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Full Idea
The Stoics said that everything happens according to a divine providential plan, so they had to explain how this was compatible with human choices. They tried to do this with their doctrine of freedom and a free will.
Gist of Idea
The Stoics needed free will, to allow human choices in a divinely providential cosmos
Source
Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 10)
Book Ref
Frede,Michael: 'A Free Will' [Univ of California 2011], p.176
A Reaction
Epictetus made our ability to choose central to moral life, so he particularly needed (and thus created, it seems) this doctrine.
Related Idea
Idea 23328 The essences of good and evil are in dispositions to choose [Epictetus]
| 23313 | The Gnostic demiurge (creator) is deluded, and doesn't care about us [Frede,M] |
| 23326 | In the third century Stoicism died out, replaced by Platonism, with Aristotelian ethics [Frede,M] |
| 23333 | The idea of free will achieved universal acceptance because of Christianity [Frede,M] |
| 23335 | In late antiquity nearly all philosophers were monotheists [Frede,M] |
| 23334 | For Christians man has free will by creation in God's image (as in Genesis) [Frede,M] |
| 23336 | There is no will for Plato or Aristotle, because actions come directly from perception of what is good [Frede,M] |
| 23337 | The Stoics needed free will, to allow human choices in a divinely providential cosmos [Frede,M] |