Cicero, De Finibus IV
Cicero' Refutation of Stoic Ethics
| Introduction to Cicero's Refutation of the Stoic System | I. With these words he concluded. "A most faithful and lucid exposition, Cato," said I, "considering the wide range of your subject and its obscurity. Clearly I must either give up all idea of replying, or must take time to think it over; it is no easy task to get a thorough grasp of a system so elaborate, even if erroneous (for on that point I do not yet venture to speak), but at all events so highly finished both in its first principles and in their working out." "You don't say so!" replied Cato. "Do you suppose I am going to allow our suit to be adjourned when I see you under this new law replying for the defense on the same day as your opponent concluded for the prosecution, and keeping your speech within a three hours' limit? Though you will find your present case as shaky as any of those which you now and then succeed in pulling off. So tackle this one like the rest, particularly as the subject is familiar; others have handled it before, and so have you repeatedly, so that you can hardly be gravelled for lack of matter." "I protest," I exclaimed, "I am not that I agree with them entirely, but modesty restrains me: there is so much in their teaching that I can hardly understand." "I admit," he said, "that some parts are obscure, yet the Stoics do not affect an obscure style on purpose; the obscurity is inherent in the doctrines themselves." "How is it, then," I replied, "that when the same doctrines are expounded by the Peripatetics, every word is intelligible?" "The same doctrines?" he cried. "Have I not said enough to show that the disagreement between the Stoics and the Peripatetics is not a matter of words, but concerns the entire substance of their whole system?" "O well, Cato," I rejoined, "if you can prove that, you are welcome to claim me as a whole-hearted convert." "I did think," said he, "that I ha said enough. So let us take this question first, if you like; or if you prefer another topic, we will take this later on." "Navy," said I, "as to that is an unfair stipulation, and deal with each subject as it comes up." "Have it your way," he replied: "my plan would have been more suitable, but it is fair to let a man choose for himself.".... | |||
| The Stoics Chief Good as Unsatisfying | XI. "Now then let us call upon leaders, or better upon yourself (for who is more qualified to speak for your school?) to explain this: how in the world do your contrive, starting from the same first principles, to reach the conclusion that the Chief Good is morality of life?-for that is equivalent to your 'life in agreement with virtue' or 'life in harmony with nature.' By what means or at what point did you suddenly discard the body, and all those things which are in accordance with nature but out of our control, and lastly duty itself? My question then is, how comes it that so many things that Nature strongly recommends have been suddenly abandoned by Wisdom? Even if we were not seeking the Chief Good of man but of some living creature that consisted solely of a mind (let us allow ourselves to imagine such a creature, in order to facilitate our discovery of the truth), even so that mind would not accept this End of yours. For such a being would ask for health and freedom form pain, and would also desire its own preservation, and security for the goods just specified; and it would set up as it End to live according to nature, which means, as I said, to possess either all or most and the most important of the things which are in accordance with nature. In fact you may construct a living creature of any sort you like, but even if it be devoid of a body like our imaginary being, nevertheless it mind will be bound to possess certain attributes analogous to those of the body, and consequently it will be impossible to set up for it an End of Goods on any other lines than those which I have laid down. Chrysippus, on the other hand, in his survey of the different species of living things states that in some the body is the principles part, in others the mind, while there are some that are equally endowed in respect of either; and then he proceeds to discuss what constitutes the ultimate good proper to each species. Man he so classified as to make the mind the principal part in him; and yet he so defined man's End as to make it appear, not that the is principally mind, but that he consists of nothing else. | |||
| The Importance of Bodily and External Goods |
XII. But the only case in which it would be correct to place the Chief Good in virtue alone is if there existed a creature consisting solely of pure intellect, with the further proviso that this intellect possessed nothing of its own that was in accordance with nature, as bodily health is. But it is impossible even to imagine a self-consistent picture of what such a creature would be like. "If one the contrary they urge that certain things are so extremely small that they are eclipsed and lost sight of altogether, we too admit this; Epicurus also says the same of pleasure, that the smallest pleasures are often eclipsed and disappear. But things so important, permanent and numerous as the bodily advantages in question are not in this category. On the one hand therefore, with things so small as to be eclipsed from view, we are often bound to admit that it makes no difference to us whether we have them or not (just as, to take a lamp in the sunshine, or add sixpense to the wealth of Croesus); while on the other hand, with thins which are not so completely eclipsed, it may nevertheless be the case that any difference they do make is not very great (thus, if a man who has lived ten years enjoyably were given an additional month of equally enjoyable life, the addition to his enjoyment, being of some value, would be a good thing, but yet the refusal of the addition does not forthwith annihilate his happiness). Now bodily goods resemble rather the latter sort of things. For they contribute something worth an effort to obtain; so that I think sometimes that the Stoics must be joking when they say that, as between a life of virtue and a life of virtue plus an oil-flask or a flesh-brush, the Wise Man will prefer the life with those additions, but yet will not be any happier because of them. Pray does this illustration really hold good? is it not rather to be dismissed with a laugh than seriously refuted? Who would not richly deserve to be laughed at if he troubled about having or not having an oil-flask? But rid a man of bodily deformity or agonies of pain., and you earn his deepest gratitude; even the Wise Man, if a tyrant send him to the rack, would not wear the same look as if he had lost his oil-flask; he would feel that he had a severe and searching ordeal before him, and seeing that he was about to encounter the supreme antagonist, pain, would summon up all his principles of courage and endurance to fortify him against that severe and searching struggle aforesaid.- Again, the question is not whether such and such a good is so trifling as to be eclipsed or lost altogether, but whether it is of such a sort as to contribute to the sum total. In the life of pleasure of which we spoke, one pleasure is lost to sight among the many; but all the same, small as it is, it is a part of the life that is based upon pleasure. A halfpenny is lost to sight amidst the riches of Croesus; still it forms part of those riches. Hence the circumstances according to nature, as we call them, may be unnoticed in a life of happiness, only you must allow that they are parts of that happiness. |
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| XIII. "Yet if, as you are we are bound to agree, there doe sot exist a certain natural instinct to desire the things in accordance with nature, the right procedure is to add together all these things in one definite total. This point established, it will then be open to us to investigate at our leisure your questions about the importance of the separate items, and the value of their respective contributions to happiness, and about that eclipse, as you call it, of the things so small as to be almost or quite imperceptible. Then what of a point on which no disagreement exists? I mean this: no one will dispute that the supreme and final End, the thing ultimately desirable, is analogous for all natural species alike. For love of self is inherent in every species; since what species exists that ever abandons itself or any part of itself, or any habit or faculty of any such part, or any of the things, whether processes or states, that are in accordance with its nature? What species ever forgot its own original constitution? Assuredly there is to one that does not retain its own proper faculty from start to finish. How then came it about that, of all the existing species, mankind alone should relinquish man's nature, forget the body, and find its Chief Good not in the whole man but in a part of man? How moreover is the axiom to be retained, admitted as it is even by the Stoics and accepted universally, that the End which is the subject of our inquiry is analogous for all species? For the analogy to hold, every other species also would have to find its End in that part of the organism which is that particular species is the highest part; since that, as we have seen, is how the Stoics conceive the End of man. Why then do you hesitate to alter your conception of the primary instincts to correspond? Instead of saying that every animal from the moment of its birth is devoted to love of itself and engrossed in preserving itself, why do you not rather say that every animal from the moment of its birth is devoted to love of itself and engrossed in preserving itself, why do you not rather say that every animal is devoted to the best part of itself and engrossed in protecting that alone, and that every other species is solely engaged in preserving the part that is respectively best in each? But in what sense is one part the best, is nothing beside it is good at all? While if on the contrary other things also are desirable, why does not the supremely desirable thing consist in the attainment of all, or of the greatest possible number and the most important, of these things? A Pheidias can start to make a statue from the beginning and carry it to completion, or he can take one rough-hewn by some one else and finish that. The latter case typifies the work of Wisdom. She did not create man herself, but took him over in the rough from Nature; her business is to finish the statue that Nature began, keeping her eyes on Nature meanwhile. What sort of thing then is man as rough-hewn by Nature? and what is the function and the task of Wisdom? what is it that needs to be consummated by her finishing touch? If it is a creature consisting solely of a certain operation of the intellect, that is, reason, its highest good must be activity in accordance with virtue, since virtue is reason's consummation. If it is nothing but a body, the chief things will be health, freedom from pain, beauty and the rest. | ||||
| XIV. But as a matter of fact the creature whose Chief Good we are seeking is man. Surely then our course is to inquire what has been achieved in the whole of man's nature. All are agreed that the duty and function of Wisdom is entirely centered in the work of perfecting man; but then some thinkers (for you must not imagine that I am tilting at the Stoics only) produce theories which place the Chief Good in the class of things entirely outside our control, as though they were discussing some creature devoid of a mind; while others on the contrary ignore everything but mind, just as if man had no body; and that though even the mind is not an empty, impalpable something (a conception to me unintelligible), but belongs to a certain kind of material substance, and therefore even the mind is not satisfied with virtue alone, but desires freedom from pain. In fact, with each school alike it is just as if they should ignore the left side of their bodies and protect the right, or, in the mind, like Erillus, recognize cognition but leave the practical faculty out of account. They pick and choose, pass over a great deal and fasten on a single aspect; so that all their systems are one-sided. The full and perfect philosophy was that which, investigating the Chief Good of man, left no part either of his mind or body uncared-for. Whereas your friends, Cato, on the strength of the fact, which we all admit, that virtue is man's highest and supreme excellence and that the Wise Man is the perfect and consummate type of humanity, try to dazzle our mental vision with virtue's radiance. Every animal, for instance the horse, or the dog, has some supreme good quality, yet at the same time they require to have health and freedom from pain; similarly therefore in man that consummation you speak of attains its chief glory in what is his chief excellence, namely virtue. This being so, I feel you do not take sufficient pains to study Nature's method of procedure. With the growing corn, no doubt, her way is to guide its development from blade to ear, and then discard the blade as of no value; but she does not do the same with man, when she had developed in him the faculty of reason. For she continually superadds fresh faculties without abandoning her previous gifts. Thus she added to sensation reason, and after creating reason did not discard sensation. Suppose the art of viticulture, whose function is to bring the vine with all its parts into the most thriving condition-at least let us assume it to be so (for we may invent an imaginary case, as you are fond of doing, for purposes of illustration); suppose then the art of viticulture were a faculty residing in the vine itself, this faculty would doubtless desire every condition requisite for the health of the vine as before, but would rank itself above all the other parts of the vine, and would consider itself the noblest element in the vine's organism. Similarly when an animal organism has acquired the faculty of sensation, this faculty protects the organism, it is true, but also protects itself; but when reason has been superadded, this is placed in such a position of dominance that all those primary gifts of nature are placed under its protection. Accordingly Reason never abandons its business is by controlling these to steer the whole course of life; so that I cannot sufficiently marvel at the inconsistency of your teachers. Natural desire, which they term horme, and also duty, and even virtue itself they reckon among things according to Nature. Yet when they want to arrive at the Supreme Good, they leap over all of these, and leave us with two tasks instead of one, some things we are to 'adopt,' others to 'desire'; instead of including both tasks under a single End. | ||||
| XV. "But you protest that if other things than virtue go to make up happiness, virtue cannot be established. AS a matter of fact it is entirely the other way about: it is impossible to find a place for virtue, unless all the things that she chooses and rejects are reckoned towards one sum-total of good. For if we entirely ignore ourselves, we shall fall into the mistakes and errors of Aristo, forgetting the things that we assigned as the origins of virtue herself; if while not ignoring these things, we yet do not reckon them in the End or Chief Good, we shall be well on the road towards the extravagances of Erillus, since we shall have to adopt two different rules of life at once. Erillus sets up two separate ultimate Goods, which, supposing his view were true, he ought to have united in one; but as it is he makes them so separate as to be mutually exclusive alternatives, which is surely the extreme of perversity. Hence the truth is just the opposite of what you say; virtue is an absolute impossibility, unless it holds to the objects of the primary instincts as going to make up the sum of good. For we started to look for a virtue that should protect, not abandon, nature; whereas virtue as you conceive it protects a particular part of our nature but leaves the remainder in the lurch. Man's constitution itself, if it could movements of desire were aimed at preserving itself in the natural character with which it was born into the world. But at the stage the principal intention of nature had not yet been fully revealed. Well, suppose it revealed. What then? will it be construed otherwise than as forbidding that any part of man's nature should be ignored? If man consists solely of a reasoning faculty, let it be granted that the End of Goods is contained in virtue alone; but if he has a body as well, the revelation of our nature, on your showing, will actually have resulted in our relinquishing the things to which we held before that revelation took place. At this rate 'to live in harmony with nature' means to depart from nature. There have been philosophers who, after rising from sensation to the recognition of nobler and more spiritual faculties, thereupon threw the senses on one side. Similarly your friends next after the instinctive desires came to behold virtue in all her beauty, and forthwith flung aside all they had ever seen besides virtue herself, forgetting that the whole instinct of appetition is so wide in its range that it spreads from the primary objects of desire right up to the ultimate Ends, and not realizing that they are undermining the very foundations of the graces which they so much admire. | ||||
| XXV. "Now what has landed you in this impasse? Simply your pride and vainglory in constructing your Chie Good. To maintain that the only Good is Moral Worth is to do away with the care of one's health, the management of one's estate, participation in politics, the conduct of affairs, the duties of life; nay, to abandon that Moral Worth itself, which according to you is the be-all and the end-all of existence; objections that were urged most earnestly against Aristo by Chrysippus. This is the difficulty that gave birth to those 'base conceits deceitful-tongued,' as Attius has it. Wisdom had no ground to stand on when desires were abolished; desires were abolished when all choice and distinction was done away with; distinction was impossible when all things were made absolutely equal and indifferent; and these perplexities resulted in your paradoxes, which are worse than those of Aristo. His were at all events frank and open, whereas yours are disingenuous. Ask Zeno, and his answer would be identically the same. In our surprise we should inquire of each, how can we possibly conduct out lives if we think it makes no difference to us whether we are well or ill, free from pain or in torments or agony, safe against cold and hunger or exposed to them. O, says Aristo, you will get on splendidly, capitally; you will do exactly what seems good to you; you will never know sorrow, desire or fear. What is Zeno's answer? This doctrine is a philosophical monstrosity, he tells us, it renders life entirely impossible; his view is that while between the moral and the base a vast, enormous gulf is fixed, between all other things there is no difference whatever. So far this is the same as Aristo; but hear what follows, and restrain your laughter if you can. These intermediate things, says Zeno, which have no difference between them, are still of such a nature that some of them are to be selected and others rejected, while others again are to be entirely ignored; that is, they are such that some you wish to have, others you wish not to have, and about others you u do not care.-'But you told us just now that there was no difference among them.'-' And I say the same now,' he will reply, 'but I mean no difference in respect of virtue and vice.' | ||||
| XXVI. "Who, pray, did not know that? how ever, let us hear what he has to say.-'The things you mentioned,' he continues, 'health, affluence, freedom from pain, I do not call goods, but I will call them in Greek proegmena, that is in your language "brought forward" (though I will rather use "preferred" or "pre-eminent," as these sound smoother and more acceptable) and on the other hand disease, poverty and pain I do not style evils, but, if you please, 'things rejected." Accordingly I do not speak of "desiring" but selecting" these things, not of "wishing" but so to speak "discarding" them.' What say Aristotle and the other pupils of Plato? That they call all things in accordance with nature good and all things congruity to nature bad. Do you see therefore that between your master Zeno and Aristo there is a verbal harmony but a real difference; whereas between him and Aristotle and the rest there is a real agreement and a verbal disagreement? Why, the, as we are agreed as to the fact, do we not prefer to employ the usual terminology? Or else let him prove that I shall be readier to despise money if I call it an evil. Our friend Marcus Piso was often witty, but never more so than when he ridiculed the Stoics on this score. 'What?' he said, 'You tell us wealth is not good but you say it is "Preferred"; how does that help matters? do you diminish avarice? In what way? If it is a question of words, to begin with "preferred" I suppose means "placed before" other things; this implies to my mind something very important.' Accordingly he would maintain that Zeno gives more importance to wealth, by classing it as 'preferred,' than did Aristotle, who admitted wealth to be a good, yet not a great good, but one to be thought lightly of and despised in comparison with uprightness and Moral Worth, and not to be greatly desired; and on Zeno's innovations in terminology generally he would declare that the names he actually gave to the things which he denied to be good or evil were more and less attractive respectively than the names by which we call them. So said Piso, an excellent man and, as you know, a devoted friend to yourself. For my part, let me add a few words more and then finally conclude. For it would be a long task to reply to all your arguments. | ||||
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