Single Idea 20774

[catalogued under 22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / k. Ethics from nature]

Full Idea

What am I to take as the principle of appropriate action and raw material for virtue if I give up nature and what is according to nature?

Gist of Idea

Only nature is available to guide action and virtue

Source

Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1069e

Book Reference

'The Stoics Reader', ed/tr. Inwood,B/Gerson,L.P. [Hackett 2008], p.10


A Reaction

'Nature' is awfully vague as a guideline, even when we are told nature is rational. I can only make sense of it as 'human nature', which is more Aristotelian than stoic. 'Go with the flow' and 'lay the cards you are dealt' might capture it.