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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 Ref
'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.
| 20841 | Zeno said live in agreement with nature, which accords with virtue [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1774 | Since we are essentially rational animals, living according to reason is living according to nature [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 20774 | Only nature is available to guide action and virtue [Chrysippus] |
| 6000 | The goal is rationality in the selection of things according to nature [Diogenes of Babylon, by Blank] |
| 3066 | Nothing is evil which is according to nature [Aurelius] |
| 2868 | Nature is totally indifferent, so you should try to be different from it, not live by it [Nietzsche] |
| 23432 | Concepts such as function, welfare, flourishing and interests only apply to living things [Foot] |
| 23433 | Humans need courage like a plant needs roots [Foot] |
| 22375 | Moral judgements need more than the relevant facts, if the same facts lead to 'x is good' and 'x is bad' [Foot] |
| 22492 | Virtues are as necessary to humans as stings are to bees [Foot] |
| 22493 | Sterility is a human defect, but the choice to be childless is not [Foot] |