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Book II Chapter 7

The Virtues under Justice

Piety is knowledge of service to the gods. Kindness is knowledge that does good. Good fellowship is knowledge of equality in a community. Fair dealing is knowledge of how to conduct dealings blamelessly with one’s neighbors.²¹⁷

The Common End of the Virtues

The end of all these virtues is living in accordance with nature. Each makes the human being attain this through what is proper to it. For human beings have starting points from nature toward finding the appropriate action, toward steadiness of impulses, toward acts of endurance, and toward assignments of what is due.²¹⁸ Each virtue, by acting ⟨in accordance with⟩ their agreement and what is its own, makes the human being live in accordance with nature.²¹⁹

Complete Virtues and Capacities of the Soul

They say that the virtues just mentioned are complete in relation to life and are constituted from principles. Others follow upon these, being no longer arts but certain capacities that arise from exercise: for example, the soul’s health, soundness, strength, and beauty.²²⁰ For just as the body’s health is a good blending of the hot, cold, dry, and moist constituents in the body, so the soul’s health is a good blending of the beliefs within it.²²¹

Strength and Beauty of the Soul

Similarly, just as bodily strength is sufficient tension in the sinews, so strength of soul is sufficient tension in judging and acting, or not doing so.²²² And just as bodily beauty is the proportion of its limbs to one another and to the whole, so beauty of soul is the proportion of reason and its parts both to ⟨the⟩ whole of the soul and to one another.²²³

The Inseparability of the Virtues

All the virtues that are forms of knowledge and arts have principles in common and, as has been said, the same end. They are therefore inseparable: whoever has one has them all, and whoever acts in accordance with one acts in accordance with them all.²²⁴ They differ from one another in their principal concerns. The principal concerns of practical wisdom are, primarily, considering and doing what should be done; and, secondarily, considering also what should be assigned, ⟨what should be chosen, and what should be endured⟩, so as to do without error what should be done.²²⁵

The Particular and Shared Concerns

Temperance’s particular principal concern is to make the impulses steady and to consider them primarily; secondarily, it considers what falls under the other virtues, so as to conduct oneself without error in one’s impulses.²²⁶ Similarly, courage considers primarily everything that should be endured, and secondarily what falls under the others. Justice considers primarily what accords with each person’s worth, and secondarily the remaining concerns as well. For all the virtues have in view the concerns of all, including what falls under the other virtues.²²⁷

Panaetius on the Archers and the Target

Panaetius said that what happens with the virtues is like this: suppose a single target were set before several archers, with lines upon it differing in color. Each would aim to hit the target, but one would do so by striking the white line, for example; another, the black; ⟨and⟩ another, a line of some other color.²²⁸ Just as these archers make hitting the target their highest end, while each proposes a different way of hitting it, so all the virtues make happiness their end, which consists in living in agreement with nature, while each attains it in a different way.²²⁹

Diogenes on What Is Choiceworthy for Itself

Diogenes says that “choiceworthy for themselves” is used in two ways: ⟨things⟩ that are also choiceworthy as ends, as are those classified in the foregoing division; and things that contain within themselves the reason for being choiceworthy, which belongs to every good.²³⁰

The Virtues and the Ruling Part of the Soul

They say that there are several virtues, inseparable from one another, and that in their underlying reality they are the same as the ruling part of the soul. In this respect every virtue both is a body and is called one, for the intellect and the soul are a body.²³¹ They regard as soul the warm breath naturally united with us.²³²

Virtue as a Living Creature

They also hold that the soul within us is a living creature, since it both lives and perceives; and especially its ruling part, which is called intellect. Every virtue is therefore a living creature too, since in substance it is the same as the intellect.²³³ On this basis they say that practical wisdom itself thinks wisely, for speaking in this way follows from their position.²³⁴

217.“Service” renders θεραπεία in its religious sense, not medical treatment. Εὐποιητική describes doing good, rather than merely having a pleasant manner. Good fellowship is defined through equality within a community; fair dealing concerns blameless transactions or dealings with others, not commercial exchange alone. These definitions complete the subordinate-virtue list.

218.The four natural starting points, ἀφορμαί, correspond to the four fields of the primary virtues: practical wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice. They are starting points for virtue, not a claim that every person already possesses complete virtue. The common τέλος is the end or aim of life; each virtue contributes through its particular field.

219.The supplied κατά is represented by the bracketed “in accordance with.” Τὸ σύμφωνον names their agreement or harmony, while τὸ ἑαυτῆς names what belongs to each virtue. The sentence brings their common orientation and their particular work together without making their definitions identical. The following source paragraph, II.7.5b4, begins a further distinction between the complete virtues and capacities arising from them.

220.“Complete” renders τέλειαι, and “principles” renders θεωρήματα. The text distinguishes virtues constituted as arts from capacities resulting from exercise; it does not simply rename each capacity as another art. Ἀρτιότης is soundness or intactness. Four capacities are named, although the following comparisons separately explain health, strength, and beauty rather than giving a fourth comparison for soundness.

221.Εὐκρασία is a good or balanced blending. The bodily comparison names the qualities hot, cold, dry, and moist, not four named bodily fluids. The corresponding constituents in the soul are δόγματα, beliefs or judgments. The passage presents an ancient explanatory analogy; its account of bodily health belongs to that context.

222.Τόνος is tension or firmness, applied in parallel to bodily sinews and the soul’s judging and acting. Νεῦρα here means sinews, rather than the modern nervous system. Wachsmuth prints ἢ μή, “or not,” where his apparatus records καὶ μή, “and not”; the English retains the printed alternative without supplying a further phrase such as “as one ought.”

223.Συμμετρία is proportion among parts and between parts and the whole. The printed αὐτοῦ makes the parts those of reason; Wachsmuth records alternatives in his apparatus, but they have not replaced his text. The following αὐτῆς refers to the soul. The supplied article before “whole” remains bracketed in English.

224.The qualification “that are forms of knowledge and arts” retains the preceding distinction from the capacities arising through exercise. The common end refers back to living in accordance with nature at II.7.5b3. Wachsmuth’s parenthetical printed-page cross-reference is an editorial locator and is not reproduced as part of the ancient Greek sentence. Compare Diogenes Laertius VII.125–126 for a parallel account of the virtues’ mutual implication.

225.Κεφάλαια here are the principal concerns that distinguish the virtues, not separate ultimate ends. Προηγουμένως and κατὰ τὸν δεύτερον λόγον mark primary and secondary consideration. The supplied clauses about choosing and enduring bring the other virtues’ concerns into the account of practical wisdom; the brackets remain visible in both languages.

226.The object of temperance’s primary consideration is the impulses themselves, αὐτάς. “Steady” renders εὐσταθεῖς; the account does not define temperance as the absence of all impulses. Its secondary consideration of the other virtues’ fields enables error-free conduct in its own field.

227.The compressed Greek carries “considering” forward into the descriptions of courage and justice. The translation makes that shared construction explicit. The repeated primary and secondary distinction explains how the virtues can remain distinguishable while sharing knowledge; it does not place one virtue above all the others in value.

228.The comparison is explicitly attributed to Panaetius. It has one target, with differently colored lines; the translation does not replace it with several separate targets. Wachsmuth’s bibliographical reference after the name is editorial and is omitted from the ancient text. The supplied connective δέ is represented by the bracketed “and.”

229.The shared end is happiness, explained here through living in agreement with nature. The differing lines illustrate differing ways of attaining that end. The comparison thus preserves both a common orientation and distinct principal concerns; it does not give each virtue a different final good. Σκοπός remains “target,” while τέλος remains “end.”

230.Wachsmuth’s bibliographical reference identifies the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon, not Diogenes Laertius or Diogenes the Cynic. The reference is omitted from the ancient Greek sentence. The distinction concerns being chosen as an end and having the reason for one’s choiceworthiness within oneself. The latter is said of every good; the two senses should not be collapsed. The editor’s supplied article is represented by the bracketed “things.”

231.“Ruling part” renders ἡγεμονικόν, and “underlying reality” renders ὑπόστασις. The assertion that virtue is a body follows the report’s identification of the virtues with the soul’s ruling part and its corporeal account of soul and intellect. It has not been softened into a claim that virtue merely affects the body. The several virtues remain distinguishable as the preceding account explains.

232.Πνεῦμα is breath, here expressly warm and naturally united with us, συμφυές. In this physical account it should not be read as an independently immaterial spirit. The source’s claims about soul and body belong to its Stoic explanation of how the virtues exist.

233.Ζῷον is a living creature or animal. The striking claim is retained: it follows from the soul’s living and perceiving and from the virtues’ identity in substance with the intellect. It should not be replaced by the weaker metaphor that virtue is lively or vigorous. Οὐσία here concerns substance, not personal possessions.

234.“Practical wisdom itself thinks wisely” preserves the connection between φρόνησις and φρονεῖν. The narrator presents this way of speaking as a consequence of the preceding position, not merely as decorative personification. The English does not silently change the subject to the person who possesses practical wisdom.