Is virtue an intrinsic good?

Dear Fellow Proficientes,

I wanted to raise an issue that has bothered me on and off for some time, concerning the alleged status of virtue as an intrinsic, or ultimate, good in Stoicism. This is particularly confusing for people approaching Stoicism for the first time, so I think the community at large could benefit from some clarity.

We all know the standard version of the story, as encapsulated, for instance, in this passage from Seneca:

“The matter can be imparted quickly and in very few words: ‘Virtue is the only good; at any rate there is no good without virtue.’ (Letter LXXI.32)

The argument for such position is often traced back to Socrates, who in the Euthydemus (especially 279-282) explains that wisdom is all that matters because wise people do well and prosper in anything they do. Happiness, he claims, doesn’t derive from having external goods or knowledge, but from using those things wisely. Socrates goes even so far as to suggest that if one is not wise one is better off without external goods or knowledge, because she would risk using them unwisely, which is worse than not having them at all.

This appears to be reinforced by Epictetus, who uses his famous analogy of Socrates playing ball:

“This is just what you will see those doing who play at ball skillfully. No one cares about the ball as being good or bad, but about throwing and catching it. … Socrates then knew how to play at ball. How? By using pleasantry in the court where he was tried.” (Discourses II, 5.15, 18)

So far, the emerging picture is that virtue is the chief or only good because it is what allows us to properly handle externals like health, wealth, reputation, and so forth. Such “indifferents” (to virtue) have value (axia) and are therefore preferred precisely because they are the material tools through which we exercise wisdom. (If we don’t handle them wisely, they become dispreferred.)

This, however, raises the question of why we want to learn to play ball skillfully in the first place. To push Epictetus’s analogy a bit, athletes who play ball don’t do it for its own sake, but because skillful play increases the chances they’ll win the game. Why, then, should we want to use externals “properly,” and what does “properly” mean here? Let’s keep in mind that according to Aristotle an intrinsic or ultimate good is one for which it makes no sense to ask “why would you want that?,” and virtue as conceptualized by the Stoics seems to fail that test. For Aristotle the only thing that satisfies the requirement is eudaimonia itself, a “happy” or flourishing life.

Perhaps this is going to help, then:

“Zeno, in his work On Human Nature, said that the goal is to live in harmony with nature, which means to live according to virtue; for nature leads us to virtue. … The goal becomes to live according to nature, that is, according to our own nature and that of the universe. … And this very thing constitutes the virtue and smooth current of the happy life.” (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, VII.87-88)

Zeno seems to say that the goal (telos) of life is to live in agreement with Nature, particularly human nature, that is, the nature of animals who are capable of reason and are highly social. He further states that that’s the same as living virtuously.

So it appears that virtue is the chief good because virtue is defined as coinciding with a life in accordance with nature, which is the life of a rational social being. Sure enough, Seneca specifies that:

“Virtue is nothing else than right reason.” (Letters LXVI.32)

In order not to beg the question, the Stoics must mean prosocial by “right,” thus distinguishing right reason / virtue from other kinds of reasoning, such as those that may be employed by a psychopath to better enjoy the suffering of others (that would, presumably, qualify as “wrong” reason for the Stoics).

Next, Epictetus says:

“What is the goal of virtue, after all, except a life that flows smoothly?” (Discourses, I.4)

What is the goal of virtue? So now virtue is instrumental, no longer the ultimate good? Other translations use “serenity” or “contentment” in place of a life that flows smoothly, though the latter is a clear reference to Zeno. Regardless, the problem remains: is Epictetus deviating from the standard Stoic line, does that line confuse different things, or what?

I’m not concerned with this issue just in terms of exegesis of ancient texts. After all, Epictetus himself, in the same passage just quoted goes on to say:

“Who, then, is making progress? The man who has read many treatises of Chrysippus? What, is virtue no more than this — to have gained a knowledge of Chrysippus? For if it is this, progress is confessedly nothing else than a knowledge of many of the works of Chrysippus.” (Discourses, I.4)

I am, rather, interested in what to make of all the above as a modern practitioner of Stoicism. When I tell myself, or others, that the only true good in life is virtue I am often faced with the obvious retort: why?

Often, I reach for Larry Becker and his A New Stoicism, where he says:

“Stoic ethics is a species of eudaimonism. Its central, organizing concern is about what we ought to do or be to live well—to flourish; to be happy. … We hold that virtue is achieved through the perfection of agency. Virtue (the only good) is necessary and sufficient for eudaimonia (which virtue produces). So the way to get to eudaimonia is by way of the perfection of agency and the virtue it produces.” (Ch. 3, section ‘Virtue and Happiness’)

I like his concept of perfection of agency because it squares well with Epictetus’s emphasis on prohairesis, our faculty of judgment, more than on virtue. But notice that he says that virtue is the way to get to eudaimonia, which would imply that the latter is the ultimate good while virtue is instrumental in achieving it.

Summarizing, then: virtue is the only good because it allows us to handle externals properly, which is what leads to Stoic eudaimonia, defined as a life in agreement with nature, which in turn means a prosocial life guided by reason (because we are, by nature, social animals capable of reason). 

If the above is correct, then the Stoics may not actually be in a very different position from the Epicureans with regard to the role of virtue: for both schools virtue becomes instrumental to the telos, which is ataraxia for the Epicureans and a prosocial life guided by reason for the Stoics. Interestingly, both schools referred to their respective goals as living according to nature, though obviously they espoused different conceptions of (human) nature.

We could sketch the two approaches in the following way:

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

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

I’d be very interested in your thoughts on these matters.

Vale,
Massimo