Stoic Ethics

As the meat of Stoicism, this section is certainly not condensable into a single post. However, I will comment on what Stoics value. First and foremost, virtue is the only 'good' thing. Conversely, vice is 'bad'. All else is indifferent. But, even the very first Stoic (Zeno of Citium) realized it might not be a great idea to lump everything else into just one valueless category - so there are types of indifferents. There are preferred indifferents, like health and riches. There are rejected indifferents, such as poverty and sickness. And there are indifferent indifferents - that which is absolutely valueless. In addition, there are various second order values according to the Stoics. Such as living according to Nature, and living peaceably in 'cosmic cities'. I was rather surprised by the Stoic fixation on utopia and a stateless world. As a completely practical philosophy, I find it hard to understand why the early Stoics went so far from their core ethics with those values.

Regardless, I find I agree with this ethical framework. Virtue truly is chosen for its own sake, and vice is reprehensible. I do wish there was a clear enumeration of values, as in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. As for indifferents, I rather like the idea of indifferents. I am not sure that I support the idea of three types of indifferents, however. Perhaps there should only be two categories - those indifferents that are relevant to the development of virtue (health/sickness, wealth/poverty, satiety/hunger) and those that are wholly indifferent. I do not presume to have developed a better system, only to express my first reaction to the reading.

It greatly distresses me that many of the ancient Stoic writings have been lost, and that Stoicism of the Greeks is largely known only through criticisms of it.