The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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THE STOIC CREED
Virttte and Happiness
In the next place, happiness, to the Stoic, means
virtue not something added on to it from without as
its reward, but virtue itself as a realized state in the
individual. Virtue, therefore, is the sole ultimate
source of happiness, issuing naturally and inevitably
in it: as Zeno puts it, "Virtue is self-sufficient for
happiness." 1 In that case, virtue is not merely the
chief but the only good ;
and vice, issuing in misery,
is
the only evil.
Now, what is virtue ? It is wisdom (^pw^o-ts) i.e.,
it is moral insight, or the clear and consistent percep
tion of what is
good and what is evil, and the eager
intentional accepting of the one and rejecting of the
other. As Seneca defines it
(Ep. 20): It is
always
to will and not to will the same thing. You need
will must
scarcely add the qualification that what you
be what is right. The same thing cannot always
please any one unless it be right." Virtue, therefore,
lies in the will, in the disposition and the intention,
and not alone in the overt action. "Character," as
Stobaeus expresses it (Eclogce, ii. 36),
"is the fountain
flow." 2 Cleanthes
" of life from which actions severally
useth this example : * I sent, saith he, two boys into
the Academy
to seek out Plato, and to bring him unto
1 "
However, Pansetius and Posidonius do not admit that virtue
is self-sufficient, but that there is need also of good health and
competence and strength (Diog. Lae rt. vii. 65). This reminds
one of Adam Smith, who enumerates the constituents of happiness
as health, a good conscience, and freedom from debt.
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