Stoic News: <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stoics/message/7777">Injustice and Harm</a>

Monday, August 16, 2004

"The Stoic, when treated unjustly, recognises no harm to themselves, for the injustice causes harm to the agent" (Keith Seddon).

MK said...: The antededent "The Stoic" should be plural or the following adjective "their" should be singular. This way it sounds funny. Like a hillbilly is talking.; 1:00 PM
MK said...: The injustice might cause harm to the agent but also to the object - even if the Stoic limits the harm. If I steal your food, you don't get to eat.

Maybe you don't expect justice to be a constant in the world. In that case your stomach might hurt but you won't feel so bad about being cheated because you don't approach the world with inflated expectations.; 2:10 PM
Dave said...: The Stoics offer a very unique value system. For Stoics only virtue and acts motivated by virtue are good, and only vice and acts motivated by vice are bad; all else, that is, everything outside the purview of one's faculty of moral choice is indifferent.

So, harm for the Stoics is the harm one does to oneself by false judgments and vicious acts. Everything else, all the things that are conventionally considered harm, are believed by the Stoics to be morally indifferent and, therefor, indifferent as to our happiness.; 6:03 PM