THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF STOIC ETHICS: NATURAL LAW THEORY

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Published: Jun 17, 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.19090/arhe.2015.24.147-162
Keywords:
ethics, physics, Hellenistic philosophy, logic, natural law theory

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TONĆI KOKIĆ
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Split, Croatia

Abstract

Stoicism is the most important and influential philosophical doctrine of the Hellenistic period, and its ethical aspect, implying the totality of stoic philosophy, represents ‘fruit of a garden’. Theoretical foundations and first postulates of Stoic ethics are the most clear and systematic ethical doctrine of ancient philosophy. Review and understanding of their ethics assumes acceptance of wholeness of stoic philosophical thought and inseparability of its aspects: logic (logikḗ, lógos) that studies the content matter and physics (phýsis, nature, God, pneûma, cosmic lógos) that is the true nature. Totality of Stoic teaching and inseparability of ethics arises for the idea of the perfection of nature formed by lógos, which is the reference point for everything including the moral action. Ethical values can be known only through logical analysis of compliance of nature of certain beings with Nature. For this reason, the author presents overview of the mentioned aspects of stoic philosophical thought and its ethical resultant. Finally, it seems unquestionable that the Stoic ethics in Western Philosophy is the first comprehensive and systematic display of the eternal moral law built in the structure of Nature, which can be comprehended by the reason of the morally free agent – a human person. According to this, the theoretical foundation of the Stoic practice is in the ethical natural law theory.

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How to Cite
KOKIĆ, T. (2016). THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF STOIC ETHICS: NATURAL LAW THEORY. Arhe, 12(24), 147–162. https://doi.org/10.19090/arhe.2015.24.147-162
Issue
Vol. 12 No. 24 (2015): PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE
Section
STUDIES AND INQUIRIES

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