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Book II Chapter 7

Division of the Ethical Field · 6

If I were less industrious, I would be content with this division and would already proceed to set out the doctrines, finding relief in the outline of its sixfold arrangement. But I consider it proper first of all to examine the essence of the subject under treatment, then its quality and quantity, and next its relations. I therefore think I must take further pains and examine the accounts of others as well: even if not everyone’s, at least those of people distinguished in these matters.¹⁴⁸

Now there is a division of philosophical discourse by Eudorus of Alexandria, an Academic philosopher, a book worth possessing, in which he has gone through the whole field of knowledge by way of problems. I shall set out the part of that division belonging to ethics. It runs as follows.

Division of the Ethical Field · 7

Philosophical discourse has three parts: ethical, physical, and logical. Of the ethical part, one division concerns the consideration of the value of each thing, ⟨another concerns impulse⟩, and another concerns action.

¶ These are the broad branches of ethics. First, we must consider the value of the thing we are going to choose, since impulse cannot become reasonable unless consideration precedes it. Consideration is an examination of the thing and a kind of judgment based on reasoning about it. Second, we must properly direct impulse toward what has been considered; third, we must attach action to these. ¶ These are the primary parts of ethical discourse: consideration, impulse, and action.

Each of these is subdivided.¹⁴⁹

Division of the Ethical Field · 8

Of the division considering the value of each thing, one part concerns aims and what are called the ends of life, the other what contributes to attaining those ends. ⟨The part concerning ends is divided into that about good and evil and that about …; of the part concerning what contributes to attaining the ends,⟩ one division concerns virtues and vices, another the kinds of people characterized by the virtues—which is also called the description of character—another the arts, and another pursuits.¹⁵⁰

Division of the Ethical Field · 9

Of the division concerning virtues, one part is particular, the other general. The particular part concerns, for example, justice, courage, temperance, practical wisdom, and the others. The general part is exhortatory, since it aims simply to display virtue and vice. Discourse considering the value of each thing is divided into this many general topics; for the division about good and evil contains many subdivisions, such as those about so-called preferred things, friendship, pleasure, reputation, and natural aptitude. Under friendship, treated as a general category, he places love ⟨and⟩ drinking parties. Nevertheless, he likewise subordinates all these to discourse about good and evil as the most general category.¹⁵¹

Division of the Ethical Field · 10

Of discourse concerning impulse, one part concerns impulse in the specific sense, the other passions. For either every passion is an excessive impulse, or at any rate most passions, and also disorders, involve impulse.

Of discourse concerning action, one part concerns what inclines us toward certain actions, another what alienates us from certain actions, another gives an account of the causes that bring about certain dispositions or movements, another concerns practice, and another action in the specific sense, which bears the same name as the general category.¹⁵²

Division of the Ethical Field · 11

The division concerning what inclines us toward certain actions is divided into preceptive and exhortatory discourse; for some place exhortation under this heading as well. The division concerning what turns us away is called consolatory, and some call it discourse about passions. Of action in the specific sense, which bears the same name as the general category, one part concerns appropriate actions, the other completely right actions.¹⁵³

Division of the Ethical Field · 12

Some appropriate and completely right actions concern individual matters, while others concern our relations with those around us. Hence the topic of gratitude has arisen from the account of our relations with others. Again, since some appropriate and completely right actions are called composite and others noncomposite, discourse about ways of life has arisen ⟨from⟩ the treatment of composite actions. Marriage, as part of that discourse, has been arranged separately because of the number of questions it contains.¹⁵⁴

Division of the Ethical Field · 13

Thus all the topics in discourse ⟨concerning⟩ action are: ⟨precepts, exhortation⟩, consolation ⟨or⟩ passions, ⟨causal explanation⟩, practice, appropriate actions, completely right actions, gratitude, ways of life, and marriage.

Ethical discourse, then, may be divided into these parts and this number of them. We must begin the problems, placing the general categories first according to the arrangement that seems best to me, which I am persuaded has an advantage in clarity.¹⁵⁵

On the End · 1

“End” is said in many senses: as the limit, distinguished from beginning and middle; as a payment of tribute; as expense, in the sense in which one speaks of being self-supporting or inexpensive; as marriage among the Dorians, either because it brings youth to its conclusion or because it completes the man through union with the woman, which is why they call Hera “Marital” ⟨or⟩ “Of Union” and “Of Completion.” “End” also means the outcome of knowledge, action, or a work, as in Euripides:¹⁵⁶

Of unbridled mouths and lawless folly the end is misfortune.¹⁵⁷

On the End · 2

The ruling offices of constitutions are also called “ends,” for example the authorities of the Lacedaemonians. In Homer, in the tenth book of the Iliad:

Swiftly, as they went, they reached the company of Thracian men.

Here it means a formation under command.¹⁵⁸

148.The source’s narrator now moves from Philo to Eudorus. The “sixfold arrangement” includes the separately discussed ends, ways of life, politics, and precepts, alongside exhortation and treatment. Essence, quality, quantity, and relation describe the proposed inquiry’s order. Wachsmuth retains the difficult final comparison about examining others’ accounts; the English gives its apparent contrast without claiming a secure word-for-word construction. His rejected [τε], “and,” is not added to the translation.

149.Wachsmuth supplies the middle division, ⟨another concerns impulse⟩, to complete the threefold scheme. The account orders considered value, impulse, and action; it does not treat impulse as inherently irrational. “Physical” means concerned with nature, and “logical” with reasoning and related matters. The source’s break marks before the two summaries are represented here by ¶. Wachsmuth explicitly cautions against deleting the second summary as an interpolation simply because it repeats the division.

150.The long bracketed passage is Wachsmuth’s reconstruction of wording he considers lost through a repeated ending. Its dots leave an unrecovered subdivision unfilled. The translation preserves both the supplement and the gap. Σκοπός is an aim or target; τέλος the end sought. Χαρακτηριστικόν concerns the description of character-types, while ἐπιτηδεύματα are pursuits or occupations. The gap belongs to the transmitted division, not to an omitted portion of this translation.

151.The general exhortatory treatment of virtue is distinguished from accounts of particular virtues. “Preferred things” renders προηγμένα, a technical term especially associated with Stoic accounts of things selected without being moral goods. Its presence does not by itself make the whole division exclusively Stoic. Δόξα here, alongside friendship and pleasure, is reputation; earlier it meant opinion. Συμπόσια are drinking parties or symposia, treated as a setting for social relations.

152.The first sentence places passions within the broader treatment of impulse, allowing the alternative formulations printed in the Greek. Ἀρρωστήματα are disorders or infirmities of the soul; the preceding [τὰ] is rejected by the editor and omitted from English. Action then names both a general field and a specific subdivision within it, a distinction expressed by ἰδίως and ὁμωνύμως. Ἄσκησις here is practice or training.

153.Καθήκοντα are appropriate or befitting actions; κατορθώματα are completely right actions, the stronger term in Stoic ethical classification. The translation keeps them distinct. “Discourse about passions” renders παθολογικός in an ethical sense, rather than modern medical pathology. The source notes that some classify exhortation here, whereas the preceding scheme also placed it under the general treatment of virtue.

154.Χάριτες concerns gratitude or the reciprocal giving and returning of favors, not the mythological Graces. Composite actions are considered in their combination into a way of life, which explains the move from individual acts to βίοι. The supplied ⟨from⟩ follows ⟨ἐκ τοῦ⟩. The Greek source gives marriage its own heading because of the questions it raises, without answering those questions here.

155.The summary contains ten headings, with consolation and the treatment of passions offered as alternative names for one heading. Wachsmuth supplies “precepts, exhortation,” the alternative “or,” and “causal explanation” so that the list corresponds to the preceding exposition; the angle brackets preserve those interventions. The final first-person statement belongs to the narrator, who now proceeds from the division of ethics to its problems. The next heading is “On the End.”

156.Τέλος can mean an end, completion, tax, or expense. No single English word reproduces the whole range. The compounds αὐτοτελής and εὐτελής illustrate the financial sense. Hera’s epithets συζυγία and τελεία connect marriage with union and completion; “of completion” keeps the connection with τέλος visible. The supplied article ⟨τὸ⟩ is expressed through English grammar; ⟨ἢ⟩ is retained as ⟨or⟩.

157.Euripides, Bacchae 386–388. The lyric form ἀφροσύνας is genitive singular, coordinated with “of unbridled mouths.” The quotation illustrates an outcome, not yet the philosophical definition of the end of life.

158.The plural τέλη can denote civic authorities; the Homeric singular denotes a military company (Iliad X.470). These are additional meanings of the same word, not claims that political office or military service is life’s final good. Wachsmuth retains ἔναρχον, “under command,” although his apparatus questions the reading and suggests ἐναργῶς, “plainly.” The English follows the printed text.