Correct action

Use in the book

Thinking wisely and acting justly illustrate correct actions. Marrying or serving as an ambassador, considered simply as types of conduct, are intermediate appropriate actions instead. The Stoic description of the wise person makes his actions correct through virtue, while errors characterize the base person. The classification also distinguishes predicates expressing what should be done from goods that one possesses. These technical claims should not become the loose modern notion that an action is correct whenever it succeeds.

Both sides of the contrast contain recognizable activities. Only the complete appropriate actions are defined through accordance with virtue, however. The intermediate examples do not show that marriage or diplomatic service must be wrong; they show that an ordinary social description leaves ethical completeness undecided. Thinking wisely and acting justly already contain the relevant evaluation in their description. This distinction helps readers follow later statements about the wise person’s conduct without assuming that the passage has divided occupations into inherently virtuous and inherently vicious lists.

“activities in accordance with virtue” (Chapter 7 · Excerpt 8 · Passage 2).

Places to read

1. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 8 · Passage 22Correct actions are complete appropriate actions.
2. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 8a · Passage 12Benefits expressed as predicates are part of the technical analysis.
3. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 11g · Passage 22Virtuous agents act correctly through their use of the virtues.

Translation in this edition

Keep “correct action” distinct from intermediate “appropriate action.”

κατορθώματα

Attested. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 8 · Passage 2; Wachsmuth II, printed pp. 85-86.

καθηκόντων τὰ μὲν εἶναί φασι τέλεια, ἃ δὴ καὶ κατορθώματα λέγεσθαι. Κατορθώματα δ’ εἶναι τὰ κατ’ ἀρετὴν ἐνεργήματα, οἷον