Binghamton University The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB) The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter 12-1973 Zeno and Stoic Consistency John M. Rist University of Toronto, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp Part of the Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, Ancient Philosophy Commons, and the History of Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Rist, John M., "Zeno and Stoic Consistency" (1973). The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter. 446. https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp/446 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion in The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter by an authorized administrator of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). 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Presumably the man who is happy is never taken aback, never has to recast his priorities. He is above all consistentf his intentions and motives can be viewed as forming a coherent whole . According to Stobaeus , 9 Zeno also defined the end ( telos ) as living consistently, by which he meant living according to a single harmonious pattern. The reason he gave was that people who live otherwise, not consistently , but in conflict ( f-Jxor(vi,.J'-> ) , are unhappy ( to1.l:'.o- �q.1ovo�v1'\.)\I ) • This looks like an empirical appeal. If you are incon- sistent, you are unhappy - as anyone who looks can see. It is an lo empirical test of the kind of life which will bring happiness. Perhaps such empirical methods help the Stoics avoid giving the impres­ sion of founding their ethics on an unjustifiable shift from statements of fact to statements of value. A conflicting character brings unhap­ piness, as you can see! If you want to avoid unhappiness , the argument runs, make your behaviour consistent. There is no suggestion that you must do so, or that you ought to do so. If you want to be unhappy, then the Stoic will not attempt to change your belief. What he contents himself with doing is showing that, if you are inconsistent, you really will be unhappy . There is no absolute decree, you ought to behave consistently, virtuously, etc. Rather there is the proposition that whoever is happy will, as a matter of fact, be consistent, virtuous, etc. But to say with the Stoic that virtue entails happiness is not to say that the only reason - or indeed a necessary reason - for being virtuous is because it entails happiness. It seems that both happiness and virtue may in some sense be sought for their own sake. In fact it seems that the Stoics were prepared to say two things : 1) It will in fact pay to be virtuous provided that you want to be happy; and 2) the good man will seek virtue for its own sake. Some of the apparent difficulties ::'. \). reconciling these propositions may be resolved by examining the notion of seeking virtue for its own sake. What then do the Stoics say that virtue is? We are not short of definitions, although no definition is associated with Zeno alone. Normally virtue appears either as a "con­ sistent disposition"ll or more generally as some kind of condition of 1 the ruling part of the soul ( �y�pov1Kbv ) 2. No one would dispute that the consistency in question, whether or not it was always consis­ tency with " nature " in the sense of external nature, is consistency within oneself. 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