CLAS 196/PHIL 196

as always, following Brennan, we are on Chapter 12 of The Stoic Life

• HOW SHOULD HUMANS DECIDE WHAT TO DO?

• Setting our Defaults as Stoics
• I keep saying that the Stoic Sage will do mostly things that we too think of as virtuous. Here is a text to support that claim.
  
• Diogenes Laertius LXI
• Again, they say that a thing has value, when in some point of view, it has a sort of intermediate power of aiding us to live conformably to nature; and under this class, we may range riches or good health, if they give any assistance to natural life. Again, value is predicated of the price which one gives for the attainment of an object, which some one, who has experience of the object sought, fixes as its fair price; as if we were to say, for instance, that as some wheat was to be exchanged for barley, with a mule thrown in to make up the difference. Those goods then are preferred, which have a value, as in the case of the mental goods, ability, skill, improvement, and the like; and in the case of the corporeal goods, life, health, strength, a good constitution, soundness, beauty; and in the case of external goods, riches, glory, nobility of birth, and the like.
• Rejected things are, in the case of qualities of the mind, stupidity, unskilfulness, and the like; in the case of circumstances affecting the body, death, disease, weakness, a bad constitution, mutilation, disgrace, and the like; in the case of external circumstances, poverty, want of reputation, ignoble birth, and the like. But those qualities and circumstances which are indifferent, are neither preferred nor rejected. Again, of things preferred, some are preferred for their own sakes, some for the sake of other things, and some partly for their own sakes and partly for that of other things. Those which are preferred for their own sakes, are ability, improvement, and the like; those which are preferred for the sake of other things, are wealth, nobility of birth, and the like; those which are preferred partly for their own sake, and partly for that of something else, are strength, vigour of the senses, universal soundness, and the like; or they are preferred, for their own sakes, inasmuch as they are in accordance with nature; and for the sake of something else, inasmuch as they are productive of no small number of advantages; and the same is the case in the inverse ratio, with those things which are rejected.

• These notes and the set of notes following it involve consideration of two ways to interpret Stoicism's attitude to us and our everyday decisions, names the "Salva Virtute Model" and the "Indifferent-Only" model. Keep in mind that Stoics clearly think it is worthwhile for non-sages to follow stoicism and they clearly think that it has something to offer them. They try to persuade others to follow stoicism. They think it helps one live a better life. If at any point you find yourself saying that Stoicism does not do that, then you have probably misinterpreted it or carried a Stoic line of thought too far. See if there is another interpretation that allows you to preserve the idea that Stoicism plausibly helps ordinary people.
  

• THE SALVA VIRTUTE MODEL
  
• Cicero de Officiis 3.13 provides evidence for this model
  
• The final end specified by the Stoics, 'to live in agreement with nature', has the following meaning, in my opinion: always to conform to virtue, and as for the other things which are according to nature, to select them if they do not conflict with virtue.
• Brennan calls this "if they do not conflict with virtue" model of the final end the "SALVA VIRTUTE" model
• Salva virtute means "provided that virtue is preserved"
• In this model, part of our deliberations about what to do involves doing the things that are virtuous, and then, in considering the various additional options, asking whether virtue is preserved.
  
• SO, as Brennan sees it, we have two ways to decide things:
  
• Some choices involve the virtuous and the contrary-to-virtuous: virtue is the trump card
• Some choices involve indifferents only
  
• THE INDIFFERENTS ONLY MODEL
  
• Cicero de Finibus 3.59-61 provides an illustration and support for this model (note that the same author provides evidence for the other model above!)
  
• Now it cannot be doubted that some of the intermediates should be adopted, and others rejected. So whatever one does or says in this fashion is included under appropriate action. This shows, since everyone by nature loves themselves, that the foolish no less than the wise will adopt what is in accordance with nature and reject what is contrary. This is how a certain kind of appropriate action is common to both wise and foolish, and it is here that its involvement in what we call intermediates arises. From the latter [i.e. from intermediates] all appropriate actions proceed; and so it is with good reason that all our deliberations are said to be directed at them, including the question of our departing from life or remaining alive. ‘It is the appropriate action to live when most of what one has is in accordance with nature. When the opposite is the case, or is envisaged to be so, then the appropriate action is to depart from life. This shows that it is sometimes the appropriate action for the wise person to depart from life though happy, and the fool to remain in it though miserable. Stoic good and evil, which I have now often mentioned, is a subsequent development. But the primary objects of nature, whether they are in accordance with it or against, fall under the judgement of the wise person, and are as it were the subject and material of wisdom. ‘Thus the whole rationale for either remaining in or departing from life is to be measured by reference to those intermediates that I mentioned above.
  
• On this model, our decisions about courses of action do not involve choices between virtuous, vicious, and intermediate/indifferent actions
• How to read the evidence?
• Cicero de Finibus 3.58-9 reads in part (we saw more of this text in the previous notes):
• we see that something exists which we call a right action; but this is a perfectly proper function; so there will also be such a thing as an imperfect one. For instance, it is a right action to return a deposit in the just manner, to return a deposit should be counted as a proper function. It becomes a right action by the addition, 'in the just manner,' but the act of return just by itself is counted a proper function.
• This text says:
• Right actions exist (this refers to what we have called "perfect befitting actions," which only the sage does)
  
• They are perfectly proper functions, AKA perfect befitting functions (proper functions are just another way to translate the words we have been translating as "befitting")
• There are also imperfect proper functions (this refers to actions which are "merely" befitting, but not perfect befitting actions)
• Returning a deposit justly is a right action (i.e. a perfect befitting action)
• Returning a deposit by itself is just a befitting action
• "Justly" is what makes it perfect
• Indifferents-only interpretation
• The agent faces choices between indifferents: return the deposit or not
• The agent chooses one, and that choice is always what she thinks is befitting
  
• Salva virtute interpretation
• The agent faces mixed choices: return deposit and do a just act OR return the deposit and do an unjust act OR don't return the deposit and do a just act OR don't return the deposit and do an unjust act
• when we say "just" or "unjust" here, what must be meant is something like "What a Sage would do in that situation" rather than "fully just, i.e. fully virtuous"
  
• We need some sort of guidance as to what constitutes "according to virtue" and what is "contrary to virtue"
  
• Stoics are remarkably clear on the idea that the Sage performs ONLY virtuous actions
  
• every action of the Sage, including things like picking up a twig, tooth-brushing, etc. are virtuous when a Sage does them.
• The Stoics are also remarkably clear on the idea that every virtuous action is equally virtuous
  
• and every vicious action is equally vicious.
• The Stoics are also remarkably clear on the idea that the Sage will be equally happy with or without anything that is an indifferent.
• we can't be Sages.
• we can't observe Sages (there aren't any)
• we can't ask them questions
  
• What should we do? 
  
• Non-Sages should perform the befitting actions that a Sage would perform in the same circumstances: that is clear
• That might be what Cicero means when he talks of conforming to virtue and avoiding conflict with virtue
• always to conform to virtue, and as for the other things which are according to nature, to select them if they do not conflict with virtue.
• But the question still stands: where do we get guidance?
  
• Sage versus Non-Sage: on the Salva Virtute model, how do we find a guide for our lives?
  
• We can look at what the Sage would do!
• We can imitate the Sage.
• But that does not make us Virtuous, because we need the Sage's mind, the Sage's virtue, to be virtuous
• and that is inaccessible to us!
• Duties: Set our defaults properly.
• Diogenes Laertius 7.108-9 (62 in our online numbering)
  
• Now of the things done according to inclination, some are duties, and some are contrary to duty; and some are neither duties nor contrary to duty,
• These are duties, which reason selects to do, as for instance, to honour one‘s parents, one‘s brothers, one‘s country, to gratify one‘s friends. These actions are contrary to duty, which reason does not choose; as for instance, to neglect one’s parents, to be indifferent to one‘s brothers, to shirk assisting one‘s friends, to be careless about the welfare of one‘s country, and so on. Those are neither duties, nor contrary to duty, which reason neither selects to do, nor, on the other hand, repudiates, such actions, for instance, as to pick up straw, to hold a pen, or a comb, or things of that sort.
• Again, there are some duties which do not depend on circumstances, and some which do. These do not depend on circumstances, to take care of one's health, and of the sound state of one's senses, and the like. Those which do depend on circumstances, are the mutilation of one's members, the sacrificing of one's property, and so on. And the case of these actions which are contrary to duty, is similar.
  
• Again, of duties, some are always such, and some are not always. What is always a duty, is to live in accordance with virtue; but to ask questions, to give answers, to walk, and the like, are not always duties. And the same statement holds good with respect to acts contrary to duty.
• Things to note:
• Think of "duties" as a default option: do it unless there is a clearly better option
• The idea is: "honoring one's parents" is listed as befitting 'without regard to circumstances,' but that does not mean every instance of honoring one's parents is befitting. It means it's the default (a concept that has no clear expression I can find in Greek or Latin).
• Cicero de Legibus 1.6.18
• The law is the highest reason, implanted in nature, ordering which things are to be done and forbidding their contraries. This same reason, when it is in a confirmed and perfected human mind [i.e. the Sage], is law.
  
• We have minds, we have instances of improving them: we can imagine a mind that is better and more advanced than each of ours and follow the path from our mind to that mind.
• That gives us some guidance, no?
• What does he mean by "law"?
  
• Compare Diogenes Laertius (LIII in our numbering)
  
• And again, to live according to virtue is the same thing as living according to one’s experience of those things which happen by nature; as Chrysippus explains it in the first book of his treatise on the Chief Good. For our individual natures are all parts of universal nature; on which account the chief good is to live in a manner corresponding to nature, and that means corresponding to one's own nature and to universal nature; doing none of those things which the common law of mankind is in the habit of forbidding, and"" that common law is identical with that right reason which pervades everything, being the same with Jupiter, who is the regulator and chief manager of all existing things.
• Still puzzling and insufficient, but it does contain some clear statements that move us around if not directly to any "solution"
  
• Law as possible guide to life
• Diogenes mentions
• "the common law of humankind"
• which is identical with
• right reason
  
• which pervades everything
• So this law, is it just whatever the Sage does, or whatever Zeus does? Is it law as in a society which has no written laws but rather has wise elders, and whatever they say is law? Surely it's not whatever law happens to be on the books in any given human community.
  
• Epictetus Discourses 2.6:
• Chrysippus therefore said well, “So long as future things are uncertain, I always cling to those which are more adapted to the conservation of that which is according to nature; for God himself has given me the faculty of such choice.” But if I knew that it was fated for me to be sick, I would even move toward it; for the foot also, if it had intelligence, (and understood that it was going into the mud no matter what) would move to go into the mud.
• From this, it seems that whatever happens in nature is nature's law.
• So this law must be as variable as nature: seems to have patterns, but in individual particular situations to be almost shapeless?
  
• Plato, in the Statesman argued that the following two beliefs are incompatible:
• The law is a system of general principles
• The law is always correct
• Aristotle too has the same thought: he thinks there is an irreducible element of human judgement between the law and any particular circumstance. No law can specify every circumstance, in other words.
• Even if "the law" consists of things which are somewhat like "default" options (stay healthy, help friends, etc.), still we need an ethical expert, someone we trust and respect, to decide the outlying cases.
• But Stoics apparently think that "law" is not a system of rules, but rather whatever comes out of the mind of the Sage or Zeus.
  
• I.e. it's Salva Virtute, which is fine, but leaves us with no reliable way to know what to do! There are no such experts around to ask, and it's not a matter of principles and rules (which we might be able to muddle thru), but of whatever "Zeus" sends our way.
  
• Let's give the Indifferents-Only model a try
• Whereas Salva Virtute left us with no way to find out what to do, indifferents-only offers us a way out
• We "simply" look at the combination of indifferent things and intermediate actions we are faced with and have to choose amongst, weigh out the various combinations, and choose the one with the most promoted indifferents. That's all there is to it. That is virtuous (if done by a mind that really knows things) or as close as can be (if done by us weak-assenters)
• Stobaeus 2.76.14
• Diogenes said that the end is 'to reason well in the selection of things according to nature'. Antipater said the end is 'to live unceasingly selecting the things that are according to reason, and disselecting the things that are contrary to reason.' He would also often phrase it as follows: 'to o everything that accords with oneself, unceasingly and unswervingly, towards the acquisition of the things that are promoted according to nature.'
• This talk of selection involves indifferents only, because that is what selection is: it is the technical term for choosing between indifferents.
• So the idea is to consider the combo of indifferents and intermediate actions
• then one selects (i.e. assents to an impulse that evaluates indifferents correctly, as not good, but as preferred or dispreferred)
• that's not the end of the story
• after that, the Sage has a further impulse: a eupathic impulse: the Sage understands that the selection is virtue and so feels an impulse that evaluates the selection correctly as virtuous.
• Thus virtue is involved in the choice insofar as the Sage's mind makes the choice, that is to say it chooses correctly between indifferents, then virtue seconds the choice by assenting to a further proposition that this is a virtuous choice
• Think of it as overdetermination:
  
• we vicious can choose correctly, but we cannot KNOW that we are doing so
• the Sage chooses correctly, but also KNOWS that she is doing so
• so the Sage has additional motivation to do whatever the Sage does.
  

Next class will be devoted to arguing that we need to re-examine Salva Virtute and resuscitate it (in a way).