Stoic emphasis on cardinal virtues

If you’ve spent any time at all studying classic Stoic texts, or even if you’ve merely spent time on Stoicism’s periphery consuming present-day content, you know that the Stoics place a high value on four cardinal virtues: wisdom (or prudence), justice, courage, and temperance (sometimes called “self-control”). Unless you devote considerable effort to reading and rereading ancient Stoic thinkers or spend time with the contemporary interpreters who have done that themselves, you probably have a rather vague conception of what these four terms mean for the Stoics. They all sound like good character traits to cultivate and to act upon, but what do they actually encompass and include? That’s where a lot of people get mixed up (one reason, incidentally, why I’m currently researching and writing a book on that topic).

Do Stoic virtues go far enough?

Confusion about the virtues manifests itself in a variety of manners, and one of the most common ways I’ve seen over the years is a worry that these four virtues don’t go far enough, that they leave out other desirable character traits that are important to being a good person. “Why don’t the Stoics talk about kindness?” Is one ever-recurring question. Or: “Why isn’t honesty in their list?” “Where’s a sense of compassion?” “What about being a hard worker?” “Or being trustworthy and faithful?” We could go on with many other examples people bring up of what seem from a first glance to be omissions of important good traits of character on the part of Stoics. 

This is an avoidable beginner-level mistake, but an eminently understandable one, given the sources people tend to draw upon for developing understanding of the complex, systematic philosophy Stoicism happens to be. On the one hand, there’s a plethora of not well-informed (and sometimes erroneous) blog posts, podcasts, videos, inspirational quotes, or infographics that just churn out superficial takes on the virtues, sometimes just listing the four off. On the other hand, the two actual Stoic texts beginners are most likely to read, Epictetus’ Enchiridion and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, don’t provide much discussion about the virtues that is useful on their own (though if you read them in relation to more substantive Stoic texts, that’s not the case).

If you really want to know what the Stoics thought the virtues of prudence, justice, courage, and temperance involved, included, and extended to, there’s no substitute for reading more deeply and widely in the available Stoic literature. If you, for example, peruse Arius Didymus’ Epitome of Stoic Ethics, you discover that each of the four cardinal virtues includes a number of subordinate virtues, which he provides short explanations about. Prudence encompasses six subordinate virtues, courage five, and justice and temperance each four. Arius’ listing of the subordinate virtues is not a definitive or comprehensive one, and has to be supplemented by similar lists that Diogenes Laertius provides, as well as discussions of or references to virtue provided by Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius (among others).

Paying attention to subordinate virtues

Where’s kindness? It falls under justice in Arius’ Didymus’ listing ,where it gets defined as “knowledge that knows how to do good” (5b2). Cicero devotes a lot of discussion to kindness, generosity, and beneficence in On Duties book 1, where these comprise a significant part of justice. Read Seneca attentively, and you’ll see him discussing it as well. If you’re looking for honesty or truthfulness, that’s part of justice as well, at least as something we owe to others (one might also see courage and prudence as involved in truthfulness). Epictetus and Seneca often use terms that we can translate as “faithfulness” or “loyalty”. That too is a part of justice.

Courage doesn’t just mean standing up to fear for the Stoics. It also includes magnanimity, or if you prefer a more literal translation, greatness of mind or soul. Looking for a virtue corresponding to hard work, perseverance, or possessing a work ethic? Arius Didymus uses the term philoponia, literally “love of toil”, and places that under courage. Patience? Read Seneca and Cicero and you’ll find that patientia (particularly in relation to anger) falls within courage.

There are a number of other virtues one might think the Stoics leave out, and then find them encompassed within the wide scope of the other two cardinal virtues, prudence and temperance.

I should mention, however, that there will be some “virtues” that the Stoics don’t include within the cardinal virtues. A prime example of this would be one several other virtue ethics traditions (e.g. Platonist, Aristotelian, some early Christians) do include among the virtues, namely right anger (aka gentleness, mildness, or good temper). And there’s a reason for that omission, which is that the Stoics don’t consider anger to ever be virtuous. So it’s only “missing” from the Stoic account of the virtues if you fundamentally differ from them in thinking it is a good state.  

Greg Sadler is the president of ReasonIO, a member of the Modern Stoicism Team, an APPAcertified philosophical counselor, and teaches at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.

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