked to the doctrine of oikeiosis is most
implausible.
Notice several things that I am not saying. I am not saying that
everything in De Finibus III is derived from Chrysippus. After all, the
book contains references to more recent authors. Nor am I attempting
to say who or what was the chief source of the book.99 Nor, further, am
99 Many attempts have been made to trace it, and candidates range from
Chrysippus down through Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus to
Hecato. See esp. Madvig 827-831 ; R. Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu Ciceros philo-
sophischen Schriften I-III (Leipzig 1877-83) esp. II, 2, I; M. Schiifer, Ein
friihmittelstoisches System der Ethik bei Cicero (Munich 1934); von Arnim, SVF,
I xxviii-xxix. On the view that the source is a doxographical one, see von
Arnim, ibid., and Philippson, review of Schilfer, Philologische Wochenschrift
(1936) 593-6o6. My thesis is fully compatible with saying that the overlay of
views and terminology later than those of Chrysippus is considerable. For
example (as Soreth points out to me) it is entirely possible - though not, I
think, certain - that the phrase ad extremum constans selectio has come from
the telos formulae of Diogenes of Babylonia and Antipater of Tarsus: see D.L.

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The Basis of Stoic Ethics i69
I maintaining that the rerum agendarum ordo et concordia in De Fin.
III.21 must be the same as the cosmic order that the early Stoics
believed in (indeed, I have denied that this is the case), nor even that
that particular ordo et concordia, whatever precisely it is, can be un-
equivocally recovered from the fragments of the early Stoics. What I
am maintaining is that some notion of order played an important role in
Stoic ethics throughout the period from the beginning of Stoicism to
the time when the ideas of De Fin. III were formulated. I mentioned
in section IV several different contexts in which the Stoics used the
notion of order in connection with human activity. Because of the
Stoic doctrine that there is an informing and organizing force that
penetrates the whole cosmos, and their view that everything that hap-
pens can, rightly viewed, be seen to fall under the cosmic order, it seems
reasonable to suppose that the restricted sorts of order mentioned in
section IV are to be regarded as parts of that all-inclusive order. This is
especially so since terms like po'~vota, " v~owvca, auvortpa, Kdoos and
o og are repeated from one context to another, each being applied to
both cosmic and human matters. We have no explicit record that
Chrysippus included in his account of oikeiosis a stage like the one
described in De Fin. III.21, at which the developing human being
notices and is attracted by an order and harmony of conduct. But he
must have supposed that there was some point at which a person comes
to appreciate the cosmic perfection that he and Zeno believed in (on
Cleanthes see section VIII). It is not at all unlikely, therefore, that
there was a preliminary stage on the way to this appreciation of the
cosmic order such as De Fin. III.21 pictures. (Compare III.21 with
111.73: together they show that to notice the order and harmony of
conduct in the former is only to begin to understand the good, a com-
plete comprehension of which does not come without a knowledge of
the ratio naturae et vitae etiam deorum and of whether or not human
nature is in agreement with [conveniat; cf. convenientia for tpoAoylea in
c. 21] natura universa.) On the other hand perhaps the preliminary stage
was a post-Chrysippean invention designed to fill in the account of
development, which found its way into Cicero's hands. In either event,
the picture of development in De Fin. III is squarely in the tradition
of early Stoic views on the topic.
But before we accept this conclusion, we must reckon once again
VII.88; Stob. II 76, 9 (SVF III Diog. 45, 44); Clem. Alex. Strom. (Stiihlin)
II 183, 4-6 (SVF III Antip. 58); and Soreth, "Die zweite Telosformel des
Antipater von Tarsos," Archiv fiir Geschichte der Philosophie 50 (1968) 48-72.

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with Pohlenz's quite different account of what e
these matters were like. It says that the crucial
human being is the understanding of what it is to
to all other, nonhuman, animals. What is the evi
idea (which we saw at work in De Fin. IV-V but no
of the earliest Stoics ? Pohlenz offers none. The fa
ing, but it is nevertheless the case that in his disc
early Stoic views on these matters, and in the no
(I, 114-116; II, 64-67), documentation is offered f
idea neither to Zeno nor to Chrysippus nor to an
period. Nor is such documentation forthcoming in
him or other scholars.
What evidence there is for Pohlenz's account comes in a different
form, in his interpretation of Zeno's ideas about telos. According to
Pohlenz (Die Stoa, I, 116- 118) Zeno regarded the telos as living in
accord, in effect, with one's specifically human nature. Now if this is
correct, then it would of course be natural enough, in spite of contrary
indications, to think that a Zenonian doctrine of oikeiosis, if there was
such a thing (cf. n.92), would indeed, as Pohlenz claims it did, give
central importance to the idea of a stage at which the developing human
being gained an understanding of what his specifically human nature
was. And if that were the case, then Pohlenz would be correct, and it
would turn out that De Fin. V gives a more accurate picture of the early
Stoics' views on oikeiosis and moral development than Book III.
But Pohlenz's story of early Stoic views about the telos is wrong.
VII
According to Diogenes Laertius (VII.87-89), Zeno, Cleanthes, and

Chrysippus all held that the telos was JpoAoyovpE'vw 7-- 4 0'eL tv (the
first equating this to Kaz'7i &pE1r-v v, and the last equating TO Ka'7
4&pErv (>-v
Chrysippus in reported
is also turn tohere
TO toKa7haveEprrTELpaV
expounded theT~WV d1JUEL
telos by the urvl~AwoVd ovrW v ,v).
(clearly fully equivalent) variant TO &KoAov'6o-w T 7- 0'etEL v, with the
added explanation (SVF 111.4):
O7TEP EaTL Ka-T ("E 77)V IV7TOV KM Kcz7-c 77)V TWV oAWV, OV..EV EVEpyOwVTaS CWv
cX7T(cyOp4vEELV4 ELO0EV Jvo/Lo0s KOLVOS,o O7"ITEP ETV 0P%9 A'yo9, St
rvrTwv EpXoIEvos , 0 ~arto Wv 7W AdL, KaOYqyqOV L ,OJCt T 7TWV V7TV

sLOLKEwsiVo E 7O 7 V V T70O ET , OVOS apEr7V Ka
EVpOLV fiLov, O'TCv ITC ZVT7Tsp77(77CZL KCZ7C 7 7V UUV L tWLCEV 701) 0V7Ta EKcXUTO)
Svalpovsev 7ipa ' )v 70O T wV jAWv 8&OLK7)poV^ fOlo'AO)uLV.

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The Basis of Stoic Ethics I7V
After a sentence on Diogenes Babylonius and Archedemus, the account
continues (= SVF 1.555):
oVcatLV SE Xpv'aL7r7ros0 P &I eC(OVEL, ~ K&oKA;OvS 9SEt LV, 7-qV TE KOLV7V KatL
'iS' g -r)V %vpconwVqv, ' 8 s% KXE v0rjs rgqV KOLVIV l)V p KSEXE cXL /fLV, ?
&KOAOvEv SEtL, OK7L S K0 T7E V Tq LEpOUS.
Note in passing that this passage clearly corroborates our view of the
importance which Chrysippus attached to the idea of order and harmony
in his ethics.
Our other chief source on this matter, Stobaeus, presents a somewhat
different story, at least with regard to Zeno, and this is the story that
Pohlenz, along with probably most interpreters, accepts. At Ecl. II, 75,
11-76,1 (SVF 1.179), we have it that Zeno's telos was simply ir
d~oAoyovpE'vws (~7jv, explained as (the explanation fairly clearly purports
to be Zeno's or fully in his spirit) KicO' vcx hdyAov K(czt v'p)ovov ?v, Cas
7tV CVXOLWEVC S wvwOv KCKO8cZLtOVOrVTWv. We are then told that subse-
quent figures, rrpoc8&ap0poov-rEs, added the phrase -r7^ 0'EL, the first
such figure being Cleanthes, while Chrysippus then explained the en-
larged formula meaning (as in D.L.) (qv K(cz" EtLrELpuWV 7i-v VUrEL
vPflcwLVrVTWV.
Pohlenz, I have said, accepts this story. He accepts, that is, that
Zeno's explanation of the telos was simply dpoAoyovpE'vvws- v, without
i- r~ VEL (Die Stoa, II, I16-I 7), in the sense of "ein in sich einstim-
miges Leben." It is quickly apparent, however, that he believes not
only that this would for Zeno require a human being to live in accord
with his reason (logos),100 but also that although it does not appear in
his telos-formula, Zeno did stress the idea of the Kalzra OV pBloS, V mean-
ing by v';a here "die spezifische menschliche Natur."101
This belief rests upon a reading of the passage from Diogenes
Laertius that was advanced by Hirzel and continued by Pohlenz.102
For our purposes, the essential part of the argument rests on the pre-
ceding chapter, c. 96, where it is said that because in contrast to plants
and animals, logos is given to rois AOYLKO- Ka-r -EAeAELo-'pxV rpoU0aTrauv,
100 This is plausible enough, though one need not accept Pohlenz's claim here
that Zeno, because he was not a native speaker of Greek, would have had to
attend to the etymology of the word d'toAoyovCdvws and would have made some-
thing of the presence of the element -Aoy-.
101 Die Stoa II 117, 11. 24-26, 39-40, and "Zenon und Chrysipp," Nachr. von
der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu G6ttingen, Phil.-hist. KI., II, 9 (G6ttingen
1938) 173-2Io, esp. 199-202.
102 R. Hirzel, Untersuchungen, II. 10o5- 118; Pohlenz, "Zenon und Chrysipp"
(see n.Ioi).

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therefore for such things Ka7-a 9ULVW 'a SV is

Clearly a special position is being allotted to
possession of reason,1x and this fact might app
drift of the Stoic view of the telos was indeed t
in accordance with specifically human nature. In
shortly see that the meaning of this passage, in
similarity to Pohlenz's account, is something im
52-53). For now, however, the important po
passage does not support the attribution to Zeno
cardinal importance to a man to live somehow
specifically human nature. This chapter, continu
is governed by the plural verb Oaal, and it is on
c. 87 that Zeno is mentioned.105 No matter what
10s The sense is clear enough, in spite of the textual

mate clause of the chapter.
104 The plural -rois AoyLKoZs is no doubt design
gods - cf. De Nat. Deor. II.154-167, De Fin. 111.64; Seneca Ep. 76.9 (= SVF
III.2ooa) - or perhaps simply the god - cf. SVF I.154, II.10oz27, 1031-1032.
105 Hirzel wished to show that except for a parenthetical remark or two, all
of cc. 81-88 is due ultimately to Chrysippus. One of his related aims was
correct: to show that Zeno's telos formula was, as Stobaeus has it, dtoAoyov~dvwso
(~v rather than the dLoAoyovp~vow 7)- r7- ' e v that D.L. attributes to him.
This is already established well enough by other arguments that Hirzel advances
(p. II2): the fact that in c. 89 &per7' is said to be 8tcat0ES d.oAoyovpiv', along
with d~toAoylav a few lines further on; the fact that at the beginning of c. 89
Zeno is not mentioned when explanations are given of the meaning of physis in
the telos formulae of Cleanthes and Chrysippus; and the fact that it is far easier
to see how 7r 7- 0'e could have been added to Zeno's formula than it is to see
how it could have been deleted in such a way as to yield Stobaeus's account.
But Hirzel went further, and developed an account of cc. 85-88 that is of
enormous and needless complexity, and that requires us to suppose that Chry-
sippus adapted the telos formulae of both Zeno and Cleanthes, simply in order
to provide a (rather shaky) demonstration that the telos is &KoAo0Owgs 7-7 /VaL
P-v (pp. I1o- I1). As part of this account (pp. 113-115), Hirzel maintains that
at the end of c. 86, Chrysippus is making use of material genuinely due to
Zeno, but the only argument for this claim is the fact that in c. 87 D.L. claims
to be citing Zeno's formula from a work entitled Hept &vOpco*rov v'cowsg. I think
that Hirzel is correct in seeing traces of an argument in cc. 87-88, but those
traces provide no support for the attribution to Zeno that is at issue.
Hirzel was chiefly concerned to show that Cleanthes had added the phrase
177 90aEL to Zeno's formula and thus to vindicate Cleanthes against the charges of
lack of originality and of relapsing into Cynicism (pp. Io5, I117). In "Zeno und
Chrysipp," on the other hand, Pohlenz concentrated on trying to show that
Zeno had originally stressed specifically human physis and that Chrysippus had
altered his doctrine by introducing an "external factor," namely the deity or
the nature of the universe as a whole. (See esp. his pp. 2zo1, 202; the idea is that

45.5.164.17 on Tue, 23 Aug 2022 04:39:47 UTC
therefore, we are left without any good reason to think that
veloped his view of the telos from, or grounded it upon, a cla
the specific nature of human beings. The consequence of thi
that we are likewise without good reason for thinking that Ze
of oikeiosis, if indeed he had one, was as Pohlenz describes it, or
crucial step in it involved the understanding of such a natur
part of the developing human being.
VIII
About Zeno's views on these subjects we may reasonably cla

know three facts. First, he believed that the universe is an orga
whole. This fact is entirely left out of account by interpretations
Pohlenz's, which seek to rest Zeno's ethics principally on consider
Zeno believed that the end was a kind of self-consistency of a rational

whereas Chrysippus, Pohlenz thinks, first insisted that the consistency in
must be a consistency with some outside thing, such as nature.) Pohlen
wished to connect the end of c. 86 with Zeno, but was obliged to admit th
idea that is central to his reconstruction of Zeno's view, namely the idea t
life Ka-"' dpt'rv is the Inhalt of the life in accordance with logos, was not pr
there. He therefore found it necessary to see a break between c. 86 and
which he took to be the result of some tinkering with the tradition by Chry
who, he believes, was trying to alter the records of Zeno's views to mak
appear more like his own. Unfortunately for his argument, however, the
sion of the break eliminates his argument for attributing to Zeno the con
the end of c. 86. Far better, then, to admit that that break occurs because
follows it is a report of Zeno's views, whereas what precedes it (and is rep
to repeat, by plural verbs) is not.
The extant evidence concerning Cleanthes is also an embarrassment
Pohlenz's story, for, as we just saw, he wishes to maintain that Chrysipp
the first to introduce an "external factor" into Zeno's telos formula. But
Cleanthes is reported by both D.L. and Stobaeus to have introduced the ful
version of the formula, namely gAoAoyovcdvwo~ - i-~~ et -v. At this point, therefore
Pohlenz's story requires a further complication. He has to claim that it wa
oddly, Chrysippus who first raised Cleanthes' formula to the status of a "Schu
dogma" (whatever that would entail), because he, Chrysippus, was movi
further away from Zeno in the direction suggested by the fuller telos form
(p. 203). The oddity is compounded when one realizes, moreover, that t
evidence of D.L. (cc. 87-89), in no way contradicted by Stobaeus or any oth
source, is flatly that in Cleanthes' interpretation of the fuller telos formula #vo
meant nature as a whole (rijv KOLV/V, -rv 7-r vv Awov), whereas in Chrysippus' vi
it ought
tion to mean both that and human nature (181wo riv avOpworrvv, c. 89; cf. se
VIII).
Such are the difficulties which arise on the reading of Hirzel and Pohlen
In fact, matters are much more straightforward and comprehensible.

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about human nature. Second, we know that Zeno wr
HEp% &vvpd;rov #a'oews (D.L. VII.87, SVF 1.552). T
Zeno used the notion of human nature somehow in h
not show that he used it in the particular manner
cribes. Third, we can be quite certain that Zeno's d
telos was the one that Stobaeus gives (see n.1o5), to l

that is, in some sense consistently, and it seems equ
reason was what Stobaeus also gives, Ca -iJov tp

KaKoSaqtovoVVTWv (75, 13-76, I, SVF I.179).
We would like to be able to fit these facts into a c
Zeno's ethics as a whole. From what evidence we hav
wellansuspect
by that heofbelieved
understanding that the
the structure andend ofof4t'oAoyovp'vo
order ,iv is aided
the whole universe,
and perhaps by an understanding of how that orderliness and harmony
can be introduced into the soul.e This understanding would no doubt
require an understanding of human nature, and particularly of human
psychology. Whether Zeno to this end employed a theory of oikeiosis
we cannot be sure (cf. section VI).
If Cleanthes really made the innovation in the telos-formula that
Stobaeus attributes to him, then he made a very important change
indeed. The ultimate end was no longer, as for Zeno, to live without
internal conflict, but rather to live in accordance with the organized
nature of the universe of which Zeno had already spoken. That is, an
understanding of that organization is no longer thought of as a means
to the end of some sort of harmony within one's own life. Rather, the
ultimate end is thought of as the fitting of oneself somehow into that
larger plan. It is not reported to us why Cleanthes adopted this view,
and I shall refrain from speculating on the reasons here. What is im-
portant for our present purposes is that the testimony concerning
Cleanthes furnishes no support for the idea that the beginnings of Stoic
thought were characterized by any sort of exclusive concern with human
nature, as opposed to the nature of the whole, organized universe.107
106 This is not to say that Zeno need himself have carried out any very exten-
sive investigations or even conjectures into what exactly the structure of the
universe is, and it can perfectly well be that thoroughgoing work on physics
had to await Cleanthes or subsequent figures.
107 We do not know whether Cleanthes meant actively to deny that the telos
is to live in accordance with some kind of specifically human nature. He may
have meant to do so; for one might take certain lines of his Hymn to Zeus
(SVF 1.537), such as 11. 17, 20-21, 26 ff, to be suggesting that there are bad
features of human nature that can come into conflict with the plan of nature as
a whole, and that when this happens the right course is to follow the latter.

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Notice, however - and this point is of some importanc

neither Zeno nor Cleanthes needs by any means to have igno
notion of human nature (indeed, we know from the title of th
17Ept &vYOpBrrov 'vUEcoW that he made some room for it). For it i
possible to say that the telos is to live consistently, either som
oneself or with nature as a whole, and at the same time to a
the manner in which human beings should do this is to act in
with that faculty of theirs, namely reason, that distinguishes th
animals. In particular, one could well think that it is by using
apprehend the organization of the universe that a man could
consistently or in accordance with nature, and one could ack
that only human beings, of all animals, can do this.
We cannot be sure that Zeno or Cleanthes held just this view
do know that Chrysippus went further in this direction. Fr
VII.87-89 it is clear that he neither regarded living " consistent
end to be served by knowledge of the workings of nature as
Zeno seems to have done), nor regarded life in accord with n
whole as the ultimate end (as Cleanthes apparently wishe
Rather he actually identified a "consistent" human life, view
life in accordance with human reason, with a life in accorda
nature as a whole, so that living in accordance with human na
living in accordance with the plan and organization of the u
simply came to the same thing.108 Why did he believe this ? M
because he believed that the rational order of a human being
of the organization of the universe (D.L. VII.88, piPr y&p oa
bvauE1 -~j, Vroi Aov), in the sense that whatever fits with th
with the other. It is in the light of this identification that we
the end of D.L. VII.86, which Pohlenz wished to fasten u
(see section VII), but which is better read as the expression of
pus' view (or the view of his followers) that acting in accorda
universal nature is to be identified with different sorts of behavior in
different creatures, and with rational behavior in man. Moreover, a
psychological corollary of the same view can be seen in what we learned
from De Fin. III. The understanding of nature of both sorts, as we saw
108 He did not merely say, that is, that the two are compatible with each other.
This point is clear from the fact that rd Kar' aO'E7'V 7V is said to be Laov ... 74W
Ka7 CIrLTELpLav 7roV ~OEL uavflaLVOdPTv w l v (87), and that the desired ECipoLa flov
occurs when one's own 8al'pwv is in avI, wvla with q 70 o TOv JAOwv 8LOLKq)OIO floAV'aLg.
See also Galen, Plac. Hipp. et Plat. 450-451 (Muller; SVF III.12), which, as
Soreth points out to me, shows that Posidonius too believed that Chrysippus'
telos formula was equivalent to the formula d'Looyovgvw~s (v.

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it operating in oikeiosis, is the understanding of orde
and the appreciation of this order in the one sort o
without the appreciation of it in the other.109
Though we lack the evidence necessary for certai
that Chrysippus, when he maintained that follow
and following nature as a whole came to the same
claim that had, in the long run, important though
effects, one within the Stoa and the other upon th
history of its doctrine down to the present day. The
be observed in the views of Panaetius, who seems
stance stressing the uniqueness of human nature.
Chrysippus' insistence on his point, that followin
compatible with (and indeed tantamount to) follow
as a precursor of Panaetius' idea, in that Chrysipp
place to the notion of human nature within the St
The second effect of Chrysippus' views is that t
became perilously easy to misinterpret, in just th
actually was misinterpreted by Antiochus (see sec
sippus had assimilated the life in accordance with n
the life in accordance with human nature, the way
preters to think that the latter was the more im
(especially if they thought of Panaetius as an accur
the Stoic tradition). It then became easy to th
doctrine that emphasized reason simply because it
ing feature of mankind and to lose sight of the f
importance of reason for the Stoics lay in the fact th
it is by means of reason that we apprehend order
the universe. By the same token, it became tempt
doctrine of oikeiosis, just as Antiochus is seen to r
as a failed attempt to provide psychological under
realizationist ethics such as he himself advocated. But this was a mis-
interpretation of that doctrine, and of early Stoic ethics in general.
The correct picture of the ethics of the early Stoa is quite different
from the one that Pohlenz paints and is far closer to the evidence.111
109 The understanding and appreciation of order is treated as the same
throughout, notwithstanding the fact that only the universe as a whole exhibits
an orderliness which is perfect (De Nat. Deor. II.37-39).
110 Seen in this context, Panaetius' development of the notion of different
human personae (De Off. I.o107 ff, 97 ff), each with its own uniqueness, is simply
an extension of the same line of thought.
111 In its general spirit, my picture is nearer to that of interpreters like Brehier,
loc. cit., and H. Gomperz, Die Lebensauffassung der griechischen Philosophen

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Stoicism was not in its early stages a doctrine that laid its primary
emphasis on the distinguishing features of human nature (thou
it was far from ignoring these). Pohlenz's suggestion that it was amou
simply to a perpetuation, for quite different reasons, of the mistake th
Antiochus made. Rather, the stress was on the idea of orderline
harmony, and internal consistency, as the early Stoic telos formul
demonstrate. Moreover although Zeno and Cleanthes must have view
human reason as crucial in the effort to apprehend and institute s
harmony, the evidence is that Chrysippus was the first Stoic to main
directly that acting in accordance with human nature was itself a pa
of the end of life,112 which was still construed by him, nevertheless
centrally involving accord and harmony with the order of the univ
(... Ka7- Vly V Vo4v V 701o 7Tap' EIKCUTq) 8alpOVOS 7rpS 77V TO 7T
jAwv SL&oKg-70o flotvAvaTV, D.L. VII.88).
I now return briefly to a theme sounded at the beginning of thi
article. The understanding we have now reached of the true basis o
early Stoic ethical thought makes possible a clearer understanding of
relation to prior Greek ethical systems. The crucial notions have b
that of a universal cosmic order, and that of a human tendency first
appreciate local manifestations of that order and then to appreciate t
order (sections IV and VI). The background of these notions is
large a topic to be covered here, but a few programmatic remarks ar
order. Consider first Aristotle. One can say without too much over
simplification that he is strongly concerned with the desirability
developing, exploiting, and acting in accordance with what is pecul
to the human species.113 There is, however, hardly a hint in his wo
(Leipzig 1904) esp. 198 ff, 203 ff. In spite of the existence of this diverg
tradition, Pohlenz's account has raised, on the relevant counts, little objectio
It is followed by P. M. Valente, L'dthique stoicienne chez Ciciron (Paris 19
ioo, iio, and also, with respect to oikeiosis and De Fin. III.20-2i, by Lo
Hellenistic Philosophy 188 (though on pp. 179-184 Long seems to me mu
closer to the truth). One recent writer following the correct tradition is
Reiner, "Die ethische Weisheit der Stoiker heute," Gymnasium 76 (1969) 3
357, esp. 353-354.
112 Chrysippus' role, therefore, turns out to be virtually the diame
opposite of what Pohlenz portrays it as being (see esp. "Zenon und Chr
199 ff). Chrysippus' reputation (perhaps in part deserved) as somethin
logic chopper, along with his apparent identification of 7rdTc with Kpl~Ls
ever precisely he meant by it- see, e.g., D.L. VII. i i = SVF III111.456),
apparently had the effect of convincing many commentators that he was no
anti-" humanistic." If he was so, however, he was not so in a sense tha
upon the present discussion.
113 E.g., E. N. 1o97b24 ff, esp. 34, II177b27-28, Io78a2-8.

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of the idea that a human being should give specia
and his species fit into the general scheme of the
reflection on this matter is at all crucial to ethic3s.x
Again to simplify, we can say that the notion of ord
undeniable importance in both his metaphysics and
certain places applied directly to specific ethical pr
at Gorg. 503d sqq., Rep. 443c-e, 462c-d, 5oob-e
extent, as in the Timaeus, he does see the sensible w
order, though an order far inferior to what is manif
ible world by the Forms. For the Stoics, on the o
sensible world itself that exhibits perfect order, an
appreciation thereof become central elements of th
This is not to say that of Plato and Aristotle the f
important influence on Stoic ethics. The situation
for that to be an adequate account of the matter.
for the present, that now that we see what the l
Stoic ethics really were, we can be more clearly a
should look for precursors.115
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
114 Something of the idea appears in Met. XII.io, I

perhaps, and perhaps also in the De Philos., frs. I2a, 12
there is room to argue that Aristotle did not believe in a
of a teleological sort, at all (see D. M. Balme, Aristotle's D
and De Generatione Animalium I (Oxford 1972) 94-98,
aristotelische Physik, 2nd ed. (G6ttingen 1970) ch. 16). (I
whether Aristotle could have thought that the universe w
some sense, without thinking that it was governed by a
However this may be, there is no significant application
order to ethical problems, either in the Met. or - where
anywhere - in E. N. X.6-9 or E.E. VIII.3. (The idea
not primarily that order should be preserved, but that a
activity should be developed and maximized; cf. the r
W. F. R. Hardie, "The Final Good in Aristotle's Ethics
277-295.)
115 My work on this essay has been supported by th
Learned Societies and the Center for Hellenic Studies. I am
helpful comments to Professors Albert Henrichs, Ma
Stewart, and to an anonymous reader for the HSCP, w
me to avoid error. For remaining mistakes I am of cour

45.5.164.17 on Tue, 23 Aug 2022 04:39:47 UTC

The Basis of Stoic Ethics

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The Basis of Stoic Ethics

Author(s): Nicholas P. White

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/311098

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1 The summing up of Pohlenz's views is made in Die Sto

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7 Die Stoa 113, 115, 118--119.

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tion just as humans do.12 Therefore, Pohlenz under

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Unfortunately, however, this historical setting is not one

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18 De Fin. V.7-8. Antiochus is represented as believing

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From the foregoing it appears that Antiochus regarded the St

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28 See section IV.

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84 In another context I would not be content with this translation of honestum

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ter of 7mTeq84V'-ra, "pursuits," and rc'Xvca, "

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57 Not everything always works out properly or at least

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The injunction to exploit one's own nature as a human being is here

In no other work is Cicero so concerned as he is in the De Finibus to

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situation in other works and then return to reexamine the distinction as

63 See esp. De Rep. 111.32 ff; De Legg. I, passim.

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points given to us by nature" ;71 Posid

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... sic isti, cum ex appetitione rerum virtutis pulchritudinem aspexissent,

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To what extent does De Finibus III represent a doctrine of oikeiosis

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a central part of Stoic ethics.90 That it

90 See Pohlenz, Die Stoa II, 65-66, and Gru

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view that Ejkappv'V can equally well be called tv'ats or 7rp

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somehow figure in the former. The an

and (SVF 111.68):

ov yap ErTLV AOS OV'sUCEOLKELOTEPOV E7TEAGELV 7TL V T x(' ' y v K' L

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According to Diogenes Laertius (VII.87-89), Zeno, Cleanthes, and

rvrTwv EpXoIEvos , 0 ~arto Wv 7W AdL, KaOYqyqOV L ,OJCt T 7TWV V7TV

Svalpovsev 7ipa ' )v 70O T wV jAWv 8&OLK7)poV^ fOlo'AO)uLV.

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