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Akrasia and Enkrateia in Ancient Stoicism: Minor Vice and Minor Virtue?*

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Akrasia and Enkrateia in Ancient Stoicism: Minor Vice and Minor Virtue?* AKRASIA AND ENKRATEIA IN ANCIENT STOICISM: MINOR VICE AND MINOR VIRTUE?* Jean-Baptiste Gourinat At fi rst glance, the case of akrasia in Ancient Stoicism is quickly closed: the word is found twice in the Stoicorum veterum fragmenta, while the word akratês may be found once, and akrasia again may be found twice in Epictetus1 and nowhere in Marcus Aurelius.2 One may try to persuade oneself that the ten or so occurrences of impotens and impotentia in Seneca refer to akrasia, but, in fact, this is rather unlikely. This situation is echoed by the quasi-absence of the word in classical or recent accounts of Stoic ethics: the word occurs once in Dyroff ’s classic study,3 never appears in Max Forschner’s Die stoische Ethik,4 and Brad Inwood, in Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, shows excellently that the phenomenon of weak will was rejected by the Stoics.5 Akrasia evidently does not play in Stoic ethics the central role it plays in Aristotelian ethics, for instance. The reason for this is clear: akrasia implies a confl ict between two parts of the soul, a rational part and an irrational one, the weakness of the rational part being unable to dominate the irrational one. But the Stoics * I am very grateful to Pierre Destrée for convincing me to work on this topic, which, at fi rst, seemed to me of no great pertinence for Stoic thought. This paper will show, I hope, that the matter is more important than it may seem to be, and that Pierre Destrée was well inspired. I have greatly benefi ted from comments from the participants at the Louvain meeting, and also from work on Zeno’s theory of virtues during the meetings of the ‘Projet Zénon’, of which I am in charge, at the Centre Léon Robin, in Paris. Special thanks are due on that occasion to Michel Gourinat. I am also very grateful to Thomas Bénatouïl for written comments on an earlier draft of this paper, especially on the section about Cleanthes. And fi nally, I express my gratitude to John Thompson, for kindly checking my English. 1 Epictetus, Discourses, II, 16, 45; 18, 7. 2 Ἐγκράτεια appears once in Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VIII, 39, and ἐγκρατής in VI, 11. 3 Dyroff (1897), 88. Dyroff only remarks that akrasia is a subordinate vice, and provides no further comment. 4 Forschner (1995). 5 Inwood (1985), 132–9. 216 jean-baptiste gourinat deny the existence of an irrational part of the soul, and therefore they deny the possibility of akrasia.6 The only occurrences of akrasia in the SVF may be found in Stoic lists of vices.7 Akrasia is one among many of the vices (19) subordinated to the four main vices. Hence, there is almost nothing upon which to reconstruct a Stoic doctrine of akrasia. Paradoxically enough, there are papers dedicated to Stoic akrasia.8 However, it is not surprising that these articles usually develop their own concept of akrasia, or Aristotle’s concept, and apply it to Stoic philosophy, without mentioning the few ancient testimonies on Stoicism or the few Stoic texts where akrasia may be found. Then recently, in his book on ancient theories of emotions, Richard Sorabji, without stressing his own originality, gave a central position to akrasia in his analysis of Stoic theory of emotion.9 The cen- trality of akrasia in Sorabji’s overview is due to the fact that emotional states are said be akrateis10 by Chrysippus: Sorabji takes this to mean that akrasia is central to Chrysippus’ defi nition of emotion. In his extensive book on Chrysippus’ On passions (Peri pathôn), Teun Tieleman also admits in passing that emotion may be explained by Chrysippus in terms of akra- sia.11 This is worth noticing, considering Tieleman’s general lack of indul- gence for Sorabji’s method and interpretation. The presence of akrasia, or, at least, of akrateis states of mind, in Chrysippus’ analysis of emotion, shows that it is necessary to re-evaluate the place of akrasia in Stoic ethics, despite the discouraging initial evidence of the sources. In fact, despite the manifestly minor importance of akrasia for the Stoics, two elements plead in favour of a positive re-evaluation of the status of akrasia in Stoicism: the presence of the notion in Chrysippus’ analysis of emotion; the importance of the opposite notion, enkrateia, in Cleanthes’ theory of virtues, since he considers enkrateia as one of his four cardinal virtues, among which enkrateia takes the place traditionally assigned to phronêsis. Given the scant evidence on akrasia in the remaining sources, and the ordinary coupling of the two notions, it seems appropriate to examine akrasia with enkrateia. 6 Inwood (1985), 137. Note that Plutarch, Virt. Mor., 7, 446F (SVF III 459, Long- Sedley 65 G) explicitly says that the Stoics denied any confl ict in the soul. 7 As noted by Dyroff (1897), 88 and Inwood (1985), 137. 8 Gosling (1987); Joyce (1995). 9 Sorabji (2000), especially chap. 3 and chap. 20. 10 Galen, Plac. Hipp. Plat., IV, 4, 24, p. 256 De Lacy; cf. Sorabji (2000), 303. 11 Tieleman (2003), 172; 300–01..
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