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Single Idea 22753

[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / a. Nature of happiness ]

Full Idea

Happiness is defined by Zeno and Cleanthes and Chrysippus as 'an equable flow of life'.

Gist of Idea

Happiness for the Stoics was an equable flow of life

Source

report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Ethicists (one book) II.30

Book Ref

Sextus Empiricus: 'Against the Physicists/Against the Ethicists', ed/tr. Bury,R.G. [Harvard Loeb 1997], p.399


A Reaction

These are the great Stoics. Sounds a bit dull. The old Chinese curse: 'may you live in interesting times'. An equable life could be achieve by never attempting anything, and never getting involved in anything. I don't agree with this idea.


The 18 ideas with the same theme [what is the intrinsic nature of happiness?]:

You can be good while asleep, or passive, or in pain [Aristotle]
Happiness seems to involve virtue, or practical reason, or wisdom, or pleasure, or external goods [Aristotle]
Horses, birds and fish are not happy, lacking a divine aspect to their natures [Aristotle]
Happiness for the Stoics was an equable flow of life [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus]
A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is [Seneca]
To be always happy is to lack knowledge of one half of nature [Seneca]
Ecstasy is for the neo-Platonist the highest psychological state of man [Plotinus, by Feuerbach]
Happiness is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired [Boethius]
Happiness is advancement towards perfection [Leibniz]
Happiness is a pleasant sensation, or continued state of such sensations [Hutcheson]
Our happiness is all that matters, not as a sensation, but as satisfaction with our whole existence [Kant]
Happiness is the condition of a rational being for whom everything goes as they wish [Kant]
World history has no room for happiness [Hegel]
Happiness is the swift movement from desire to satisfaction, and then again on to desire [Schopenhauer]
Modest people express happiness as 'Not bad' [Nietzsche]
Deep happiness usually comes from the basic things in life [Foot]
Happiness is enjoying the pursuit and attainment of right ends [Foot]
Pleasure can have a location, and be momentary, and come and go - but happiness can't [Taylor,R]