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Virtue and the good

Preferred things

προηγμένα

proēgmena

Proēgmena are the preferred indifferents: things with substantial value within the class of things that are neither moral goods nor evils.

From the book

Stobaeus, Volume II

John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordPreferred things are indifferents with substantial value in their own class; preference marks a practical ranking below moral goodness rather than making an object virtuous.
  • In StobaeusThe definition distinguishes degrees and sources of value before dividing indifferents into preferred, dispreferred and neither; the qualification about their class remains essential throughout.
  • In this editionRetain preferred rather than substituting good, and keep the classification distinct from mere popularity or an agent’s unexplained personal liking for an object.
  • A place to readChapter 7 · Excerpt 7b · Passage 1 Read the opening contrasts in amount and source of value before the threefold classification; the neutral third group prevents preferred and dispreferred from exhausting all indifferents.
English renderings
preferred things; things accorded precedence

Meaning

Proēgmena are the preferred indifferents: things with substantial value within the class of things that are neither moral goods nor evils. “Preferred” does not mean virtuous.

Use in the book

The exposition explicitly qualifies their value as value reckoned among indifferents. Bodily health, favorable capacities and certain external circumstances can therefore be preferred without constituting happiness. The account distinguishes having value in itself from being valuable through what something produces. A royal comparison explains the designation by ranking those after the king: the highest good is not itself simply another preferred item. Rational selection attends to the difference while keeping virtue in a distinct category.

The paragraph introduces two distinctions before giving its three classes. Value can be greater or less, and it can belong to a thing in itself or through what the thing produces. The definition of preferred then selects a high degree of value within the indifferent class. This qualification prevents the ranking from placing its members alongside virtue as goods. The final class also matters: an indifferent need not carry enough value or disvalue to be preferred or dispreferred. A marked supplement restores part of that last parallel without changing the structure of the surviving classification.

“as value is reckoned among indifferent things” (Chapter 7 · Excerpt 7b · Passage 1).

Places to read

  1. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 7b · Passage 12Preferred things are defined through substantial value among indifferents.
  2. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 7b · Passage 22Examples are distributed across soul, body and external circumstances.
  3. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 7g · Passage 22The king comparison explains precedence without confusing it with the highest rank.

Translation in this edition

Retain “preferred” rather than translating it as “good” or merely “popular.”

προηγμένα

Attested. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 7b · Passage 1; Wachsmuth II, printed p. 80.

τὰ μὲν καθ’ αὑτά, τὰ δὲ ποιητικά· καὶ τὰ μὲν προηγμένα, τὰ δ’ ἀποπροηγμένα, τὰ δ’ οὐδετέρως ἔχοντα. Προηγμένα μέν,

Source note

Wachsmuth, volume II, printed pp. 80–81, 85. Some indifferents are neither preferred nor dispreferred; the classification is not simply binary.