A New Stoicism by Becker Lawrence C.;

Author:Becker, Lawrence C.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2017-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

The Argument for Virtue as the Product of Ideal Agency

In recent years some critics have charged that stoics have at most a description of how we might come to have certain moral motivations, and that what we lack is a moral argument for virtue. We think there is an argument clearly implicit in the developmental account just given, but it may be worthwhile to lay out that argument’s structure in a compact and explicit way here. We will carry it most of the way through in the first person, to make clear that this is an argument that particular agents (of a certain sort) make from the inside, so to speak. But it is a reasoned argument whose premises and conclusions can be universalized for the domain of such agents.

1. I have many endeavors—many things I want to do—and each of those endeavors warrants normative propositions about what I ought (or am required) to do or be, nothing-else-considered. While it is logically possible for an agent of some sort (a shark beyond his reproductive years, perhaps) to have one and only one aim, I am not that sort of agent. There are always many things I ought to do and be.

2. One of my endeavors is practical reasoning nothing-else-considered—practical reasoning devoted solely to the task of implementing any occurrent endeavor I might have—including itself. Its norms for the pursuit of any endeavor it assesses typically dominate the norms arising immediately from the assessed endeavor itself—by identifying the best means to that project’s end, by sequencing and correcting activity in pursuit of it, and so on. So the norms of practical reasoning nothing-else-considered typically warrant superordinate requirements or oughts about projects it assesses. While it is logically possible for an agent of some sort (a very impulsive one, perhaps) to have no such endeavor of practical reasoning—or at least none whose norms dominate those of its targets—I am not that sort of agent. What I ought to do to pursue a given endeavor (when I have time to deliberate about it) is to follow my normative practical reasoning about it.

3. My normative practical reasoning about my endeavors, done serially, routinely generates a welter of conflicting requirements and oughts. That is, even though some of my endeavors are vertically or horizontally integrated from the beginning and thus raise no conflicts, many are mutually incompatible with some range of my other endeavors and will remain so unless I sequence or otherwise modify some of my pursuits. While it is logically possible for an agent of some sort (a god or a devil, perhaps) to have a completely integrated set of aims, I am not that sort of agent.

4. However, none of my endeavors, considered separately, routinely claims all the resources available for the exercise of my agency—even for a single day. That is, none of my endeavors typically warrants requirements or oughts whose satisfaction demands all of my time, energy, attention, opportunity, or ability over an extended period of time. While it is

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