Greek Texts & Translations

Goods comprise the virtues of prudence, justice, courage, temperance, and the rest ; while the opposites of these are evils, namely, folly, injustice, and the rest. Neutral (neither good nor evil, that is) are all those things which neither benefit nor harm a man : such as life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, fair fame and noble birth, and their opposites, death, disease, pain, ugliness, weakness, poverty, ignominy, low birth, and the like. This Hecato affirms in his De fine, book vii., and also Apollodorus in his Ethics. and Chrysippus. For, say they, such things (as life, health, and pleasure) are not in themselves goods, but are morally indifferent, though falling under the species or subdivision "things preferred." 7.1.103 For as the property of hot is to warm, not to cool, so the property of good is to benefit, not to injure ; but wealth and health do no more benefit than injury, therefore neither wealth nor health is good. Further, they say that that is not good of which both good and bad use can be made ; but of wealth and health both good and bad use can be made ; therefore wealth and health are not goods. On the other hand, Posidonius maintains that these things too are among goods. Hecato in the ninth book of his treatise On Goods, and Chrysippus in his work On Pleasure, deny that pleasure is a good either ; for some pleasures are disgraceful, and nothing disgraceful is good. 7.1.104 To benefit is to set in motion or sustain in accordance with virtue ; whereas to harm is to set in motion or sustain in accordance with vice.

The term "indifferent" has two meanings : in the first it denotes the things which do not contribute either to happiness or to misery, as wealth, fame, health, strength, and the like ; for it is possible to be happy without having these, although, if they are used in a certain way, such use of them tends to happiness or misery. In quite another sense those things are said to be indifferent which are without the power of stirring inclination or aversion ; e.g. the fact that the number of hairs on one's head is odd or even or whether you hold out your finger straight or bent. But it was not in this sense that the things mentioned above were termed indifferent, they being quite capable of exciting inclination or aversion. 7.1.105 Hence of these latter some are taken by preference, others are rejected, whereas indifference in the other sense affords no ground for either choosing or avoiding.

Of things indifferent, as they express it, some are "preferred," others "rejected." Such as have value, they say, are "preferred," while such as have negative, instead of positive, value are "rejected." Value they define as, first, any contribution to harmonious living, such as attaches to every good ; secondly, some faculty or use which indirectly ^note contributes to the life according to nature : which is as much as to say "any assistance brought by wealth or health towards living a natural life" ; thirdly, value is the full equivalent of an appraiser, as fixed by an expert acquainted with the facts - as when it is said that wheat exchanges for so much barley with a mule thrown in. ^note

Thus things of the preferred class are those which have positive value, e.g. amongst mental qualities, natural ability, skill, moral improvement, and the like ; among bodily qualities, life, health, strength, good condition, soundness of organs, beauty, and so forth ; and in the sphere of external things, wealth, fame, noble birth, and the like. To the class of things "rejected" belong, of mental qualities, lack of ability, want of skill, and the like ; among bodily qualities, death, disease, weakness, being out of condition, mutilation, ugliness, and the like ; in the sphere of external things, poverty, ignominy, low birth, and so forth. But again there are things belonging to neither class ; such are not preferred, neither are they rejected.

Again, of things preferred some are preferred for their own sake, some for the sake of something else, and others again both for their own sake and for the sake of something else. To the first of these classes belong natural ability, moral improvement, and the like ; to the second wealth, noble birth, and the like ; to the last strength, perfect faculties, soundness of bodily organs. Things are preferred for their own sake because they accord with nature ; not for their own sake, but for the sake of something else, because they secure not a few utilities. And similarly with the class of things rejected under the contrary heads.

Furthermore, the term Duty is applied to that for which, when done, ^note a reasonable defence can be adduced, e.g. harmony in the tenor of life's process, which indeed pervades the growth of plants and animals. For even in plants and animals, they hold, you may discern fitness of behaviour.