The tremendous influence Stoicism has exerted on ethical thought from early Christianity through Immanuel Kant and into the twentieth century is rarely understood and even more rarely appreciated. Throughout history, Stoic ethical doctrines have both provoked harsh criticisms and inspired enthusiastic defenders. The Stoics defined the goal in life as living in agreement with nature. Humans, unlike all other animals, are constituted by nature to develop reason as adults, which transforms their understanding of themselves and their own true good. (...) The Stoics held that virtue is the only real good and so is both necessary and, contrary to Aristotle, sufficient for happiness; it in no way depends on luck. The virtuous life is free of all passions, which are intrinsically disturbing and harmful to the soul, but includes appropriate emotive responses conditioned by rational understanding and the fulfillment of all one's personal, social, professional, and civic responsibilities. The Stoics believed that the person who has achieved perfect consistency in the operation of his rational faculties, the "wise man," is extremely rare, yet serves as a prescriptive ideal for all. The Stoics believed that progress toward this noble goal is both possible and vitally urgent. (shrink)

At a time of unprecedented interest in Stoicism, this book offers a comprehensive introduction to Stoic ethics for students and for readers interested in Stoic life-guidance. It combines an explanation of the main philosophical ideas in ancient Stoic ethics by Christopher Gill with discussion of how to put these ideas into practice in our own lives by Brittany Polat. The first seven chapters examine central Stoic ethical claims and the questions raised by their claims, (...) including: Why does our happiness in life depend solely on virtue? Is ethics grounded on nature; and, if so, does this mean human nature or the natural world? What is the connection between gaining ethical understanding and relating properly to other people? What counts as right action and how do we learn to make good decisions? What is the proper place of emotion in the good life? The two final chapters discuss the significance of these Stoic ideas for modern thought, especially for virtue ethics and environmental ethics, and the Stoic contribution to guidance on living. With a glossary of key terms and suggestions for further reading, Stoic Ethics: The Basics is an ideal starting point for anyone looking for an accessible and lively explanation of Stoic ideas and their implications for practical living. (shrink)

Christopher Gill ABSTRACT: How much theory is enough for a complete account of ancient Stoic ethics and for modern life-guidance? Stoic ethics was presented either purely in its own terms or combined with the idea of human or universal nature. Although the combination of ethical theory with human and universal nature provides the ….

The decision to publish a doctoral dissertation, especially one which has only been “lightly edited” (foreword, first sentence) and with a bibliography only partially updated to reflect the scholarship of the intervening years, must always seem a risky one. In this case the risk is well taken and the resultant book is a delightful addition to our too meager store of book length overviews of Epictetus’ philosophy in the wider context of Stoic ethics.

The impact of Stoicism on Roman culture and early Christianity was considerable. Unfortunately, little survives of the early writings on Stoicism. Our knowledge of it comes largely from a few later Stoics. In this unique book, William O. Stephens explores the moral philosophy of the late Stoic Epictetus, a former slave and dynamic Stoic teacher. His philosophy, as recorded by one of his students, is the most earnest and most compelling defense of ancient Stoicism that exists. Epictetus' teachings (...) dramatically capture the optimistic spirit of Stoicism by examining our greatest human challenges, such as the death of a loved one. Stephens shows how, for Epictetus, happiness results from concerning ourselves with what is up to us while not worrying about what is beyond our control. He concludes that the strength of Epictetus' philosophy lies in his conception of happiness as freedom from anger, fear, worry, grief, and dependence upon luck. (shrink)

Spence develops and applies a normative model based on rationalist and virtue ethics as well as stoic philosophy to assess the impact of technology on wellbeing. Through developing this model, Spence offers a novel and important examination of the benefit of technology to our society as a whole.

This book offers a sustained examination of the core Stoic ethical claims and their significance for modern moral theory. The first part considers the Stoic ideas of happiness as the life according to nature and virtue as expertise in leading a happy life and explores the senses of ‘nature’ (both human and universal) relevant for ethics. It also explains the distinction in value between virtue and ‘indifferents’ and analyses virtuous practical deliberation as selection between ‘indifferents’ directed at (...) leading a happy human life. The second part studies Stoic thinking on ethical development (in their terms, learning to live naturally). It brings out the close interconnections between making progress in ethical understanding, in forming and deepening social relationships, and in emotional responses. The third part discusses how Stoic ethics, as interpreted here, can contribute to contemporary moral theory, especially virtue ethics. It suggests that Stoic thinking on the virtue-happiness relationship offers a cogent alternative to Aristotle, currently the main ancient prototype for virtue ethical theory. It explores ways in which Stoic ideas on human and universal nature can contribute to modern ethical debates, notably on how to respond effectively to the pressing challenge of climate breakdown. It also highlights the potential value of Stoic thinking on development and guidance for modern virtue ethics as well as discussing the powerful impact Stoicism has already had in contemporary ‘life-guidance’. (shrink)

Seneca’s Letters sketch a theory of attentive action according to which distraction is caused by inconsistent beliefs about values, such that the degree of an agent’s attention to an endorsed action is proportionate to the consistency of her beliefs about value, i. e. her proximity to virtue. The agent’s activity of attentive action is co-ordinated with a state of alertness to her interests, which accordingly triggers switches in attention that sustain the endorsed action in single-minded agents or cause distraction if (...) the new interest is irrelevant to it. Seneca’s theory reflects the older Stoic conception of the tensional mental strength of the virtuous agent, which Chrysippus identified as the causal factor over and above virtue that ensures her successful performance of right action. (shrink)

Kant’s account of “the radical evil in human nature” in the 1793 Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone is typically interpreted as a reworking of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. But Kant doesn’t talk about Augustine explicitly there, and if he is rehabilitating the doctrine of original sin, the result is not obviously Augustinian. Instead Kant talks about Stoic ethics in a pair of passages on either end of his account of radical evil, and leaves other (...) clues that his argument is a reworking of an old Stoic problem. “Radical evil” refers to the idea that our moral condition is — by default and yet by our own deed — bad or corrupt; and that this corruption is the root (radix) of human badness in all its variety, ubiquity, and sheer ordinariness. Kant takes as his premise a version of the Stoic idea that nature gives us “uncorrupted starting points” (Diogenes Laertius 7.89). What sense can be made of the origin of human badness, given such a premise? Kant’s account of radical evil is an answer to this old Stoic problem, which requires a conception of freedom that is not available in his Stoic sources. (shrink)

It is very difficult to get a clear picture of how the Stoic is supposed to deliberate. This paper considers a number of possible pictures, which cover such a wide range of options that some look Kantian and others utilitarian. Each has some textual support but is also unworkable in certain ways: there seem to be genuine and unresolved conflicts at the heart of Stoic ethics. And these are apparently due not to developmental changes within the school, (...) but to the Stoics’ having adopted implicitly incompatible solutions in response to different philosophical challenges. (shrink)

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) Adam Smith draws on the Stoic idea of a Providence that uses everything for the good of the whole. The process is often painful, so the Stoic ethic insisted on conscious cooperation. Stoic ideas contributed to the rise of science and enjoyed wide popularity in Smith's England. Smith was more influenced by the Stoicism of his professors than by the Epicureanism of Hume. In TMS, Marcus Aurelius's "helmsman" becomes the "impartial (...) spectator," who judges actions in terms of the way they are seen by others. This is the key to justice, without which society collapses. Business school students should be taught that Smith's "invisible hand" is best understood as a universal rationality that uses just actions for the benefit of the whole. (shrink)

This book examines the dialogue between Roman Stoic ethics and the work of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards. Elizabeth Agnew Cochran illuminates key theological convictions that provide a foundation for constructing a contemporary Protestant virtue ethic consistent with a number of theological beliefs characteristic of the historical Reformed tradition. Building on this conversation, this book develops the claims that faith holds a unique value among possible moral goods; virtue has a unity that coincides with a soteriology (...) that conceives justification as radically transforming a Christian from a sinner to one who is righteous before God; and moral responsibility is realized through a dispositional consent to God's loving providence. (shrink)

This volume contains the first critical edition and translation of Barlaam of Seminara's fourteenth century treatise Ethics According to the Stoics , along with a series of interpretative essays explaining its content and context. Barlaam's text is the earliest interpretative work written on Stoic ethics, a product of the burgeoning Italian Renaissance but also drawing on Barlaam's experience in the Byzantine intellectual world of Constantinople. Intriguingly, it offers a radically different account of the Stoic theory of (...) emotions to the one known from other sources, possibly taken from sources accessible to Barlaam but now lost. The volume includes interpretative essays on each of the two books of Barlaam's treatise, along with a biographical introduction and an essay setting out the wider context of the reception of Stoicism in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to reject the classical interpretation of Stoic ethics as virtue ethics. The typical assumptions of this interpretation, that virtue is the supreme good and that happiness can be reduced to virtue, are questioned. We first lay out the conceptual framework of Stoic philosophy and present an outline of their reduction of happiness to virtue. The main part of the paper provides an argument for reinterpretation of virtue as rationality. In the last (...) part of the paper – more speculative – we argue against the possibility of reduction of happiness to virtue. The main point of the argument is the conceptual incompatibility of the two notions. (shrink)

The kinship between Stoic and Kantian thought, particularly in ethics, is often observed. Yet there has been rather little dedicated scholarship on the significance of Stoic ethics for the development of Kant's philosophy. The volume brings leading Kant scholars and ancient philosophy specialists together to tackle the question.

Gill’s rich and comprehensive discussion of Stoic ethical thought adopts an approach that would surely have found favour with the Stoics themselves: to present.

Justus Lipsius was a 16th -century renaissance humanist and literary scholar who, crucially for the history of philosophy, was involved in the publication and reinterpretation of Stoic thought, primarily focusing on the works of Seneca. Despite a fair amount of scholarship on Lipsius’s contribution to the history of philosophy, the role of Stoicism in the early to mid-17th century is still not well understood. In this thesis I show, through close examination of Lipsius’s work, that Neo-Stoic ethics (...) in the 17th century amounts to a view about the relationship between providence and human actions. After identifying ways that Stoic philosophy was used to explain this connection, I derive two key normative duties that are constitutive of a Neo-Stoic account of ethics: 1) a duty to accept the determinations of providence (whatever they may be) and 2) the duty to develop a large body of rational knowledge about the universe. In the remainder of this thesis, I map the influence of these Neo-Stoic positions on Rene Descartes, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, and Nicolas Malebranche’s moral philosophy. I contend that all these Cartesian-inspired thinkers draw upon the foundational components of Neo-Stoicism in their accounts of ethics. I first consider how the correspondence between Descartes and Elisabeth represents a debate about the viability of certain Neo-Stoic theses. And then, I argue that Malebranche’s moral philosophy should be read as the natural progression of the Neo-Stoic “seeds” planted throughout this correspondence. In developing a conceptual framework for what constitutes a Neo-Stoic position and mapping the influence of this system on prominent Cartesian thinkers, my thesis tells a conceptual story about the history of Stoicism. My thesis particularly seeks to emphasize the way that Stoicism becomes intertwined with the history of 17th century moral philosophy based on the desire of Early Modern figures to balance voluntarist and intellectualist intuitions. (shrink)

This has been available under Teaching Materials, but items in that category are not easily located, so I have added it here. This short dialogue can be used to introduce students to the core claims of Stoic moral philosophy and to position Stoic moral philosophy in relation to its ancient alternatives: Cynicism, Epicureanism, and Peripatetic thought. The dialogue form is meant to make this fun and easy. -/- This little dialogue may also be of interest to readers who (...) have encountered various popular books on "How to Stoic". Such readers should know that Stoicism is a school of _philosophy_. The Stoics themselves would not recommend that you try to Stoic Yourself unless and until you were convinced of the _truth_ of the central claims of the school -- a truth that the ancient Stoics sought to establish by _arguments_. To treat Stoicism simply as self-help, without due regard to whether its central claims can be shown to be true, would be to treat those ancient philosophers with contempt. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of women's engagement with Stoic ethics in early modern England (c. 1600–1700). It builds on recent literature in the field by demonstrating that there is a positive gender‐inclusive narrative to be told about Stoic philosophy in this time—one that incorporates women's specific concerns and responds to women's lived experiences. To support this claim, we take an interdisciplinary approach and examine several different genres of women's writing in the period, including letters, poems, plays, (...) educational texts, and moral essays. In these writings, we argue, a distinctive conception of Stoic therapy emerges. Women embrace well‐known aspects of the Stoic philosophy—such as living in agreement with nature, the importance of self‐government, and the ideal of freedom from the passions—but they also allow room for the cultivation of eupatheiai or life‐affirmative feelings, such as feelings of respect, affection, and good will toward other people. (shrink)

Among Foucault’s works on the “techniques of the self,” the importance of the Stoic doctrine of cura sui is testified by a number of essays such as The Care of the Self and The Hermeneutics of the Subject. In line with Foucault’s biopolitical thought throughout the 1970s, my core argument in this paper is that some authors of the Italian Theory develop their account of contemporary neoliberalism through the interpretation of cura sui as a form of self-enterprise. Thus, I (...) compare certain passages of late imperial Stoicism with contemporary critical literature in order to demonstrate that a certain semantic contiguity led to an interpretation of the technologies of the self that is quite different from Foucault’s original purpose, and their ethical outcomes in the domain of self-entrepreneurship suffer from a substantial ambiguity.L’importance de la doctrine stoïque de la cura sui dans les études foucaldiennes sur les « techniques du soi»s’affirme par des ouvrages tels que Le souci de soi et l’Herméneutique du sujet. Dans le sillage de la pensée biopolitique de Foucault à la fin des années 1970, la thèse que je développe dans ce texte est que certains auteurs de l’Italian Theory, dans leur lecture du présent néolibéral, ont rapproché la question classique de la cura sui à celle de l’auto-entrepreneuriat. Dans cette perspective, je fais une comparaison de certains passages du stoïcisme impérial tardif à la littérature critique contemporaine, afin de démontrer que une certaine contiguïté sémantique a conduit à une interprétation des technologies du soi assez différente des intentions originaires de Foucault et que leur finalité éthique, à propos de l'auto-entrepreneuriat, confirme son ambiguïté de fond. (shrink)

Peter Abelard, Collationes, Edited and Translated by John Marenbon and Giovanni Orlandi.

The book argues that the theological motifs in Stoic philosophy are pivotal to our understanding of Stoic ethics. Part One offers an introductory overview of the religious world view of the Stoics. Part Two examines the Stoic characterizations of virtue and the virtues. Part Three deals with Stoic theories of how human beings can become virtuous. Part Four studies the practices of Stoic ethics. It shows inter alia how the Chrysippean table of virtues (...) is still an (unacknowledged) influence behind Panaetius’ matrix of kathekonta, but how little agreement on the practical implications of their virtue ethics the Stoics could reach. The book suggests that the identity over time and cohesion of the Stoic school depended less on a commitment to the school founder’s memory and writings than on a common core of shared theological principles. (shrink)

For anyone approaching the Encheiridion of Epictetus for the first time, this book provides a comprehensive guide to understanding a complex philosophical text. Including a full translation and clear explanatory commentaries, Epictetus's 'Encheiridion' introduces readers to a hugely influential work of Stoic philosophy. Scott Aikin and William O. Stephens unravel the core themes of Stoic ethics found within this ancient handbook. Focusing on the core themes of self-control, seeing things as they are, living according to nature, owning (...) one's roles and fulfilling the responsibilities that those roles entail, the authors elucidate the extremely challenging ideas in Epictetus's brisk chapters. Divided into five distinct parts, this book provides readers with: -/- - A new translation of the Encheiridion by William O. Stephens. - A new introduction to ancient Stoicism, its system of concepts, and the ancient figures who shaped it. - A fresh treatment of the notorious and counter-intuitive 'Stoic paradoxes'. - An accessible overview of the origin and historical context of the Encheiridion. - Detailed commentaries on each chapter of the Encheiridion that clarify its recurring themes and highlight their interconnections. - Careful attention to the presentation of the arguments embedded in Epictetus's aphoristic style. - A thoughtful discussion of serious criticisms of Epictetus's Stoicism and replies to these objections. -/- Written with clarity and authority, Epictetus's 'Encheiridion' provides a foundation from which readers can understand this important text and engage with the fundamental questions of Stoic philosophy and ethics. This guide will aid teachers of Epictetus, students encountering Stoicism for the first time, and readers seeking a greater understanding of Stoic ethics. (shrink)

For the Stoic hero, the man or woman of virtue, the conduct of life presents no serious problems. The life of the sage comprises a consistent and effortless flow of actions, all conforming to virtue and all undertaken for the sake of their place in a virtuous life. The Stoic sage has advanced to a point where a life of courage and wisdom, justice and temperance comes easily and naturally, without struggle and without repinings.

ABSTRACT: In contemporary discussions of freedom in Stoic philosophy we often encounter the following assumptions: (i) the Stoics discussed the problem of free will and determinis; (ii) since in Stoic philosophy freedom of the will is in the end just an illusion, the Stoics took the freedom of the sage as a substitute for it and as the only true freedom; (iii) in the c. 500 years of live Stoic philosophical debate, the Stoics were largely concerned with (...) the same philosophical problems of freedom. In this paper I argue that (i) can be upheld only in a very restricted way; (ii) is altogether untenable; and regarding (iii), that, although there may have occurred little change in the Stoic philosophical position on freedom over the centuries, we can detect more than one transformation of the philosophical problems that were at the forefront of the discussion. Moreover, that all the conceptions and problems of freedom were linked to Stoic ethics, and that the differences between them become transparent when one considers their various roles in this context. (shrink)

A. A. Long; VI*—The Logical Basis of Stoic Ethics, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 71, Issue 1, 1 June 1971, Pages 85–104, https://doi.org/10.10.

This text remains the only English translation of Bonhöffer’s classic, definitive examination of Epictetus’s ethics. Thorough, knowledgeable, perceptive, and accessible, the unity of this book and its thematic presentation make it an invaluable resource for both scholars and general readers eager to apply Stoic thinking in their daily lives. The translation is crisp, clear, consistent, and very readable. Careful attention to the details and nuances of the German as well as the Greek of Epictetus make this an excellent (...) achievement. This new edition includes a useful biography of Bonhöffer, a new overview of the last twenty years of scholarship on Epictetus, and an extensive bibliography. (shrink)

When examining the role of Stoic ethics within Stoic philosophy as a whole, it is useful for us to look at the Stoic view of the way in which philosophy is made up of parts. The aim is a synoptic and integrated understanding of the "theoremata" of all the parts, something which can be achieved in a variety of ways, either by subsequent integration of separate study of the three parts or by proceeding through 'mixed' presentations, (...) which can be made at varying levels of understanding. In two presentations of Stoic ethics we find initially baffling claims about the life of virtue being 'the same as' or 'equivalent to' the life according to nature. These indicate approaches in which understanding of ethical concepts was enlarged and enriched by study of physics. Interpretation which makes physics in these passages into ethical foundations answers poorly to the ancient texts and raises severe difficulties as an interpretation of Stoicism. Two texts which have been taken to commit Stoics to a foundationalist view of the relation of ethics and physics do not in fact do so; rather, they fit well into the holistic view of philosophy and its parts. (shrink)

The topic of this volume is the meaning, for a 21st-century reader, of Epictetus’ Handbook (henceforth Ench.). Aikin and Stephens’ (henceforth A. & S.) goal is to explain each chapter of Ench. by showing, on the one hand, what role it plays in the overall structure of the work and how it enacts one or more concerns proper to Epictetus and to the Stoics; on the other hand, the content of Ench. is unfolded into a message relevant to a present-day (...) reader. This project, to which Ench. lends itsel... (shrink)