Gabriele Flamigni’s Sur la route du devoir is a comprehensive examination of Stoic appropriate action (καθῆκον). By tracing the kathēkon as a fil rouge threading more visible topics (on impulse, indifferents, social roles, preceptive ethics, etc.), Flamigni leverages the more plentiful evidence of the “Roman Stoics,” defined as Musonius, Hierocles, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. A review of the kathēkon in the witnesses of the Hellenistic Stoa (in Chapters 2–4) provides a baseline for considering what distinguishes Stoics of the Roman period (in Chapters 5–8). As its title suggests, the book makes a historical argument about the development of the kathēkon, that in the Roman period an important step is made towards the modern notion of a moral duty, though not the giant leap Visnjic recently argued was made already in the Old Stoa.[1] I consider this historical argument last, but first I highlight how each chapter has points of interest separable from the grander narrative. My selective disagreements do not detract from the richness of Flamigni’s discussions, which specialists ought to consult.
First is a lexicographical study of the ordinary senses of καθήκειν and officium (Chapter 1), which culminates in an argument about the nature of Atticus’ objection to Cicero’s translation of kathēkon by officium (Att. 16.14.3). Atticus doubts that officia apply to the commonwealth. Others usually reason that Atticus’ worry was that, in contrast to Stoic kathēkonta, there are no officia owed to the commonwealth as a whole. Cicero’s response, that there are officia owed by particular offices (consul, senator, etc.), only partially addresses Atticus’ concern, since it is not said that such officia are owed to the commonwealth as such, rather than to more local constituencies. Supposing that Cicero’s reply must have been more apt, Flamigni argues that Atticus sensed a difference in the words’ intensions: “kathēkon” connotes an action as conforming to a standard, while “officium” an action as obliged by a rule. But if Atticus was troubled about intensionality, we would not expect any specific domain (viz., the commonwealth) to be more troublesome than others. Atticus seemed to doubt an equivalence of extensions.
In the first of two chapters on the Old Stoa (Chapter 2), Flamigni introduces the kathēkon by relating it to the topics of impulse, emotion, indifferents, and protreptic. This prepares the ground for an interpretation of the formulas of the kathēkon as both “what is consistent in life” and “what, once done, has a reasonable justification.” The first refers to activities conforming to a being’s nature, while the second is phrased in terms of praxis (rational activity). An old chestnut is the “reasonable (eulogos) justification.” One conventional view takes the term ‘reasonable’ to require adhering to the standard of reason with a capital “R.” Another takes it to mean merely probable. Flamigni argues the stronger sense was always intended. His arguments are (i) that, since Arcesilaus’ criterion of action was based on non-rational impulse, Arcesilaus’ recycling of the “reasonable justification” in an account of right action (katorthōma) shows that already for Zeno “reasonable” implied a consistency with one’s nature which adheres to right reason; (ii) a lack of evidence relating the probable with the other definiens, “what is consistent in life;” (iii) other descriptions of the kathēkon as “what reason chooses/demands to do;” and (iv) Diogenes Laertius and Cicero do not mention the probability/likelihood of kathēkonta. Flamigni adds (a) that Cicero’s translation of eulogos as probabilis is still apt, if probabilis means not “likely” but “worthy of approval (by the sage),” and (b) that Cicero’s failure to include “what is consistent in life” is an artifact of Carneades’ presentation of kathēkonta as Arcesilean katorthōmata. But (i) relies on a minority view of Arcesilaus. Against (iii), “what reason chooses/demands” is compatible with either sense, if the phrase distinguishes human kathēkonta from those of animals done solely by impulse. Against (ii), (iv), (a) and (b), Cicero (Fin. 3.58) does cast the kathēkon as part of a consistent life despite its indifference, and relates its consistency to its reasonableness, analyzed as whether a justification can be given of it and whether its intended object can be useful; the modal qualifiers imply kathēkonta are justified to the extent they are likely to obtain their objects.
A second chapter on the Old Stoa approaches a difficult statement in Stobaeus (2.7.8, p. 85.12–13 Wachsmuth) that “the intermediate kathēkon is measured by certain indifferents, which are selected contrary to nature and according to nature, and which contribute a kind of ease of course such that, if we do not accept or reject them, save certain circumstances, we could not be happy.” To unpack it, Flamigni works through various distinctions in the doxographies: kathēkonta as perfect or intermediate, continuous or discontinuous (ἀεί, οὐκ ἀεί), and circumstantial or without circumstance. Concerning circumstantial kathēkonta: the Old Stoic notion of peristasis referred to an emergency that threatened the agent’s survival rather than to a mere exception to a usual state-of-affairs. Recognizing that Zeno’s heterodox students refer to peristaseis as mere circumstances, and that later Stoic sources also use this broader sense, Flamigni concludes that it was in response to Aristo and Herillus that Stoics broadened the notion from an emergency to an exception. But, since Chrysippus is our earliest attested Stoic to mention circumstantial kathēkonta, we may instead think they originated only in response to Aristo and Herillus.
On the later Hellenistic Stoa (Chapter 4), Flamigni elucidates how Chrysippus’ formula, “to live in consequence to nature,” prepares for later Stoic ends as the fulfillment of kathēkonta and the selection of indifferents. The problem with Diogenes’ end, “εὐλογιστεῖν in the selection of what is according to nature,” is whether eulogistein means to act reasonably (in the demanding sense of virtuously) or to calculate well. Flamigni prefers the former as more consistent with older Stoic ends that foreground virtue. For Archedemus, Flamigni asks why neither of his formulas, “to live ἐπιτελοῦντα all the kathēkonta” and “to live selecting the greatest and most important of the things according to nature,” include virtue in the manner of Diogenes’ eulogistein. Flamigni argues they do, if we read the first as “to perfect all the kathēkonta (i.e., into katorthōmata)” and if the second is a kind of shorthand of Diogenes’ end. This second line of thought does not go far enough. We have more testimonies for Antipater, where we see that Antipater’s end sometimes lacks mention of virtue but at other times has qualifiers like eulogistōs or phronimōs. So, formulas for the end do not always mention virtue, whether because it is assumed or so as not to exclude a practicable goal for fools (Cic. Fin. 4.15). It follows that we should not be moved to read ἐπιτελοῦντα as “perfecting,” which Flamigni concedes is contradicted by Cicero’s translation, “to live observing (servantem) all or most of the officia media” (Fin. 4.15). The translation works well if epitelein means to discharge an obligation (LSJ ad loc. II). For the same reason, Diogenes’ eulogistein need not refer to being virtuous generally, and we can adopt the narrow sense of calculating well (the values of indifferents), a species of phronēsis which requires virtue anyway.
On Seneca (Chapter 5), Flamigni considers Epistulae 94–95, De beneficiis, and De ira. In the discussion of the two letters is a careful attempt to sort out the complex relations between kathēkonta, precepts (praecepta; παραινέσεις), the preceptive part of ethics, admonitiones, adhortationes, and protreptic. Since Aristo rejected precepts but (probably) authored two books of protreptic, protreptic need not depend on precepts. To make further progress, Seneca’s anti-Aristonian argument at Ep. 94.45 is illuminating. On Flamigni’s telling, Seneca divides virtue into contemplation of the truth, learned by doctrines (contemplationem institutio tradit), and right action, learned by precepts (actionem admonitio); and, insofar as precepts point out right action, they are necessary for virtue. For Flamigni, precepts and admonitiones are nearly equivalent. This oversimplifies the argument, which relies on a distinction between advising by means of precepts and rationes and advising by means of admonitiones, identified with bare precepts (nudis praeceptis). The thought is that, if one who persuades another with rationes to do the right thing is beneficial, then so is one who advises without rationes (si prodest qui suadet, et qui monet proderit). Aristo grants the antecedent, and he is pressed to accept the consequent insofar as he also approves of exhorting by means of models of virtue, which similarly point out right actions without explaining their correctness (94.40–44; 95.65–66). Admonitiones, then, should be separated from exhortations (adhortationes) and protreptic.
An inquiry on Epictetus (Chapter 7) is framed around the meaning of the phrase “the topic concerning impulses and repulsions and, simply, the one about appropriate action, so that one acts τάξει, εὐλογίστως, and not carelessly (μὴ ἀμελῶς)… for I ought not be impassive (ἀπαθῆ) like a statue but attendant to natural and acquired relations, like that of pious man, son, brother, father, and citizen.” (Diss. 3.2.1–2). Flamigni interprets each member of the triplet separately: τάξει as stationed according to Zeus’ will, εὐλογίστως as reasonably (i.e. virtuously), and μὴ ἀμελῶς as attending to the ‘(not) up-to-us’ distinction, so that one acts without the emotions; yet we should not be an affectless statue, but rather act with eupatheiai. Flamigni is certainly wrong about μὴ ἀμελῶς. Mastering the topic concerning impulse is not about attending to what is ‘up to us.’ That is the task of Epictetus’ first topic on desire. Epictetus is instead describing the care we should lavish on indifferents even after grasping their indifference. The point about the statue is not that we should have the eupatheiai but that virtue, though emotionless, still acts on impulses and uses indifferents, very much unlike motionless statues. We should also think that the other qualifiers describe how appropriate actions make use of indifferents: εὐλογίστως (once again) refers not to a virtuous disposition in general but specifically to the prudent calculation of selective value, and τάξει to orderly reckoning.
On Marcus (Chapter 8), there is a worry that the Meditations contain so few references to kathēkonta because he is uninterested in Epictetus’ second topic. Flamigni holds that Marcus’ concern is not the discovery of kathēkonta but to put them into practice; accordingly, the emperor’s reflections are filled with the preceptive grammar of imperatives and passive periphrastics. The earlier analysis of Musonius and Hierocles (Chapter 6), whose fragments are similarly full of preceptive oughts and social obligations, is a neat parallel. Compared to Epictetus, Marcus places greater stress on acting for the common good than on social obligations, which Flamigni explains by the radically different roles of the freedman and the princeps. That Marcus’s standpoint affects his understanding of his kathēkonta leads to the idea that his injunction, when characterizing Epictetus’ second topos (Med. 11.37 = Epictetus fr. 27), to act κατ’ ἀξίαν refers not only to the accurate reckoning of the value of the materials of action but even to the merit of the beneficiaries of Marcus’ philanthropy.
The conclusion returns to Flamigni’s historical argument, the core of which is that a deontological aspect of kathēkonta took root because the Roman Stoics focused on preceptive ethics and the teaching of what actions ought to be done (pp. 160–1, 173, 185, 278). This is to historicize our notion of moral duty as derived from philosophers’ admonitions. I think this locates the moral force of kathēkonta in quite the wrong place, and would be dismal if true. But, as Flamigni shows throughout, the Stoics used (among others) two different methods of discovering kathēkonta, from the prudent maximization of selective value and from one’s social roles (pp. 1, 95, 133–6, 141, 186–7, 222–5, 276). To the degree that he has shown that more of our evidence for the use of social roles in the discovery of kathēkonta comes from Panaetius and Stoics thereafter, Flamigni’s inquiry reasonably justifies another story. Moral duty was born not from Stoics’ finger-wagging (Flamigni) or their view that kathēkonta are prescribed by Nature (Visnjic), but because philosophers increasingly came to care about the ordinary demands of the people in one’s life.
Notes
[1] Jack Visnjic, 2020. The invention of duty. Brill.