These are the six simple views about the greatest good and bad things—two without spokesmen, four that have actually been defended

There has been a total of three composite or double accounts of the highest good, and if you consider the nature of things carefully you will see that there could not have been any more. For either pleasure can be coupled with the honorable, as Callipho and Dinomachus held, or freedom from pain, as

172 Text 122.21–Text 123.192 Diodorus held, and so can the primary natural things, which is the view of the ancients, as we call the Academics and Peripatetics.

Pyrrhonist Critique of Basic Ethical Concepts

TEXT 123: Sextus Empiricus PH 3, 168–249 (selections)

168. There remains the ethical part of philosophy, which seems to be con-cerned with the discernment of things good and bad and indifferent. In order that we may discuss ethics summarily, we shall investigate the existence of things good, bad, and indifferent, first setting forth the conception of each.

169. The Stoics say that good is ‘benefit’ or ‘not other than benefit’ mean-ing by a ‘benefit’ virtue and virtuous action, and by ‘not other than benefit’

the virtuous human being and the friend. For ‘virtue’, being the leading part of the soul in a certain state, and ‘virtuous action’, being a certain activity according to virtue, are exactly ‘benefit’, whereas the virtuous human being and the friend are ‘not other than benefit’. 170. For a benefit is a part of the virtuous human, i.e., the leading part of his soul. But, they say, the wholes are not the same as their parts, for a human being is not his hand, nor are they other than their parts, for they do not exist without the parts. Therefore, they say that wholes are not other than their parts. For this reason, the excellent human being, being a whole in relation to his leading part (which they have said is benefit), is not other than benefit.

171. They go on to say that ‘good’ is spoken of in three ways. In one sense, they say ‘good’ is that by which something is benefited, which is the principal sense [of good] and is virtue; in another sense it is that in accordance with which being benefited is a characteristic result, as virtue and virtuous actions;

in the third sense it is that which is such as to benefit, and this is virtue and virtuous action and the excellent man, and the friend, and gods and excellent daimo¯ns; so the second meaning of ‘good’ includes the first and the third includes the second and first. 172. Some say that ‘good’ is that which is worth choosing for its own sake; others say it is that which contributes to happiness or fulfils it. And happiness is, as the Stoics say, a ‘smooth flow of life’.

Now these are the sort of things said about the conception of the good. . . . 177. They say that that which is indifferent is spoken of in three ways. In one sense, it is that neither toward which nor away from which an impulse arises, for instance, the question of whether the number of stars or the number of hairs on one’s head is even. In another sense it is that toward or away from which an impulse arises, but not more toward this rather than that, for exam-ple, two indistinguishable four-drachma coins, whenever one has to choose one of them. For an impulse to choosing one of them does indeed arise, but no more toward this one than that one. In the third sense they say that ‘indif-ferent’ is what contributes neither to happiness nor unhappiness, as health or

wealth. For that which is sometimes used well and sometimes badly is, they say, indifferent. They say that they discuss especially this sense of ‘indifferent’

in ethics. . . .

179. Fire, which by nature is hot, appears to everyone as capable of pro-ducing heat, and snow, which is by nature cold, appears to everyone as capable of producing cold, and everything that moves something in virtue of its nature moves all people who are in a natural condition in the same way, as they say.

But, as we shall suggest, none of the things said to be good move all people as a good. Therefore, there is nothing good by nature. Now, they say it is evident that none of the things said to be good moves all people in the same way. 180.

For leaving aside ordinary people, some of whom believe that a sound bodily condition is good, others fornication, others gluttony, others drunkenness, others gambling, others greed, and others even worse things, some philoso-phers themselves, like the Peripatetics, say that there are three kinds of goods:

those of the soul, such as the virtues, bodily [goods], such as health and the like, and external [goods], such as friends, wealth, and related things. 181.

The Stoics themselves also say that there is a triad of goods: those in the soul, such as the virtues; external, such as the virtuous man and the friend; and some that are neither in the soul nor external, such as the virtuous man in rela-tion to himself. But the bodily things said to be good by the Peripatetics, they say are not good. Some [philosophers] have accepted pleasure as good, some say that this is exactly what the bad is, so that one philosopher [Antisthenes]

even cried out, “I would rather be mad than experience pleasure.” . . . 188. Again, the Stoics say that the goods of the soul are certain crafts, namely, the virtues. They say that a craft is a complex system of grasps prac-ticed together and that the grasps arise in the leading part of the soul. How, then, there arises in the leading part of the soul that is, according to them, pneuma, a deposit of grasps and how an aggregate of so many things becomes a craft, it is not possible to conceive, when each subsequent impression replaces the one before it since the pneuma is fluid and is said to be moved totally with each impression. . . .

191. Similarly, there is nothing by nature indifferent, because of the dis-agreement about things indifferent. For example, the Stoics say that of indif-ferents some are preferred, some rejected, and some neither preferred nor rejected. Things preferred are those having sufficient value, such as health and wealth. Things rejected are those not having sufficient value, such as poverty and sickness. Things neither preferred nor rejected are such things as extend-ing or bendextend-ing the fextend-inger. 192. Some say that none of the thextend-ings indifferent are by nature preferred or rejected, for each of the things indifferent some-times appears to be preferred, somesome-times rejected, depending on different cir-cumstances. Indeed, if, they say, the wealthy are attacked by a tyrant whereas the poor are left in peace, everyone would choose to be poor rather than

174 Text 123.192–Text 123.249 wealthy, so that wealth would become something rejected. 193. So, since each of the things said to be indifferent is said by some to be good and others bad and everyone would have similarly believed the same thing to be indifferent, if it really were indifferent by nature, there is nothing indifferent by nature. . . . 239. It is evident from what has been said that there also could not be a craft of living. For if there is such a craft, then it is a craft of contemplating things good and bad and indifferent; and since these are non-existent, the craft of liv-ing is non-existent. Moreover, since the dogmatists do not all agree in locatliv-ing the craft of living in one thing, but some hypothesize one craft, some another, they stand accused of disagreeing, and are held to account by the argument from disagreement, which I expounded previously in what I said about the good.

240. But even if, for the sake of hypothesis, they were to say that the craft of liv-ing is one craft, for example, the notorious craft of ‘prudence’, which is fanta-sized about by the Stoics and seems more impressive than the rest, still no less absurd consequences follow. For since prudence is a virtue and only the wise man has virtue, the Stoics, not being wise men, will not possess the craft of liv-ing. 241. And, in general since according to them it is not possible that any craft exists, there will not be a craft of living, as far as what they say is concerned.

For example, they say that a craft is a complex of grasps and a grasping is an assent to a graspable presentation. But the graspable presentation is undiscov-erable. For not every presentation is graspable, nor is it possible to decide which one from among the presentations is graspable since we are not able to judge unqualifiedly in the case of every presentation which one is graspable and which one is not. And if we need a graspable presentation to decide what the graspable presentation is, we fall into an infinite regress since we are asking for another graspable presentation to use in deciding whether a received pre-sentation is graspable. 242. And, further, the Stoics are not on sure footing in their proposal of the conception of a graspable presentation for the following reasons: on the one hand, they say that the graspable presentation arises from something that exists; on the other hand, by ‘existing’ they mean that which is such as to produce a graspable presentation, and so they stumble into the cir-cular mode for producing an impasse [aporia]. If, then, in order for a craft of living to exist there must previously exist a craft, and in order for a craft to exist there must previously exist a grasp, and in order for a grasp to exist, assent to a graspable presentation must be grasped, and the graspable presenta-tion is undiscoverable, the craft of living is undiscoverable.

243. Further, this can be said. Every craft seems to be grasped by means of its peculiar products, but there is no peculiar product of the craft of living. For whatever product someone would say this is, is found to be common to ordinary people also [i.e., those without the craft of living], such as honoring one’s par-ents, paying debts, and all the rest. Therefore, there is no craft of living. For we shall not recognize, as they say, what is a product of prudence from what appears

to be something said or done from a prudent disposition by a prudent man. 244.

For the prudent disposition is itself ungraspable, being neither simply apparent by itself nor by its products, these being common to ordinary people. And to say that we grasp that one has the craft of living from the consistency of his actions is to trumpet human nature and to brag more than to tell the truth, for³⁰

The mind of earthborn men is such

as is the day brought forth by the father of men and gods.

245. The remaining possibility is that the craft of living is grasped from those of its products that they write about in books. I shall set forth a few of these as examples of the rest, which are many and much alike. Zeno, for exam-ple, the head of their school, in his writings concerning the rearing of children, along with many other similar statements, says, “It makes no difference whether you spread the thighs of a beloved youth or one who is unbeloved, a female or a male, for between beloved youth and unbeloved, women and men, there is no difference, but it befits and is fitting to do the same thing to either.” 246. The same man says, regarding piety toward parents, in the case of Jocasta and Oedi-pus, that it was not a bad thing for him to have sex with his mother. “If she had been ailing in some other part of her body and he benefited her by rubbing it with his hands, there would be nothing shameful. So, if he gave her joy by rub-bing other parts of her body, and relieved her sorrow, and fathered noble chil-dren by her, was that shameful?” Chrysippus agrees with these words. Indeed, in his Republic he says, “It seems to me that we should act as many are nowadays accustomed to act blamelessly, so that a mother bears her son’s children, a daughter her father’s, and a sister her brother’s.” 247. In the same works he introduces us to cannibalism. Indeed, he says, “If some part of a living thing is cut off and found to be useful for eating, we should neither bury it nor other-wise dispose of it, but consume it, so that another part might grow from ours.”

248. In his On Appropriate Actions, he says literally, regarding the burial of one’s parents, “When parents die, the simplest burials should be employed, as if the body were nothing to us, like the nails or teeth or hair, the sort of thing to which we give no care or attention. Therefore, should pieces of flesh be useful for eat-ing, people will make use of them, and so too for their own parts, for example, a foot that is severed; it was right to use it and things like it. Should the parts be useless, they should bury or leave them or burn them and let the ashes lie or throw them away and make no further use of them, like nails or hair.” 249. The philosophers say these and many similar things which they would not dare to carry out unless they were ruled by a Cyclopes or Laestrygones.³¹ But if their

30. Homer Odyssey 18.136–37.

31. Uncivilized peoples mentioned in the Odyssey.

176 Text 123.249–Text 125.207 recommendations are totally ineffectual, what they actually do, which is what everybody else does, is not the peculiar product of those who are supposed to have the craft of living. If, then, the crafts ought certainly to be grasped from their peculiar products and there is observed to be no peculiar product of that which is said to be the craft of living, then it is not grasped. Therefore, no one can assert definitely regarding it that such a craft exists.

TEXT 124: Diogenes Laërtius 9.101

And there is nothing good or bad by nature. For if good and bad exist by nature, then it must be either good or bad for everyone, just as snow is some-thing cold for everyone. But there is nosome-thing that is good or bad for everyone in common; therefore, there is nothing good or bad by nature. For either one should say that everything which is thought [to be good] by anyone is good or not everything. And one cannot say that everything is since the same thing is thought to be good by one person (for example, pleasure [is thought to be good] by Epicurus) and thought to be bad by someone else, namely, Antis-thenes. It will turn out, then, that the same thing is both good and bad. But if we say that not everything which is thought [to be good] by anyone is good, it will be necessary for us to make a distinction among opinions. But that is not possible because of the equal force of the arguments. So, what is good by nature is unknowable.

TEXT 125: Sextus Empiricus M 11.200–07 (selections)

200. . . . they say that all people have the same functions, though it makes a difference whether they are carried out from a craftsmanlike disposition or an uncraftsmanlike one. For taking care of one’s parents and otherwise honor-ing them is not the special function of a virtuous man but dohonor-ing so from pru-dence is. 201. And just as healing is common to the doctor and the layman but doing so medically is the special function of the craftsman, in the same way, too, honoring one’s parents is common to the virtuous man and the non-virtuous man; but honoring one’s parents from prudence is the special func-tion of the wise man; consequently, he has a craft of life whose special funcfunc-tion it is to do each of the things which are done from a virtuous disposition. . . .

207. Just as in the intermediate crafts it is the special function of a crafts-man to do things regularly and to produce the same results consistently (for even a layman could carry out the function of a craftsman, but rarely and not all the time and certainly not consistently in the same manner), so too it is the function of a prudent man, they say, to be consistent in his [morally] perfect actions, and just the opposite for the imprudent man.