Note 16 — Chapter X · ETHICS. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE STOIC ETHICS. ABSTRACT THEORY OF MORALITY.

(2) The good and evil. The Stoics accordingly refused to admit the ordinary distinction, sanctioned by popular opinion and the majority of philosophers, between various kinds and degrees of good; nor would they allow bodily advantages and external circumstances to be included among good things, together with mental and moral qualities. A certain difference between goods they did not indeed deny, and various kinds are mentioned by them in their formal division of goods.16 But these differences amount, in the end, to no more than this, that whilst some goods are good and useful in themselves, others are only subsidiary to them. The existence of several equally primary goods appears to the Stoics to be at variance with the conception of the good. That only is a good, according to their view, which has an unconditional value. That which has a value only in comparison with something else, or as leading to something else, does not deserve to be called a good. The difference between what is good and what is not good is not only a difference of degree, but also one of kind; and what is not a good per se can never be a good under any circumstances.17 The same remarks apply to evil. That which is not in itself an evil can never become so from its relation to something else. Hence only that which is absolutely good, or virtue, can be considered a good; and only that which is absolutely bad, or vice,18 can be considered an evil. All other things, however great their influence may be on our state, belong to a class of things neither good nor evil, but indifferent, or ἀδιάφορα.19 Neither health, nor riches, nor honour, not even life itself, is a good; and just as little are the opposite states—poverty, sickness, disgrace, and death—evils.20 Both are in themselves indifferent, a material which may either be employed for good or else for evil.21