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The Highest Good: An Introduction To The 4

Stoic Virtues

Summum Bonum was the expression from Cicero, Rome’s greatest

orator. In Latin, it means “the highest good.” And what is the highest
good? What is it that we are supposed to be aiming for in this life? To
the Stoics, the answer is virtue. They said that everything we face in
life was an opportunity to respond with virtue. Even bad situations.
Even painful or scary ones. If we act virtuously, they believed,
everything else important could follow: Happiness, success,
meaning, reputation, honor, love. “The man who has virtue,” Cicero
said, “is in need of nothing whatever for the purpose of living well.”

Ok, but what is virtue? The Stoics believed there were four virtues:

Let’s look at each:

WISDOM
 “The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate
matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not
under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually
control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to
uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are
my own” — Epictetus

It’s the meaning of philosophy: a love of wisdom. In Diogenes

Laërtius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, he wrote of the Stoics,
“wisdom they de ne as the knowledge of things good and evil and of
what is neither good nor evil…knowledge of what we ought to choose,
what we ought to beware of, and what is indifferent.”

Following having this knowledge, wisdom ultimately informs action.

Viktor Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.” In that space is
wisdom’s opportunity. Recognizing that space is the rst step. That
space is where we either take the lessons from our reading and apply
it or we throw it out the window and act impulsively and irrationally.

Wisdom is harnessing what the philosophy teaches then wielding it

in the real world. As Seneca put it, “Works not words.”

Temperance

“‘If you seek tranquillity, do less.’ Or (more accurately) do what’s

essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the
requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less,
better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If
you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity.
Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’” — Marcus
Aurelius, Meditations, 4.24

Aristotle calls it the “golden mean,” which explains that virtue is found
rmly in the middle, between excess and de ciency. Excess and
desires are synonymous with discontent and dissatisfaction. They’re
a self-defeating impulse.

Epictetus said, “Curb your desire — don’t set your heart on so many
things and you will get what you need.” And Seneca said, “You ask
what is the proper limit to a person’s wealth? First, having what is
essential, and second, having what is enough.”
Temperance is the knowledge that abundance comes from having
what is essential. The Stoics often used temperance interchangeably
with “self-control.” Self-control, not just towards material goods, but
self-control, harmony, and good discipline always—in pleasure or
pain, admiration or contempt, failure or triumph. Temperance is
guarded against extremes, not relying on the eetingness of pleasure
for happiness nor allowing the eetingness of pain to destroy it.

Courage

“Don’t you know life is like a military campaign? One must serve
on watch, another in reconnaissance, another on the front line. . . .
So it is for us—each person’s life is a kind of battle, and a long and
varied one too. You must keep watch like a soldier and do
everything commanded. . . . You have been stationed in a key post,
not some lowly place, and not for a short time but for life.” —
Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24.31–36

Epictetus was once asked which words would help a person thrive.
“Two words should be committed to memory and obeyed,” he said,
“persist and resist.”

It is the timeless symbol of Stoicism—the lone knight ghting a war

they cannot hope to win, but ghting bravely and honorably
nonetheless. It’s Thrasea challenging Nero, even though the
challenge will cost him his life and fail to stop the man. It’s Marcus
Aurelius struggling not to be corrupted by absolute power, to be a
good man even in the face of Rome’s decadence and decline. It’s the
Percy family—the great Southern Stoics—generation after generation:
LeRoy ghting the Klan in 1922. William Alexander giving up
bachelorhood to adopt his three young cousins. Walker Percy
resisting the rising tide of racism and hatred that consumed his
generation, trying to be calm and philosophical through it all, to be a
quiet beacon of goodness through his writing. It’s Publius Rutilius
Rufus, as Mike Duncan details in our interview, facing false
accusations and an unjust prosecution to ultimately be a force
inspiring change against corruption. It’s Seneca’s last words to a
deranged tyrant, “Nero can kill me, but he cannot harm me.” 

Each ght, even if somewhat futile, required enormous amounts of

courage. Each required resisting the comfort of the status quo and
coming to one’s own judgment.
Thrasea had to stick his neck out—literally—when he put a spotlight
on Nero’s tyranny and lost it as a result. The Percys risked their place
in their community and their own safety on several occasions to
stand up for the rights of their fellow citizens. Marcus Aurelius could
have lost himself in oblivion and power, but instead fought a lifelong
battle against himself, within himself, to improve and help others.

That’s Stoic courage. Courage to face misfortune. Courage to face

death. Courage to risk yourself for the sake of your fellow man.
Courage to hold to your principles, even when others get away with or
are rewarded for disregarding theirs. Courage to speak your mind and
insist on truth.

Justice

“And a commitment to justice in your own acts. Which means:

thought and action resulting in the common good. What you were
born to do.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.31

Of the Four Stoic Virtues, Marcus Aurelius said justice was the most
important. To him, it was “the source of all the other virtues.” After all,
how impressive is courage if it’s only about self-interest? What good
is wisdom if not put to use for the whole world?

To understand the virtue of justice, we must look at Cicero—who

agreed with Marcus that “Justice is the crowning glory of the virtues.”
We opened with Cicero’s expression summum bonum. But more than
just an expression, in his time and throughout history, Cicero has
been respected for living those words. John Adams said, “All ages of
the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher
combined” than Cicero. Thomas Jefferson said the Declaration of
Independence was based on “the elementary books of public right, as
Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.”

While Cicero was a Roman Senator and did hold every important
Roman o ce by the youngest legally allowable ages, he, and the
other Stoics, weren’t considering justice in the legal sense as we
often use it today. For them, it was in the much broader scope of our
interactions with and duty to our fellow beings.

It was in De O ciis (On Moral Duties)—his comprehensive study and

writing of the ethical system of the Stoics of his time—where Cicero
rst presented the four Stoic virtues. Justice, he explains, is “the
principle which constitutes the bond of human society and of a
virtual community of life.” The lengthy continued description can be
summed:

That no one do harm to another.

That one use common possessions as common; private as
belonging to their owners.
We are not born for ourselves alone.
Men were brought into being for the sake of men, that they might
do good to one another.
We ought to follow nature as a guide, to contribute our part to the
common good.
Good faith, steadfastness, and truth.

It is useful, he says, to consider what it means to act unjustly. Simple:

anything that in icts injury or harms another being. “For the most
part,” Cicero explains, “men are induced to injure others in order to
obtain what they covet.”

It is perhaps the most radical idea in all of Stoicism: Sympatheia—the

belief in mutual interdependence among everything in the universe,
that we are all one. It is emphasized heavily in all Stoic texts. “What
injures the hive injures the bee,” Marcus said. Marcus’ favorite
philosopher, the Stoic teacher Epictetus, said, “Seeking the very best
in ourselves means actively caring for the welfare of other human
beings.” And Epictetus’ teacher, Musonius Rufus, said, “to honor
equality, to want to do good, and for a person, being human, to not
want to harm human beings—this is the most honorable lesson and it
makes just people out of those who learn it.”

As the bestselling author, Robert Greene said in our interview with

him about his new book The Laws Of Human Nature, “We are all the
same. The Stoics talk about that. It’s logos. It’s what unites
everything together.”

***

Virtue is how we live happy and free lives. It’s not grandiose nor
vague. The Stoics shun complexity and worship simplicity.

If we were to describe Stoicism in one sentence, it’d be this: A Stoic

believes they don’t control the world around them, only how they
respond—and that they must always respond with courage,
temperance, wisdom, and justice.
Life is unpredictable. There’s so much we have no control over. That
can be overwhelming and crippling or it can be freeing. Virtue is how
we ensure the later. No matter what happens, we always have the
capacity to use reason and make choices. We should always try to do
the right thing. To let virtue guide us. It’s all that we control. Let the
rest take care of itself, as it will with or without your consent.

We’ll leave you with this entry from Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations,

“If, at some point in your life, you should come across anything
better than justice, prudence, self-control, courage—than a mind
satis ed that it has succeeded in enabling you to act rationally,
and satis ed to accept what’s beyond its control—if you nd
anything better than that, embrace it without reservations—it must
be an extraordinary thing indeed—and enjoy it to the full.

But if nothing presents itself that’s superior to the spirit that lives
within—the one that has subordinated individual desires to itself,
that discriminates among impressions, that has broken free of
physical temptations, and subordinated itself to the gods, and
looks out for human beings’ welfare—if you nd that there’s
nothing more important or valuable than that, then don’t make
room for anything but it.”

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