Postscript to Greek Ethics 67

a certain extent. To understand this situation we must look at the relationship between
rules and ends, and to do this we must first make clear the distinction between them.
There are rules without which human life recognizable as such could not exist at all,
and there are other rules without which it could not be carried on in even a minimally
civilized form. These are the rules connected with truth telling, promise keeping, and
elementary fairness. Without them there would not be an arena in which distinctively
human ends could be pursued, but these rules by themselves in no way provide us with
ends. They tell us how to behave in the sense of telling us what not to do, but they
provide us with no positive aims. They provide norms to which any action we may
perform is required to conform, but they do not tell us which actions to perform. Which
actions we should perform depends upon what ends we pursue, what our goods are. In
general happiness is a rubric relating to ends, virtue one dominating rules. It would be a
mistake to suppose that in identifying this distinction between rules and ends we are also
demarcating the public and the private domains in morality. For while it is true that ends
may admit of private choices in a way that rules do not, it is also true that there are
societies in which there are publicly established and agreed or imposed ends, as well as
societies which leave alternative ends open to a great degree to individual preference.
Moreover, there may be private innovations in the realm of rules as well as in that of
ends. What does remain true, however, is that the dissociation of rules and ends will
inevitably have repercussions on the relationship between private and public life. For
where the observance of rules has no or relatively little connection at all with the
achievement of ends, the observance of rules will become either pointless or an end in
itself. If it becomes an end in itself, then the observance of rules may become a private
ideal for the individual as well as a requirement of social morality. If the achievement of
ends is in the same type of situation, as it will be, relatively independent of the
observance of rules, then ends become dissociated from the requirements of the public
domain. They provide other and rival private ideals. It will be natural in this situation to
conceive of the pursuit of pleasure and the pursuit of virtue as mutually exclusive
alternatives. Moreover, in each case, long-term projects, which tend to depend upon the
possibility of relying on a widespread public congruence of rules and ends, will appear
far less viable than short-term. Moral advice will most naturally be either of the “Gather
ye rosebuds while ye may” kind or of the “Do what is right regardless of the
consequences” kind. “Fiat justitia, ruat coelum” is a slogan that is pointless rhetoric
except when it seems quite possible that the heavens will crumble. We can see these
alternatives embodied in private moralities by the Cynics and the Cyrenaics. They rise to
the level of universal codes in Stoicism and Epicureanism.
For the successive founders and refounders of Stoicism, Zeno, Cleanthes, and
Chrysippus, morals become unintelligible apart from cosmology. The universe is at once
material and divine. The primary material of the universe, fire, is transmuted into various
physical states by the activity of a universal rational principle, the Logos, which is the
deity. In the transmutation of the universe a regular cycle recurs, returning again and
again to a cosmic conflagration in which the original fire brings to an end one period and
begins another. Each of these cyclical periods is identical, and every event in the universe
therefore recurs indefinitely. Since man is an integral part of the universe, this eternal
recurrence is also true of human history. Indefinitely often in the past and indefinitely
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often in the future I have written and shall write these words, and you have read and will
read them, just as you do at this present moment.
Since human nature is part of cosmic nature, the law which governs the cosmos, that
of the divine Logos, provides the law to which human action ought to be conformed. At
once an obvious question arises. Since human life proceeds eternally through an eternally
predetermined cycle, how can human beings fail to conform to the cosmic law? What
alternatives have they? The Stoic answer is that men as rational beings can become
conscious of the laws to which they necessarily conform, and that virtue consists in
conscious assent to, vice in dissent from, the inevitable order of things. What this answer
means can be better understood by considering the Stoic answer to the problem of evil.
Since everything is formed by the action of the divine principle, and that principle is
entirely and unquestionably good, it follows that no evil can occur in the world. But evil
does occur. How so? The Stoic rejoinder is, in effect, that evil does not really occur. A
variety of arguments, which later on are to reappear in Christian theology, take the stage
for the first time in Stoic costume. Chrysippus argued that of a pair of contraries, neither
could be conceived to exist without the other, so that good and evil each require the
existence of the other. Evil, being therefore a necessary condition for the occurrence of
good, is in terms of a larger scheme not really evil at all. From this, Chrysippus deduces
the impossibility of pleasure without pain and of virtue without vice. Courage could not
occur did not cowardice; justice, did not injustice. Indeed we call actions cowardly or
unjust not with reference to the act itself, but with reference to the agent’s intention. The
same action, in the sense of the same physical behavior, can be cowardly if done with one
intention (the agent aims only to save himself) and courageous if done with another (the
agent aims to prevent a struggle, even at the cost of his own reputation for courage).
We can now understand why the Stoics think it possible to combine determinism with
a belief that men can either assent to or dissent from the divine law. What is determined
is the entire physical world, including human beings insofar as they are part of that world;
what apparently escapes determination is human assent or dissent to the course of things
expressed in the form of intention. Even if I dissent from and rebel against the
predetermined course of nature, my physical behavior will still conform to it. “Ducunt
volentem fata, nolentem trahunt,” wrote Seneca later on.
In what form does the divine law to which my assent is invited present itself? As the
law of nature and of reason. Nature now becomes a term quite other than what it was in
either Plato or Aristotle. It refers to the cosmic status of the moral law; as such, it still
contrasts with convention in the sense of what is merely established for local observance.
But somehow the moral law and the physical universe now share a source, a prefiguring
again of Christianity. What nature and reason invite us to is the observance of the four
traditional virtues, prudence, courage, temperance, and justice. But one cannot, for the
Stoics, possess one of these without possessing all. Virtue is single and indivisible. One
cannot possess it in part; either one is virtuous, or one is not. There is a single dividing
line among men. Above all, virtue is to be sought only for its own sake. “Virtue,” as
Diogenes Laërtius regards it, “is a rational disposition, to be desired in and for itself and
not for the sake of any hope, fear, or ulterior motive.”22 Pleasure, by contrast, is not to be
sought at all. Cleanthes thought that it was positively to be shunned; most of the Stoics
that it was merely to be disregarded. Desire, hope and fear, pleasure and pain are against
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reason and nature; one should cultivate a passionless absence of desire and disregard of
pleasure and pain. This the Stoics called apathy.
What then does one do? How does one actually behave? One disregards all attractions
of external goods; one is therefore not exposed to the pain of their loss. Peace of mind is
thereby secured. (Hence the later use of the adjective stoical.) In the world at large, one
disregards those differences between men which are merely a consequence of externals.
There is one divine universe, one rational human nature, and therefore one appropriate
attitude to all men. The Stoic is a citizen of the κ σµος, not of the π λις
It we turn not to Epicureanism expecting a sharp contrast, we find that what is striking
about Epicureanism is in the end not the contrast with, but the resemblance to Stoicism.
Superficially the differences are what stand out. Morality exists in a universe which is
alien to it, and not, as with the Stoics, in a universe of which it is the highest expression.
The atomism which Epicurus inherits from Democritus and bequeaths to Lucretius is a
theory of blind physical determination. The moral consequences of atomism are negative;
the gods do not control or interest themselves in human life. They dwell apart and
indifferent, and natural phenomena have physical, not theological explanations. Plagues
are not punishments, and thunderbolts are not warnings. Morality is concerned with the
pursuit of pleasure, and not, as with the Stoics, with the pursuit of virtue independently of
pleasure. Indeed, for Epicurus, virtue is simply the art of pleasure. But Epicurus then
proceeds to argue that many pleasures, if heedlessly pursued, bring great pains in their
wake, while some pains are worth tolerating for the ensuing or accompanying pleasures.
He argues further, as the Cynics did, that the absence of pain is a greater good than
positive pleasures; he argues, moreover, that a moderation in external goods is the only
guarantee of not being pained by their loss; and he argues finally that freedom from
intense desire is a condition of pleasure. All the conventional virtues are reinstated as
means to pleasure and the gulf between Stoic apathy and Epicurean tranquillity
( ταρα ι ), verbally wide, is practically narrow. Epicurus’ practical atheism makes him
less pompous than the Stoics, and his high valuation of friendship makes him attractive as
a person, but the regard for a quiet life, and detachment of the individual from the
Platonic-Aristotelian morality of social life is as complete as it is in the Stoics.
Both Epicureanism and Stoicism are convenient and consoling doctrines for private
citizens of the large impersonal kingdoms and empires of the Hellenistic and Roman
worlds. Stoicism provides a better rationale for participation in public life, Epicureanism
for withdrawal from it. Both place the individual in the context of a cosmos, not of a local
community. Both have a function in a world in which pain is to be avoided rather than
pleasure sought. In the Roman world especially, each has a function which is left
unfulfilled by Roman religion. Roman religion is essentially an integrative cult in which
the gods of the hearth, the gods of the formerly independent nations, and the gods of the
empire express by their unity the single hierarchy of familial and imperial deities. The
earliest Roman rulers speak from within their roles as fathers and consuls; if they use a
religion to manipulate the plebeians, it is at least a religion which they share. But
relatively early this ceases to be so. Polybius could write that “it is the very thing which
among other peoples is an object of reproach, I mean superstition, which maintains the
cohesion of the Roman state. These matters are clothed in such pomp and introduced to
such an extent into their public and private life that nothing could exceed it, a fact which
will surprise many. My own view at least is that they have adopted this course for the
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sake of the common people. It is a course which perhaps would not have been necessary
had it been possible to form a state composed of wise men, but as every multitude is
fickle, full of lawless desires, unreasoned passion, and violent anger, the multitude must
be held in by invisible terrors and suchlike pageantry.”23
Where religion is thus manipulative, the members of the middle and upper classes
become unable to share the religion which they use for political purposes. They need
beliefs which are rational by their own standards and will justify what Romanitas itself
once justified or which will justify the withdrawal from public duty. These needs were
admirably met by Stoicism and Epicureanism. Seneca and Marcus Aurelius exemplify the
public side of Stoicism; Lucretius the liberating qualities of Epicureanism.
The doctrines of the Roman upper classes are, however, vulnerable in one crucial
respect. The doctrines of apathy and ataraxia are useless as advice to those who already
are propertyless and in no position to become hedonists. Exposed to poverty, disease,
death, and to the will of those who are their rulers and often enough their owners, they
still question how they are to live and what virtue and what happiness might be in their
case. For some of these the mystery religions provided an answer. For even more an
answer was to be given with the coming of Christianity.