Aim: to bring out the distinctive (and strong) features of Stoic ethics for analysing integrity; to explore the question how far this is an account we can not only learn from but would want to adopt today; to consider the intellectual problems or challenges in adopting the Stoic theory today.

What does ‘integrity’ mean? Not an attempt at definition but three important interconnected markers:

1. profound and sincere personal (agent-centred) moral commitment (well-reasoned, full-hearted);
2. profound social engagement (well-reasoned, full-hearted) expressing personal commitment;
3. objective (non-arbitrary) grounding for (1) and (2) and/or for the decisions made which display these qualities.

What does Stoicism have to offer us (moderns) on this topic?

Well-developed and coherent ethical theory, which offers a strong framework for analysing all three markers of integrity. A theory which is, perhaps more than some other ancient approches, readily recognisable as a moral theory from a modern standpoint, but also challengingly different from most modern moral theories. This raises the question whether we might want to adopt the theory, and if so how far it is compatible with other modern moral approaches.

First, is there a Stoic term for ‘integrity’? Not as such; relevant ideas fall within their general ethical theory, framed in terms of virtue (aretē) and happiness (eudaimonia). But that theory gives a central role to features we can readily associate with ‘integrity’, especially ‘consistency’, ‘transparency’ and ‘wholeness’ at the ethical and psychological level. Stoicism offers a clear and coherent framework for analysing ‘integrity’ in these senses in terms of these three markers.

What is the framework?

Relevant to (1):

(a) virtue is necessary and sufficient for happiness (eudaimonia) (without remainder);

(b) all human beings are naturally capable of developing to the point of recognizing and understanding 1(a) and shaping their lives accordingly (without remainder);

[c] human beings are psychologically unified so that value-beliefs, shaped through development, inform motives (desires, emotions) completely (without remainder).

Relevant to (2):

(a) virtues form a matched (inter-entailing) set (wisdom, courage/greatness of mind, justice, temperance) combining and integrating self- and other-related dimensions;

(b) ethical development combines personal (value-related) and social strands; full ethical development involves the integration of these strands;

[c] human beings are psychologically unified so complete ethical development brings with it complete commitment to outcomes of integrated personal and social development;

Relevant to (3)

(a) all the previous claims are presented as being ‘according to nature’ (human nature understood in the context of the universe);

(b) a full understanding of the sense in which these ideas are ‘according to nature’ goes hand in hand with, and depends on, the process of ethical development posited by the theory (i.e. ‘nature’ is not an external, ‘Archimedean’, foundation);

[c] the person who has developed this complete understanding (the ‘wise person/sage’) is both an ideal for aspiration and a regulatory norm;

(d) at a procedural level, Stoicism offers detailed guidance about the kinds of actions, attitudes, psychological states, relationships etc. which are consistent with this framework; this is designed to constitute reliable guidance – but not as a decision-making process that guarantees moral objectivity.

Overall, then, the Stoic ideal of integrity is marked by:

1. a high level of unity and consistency: the unified or inter-entailing virtues inform the mind, personality, life and actions of the person concerned (without remainder);
2. transparency: (as regards value-beliefs, attitudes, actions) between inner intention and outer behaviour, between personal commitments and social engagement;
3. wholeness: integrity informs the personality as a whole, ranging from overall life-goals, ‘ground projects’ (all the way up), to emotions and desires (all the way down); also informs interpersonal and communal relationships and actions.

Let’s now look at the various features, explain the link with ‘integrity’, and explore their advantages and disadvantages from a modern perspective.

1

(a) happiness (eudaimonia) defined solely by reference to virtue (and not ‘external goods’ e.g. property, health and well-being of family, taken separately from virtue), i.e. virtue both necessary and sufficient for happiness (without remainder).

This claim is crucial for Stoic thinking on integrity, since it entails that the pursuit of personal happiness and virtue (roughly ‘morality’) coincide at a profound level (i.e. the conflict between self-interest and obligations to others does not arise at a profound level).

But how credible is this claim? Strongly contested in antiquity, especially from the standpoint of the Aristotelian approach according to which, at least in one version, although virtue is necessary for happiness, perfect or complete happiness also requires ‘external goods’ (e.g. health, property, welfare of family).

To make sense of the claim, we need to bear in mind several points:

(a) ‘happiness’ is not defined primarily, in subjective terms (‘feeling happy’) but objectively, as the best human state, conceived as a stable, coherent and well-structured condition of character and life (though this is seen as bringing with it feelings of happiness).

(b) Although Stoicism marks a sharp distinction in value between virtue and ‘indifferents’ (including bodily health, property and welfare of family), virtue consists in the proper use of indifferents, not in the negation or absence of indifferents. Note also the idea of virtue as like archery: our immediate aim is to hit the target (use indifferents properly) but our ultimate aim is to do so well (i.e. virtuously). So happiness (eudaimonia) constituted by our achievement of this ultimate aim. But if this is achieved, it is achieved without remainder- we do not also need external goods for happiness, by contrast with the Aristotelian view.

(b) All human beings are naturally capable of developing to the point of recognizing and understanding 1(a) and shaping their lives accordingly (without remainder).

Another strong claim, contested in antiquity from a Platonic-Aristotelian standpoint, which insisted that the capacity for complete ethical development was dependent on a complex of preconditions (inborn nature, upbringing and social context of a certain kind and education of a certain kind). The Stoics maintain, by contrast, that all human beings as such have the natural capacity to carry out and complete this process, and that doing so represents the fulfilment of our human nature. (The capacity to reason correctly, to form moral concepts and apply them correctly, is seen as universal and as one that can be formed and expressed in any social or cultural context.) However, the Stoics also believe that carrying out this developmental process completely (i.e. becoming completely virtuous/happy) is very rare or almost unknown. Hence, ethical development is not just a phase in one’s life (part of childhood or adolescence) but life-long; ethical life is an ongoing project or journey. Thus while we are all in principle capable of achieving ‘integrity’, as a feature of virtue/happiness, in practice we are all engaged in a journey towards integrity.

[c] human beings are psychologically unified so that value-beliefs, shaped through development, inform motives (desires, emotions) completely (without remainder).

A third very strong claim and again strongly challenged from a Platonic-Aristotelian standpoint. The claim is often (mis)represented as being that human beings function in a purely rational i.e. intellectual way. In fact, the claim is that adult human beings function in a highly unified psychological (and indeed psychophysical) way, in that rationality (the distinctively human function) informs and shapes all other psychological processes. Hence, beliefs, especially beliefs about what is valuable (what benefits us) directly shape motives, including the sub-class of motives we call emotions. It follows that changes in these beliefs, of the kind that occur in the course of development, carry with them changes in our motivational structure. Hence, according to the Stoic view, complete development will change our motivation completely, without residual competing desires. This claim is also crucial for Stoic thinking on integrity, since it shows why Stoics think that ethical development will enable us to achieve complete ‘wholeness’ or ‘consistency’ of motivation, of a kind that will ‘go all the way down’ into the depths of the personality as well as ‘all the way up’ as regards our life-goals (indeed, these two achievements go hand in hand).

2

I’ll now discuss the next three features in the same way before raising broader questions about the Stoic framework and the modern context.

(a) virtues form a matched (inter-entailing) set (wisdom, courage/greatness of mind, justice, temperance) combining and integrating self- and other-related dimensions;

(b) ethical development combines personal (value-related) and social dimensions; full ethical development involves the integration of these dimensions;

[c] human beings are psychologically unified so complete ethical development brings with it complete commitment to the outcomes of integrated personal and social development;

In modern scholarship – though less so, interestingly, in antiquity – Stoicism is sometimes presented as problematic in focusing on the agent’s own ethical and psychological state. It is sometimes suggested that Stoics advise seeking your own virtue (and the self-sufficiency for happiness this confers) at the expense of full-hearted engagement with other people. Although there is some evidence that might be read in that way, the main thrust of Stoic ideas is in a quite different direction. The key thought is that the development of virtue combines improvement in the agent’s own state of character with improved understanding of what social engagement properly involves. This has obvious significance for their concept of ‘integrity’, notably regarding the relationship between personal and social commitment.

Let’s look at these three points in turn

(2a) In Stoicism, the main virtues (typically codified as the four cardinal virtues and their subdivisions) form a matched set and are interentailing. This means that any given virtuous action involves the co-ordinated expression of each virtue, even though one is primary and the others secondary. Although wisdom and temperance are prima facie self-related and courage and justice prima facie other-related, all four virtue-types were thought to have self- and other-related aspects or modes of expression. ‘Consistency’ (which is one of the marks of virtue) depends in part on the coordination of the virtues. Hence, the idea that one might develop one’s own virtue at the expense of (ethical) engagement with other people would be a strange one to them – indeed it is ruled out by the theory, as I understand this.

As regards ethical development, this has – explicitly- personal (value-related) and social aspects. The personal strand leads towards the recognition that virtue is the only good (i.e. that it is necessary and sufficient for happiness). The social strand consists in the progressive shaping of the motive to benefit others of one’s own kind (which is presented as a primary animal motive) through the distinctively human capacity for rationality. This is presented as leading towards two main outcomes (which seem meant to be compatible): one is full-hearted engagement with family and communal life in one’s own context, and the other is coming to recognise that all human beings as such are our ‘brothers’ or ‘sisters’ or are ‘fellow-citizens’ in the universe (because they all have the same in-built capacity for reason-based ethical development as us). There is no surviving theoretical Stoic discussion of the relationship between these two strands (personal and social); but it is clear they are meant to be mutually informing (and I have found many passages in Stoic practical ethics which explore their interplay). The progressive development of our understanding of value, more specifically of the role of virtue as the ‘proper use of’ indifferents, progressively shapes our relationships with others and the social side of development progressively informs our understanding of value. So again, in this aspect, the development of virtue – the movement towards ‘integrity’ – has interrelated self- and other-related dimensions.

Thirdly, given Stoic thinking on psychological holism, this integrated process of self- and other-related development will shape motivation and will do so completely and consistently (without remainder). Beliefs about what sort of action it is ‘appropriate’ to perform, in the light of one’s developing virtue, will shape desires and emotions directly. Hence, there is no room for conflict between self-interest and promoting the benefit of other people or indeed between promoting our own virtue and benefiting other people – unless something has gone badly wrong with the developmental process.

3

I now turn to the third set of markers of ‘integrity’:

(3) objective (non-arbitrary) grounding for (1) and (2) and/or for the decisions made which display these qualities.

(a) all the previous claims are presented as being ‘according to nature’ (human nature understood in the context of the universe);

(b) a full understanding of the sense in which these ideas are ‘according to nature’ goes hand in hand with, and depends on, the process of ethical development posited by the theory (i.e. ‘nature’ is not an external, ‘Archimedean’, foundation);

[c] the person who has developed that complete understanding (the ‘wise person/sage’) is both an ideal for aspiration and a regulatory norm;

(d) at the procedural level, Stoicism offers detailed guidance about the kinds of actions, attitudes, psychological states, relationships etc. which are consistent with this framework; this is designed to constitute reliable guidance – but not as a decision-making process that guarantees moral objectivity.

The first point to explain is the link between point (d) – which I am going to discuss – and points (a) –(c) which I am not (because these points add up to a complex, problematic topic that would need to be the subject of another paper). The link I am making derives from the relationship between Stoic and certain modern moral theories. In Kantian and Utilitarian theories, as I understand them, the claim to moral objectivity is closely tied to decision-making procedures and the criteria employed there. In the Kantian method (perhaps more in modern usage rather than in Kant himself), the procedure of universalising one’s own case (or any given case) is taken as guaranteeing the objectivity and so the validity of the decision made in this way. Analogously, in the Utilitarian view, maximisation of benefit (the Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number) is seen both as a decision-making procedure and as guaranteeing the objectivity and thus validity of the decision thus made. In Stoicism we also find ethical guidance that is designed to produce morally reliable decision-making (I’ll illustrate this point shortly). But the procedure recommended is not presented as guaranteeing the objectivity of the Stoic ethical framework (which is taken to depend, rather, on the claims made in 3(a-c)). The decision-making procedure relies on criteria which are taken to be objectively valid; but the procedure as such does not support this.

There is a second general point relating to the relationship between Stoicism and modern moral theories which arises in connection with decision-making procedures. Modern forms of virtue-ethics are sometimes criticised because they fail to offer decision-making guidance and are seen as therefore unhelpful. This criticism rather baffles modern virtue-ethicists such as Julia Annas. Of course, they say, virtue-ethics offers guidance, namely by specifying what the virtues are and discussing how we can acquire or develop these. What more is being asked for? The participants to the debate seem to be at cross-purposes. What the critics are looking for, I think, is the kind of procedural guidance offered in (modern forms of) Kantianism and Utilitarianism, in which the procedures are public, transparent, and do not depend on the ethical character of the agent concerned and on any virtues she may or may not possess. In the Stoic material considered shortly, this point of difference emerges, clearly. In general the guidance offered is made in terms of the virtues; but even when (as sometimes happens) it is made in terms of maximising benefit or doing the right act for its own sake, this is not presented as guidance which is independent of virtue-based advice, or guidance whose efficacy does not depend on the character of the agent. This point is clearly relevant for the question raised later how far each framework (Stoic and modern) can learn from, or adopt procedures from, each other.

As regards the criteria of Stoic decision-making, there has been some recent debate in Stoic scholarship about whether this is couched in terms of ‘selection’ between ‘indifferents’ (i.e. things such as health, property and the welfare of one’s family or their opposites) or in terms of the virtues. To some extent, this debate is based on a false opposition. In Stoicism, virtue consists in proper use of (or correct selection between) indifferents, so both categories are relevant. However, it is also clear, I think, that reference to characteristic features of the virtues does form part of the decision-making guidance, and is indeed presented as crucial, though it is not the only form of guidance. This is, of course, what one might expect, given that the ultimate aim in Stoicism (the final goal of Stoic archery) is to become a good person, i.e. one who has developed the virtues and the happiness (eudaimonia) that follows from this.

This point comes out clearly in Cicero, On Duties 3, whose aim is to offer guidance on how to make correct decisions in cases where acting virtuously appears to conflict with seeking one’s own advantage. Typically, Cicero frames his advice by setting out case-studies in which there are competing considerations; the discussion is sometimes expressed in the form of arguments for and against a given course of action. Typically again, Cicero seeks to resolve the predicament by bringing out the fact that one course of action (but not the other) expresses features characteristic of a given virtue. This is not the only criterion he applies: he also refers to key Stoic ideas (e.g. the brotherhood of humankind, and also more vernacular Roman ideas such as the idea of acting ‘in good faith’). But these other ideas are taken to be compatible with the characteristics of the virtues.

Here is one such case: Cicero offers a formula (rule of procedure) which he uses to adjudicate various disputable case-studies:

For one human being to deprive another in order to increase his welfare at the expense of the other’s welfare is more contrary to nature than death, poverty, pain or any other things that can happen to one’s body or one’s external possessions. To begin with, it destroys human communal living and society. If we are each ready to plunder and carry off what belongs to someone else for his own profit, that will necessarily demolish the thing that is in fact according to nature, namely the human community (3.21).

This strongly evokes Cicero’s earlier definition of justice (one of the four cardinal virtues):

The first function of justice is that no one should harm another unless he himself was unjustly harmed; next that each person should use communal things as communal and their own private things as their own … For this reason, whichever of the naturally communal things belongs to someone, let him retain it; and if anyone wants to acquire it for their own, they are violating the law of human society. (1.20-2, trans. Brennan, adapted)

These passages raise a number of questions. But the main relevant point is that citing features characteristic of one of the virtues, in this case, justice, is taken to provide guidance in decision-making (including disputable cases). What is also worth noting is that both passages also refer to the key Stoic idea of the brotherhood or community of human beings; and the Book 3 passage (designed to offer practical guidance) also alludes to the Stoic idea that developing and expressing the virtues is ‘according to nature’, that is, according to human nature as conceived in Stoic ethics. It’s quite clear here that there is no attempt on Cicero’s part to confine the discussion to ‘selection between indifferents’ (i.e. to offer ethically neutral criteria). On the contrary, the criteria he uses depend on the person concerned accepting the premise that he wants to act virtuously, and that doing so constitutes a way of living the life ‘according to nature’, i.e. in Stoic terms, the life that confers happiness (eudaimonia), though that is not specified here.

Let’s look at one more passage, and then consider the broader implications, Cicero’s climactic case-study in Book 3 is a reflection on a famous Roman exemplar of virtue, who can also be considered a striking example of ‘integrity’ in the sense discussed here. Regulus, a Roman general, was defeated and captured by the Carthaginians; and was sent back to Rome to negotiate the return of certain young and noble Carthaginian captives in exchange for his return. In retelling his story, Cicero identifies two features as especially worthy of mention. One is that, on his arrival in Rome, Regulus took the initiative in arguing in the Senate that the Romans should not return the captives (which the Senate would otherwise have done) because ‘they were young men and good leaders while he was worn out by old age’ (3.100). The other is that, when the Senate accepted his advice, Regulus did not simply stay in Rome, as he could have done, but chose to go back to Carthage (to certain torture and death) because he had sworn an oath to the Carthaginians that he would return if he failed to negotiate the return of the prisoners. I think that, by any standards, Regulus is a striking example of integrity (especially in the second respect); what is of special interest here is the language in which this integrity is described.

Some of the language used may remind us of modern criteria for moral decision-making. Regulus’ advice to the Senate may seem to evoke Utilitarian-style maximisation of benefits: the benefit (militarily) of the young noble captives is greater than that of one old general, so it will not benefit Rome to return them to Carthage.

On the other hand, the decision to keep his oath is justified in rather Kantian-seeming terms; in essence, it is presented as done simply because it is the right (honestum) thing to do (also, of course, not lying is also a classic Kantian example of an act which is categorically right). However, despite these apparent anticipations of these modern moral criteria, it is quite clear that the framework Cicero is applying is the Stoic one centred on virtue and happiness (eudaimonia). Cicero argues that, although it might have seemed beneficial for Regulus to have remained in Rome, it was not beneficial in a deeper sense because it was incompatible with one of the four cardinal virtues.

Who can deny that such things [staying safely in Rome] are beneficial? … Greatness of spirit and courage deny it … For it is characteristic of these virtues to fear nothing, to disdain everything human, and to think nothing that can happen to a human being is unendurable.. [So, finally] even when Regulus was dying through enforced wakefulness [on his return to Carthage] he was better off [in a better state, in meliore causa] than if he had remained at home, a consular, but elderly, captured, and foresworn. (3.99-100, trans. Atkins, modified).

The implied framework is quite clear. Reference to key features of the virtues, here courage (Cicero alludes to his own earlier definition of courage or greatness of mind, 1.66) is taken to provide decisive guidance. Also, the underlying assumption that expressing the virtue (whatever the cost) carries with it happiness (eudaimonia), that is, what is ultimately beneficial, is also indicated. So Regulus provides both a clear example of Stoic decision-making guidance and a striking case of integrity couched consistently in terms of Stoic ethical theory.