Virtue, Indifferents, and Practical Deliberation

AbstractChapter 2 is concerned with a second distinctive, and controversial, feature of Stoic ethics, namely, the claim that only virtue and virtue-based happiness are good, whereas other things widely regarded as good such as health and wealth are only ‘preferred indifferents’. The rationale for this claim is that, although preferred indifferents have real and positive value, they do not make the difference between happiness and misery (leading the life according to nature or failing to do so) whereas virtue and vice do make this difference. Correspondingly, correct or right practical deliberation consists of selecting between indifferents (preferred and dispreferred) in a way that expresses the virtues and leads towards a happy life (a life according to nature). Cicero’s On Duties, the only surviving extended Stoic work on this subject, is interpreted as expressing this conception of virtuous practical deliberation.