Intensional goodness

Dear Massimo,

I appreciate you putting forth a hypothesis about the possible similarities of virtue’s role in both Epicureanism and Stoicism. However, I disagree with the conclusion for a few reasons, two of which I’ll spell out below.

The first is that the formulation of Stoicism you laid out to make the parallel to Epicureanism does not seem to escape circularity. Recall you final formulation of virtue’s role in Epicureanism versus your Becker-inspired take on Stoicism:

Epicureanism: Virtue (leads to) => Lack of pain (true good) => Ataraxia (telos)

Stoicism: Virtue (true good) = Right reason => Prosocial life based on reason (telos)

But also recall how “right reason” was defined in your letter:

In order not to beg the question, the Stoics must mean prosocial by “right,” thus distinguishing right reason / virtue from other kinds of reasoning

If “prosocial” ≈ “right”, and assuming that virtue is simply perfected consistent “right” or prosocial reason”, we then have:

Virtue = (A consistent, perfected) prosocial reason ≈ Prosocial life based on reason => Prosocial life based on reason

In short, a prosocial life based on reason is pretty much defined to be virtue if “right” reason is presumed to contain prosociality by definition. Thus, this approach seems to fall to circularity.

A second reason why I’m not sure this argument holds is what I’ll call the “cryptic species argument.”

Cryptic species are populations of organisms that look very similar by casual inspection; enough so to seem to be the same species on first blush. However, if you start looking more closely at their genetics, behavior, mating patterns, etc., you will quickly find that what seems like one species on the surface is undeniably several. I contend that “virtue” for the Epicurean and Stoic are cryptic species: they are called the same name and seem the same upon cursory inspection, but differ significantly in the details.

The ancient Stoic view of virtue is pretty well fleshed out in our surviving literature. I’ll focus on three of its aspects:

• It is unitary:
  • The classic virtues of justice, temperance, prudence, and courage are all facets of the same thing;
• It is characterized with respect to kataleptic impressions:
  • The Stoic sage is a sage because they are only capable of assenting to kataleptic impressions. It’s important to note that the theory of kataleptic impressions is an invention of Zeno of Citium, and thus cannot be held in common with the Epicureans;
• It is a diathesis, not a hexis:
  • I’ll leave these words undefined for the sake of brevity, and focus only on one aspect of them: a diathesis is an on-off, either-or phenomenon, like “straight.” There are not degrees of “straight”: something is either straight or not. A hexis, on the other hand, does admit of degrees, like “tall”: some things can be taller than others. (See Simplicius, On Aristotle’s Categories 237,25–238,20, Long & Sedley 47S for more).

While the surviving Epicurean literature doesn’t lay out their theory of virtue in detail, we can still see that their view differs from the Stoics:

• It is a plurality:
  • Epicurus tells us his Letter to Menoeceus that prudence is the virtue from which all the other virtues spring. This makes it sound like there are multiple virtues, with prudence being the foundational one;
• It is characterized with respect to correctly pursuing natural desires:
  • The role of prudence (which is the head Epicurean virtue) is to reliably pursue natural desires resulting in katastematic pleasures (and perhaps kinetic ones if they won’t cause pain later on). This use of virtue seems quite different from assent to kataleptic impressions (and recall: katalepsis is a Stoic invention!);
• It is likely a hexis since it seems capable of degrees:
  • This is not directly stated in the extant Epicurean texts to my knowledge, but can be inferred. Epicurus specifically says that virtue is inseparable from pleasure (DL 10.138). Unless we are to believe that non-sages don’t experience pleasure, we must assume that virtue can come in degrees. Every time we non-sages experience pleasure, especially katastematic ones, we must have some temporary degree of virtue accompanying them according to Epicurus. Thus, virtue seems to come in degrees for the Epicurean.

In summary, Stoic virtue is one thing, is characterized by assent to kataleptic impressions, and does not come in degrees. Epicurean virtue is many things, is characterized by selection of natural desires, and comes in degrees. Thus, I think there’s a decent case to be made that Epicurean and Stoic “virtue” are cryptic species, and so virtue can’t play a similar role in both schools, because the schools aren’t talking about the same thing.

But I’m afraid I’ve lost sight of the main question your letter revolved around:

When I tell myself, or others, that the only true good in life is virtue I am often faced with the obvious retort: why?

The Stoic literature gives us a clear answer to this question: because virtue is the only thing that meets the necessary and sufficient conditions for what makes anything “good” in the first place! In modern parlance, the Stoics provide us with an intensional definition of what is “good” through conceptual analysis of the term “good.” By doing this, they are advancing the Socratic project of discovering the “real” meaning of ethical terms. Unlike Socrates, who often left his interlocutors in aporia, the Stoics attempt to actually answer the question of what’s good by listing the inclusion criteria that makes anything “good.”

We find a few such lists in the Stoic literature. Here’s Arius Didymus’s:

All good things are beneficial and useful and advantageous and profitable and excellent and fitting and beautiful. (Stob. 102.5d)

Here’s one from Diogenes Laertius:

Every good is advantageous and binding and profitable and useful and serviceable and beautiful and beneficial and worth choosing and just. (DL 7.98)

These lists don’t completely overlap with each other, but there’s a common core. Whatever is good must be:

• Advantageous/expedient
• Profitable
• Beneficial
• Useful
• Beautiful/noble

Thus, anything that is good must be all these things. What is bad must be the opposite of all these things. And what is neither (an indifferent) must be neither good nor bad.

This is enough to answer your question of why the Stoics thought that virtue is the only good: because they believed it was the only thing that meets the intensional definition of “good.” However, this answer may open up even more questions.

One question that may arise is how the Stoics came upon this list, and whether their methods are valid. Unfortunately, we don’t know; the detailed methods the Stoics used in their conceptual analysis are probably lost to time. However, we can see glimmers of it in Epictetus’s Socratic approach, and it’s reasonable to presume that their methods resembled Socrates’s.

Another possible question: is virtue (which I think should really be translated as “human excellence” to avoid confusion) really the only thing that fits this intensional definition of “good”? I’ll leave that as an exercise to the reader.

One final thought for the road: perhaps answering why virtue is the only good is less useful than asking why should anyone care about the Stoic good at all? Perhaps someone else could validly pursue the “schmood” instead of the “good,” which has a completely different set of defining traits. To answer this, I’ll riff off Marcus’s thoughts in Meditations 3.6: if you can find anything better than the Stoic good, turn to it and enjoy the fruits of the superior pursuit you’ve found. But if you haven’t found anything better, then perhaps the Stoic good is good enough for now.

Vale,
Greg L.