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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters' and 'Against the Ethicists (one book)'

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13 ideas

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility
20838 Fate initiates general causes, but individual wills and characters dictate what we do [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: The order and reason of fate set in motion the general types and starting points of the causes, but each person's own will [or decisions] and the character of his mind govern the impulses of our thoughts and minds and our very actions.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Aulus Gellius - Noctes Atticae 7.2.11
     A reaction: So if you try and fail it was fate, but if you try and succeed it was you?
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
20813 Human purpose is to contemplate and imitate the cosmos [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: The human being was born for the sake of contemplating and imitating the cosmos.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') 2.37
     A reaction: [This seems to be an idea of Chrysippus] Remind me how to imitate the cosmos. Presumably this is living according to nature, but that becomes more obscure when express like this.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
3045 Stoics say justice is a part of nature, not just an invented principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stoics say that justice exists by nature, and not because of any definition or principle.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.66
     A reaction: cf Idea 3024. Stoics thought that nature is intrinsically rational, and therein lies its justice. 'King Lear' enacts this drama about whether nature is just.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / k. Ethics from nature
20774 Only nature is available to guide action and virtue [Chrysippus]
     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?
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1069e
     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.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / b. Fact and value
4581 Virtues and vices are like secondary qualities in perception, found in observers, not objects [Hume]
     Full Idea: Vice and virtue may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects but perceptions in the mind.
     From: David Hume (Letters [1739], to Hutcheson 1740)
     A reaction: Very revealing about the origin of the is/ought idea, but this is an assertion rather than an argument. Most Greeks treat value as a primary quality of things (e.g. life, harmony, beauty, health).
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value
20864 Live in agreement, according to experience of natural events [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: The goal of life is to live in agreement, which is according to experience of the things which happen by nature.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 2.06a
     A reaction: Cleanthes added 'with nature' to Zeno's slogan, and Chyrisppus added this variation. At least it gives you some idea of what the consistent rational principle should be. You still have to assess which aspects of nature should influence us.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
22754 Saying the good is useful or choiceworth or happiness-creating is not the good, but a feature of it [Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: Asserting that the good is 'the useful', or 'what is choiceworthy for its own sake', or 'that which contributes to happiness', does not teach us what good is but states its accidental property.
     From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.35)
     A reaction: This seems to be a pretty accurate statement of Moore's famous Open Question argument. I read it in an Aristotelian way - that that quest is always for the essential nature of the thing itself, not for its role or function or use.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / b. Types of good
22755 Like a warming fire, what is good by nature should be good for everyone [Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: Just as fire which is warmth-giving by nature warms all men, and does not chill some of them, so what is good by nature ought to be good for all, and not good for some but not good for others.
     From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.69)
     A reaction: This is going to confine the naturally good to the basics of life, which we all share. Is a love of chess a natural good? It seems to capture an aspect of human nature, without appealing to everyone. Sextus says nothing is good for everyone.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / d. Good as virtue
5972 Living happily is nothing but living virtuously [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
     Full Idea: According to Chrysippus, living happily consists solely in living virtuously.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr139) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1060d
     A reaction: This, along with 'live according to nature', is the essential doctrine of stoicism. This is 'eudaimonia', not the modern idea of feeling nice. Is it possible to admire another person for anything other than virtue? (Yes! Looks, brains, strength, wealth).
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / f. Good as pleasure
1777 Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures, and nothing disgraceful is good.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.60
     A reaction: I certainly approve of the idea that not all pleasure is intrinsically good. Indeed, I think good has probably got nothing to do with pleasure. 'Disgraceful' is hardly objective though.
5973 Justice can be preserved if pleasure is a good, but not if it is the goal [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Chrysippus thinks that, while justice could not be preserved if one should set up pleasure as the goal, it could be if one should take pleasure to be not a goal but simply a good.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 23) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1070d
     A reaction: This is an interesting and original contribution to the ancient debate about pleasure. It shows Aristotle's moderate criticism of pleasure (e.g. Idea 84), but attempts to pinpoint where the danger is. Aristotle says it thwarts achievement of the mean.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / d. Routes to happiness
22756 If a desire is itself desirable, then we shouldn't desire it, as achieving it destroys it [Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: If the desire for wealth or health is desirable, we ought not to purse wealth or health, lest by acquiring them we cease to desire them any longer.
     From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.81)
     A reaction: He is investigating whether desires can be desirable, and if so which ones. Roots of this are in Plato's 'Gorgias' on drinking water. Similar to 'if compassion is the highest good then we need lots of suffering'. Desire must be a means, not an end.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / c. Value of pleasure
20845 There are shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good, so pleasure is not a good [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Chrysippus (in his On Pleasure) denies even of pleasure that it is a good; for there are also shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.103
     A reaction: Socrates seems to have started this line of the thought, to argue that pleasure is not The Good. Stoics are more puritanical. Nothing counts as good if it is capable of being bad. Thus good pleasures are not good, which sounds odd.