254
Plutarch On Stoic Self-Contradictions
1037c-1038c (SVF 3.520,175,674,179;
2.171,724)
//-114 to //-115
[11-114](1037c) ... They say that a [morally] perfect action is what the law
commands and that a [moral] mistake is what the law forbids, and that
is why the law forbids the foolish to do many things (1037d) but com-
mands them to do nothing; for they are unable to perform a [morally]
perfect action. And who is not aware that it is impossible for someone
who cannot perform a [morally] perfect action to avoid making a [moral]
mistake? So [the Stoics] put the law in conflict with itself by commanding
what they are unable to do and forbidding what they are unable to refrain
from. For the man who cannot be temperate cannot avoid being wanton,
and he who cannot be prudent cannot avoid acting imprudently. Indeed,
they themselves say that those who forbid say one thing, forbid another
and command yet another. For he who says "do not steal" says just this,
"do not steal", (1037e) forbids
the law won't be forbidding base men to do anything if it is not giving
them a command. Moreover, they say that the doctor commands his
apprentice to cut and burn, with the omission [of the specification] that
he should do so at the right time and in the right manner, just as the
music master [commands his student] to play the lyre or sing with the
omission [of the specification] that they do so tunefully and harmoniously.
The reason why they punish the students who do these things inartistically
and badly is that they were ordered to act on the understanding that it
be done so properly, but they did not act properly. Therefore, when the
wise man commands his servant to do or say something and punishes
him for doing it at the wrong time or in the wrong manner, obviously
he too is commanding him to an intermediate act and not a [morally]
perfect act. But if wise men command base men to perform intermediate
acts, (1037f) why can the commands of the law not be like this? And
indeed, impulse, according to [Chrysippus] is the reason of man com-
manding him to act, as he wrote in his treatise On Law. Therefore, an
impulse away from something is reason forbidding, <and so is avoidance,
for it is reasonable, since it is the opposite of desire; and according to
him caution> is reasonable avoidance. (1038a) So caution, then, is reason
which forbids the wise man [to do something]. For being cautious is
special to the wise man and does not belong to base men. So if the wise
man's reason is distinct from the law, then the wise men will have their
caution, i.e., their reason, in conflict with law. But if law is nothing other
than the wise man's reason, then the law is found to be forbidding wise
men to do those things which they are cautious about.