Socrates, Stoicism, and “Virtue is the only Good.”

Exploring a Dogma

One central Stoic claim that one sees referenced in Stoic literature and discussions, from antiquity until today, is that virtue is the only good. In fact, this is considered one of the so-called “Stoic Paradoxes” going back to at least Cicero in the 1st Century BCE. One finds it as a commonplace in various discussion groups and internet fora. So common, in fact, that it is often treated as an axiom of the Stoic system. I happen to think that while it is true that this view, or something quite like it, is an important Stoic doctrine or dogma, I think it is easily misunderstood, and how it works in overall Stoic theory is not quite as clear as it might seem. In this essay, I want to take a step back to look at some of the texts that we have, and perhaps some background to those texts, to explore what this dogma really means, whether it is really an “axiom”, and what all that might mean for our own understanding of Stoic theory and practice. First I will look closely at a few central passages in which this idea occurs, then I will argue that, although it is an important doctrine in Stoicism, it is not an “axiom” in any usual sense. After that, I want to look at a few passages that complicate the story, and finish up with some reflections on why all this matters.

Textual Provenance

Where do we see the Stoics claiming that virtue is the only good? In a number of places actually. Perhaps the most clear and well known comes from Cicero’s Stoic Paradoxes. Of course, Cicero was not himself a Stoic. Rather he identified himself as an Academic Skeptic. But he is one of our best sources for the views of the early and middle Stoics, and presents not only their doctrines, but often their arguments for them.

In this work, Cicero discusses six paradoxical (in the sense of controversial and surprising, not in the sense of logically contradictory) Stoic views, the first of which is, he claims, that virtue is the only good. Technically, Cicero titles this section of the work as “Quod honestum sit id solum bonum esse” or in Greek “ὅτι μόνον τὸ καλὸν ἀγαθόν.” Cicero here, in the title, uses “honestum” in Latin as the translation of to kalon in Greek. So we don’t have a direct statement of “virtue is the only good” here. Rather, we have something like, “only the fine/beautiful/honorable is good.” A bit later in the passage, Cicero connects these ideas directly when he connects the good with virtute (virtue) when he says in s. 9: “I deem good only what is right and honorable and virtuous.” So, here we have one pretty clear statement of the doctrine that Virtue is the only good.

Diogenes Laertius gives us a pretty good look at it too:

They [the Stoics] say that some existing things are good, others are bad, and others are neither of these. The virtues — prudence, justice, courage, moderation and the rest — are good. The opposites if these — foolishness, injustice and the rest — are bad. Everything which neither does benefit nor harms is neither of these: for instance, life, health, pleasure, beauty … (7.101–2)

He tells us that the virtues, of which he gives a pretty standard list, are good, and that vices are bad, and, importantly, that many other things widely taken to be good, simply are not really good, on the Stoic view. Another pretty clear expression occurs in Seneca’s Letter 71.

The matter can be imparted quickly and in very few words: “Virtue is the only good; at any rate there is no good without virtue; and virtue itself is situated in our nobler part, that is, the rational part.” And what will this virtue be? A true and never-swerving judgment. (71.32)

What is translated here as “virtue is the only good, at any rate there is no good without virtue” is in the Latin, “unum bonum esse virtutem, nullum certe sine virtute.” Interestingly, this is a much more direct translation than what we get from Cicero just a few generations earlier, but Seneca adds a qualification, namely, that “at any rate” nothing good comes about without virtue. This qualification seems to suggest perhaps a weaker version of the thesis, that virtue is a necessary condition of anything good, but perhaps that it is not sufficient. This will become important a bit later. Finally, Alexander of Aphrodisias tells us:

If virtue and vice alone, in their [the Stoics’] opinion are good and bad, respectively, … (On Fate 1199.14–22)

All in all, then, it seems pretty clear that ancient thinkers, including avowed Stoics such as Seneca, mere reporters of Stoic doctrine such as Diogenes Laertius, and even hostile sources such as Alexander, and perhaps to a lesser extent, Cicero, all report the same central Stoic Doctrine: Virtue is the only Good.

What is virtue?

But what exactly does this dogma mean, and what does accepting it commit the Stoics to? To answer that, I think we need to say a few things about what virtue is. It’s of course widely known that the ancient Stoics were committed to the centrality of the four cardinal virtues of Wisdom, Courage, Moderation and Justice, and that this commitment is part of their inheritance from earlier Greek thinkers such as Socrates and Plato. But what are these things — virtues — really? Well, certain texts tell us that the virtues are features of the soul or mind or “ruling center”, ones that dispose us to act in certain ways, but are, importantly not the actions themselves. That is, Justice, for example, is primarily a feature of a just person’s soul, and only derivatively a feature of just actions.

Here’s another text from Diogenes Laertius:

Virtue is a consistent character, choiceworthy for its own sake and not from fear or hope or anything external. Happiness consists in virtue since virtue is a soul which has been fashioned to achieve consistency in the whole of life. (7.89)

Virtue then is a feature of one’s character, in fact it seems almost just having a certain kind of character. So, according to this conception, it might well be possible to have this sort of soul — a virtuous one — and not really do anything with it. The point that we might have a perfectly good soul, a virtuous character, and yet not be acting at all is a point that Aristotle insisted upon. This will be important in a bit.

Is this Doctrine an Axiom?

Now, is the claim that virtue is the only good an “axiom” for the ancient Stoics? I suppose it depends on what one means by “axiom”, bit if we mean by “axiom” the sort of thing that occurs in contexts like mathematics, the answer is clearly “no.” In geometry, for example, an axiom is something not argued for, but posited as the basis from which other claims are argued for. Often such axioms are taken to be true because they really do seem true.

To use a specific example, in classical Euclidean geometry, there are a number of axioms. One of these is sometimes known as the parallel lines postulate, namely that through any point, only one of a pair of parallel lines can pass. And sure enough, this just seems true. It’s incredibly hard to imagine more than one parallel line passing through a single point. I’m not even sure what that would look like. But, and this is the important feature that makes it an axiom, it is not argued for in the Euclidean system. It’s just taken to be true, and used to derive all sorts of geometric theorems. It is used as a premise in arguments, but it is the conclusion of no argument within the system.

Is the Stoic dogma that virtue is the only good like that? I think it’s pretty clear that it is not. That is, “Virtue is the only good” does not function as an unargued-for premise from which we derive other claims in the Stoic system. So, although it is certainly taken to be an important, even central claim in the Stoic system, it is not foundational in the sense that a geometric axiom is. Why is that? Well, because the Stoics make use of arguments for the claim.

The Stoics were Socratics. They derived inspiration from the figure of Socrates, as he is found in the writings of his students such as Plato, Xenophon, and Antisthenes. Not just inspiration, it seems, however. In a number of places, we see them taking on Socrates’ arguments and positions as well (as do a number of other schools).

As a prime example, In Plato’s dialogue Euthydemus (278e-82d), we see Socrates offering an argument for something like the claim that Virtue is the only good. Recently, Matthew Sharpe has ably analyzed the argument. And this argument has been carefully analyzed by many other scholars over the years. I here quote Terence Irwin:

Socrates takes it to be generally agreed that we achieve happiness by gaining many goods (279a1–4), but he argues that the only good we need is wisdom. He argues in three stages: (1) Happiness does not require good fortune added to wisdom (279c4–280a8). (2) Wisdom is necessary and sufficient for the correct and successful use of other goods (280b1–281b4). (3) Wisdom is the only good (281b4–e5). From this Socrates concludes that if we want to secure happiness, we need not acquire many goods; we need only acquire wisdom (282a1–d3). (Plato’s Ethics, p. 55)

Under Irwin’s analysis, it is clear that the idea that virtue is the only good is argued for, from the understanding of happiness that Socrates holds in the dialogue, and other places. The argument is specifically about wisdom, but it is another well-known Socratic and Stoic doctrine that the virtues are really just one thing, namely wisdom. Given that wisdom is sufficient for eudaimonia, and that all virtue is really wisdom, along with the idea that virtue is necessary for eudaimonia (a point on which many of the thinkers of the time agreed), it simply follows that nothing is good other than virtue. Or so the argument goes. As an ancillary to this conclusion, it follows that everything else is neither good nor bad, as Diogenes Laertius reminds us:

For just as heating, not chilling, is the peculiar characteristic of what is hot, so too benefitting, not harming, is the peculiar characteristic of what is good. But wealth and health no more do benefit than they harm, Therefore wealth and health are not something good. (7.103)

Given all this, it seems pretty clear that the dogma that virtue is the only good is not an axiom. It is something that they accept and offer arguments for, even if it is a very important and in some sense central part of Stoic theory.

What does this doctrine really commit us to?

Ok, the Stoics seem to lean on arguments like those offered by Socrates in Plato’s Euthydemus to establish something like the thesis that virtue is the only good. But, given that virtue is, as seen in other texts, merely a dispositional state of our soul, does this dogma mean that we only have to have our souls in that condition to have the only good? That is, even if I am stuck in a prison cell somewhere, unable to speak or act in any way, I have all that I need to have the ultimately good life, and be fully happy, by Stoic lights? Well, there are some texts that tell a slightly different story. Here are a couple of important ones:

The Stoics … define the good as follows: ‘Good is benefit or not other than benefit’, meaning by ‘benefit’ virtue and virtuous action, and by ‘not other than benefit’ the virtuous man and his friend. For virtue, which is a disposition of the commanding faculty, and virtuous action, which is an activity in accordance with virtue, are benefit directly. (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors, 11.22–6)

And from Seneca:

What is good benefits; but in order to benefit, something must act. (Letters 117.2)

And Long and Sedley describe it in the following way:

As the primary species of good, virtue is supremely beneficial or useful to its possessor. (The Hellenistic Philosophers, p.383)

What does all this mean, then, for our famous dogma? It seems from these passages that there are other things unequivocally good besides the virtues, namely virtuous activities — things we can do and actions we can take that actually bring benefit. This might not seem so radical, however. After all, virtuous activities are simply the exercise of the virtues, right? Well, yes. But it does make an important difference. Let me see if I can explain why.

If it is indeed the case that virtue and virtuous activities, taken together, are the only true good, what does that mean for Stoic theory? One thing that it means is that there is an ethically important distinction between merely having the virtues, on the one hand, and both having and exercising them, on the other. If we think of virtues as simply states of the soul that could possibly be dormant, such as when we are asleep, or that can come on and off, or some such thing, then it might well be that we have the virtues but don’t use them, at least temporarily. I’m not saying that this would be a likely or common outcome, merely that it is possible, for even the sage has to sleep.

A careful look at these texts then, I think, might resolve a seeming tension between the doctrine as it is usually understood, and texts such as Discourses 1.6.12–22, when Epictetus tells us that virtue is the proper use of impressions. The tension goes away if we think of the idea that virtue is the only good really means that virtue and the use of it is the only good, and sufficient for happiness.

Matthew Sharpe discusses it this way:

… Stoicism is about engaging with external things, but doing it well. To do that, you need to know what you want, and have the strengths of character to be able to pursue it, as well as you can (remember the reserve clause applies!)

To have the whole world, and not know how to govern it, because you can’t govern yourself, is by contrast not a recipe for happiness in the longer-term, in a world we did not create and can never fully predict or control.

And this argument confers a kind of bedrock strength. Once it is fixed in your mind, you can rest assured that, even when things don’t go as you have wished, you still have everything you need to live as well as you can.

I would probably put this more strongly; whether things go as you wish or not, you still have everything you need to live, not just as well as you can, but as well as anyone can!

This brings us, I think, full circle to Diogenes Laertius and Cicero’s formulation “ὅτι μόνον τὸ καλὸν ἀγαθόν.” If we understand this idea, perhaps most literally translated as “only the fine/beautiful is good,” then it is no big stretch, it seems to me, to think that both virtue and the activities that flow from it are fine and beautiful. Any misunderstanding comes only from the traditional translation and not recognizing that what is fine and beautiful goes beyond the state of the soul, and into the actions that we undertake through the exercise of virtue. But seeing it this more explicit way, I would suggest. Allows us to see more fully that the actions that flow from wisdom, moderation, courage, and justice are indeed fine and beautiful.

As Anthony Long puts it:

I have moved in my words from goodness and benefit to beauty and harmony, but remember that these terms all refer to the same thing, namely virtue and virtuous action. (Stoicism Today v.3, p.27)

Putting this all together, the Stoic doctrine that Virtue is the only good, while commonly quoted, is often misconstrued. It is not a bedrock, un-argued for claim. In fact, it has the support of at least one strong argument. It is also clear, I’ve suggested, that however we understand the claim, we must include the importance of not only our souls being in a certain condition, but also that we engage in the sorts of actions that virtuous souls endeavor to do. The Stoic life is a life of action!