INTRODUCTION
The clash between nature and civilization reaches its most extreme form in the total transformation of the natural world that takes place in modern industrialized nations. Human manipulation, exploitation, and out-and-out destruction of the natural environment are on such a scale that the entire physical and biological composition of our planet is profoundly affected. Given the rise of advanced technology, high-level consumption, and human population explosion the natural world is quickly disappearing. Seen from an ethical standpoint the conflict between human civilization and the natural world becomes uncontrollable in the struggle for survival. By imposing constraints on our lifestyles and cultural practices, we have the capacity to replace the chaos of our planet with a well-ordered moral universe in which all living beings are given a place. We need limits on our population, consumer mentality, and technology. To take these steps every individual should participate and be responsible. The ancient Stoics offer a personal ethical framework in which the philosophical idea of human beings is seen as an integral part of nature, operating according to a holistic world order of structured wholeness, of goodness as the highest form of virtue. Practicing virtue, a subdivision of wisdom, courage, self-control, and justice, means less damage to the environment and the entire planet. A holistic lifestyle will, according to the Stoics, lead to the best life for human beings. The ethical framework operates with logic and physics in a holistic structure of reason (virtue) in the cosmos.
HOLISTIC VIEW OF THE WORLD
According to the ideas of a holistic worldview of the ancient Stoics, everything is interrelated and combined as one living organism pervaded by rational providence according to the laws of nature. These laws operate as cosmic reason in a holistic chain of causes with God as the immanent ruler. The entire meaning of life relates to living according to nature. This lifestyle involves combining the order and rationality of the natural universe with inner rationality (daímōn). The process of practicing Stoic ethics is a so-called cosmic approach of combining ethics, physics, and logic constituting a holistic worldview based on order, structure, and harmony in an ordered wholeness defined as goodness. The dialectical articulation of ethical concepts demonstrates the significant role of combining ethical and physical principles.
The Roman statesman Cicero considered the role of logic or dialectic as the breadth of knowledge in Stoicism, defined as the embracement of language analysis, discourse, and concepts, as well as formal logic. In the theoretical sphere, it enables the analysis (in ethical theory) of the concept of good and other notions of value. In the practical sphere, logic functions as coherence and structure providing belief systems in the process of forming knowledge. Logic and physics are core elements in the three branches of knowledge and serve as an expression of structure, order, and coherence in the dialectic process enabling goodness/virtue.
The primary goal for a human being at the end of life is to live in harmony with Nature. Consequently, physics – the part of philosophy that pertains to Nature – reveals the importance of practicing an ethical lifestyle. The only things classified as good are virtue and things that participate in virtue. And likewise, the only things that are bad and vice (immoral), can be translated as arête and imperfect. So, we should focus on cultivating and preserving virtue – because it constitutes our survival as rational beings. The ordered wholeness of the good reflects a holistic ethical framework and involves psychological engagement. The process relates to key Socratic ethical ideas and points to human beings as naturally constituted to develop virtue and happiness. The cosmic model stresses the importance of pattering oneself on the order embodied in the natural universe – combining micro- and macro cosmos.
VIRTUE IS THE ONLY GOOD
Goodness as part of wholeness and structure, is attached to more complex – but still unified and structured – entities. Although reason has a crucial role in giving structure to complex entities, including the psychological processes of adult human beings, value attaches to a complex but unified structure. Cicero´s description of the final stage of ethical virtue development stresses the importance of cosmology and theology in its providential role, as a paradigm of rational order, in serving to bring about the final motivational shift. A key argument in this view is that it is only by reference to the cosmic order we should go from valuing ´preferable things ‘such as health and continued life, as goals of selection, to regarding virtue in itself as the only good. The outcome of the developmental process is one in which we come to accept all events, including ´unpleasant things, such as one’s death or that of family members, as part of an ordered, rational, cosmic pattern that embodies goodness. The Stoics suggest that a whole range of actions may be appropriate and according to our nature, but not necessarily good. Being virtuous is good because in some sense it is good for me to be virtuous. And the final stage of living according to Nature is living with virtue.
According to Cleanthes we all have certain inclinations – starting points for virtue – we are naturally programmed to become rational creatures. The ethical goal of our relationship with Nature involves understanding the characteristics of Nature and the domain of physics and ethics. Regarding the question of freedom from emotions, the Stoics point to the relevance of understanding the epistemological concepts of judgment as meaning and emotions. For Cicero the Stoic system is “so well constructed, so firmly joined and welded into one, with close interconnection of the parts that if you alter a single letter, you shake the whole structure” This close interrelation between the three parts of philosophy reflects an organic unity.
Further readings:
A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley: The Hellenistic Philosophers, Cambridge University Press, 1987
Brad Inwood: The Cambridge Companion to Stoics, University of Toronto, Cambridge University Press 2003
Christopher Gill: The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought, Oxford University Press, 2006
Gabor Betegh: Cosmological Ethics in the Timaeus and Early Stoicism, 2003
John Sellars: Stoics, University of California Press, 2006.
Paul Taylor: Respect for Nature, A Theory of Environmental, Princeton University Press 1985
