Ethics
Plutarch On Common Conceptions 1069e
(SVF 3.491)
253
[11-112][Chrysippus] says, "So where shall I start from? And what am I to
take as the principle of appropriate action and the raw material for virtue,
if I give up nature and what is according to nature?"Plutarch On Stoic Self-Contradictions
1035a-d (SVF 2.42, 30; 3.326, 68)[11-113](1035a) Chrysippus thinks that young men ought to study logic first,
ethics second and then physics, and theology last of all as the culmination
of the others. He says this in many places, but it will suffice to cite
literally what is said in book four of On Lives: "First of all I think,
following the correct account given by the ancients, that there are three
kinds of theorems to be studied by a philosopher, those of logic, those
of ethics and those of physics; and then that we must put the logical
first, the ethical second, and the physical third. And theology is last in
physics. (1035b) That is why the teaching of theology has been called a
'final revelation'." But in practice he usually puts this topic, which he
says ought to put last, at the beginning of his every ethical enquiry. For
manifestly he never utters a word on any topic-the goal of life, justice,
good and bad things, marriage, child-rearing, law, citizenship-without
prefacing his remarks (just as those who introduce decrees in public
assemblies preface their remarks with invocations of Good Fortune) with
references to Zeus, fate, providence, and stating that the cosmos is one
and finite, being held together by a single power. And none of this can
be believed, (1035c) except by someone who is thoroughly immersed in
physics. So listen to what he says about these matters in book three of
On Gods: "for one can find no other starting point or origin for justice
except the one derived from Zeus and that derived from the common
nature; for everything like this must take that as its starting point, if we
are going to say anything at all about good and bad things." And again
in his Propositions in Physics: "there is no other, and certainly no more
appropriate, way to approach the discussion of good and bad things or
the virtues or happiness,
the administration of the cosmos." A bit further on again, "for the
discussion of good and bad things must be linked to them, since there
is no better starting point or reference point and since the study of
physics is not to be taken up for any other reason than to distinguish
good from bad."