STERLING'S SIX COMMITMENTS INDEX
## **4. STERLING'S SIX COMMITMENTS INDEX**
**Detailed Map of Where Each Commitment Appears and Supports the System**
### **OVERVIEW**
Sterling's Core Stoicism rests on six philosophical commitments that distinguish it from both ancient Stoicism and modern adaptations. This index shows:
1. Where each commitment explicitly appears in the lexicon
2. Which terms depend on each commitment
3. How the commitments interrelate
4. What collapses if a commitment is removed
**The Six Commitments:**
1. Substance Dualism
2. Libertarian Free Will
3. Ethical Intuitionism
4. Foundationalism
5. Correspondence Theory of Truth
6. Moral Realism
---
### **COMMITMENT 1: SUBSTANCE DUALISM**
**"Mind and body are fundamentally different kinds of substance"**
#### **Explicit Appearances:**
**401. Substance-Dualism**
[Gk: διπλασιασμὸς οὐσίας]
[Eng: substance-dualism]
Primary articulation of the commitment. States that reality consists of two fundamentally distinct kinds of substance: mind (immaterial, capable of reason and choice) and body (material, governed by physical causation).
**402. Mind-Body-Distinction**
[Gk: διάκρισις ψυχῆς καὶ σώματος]
[Eng: mind-body-distinction]
The sharp ontological division between the immaterial ruling faculty and the material organism.
---
#### **Terms That Depend on Substance Dualism:**
**Direct Dependencies (require dualism to be coherent):**
**33. Internal-External-Distinction**
- **Dependency:** Without substance dualism, the internal-external division is pragmatic at best, not ontologically real
- **Collapses to:** Mere convenience, psychology rather than metaphysics
**21. Internal-Domain** & **22. External-Domain**
- **Dependency:** These are distinct *kinds* of reality, not just different aspects
- **Collapses to:** Arbitrary categorization
**420. Self-Boundary**
- **Dependency:** The boundary is real because mind is a different substance
- **Collapses to:** Fuzzy distinction without clear principle
**458. World-Self-Division**
- **Dependency:** The ultimate division rests on substance distinction
- **Collapses to:** False dichotomy without ontological ground
---
**Indirect Dependencies (weakened without dualism):**
**7. Prohairesis (Choice/Moral-Faculty)**
- **Why it matters:** If mind is material, prohairesis might be reducible to brain states
- **What's at risk:** Genuine autonomy; might be epiphenomenal
**20. Internal-Freedom**
- **Why it matters:** Freedom requires the mind to be genuinely independent
- **What's at risk:** Freedom becomes illusion if mind supervenes on matter
**423. Internal-Sovereignty**
- **Why it matters:** The ruling faculty governs *itself* as immaterial substance
- **What's at risk:** No sovereignty if mind is just complex matter
**All of Tier 2 (21-60)**
- **Why it matters:** The entire dichotomy assumes two kinds of being
- **What's at risk:** Without dualism, why privilege internals over externals?
---
#### **What Collapses Without Substance Dualism:**
**1. The Internal-External Division becomes arbitrary**
- Why should judgments be "internal" if they're just brain states like digestion?
- The sharp boundary dissolves into degrees of control
**2. Freedom becomes questionable**
- If mind is material, it's subject to physical causation
- Libertarian free will requires non-physical agency
**3. Stoic invulnerability weakens**
- "No one can harm my prohairesis" only if prohairesis is immaterial
- Physical brain damage affects material mind
**4. The system becomes physicalism with preference**
- Just complex materialism with motivational language
- Loses metaphysical distinctiveness
---
#### **Sterling's Rationale for Substance Dualism:**
**Positive Argument:**
- Explains the phenomenology of agency
- Grounds genuine moral responsibility
- Makes sense of internal sovereignty
**Defense Against Alternatives:**
- **Physicalism:** Can't account for libertarian freedom
- **Property Dualism:** Insufficient—needs two kinds of substance
- **Idealism:** Doesn't explain external resistance to will
**Historical Precedent:**
- Plato (soul vs. body)
- Descartes (res cogitans vs. res extensa)
- Strong tradition in Western philosophy
---
### **COMMITMENT 2: LIBERTARIAN FREE WILL**
**"Agents are the uncaused causes of their own choices"**
#### **Explicit Appearances:**
**435. Libertarian-Freedom**
[Gk: ἐλευθεριακὴ ἐλευθερία]
[Eng: libertarian-freedom]
The metaphysical position that agents are the uncaused causes of their own choices.
**436. Contra-Causal-Freedom**
[Gk: ἀντιαιτιακὴ ἐλευθερία]
[Eng: contra-causal-freedom]
Freedom to act against all prior causes; the will is not determined by antecedent conditions.
**437. Moral-Agency**
[Gk: ἠθικὴ δράσις]
[Eng: moral-agency]
The capacity to originate action through internal causation.
---
#### **Terms That Depend on Libertarian Free Will:**
**Direct Dependencies (incoherent without libertarian freedom):**
**2. Sunkatathesis (Assent)**
- **Dependency:** Assent must be freely given, not determined by impression
- **Collapses to:** Automatic response if determinism is true
**7. Prohairesis (Choice)**
- **Dependency:** Choice requires the power to do otherwise
- **Collapses to:** Illusion if every "choice" is determined
**431. Choice-Freedom**
- **Dependency:** Choice is free because its cause is internal and undetermined
- **Collapses to:** Mere feeling of freedom, not real freedom
**434. Choice-Responsibility**
- **Dependency:** Moral responsibility requires libertarian freedom
- **Collapses to:** Unfair to hold agents responsible if they couldn't choose otherwise
**421. Internal-Agency**
- **Dependency:** Agency means being an uncaused cause
- **Collapses to:** Just a link in causal chain
**422. Internal-Causation**
- **Dependency:** The ruling faculty causes its own judgments without prior determination
- **Collapses to:** Neural determinism if compatibilist
---
**Indirect Dependencies (weakened without libertarian freedom):**
**47. Internal-Responsibility**
- **Why it matters:** Responsibility presupposes could-have-done-otherwise
- **What's at risk:** Responsibility becomes mere social convention
**91. Correct-Assent** & **92. Incorrect-Assent**
- **Why it matters:** "Correct" and "incorrect" imply you could have chosen correctly
- **What's at risk:** Moral categories lose normative force
**All of Tier 8 (Virtue/Vice)**
- **Why it matters:** Virtue is praiseworthy only if freely chosen
- **What's at risk:** Virtue/vice become matters of luck, not achievement
**441. Freedom-Invulnerability**
- **Why it matters:** True invulnerability requires genuine freedom
- **What's at risk:** If determined, externals do control you (via determining brain states)
---
#### **What Collapses Without Libertarian Free Will:**
**1. Moral Responsibility evaporates**
- Can't fairly blame or praise if agents couldn't choose otherwise
- "Ought implies can" requires libertarian freedom
**2. The entire Stoic practice becomes incoherent**
- Why train if outcomes are already determined?
- Discipline presupposes ability to change through effort
**3. Internal sovereignty is illusory**
- If prior causes determine assent, prohairesis isn't truly sovereign
- Just the feeling of control, not real control
**4. Virtue loses its value**
- If sage-hood is determined by genetics and environment, not free choice
- Then it's not an achievement but a lottery win
---
#### **Sterling's Rationale for Libertarian Free Will:**
**Positive Argument:**
- Phenomenology of deliberation assumes we could choose otherwise
- Moral intuitions presuppose genuine responsibility
- Rational persuasion assumes agents can freely change their minds
**Defense Against Compatibilism:**
- Compatibilist "freedom" = doing what you're determined to want
- Not sufficient for moral responsibility
- Doesn't capture the Stoic sense of internal sovereignty
**Defense Against Hard Determinism:**
- Eliminates moral responsibility entirely
- Contradicts lived experience of agency
- Makes moral philosophy pointless
**Historical Precedent:**
- Epicurus (swerve of atoms to preserve freedom)
- Some Stoics (assent as exception to fate)
- Medieval voluntarists (Scotus, Ockham)
---
### **COMMITMENT 3: ETHICAL INTUITIONISM**
**"Moral truths are known through direct rational insight"**
#### **Explicit Appearances:**
**448. Moral-Intuition**
[Gk: ἠθικὴ διαίσθησις]
[Eng: moral-intuition]
Direct apprehension of moral truth without inference.
**449. Ethical-Intuitionism**
[Gk: ἠθικὸς διαισθησιασμός]
[Eng: ethical-intuitionism]
Moral truths are known through direct rational insight.
---
#### **Terms That Depend on Ethical Intuitionism:**
**Direct Dependencies (require intuition for epistemic access):**
**6. Krisis (Judgment)**
- **Dependency:** How do we know our judgments are correct? Via intuition
- **Collapses to:** Arbitrary preference if no epistemic access to moral facts
**27. Internal-Good**
- **Dependency:** How do we know virtue is good? Direct moral insight
- **Collapses to:** Convention or stipulation
**29. Internal-Evil**
- **Dependency:** How do we know vice is evil? Direct moral insight
- **Collapses to:** Cultural relativism
**66. Value-Detection**
- **Dependency:** The capacity to detect false value-claims rests on intuitive grasp of true value
- **Collapses to:** Subjective preference
**91. Correct-Assent**
- **Dependency:** What makes assent "correct"? Correspondence to moral reality known via intuition
- **Collapses to:** Social consensus or personal taste
---
**Indirect Dependencies (weakened without intuitionism):**
**8. Logos (Reason)**
- **Why it matters:** Reason has direct access to moral truth
- **What's at risk:** Reason becomes mere calculator, not source of moral knowledge
**451. Reason-Authority**
- **Why it matters:** Reason's authority rests on its epistemic access to moral reality
- **What's at risk:** Why trust reason over emotion if both are just preferences?
**All examination terms (Tier 3)**
- **Why it matters:** Examination assumes we can know when value-judgments are false
- **What's at risk:** Can't distinguish correct from incorrect assent
---
#### **What Collapses Without Ethical Intuitionism:**
**1. No epistemic access to moral reality**
- Even if moral realism is true, we can't know moral truths
- Moral skepticism results
**2. Stoic training becomes groundless**
- Why think examination leads to truth rather than just different opinions?
- No criterion for "correct" assent
**3. Virtue/vice distinction becomes arbitrary**
- Can't know that justice is genuinely good
- Reduces to convention or emotion
**4. The system becomes non-cognitive**
- Moral "judgments" aren't really truth-apt
- Just expressions of attitude (emotivism)
---
#### **Sterling's Rationale for Ethical Intuitionism:**
**Positive Argument:**
- We do have moral intuitions (e.g., torturing babies for fun is wrong)
- These intuitions seem more certain than philosophical arguments
- Best explanation: direct rational apprehension of moral reality
**Defense Against Moral Sense Theory:**
- Not mere sentiment or feeling
- Rational intuition, like mathematical intuition
- Universalizable and objective
**Defense Against Inferentialism:**
- Not all moral knowledge is derived from argument
- Some moral truths are self-evident foundations
- Otherwise infinite regress in justification
**Historical Precedent:**
- Platonic rational insight into Forms
- Aristotelian practical wisdom (phronesis)
- Modern: Sidgwick, Ross, Audi
---
### **COMMITMENT 4: FOUNDATIONALISM**
**"Knowledge rests on self-evident foundational truths"**
#### **Explicit Appearances:**
**450. Foundationalism**
[Gk: θεμελιακισμός]
[Eng: foundationalism]
Knowledge rests on self-evident foundational truths requiring no further justification.
---
#### **Terms That Depend on Foundationalism:**
**Direct Dependencies (require foundational structure):**
**8. Logos (Reason)**
- **Dependency:** Reason operates from self-evident axioms
- **Collapses to:** Infinite regress or circular reasoning
**96. Reality-Alignment**
- **Dependency:** Judgment can rest on secure foundations
- **Collapses to:** Floating preferences without ground
**455. Truth-Correspondence**
- **Dependency:** Some truths are self-evidently correspondent
- **Collapses to:** Coherentism (truth = internal consistency)
**All of Tier 10 metaphysics**
- **Dependency:** The six commitments themselves are foundational
- **Collapses to:** Arbitrary starting points
---
**Indirect Dependencies (weakened without foundationalism):**
**77. Truth-Comparison**
- **Why it matters:** Comparison requires stable truths as standard
- **What's at risk:** No fixed points for evaluation
**91. Correct-Assent**
- **Why it matters:** Correctness measured against foundational truths
- **What's at risk:** No ultimate criterion for correctness
**449. Ethical-Intuitionism**
- **Why it matters:** Intuited moral truths ARE foundational
- **What's at risk:** If no foundations, intuitions are just brute reactions
---
#### **What Collapses Without Foundationalism:**
**1. Epistemic regress problem unsolved**
- Every justification requires another justification
- Never reach bedrock of knowledge
**2. Stoic system has no starting point**
- Why accept any Stoic principle?
- Can't justify without assuming what needs justification
**3. Circular reasoning in practice**
- Using reason to justify reason
- Using examination to justify examination
**4. Skepticism becomes irrefutable**
- No self-evident truths = no escape from doubt
- Pyrrhonian suspension of judgment wins
---
#### **Sterling's Rationale for Foundationalism:**
**Positive Argument:**
- Some truths ARE self-evident (law of non-contradiction, basic logic)
- Must stop justification somewhere or face infinite regress
- Best explanation: foundational truths exist
**Defense Against Coherentism:**
- Coherence without foundation = consistent fiction
- Circular reasoning doesn't establish truth
- Need external anchor to reality
**Defense Against Infinitism:**
- Infinite regress is impossible for finite minds
- Can't actually complete infinite chain of justification
- Pragmatically incoherent
**Historical Precedent:**
- Aristotle (first principles not demonstrated but grasped by nous)
- Descartes (cogito as foundation)
- Classical rationalism
---
### **COMMITMENT 5: CORRESPONDENCE THEORY OF TRUTH**
**"Truth consists in the agreement of judgment with reality"**
#### **Explicit Appearances:**
**444. Truth-Recognition**
[Gk: ἀναγνώρισις ἀληθείας]
[Eng: truth-recognition]
Seeing truth as that which corresponds to reality.
**455. Truth-Correspondence**
[Gk: ἀντιστοιχία ἀληθείας]
[Eng: truth-correspondence]
Truth consists in the agreement of judgment with reality.
**445. Truth-Independence**
[Gk: ἀνεξαρτησία ἀληθείας]
[Eng: truth-independence]
Truth exists independently of belief or desire.
---
#### **Terms That Depend on Correspondence Theory:**
**Direct Dependencies (require correspondence to be coherent):**
**69. Reality-Check**
- **Dependency:** Checking against reality assumes truth = correspondence
- **Collapses to:** Checking against... what? If not reality, then coherence
**91. Correct-Assent**
- **Dependency:** Assent is correct when it corresponds to facts
- **Collapses to:** Subjectively satisfying belief
**96. Reality-Alignment**
- **Dependency:** Aligning judgment with reality is the goal
- **Collapses to:** Internal consistency only
**403. Reality-Structure**
- **Dependency:** Reality has structure independent of mind
- **Collapses to:** Social construction or idealism
**413. Reality-Transparency**
- **Dependency:** Reality can be known as it is
- **Collapses to:** All knowledge is interpretation
---
**Indirect Dependencies (weakened without correspondence):**
**1. Phantasia (Impression)**
- **Why it matters:** Impressions present reality (or purport to)
- **What's at risk:** Just mental constructions, no truth-value
**All of Tier 3 (Examination)**
- **Why it matters:** Examination tests correspondence to reality
- **What's at risk:** Just testing internal consistency
**77. Truth-Comparison**
- **Why it matters:** Comparing judgment to reality
- **What's at risk:** Comparing to other beliefs (coherence)
---
#### **What Collapses Without Correspondence Theory:**
**1. No objective standard for truth**
- Truth becomes subjective, relative, or pragmatic
- "True for me" replaces "true"
**2. Stoic examination loses its target**
- What are we examining impressions against?
- If not reality, then preference or convention
**3. Internal-External distinction weakens**
- If truth is just coherence, why privilege internals?
- Both domains are just beliefs
**4. Moral realism threatened**
- If truth isn't correspondence, moral facts might not exist
- Coherentist ethics = whatever fits my belief system
---
#### **Sterling's Rationale for Correspondence Theory:**
**Positive Argument:**
- Intuitive: "Snow is white" is true because snow is white
- Explains why beliefs can be false (they fail to correspond)
- Only theory that genuinely respects reality's independence
**Defense Against Coherence Theory:**
- Coherence is necessary but not sufficient
- Consistent fantasies aren't true
- Need external constraint
**Defense Against Pragmatism:**
- Usefulness doesn't make something true
- Useful lies are still lies
- Conflates truth with other values
**Historical Precedent:**
- Aristotle (to say of what is that it is...)
- Medieval realists
- Modern: Russell, Moore, early Wittgenstein
---
### **COMMITMENT 6: MORAL REALISM**
**"Moral propositions are objectively true or false"**
#### **Explicit Appearances:**
**446. Moral-Truth**
[Gk: ἠθικὴ ἀλήθεια]
[Eng: moral-truth]
Moral propositions correspond to moral reality; goodness and evil are real.
**447. Moral-Realism**
[Gk: ἠθικὸς ῥεαλισμός]
[Eng: moral-realism]
The view that moral propositions are objectively true or false.
---
#### **Terms That Depend on Moral Realism:**
**Direct Dependencies (incoherent without moral realism):**
**27. Internal-Good**
- **Dependency:** Virtue is objectively good, not just preferred
- **Collapses to:** Personal taste or social construction
**29. Internal-Evil**
- **Dependency:** Vice is objectively evil, not just disliked
- **Collapses to:** Convention or subjective aversion
**31. Intrinsic-Value**
- **Dependency:** Value is real, located in correct judgment
- **Collapses to:** Projected preferences
**6. Krisis (Judgment)**
- **Dependency:** Moral judgments can be true or false
- **Collapses to:** Expressions of attitude (non-cognitive)
**91. Correct-Assent** & **92. Incorrect-Assent**
- **Dependency:** Objective moral facts make assent correct/incorrect
- **Collapses to:** Merely consistent/inconsistent with preferences
---
**Indirect Dependencies (weakened without moral realism):**
**All of Tier 8 (Virtue Structure)**
- **Why it matters:** The four virtues are objectively good
- **What's at risk:** Just culturally valued traits
**All of Tier 2 (Dichotomy)**
- **Why it matters:** Internals are objectively more valuable
- **What's at risk:** Just strategic focus, not moral truth
**471. Telos-Achievement**
- **Why it matters:** The telos is objectively the human good
- **What's at risk:** Just one life strategy among others
**456. Moral-Architecture**
- **Why it matters:** Moral truths form objective system
- **What's at risk:** Just personal preference-structure
---
#### **What Collapses Without Moral Realism:**
**1. No objective distinction between virtue and vice**
- Justice and injustice differ only in attitude
- Hitler and Gandhi are just different, not better/worse
**2. Stoic practice becomes arbitrary**
- Why develop virtue rather than vice?
- Just personal preference, no objective reason
**3. Internal-external dichotomy loses force**
- Why privilege internals if no objective value?
- Becomes pragmatic strategy, not moral truth
**4. The entire system becomes emotivist**
- "Virtue is good" = "Hooray for virtue!"
- Moral language just expresses feeling
- No truth-apt moral claims
---
#### **Sterling's Rationale for Moral Realism:**
**Positive Argument:**
- Moral phenomenology: goodness and evil seem real and objective
- Moral disagreement presupposes objective truth (we're arguing about reality)
- Best explanation: moral properties exist
**Defense Against Emotivism:**
- Moral language has cognitive content
- "Murder is wrong" isn't just "Boo murder!"
- We can be mistaken about moral truths
**Defense Against Cultural Relativism:**
- Some moral truths are universal (torture for fun is wrong everywhere)
- Moral progress presupposes objective standard
- Cultural variation doesn't entail no moral truth
**Defense Against Error Theory:**
- Too revisionary of ordinary moral thought
- Better to accept moral facts than deny all moral knowledge
- Moral skepticism is pragmatically incoherent
**Historical Precedent:**
- Plato (Form of the Good)
- Aristotle (ergon argument)
- Modern: Moore, Ross, Shafer-Landau
---
### **HOW THE SIX COMMITMENTS INTERRELATE**
#### **1. Substance Dualism + Libertarian Free Will**
- Dualism provides the metaphysical room for libertarian freedom
- If mind is material, harder to defend contra-causal freedom
- Immaterial mind can be uncaused cause
#### **2. Libertarian Free Will + Moral Realism**
- Freedom makes moral responsibility coherent
- Moral realism gives freedom normative significance
- Together: we're free to choose what's objectively good
#### **3. Moral Realism + Ethical Intuitionism**
- Realism: moral facts exist
- Intuitionism: we have epistemic access to them
- Together: moral knowledge is possible
#### **4. Ethical Intuitionism + Foundationalism**
- Intuited moral truths are foundational
- No need to derive from non-moral facts
- Self-evident starting points for ethics
#### **5. Foundationalism + Correspondence Theory**
- Foundational truths correspond to reality
- Not just arbitrary axioms
- Grounded in structure of world
#### **6. Correspondence Theory + Moral Realism**
- Moral truths correspond to moral facts
- Not just internal coherence
- Objective reality constrains moral judgment
**The Six Form a Mutually Supporting Web:**
- Each strengthens the others
- Removing one weakens the whole structure
- Together they provide Sterling's Core Stoicism with unique philosophical foundation
---
### **CRITICAL COMBINATIONS**
#### **The Freedom Triad: 1, 2, 6**
- Substance Dualism + Libertarian Free Will + Moral Realism
- **Result:** Genuine moral agency with objective moral reality
- **Why it matters:** Makes virtue/vice meaningful achievements
#### **The Knowledge Triad: 3, 4, 5**
- Ethical Intuitionism + Foundationalism + Correspondence Theory
- **Result:** Secure moral knowledge grounded in reality
- **Why it matters:** Makes Stoic practice rationally defensible
#### **The Complete System: All Six**
- Substance dualism grounds the dichotomy
- Libertarian freedom makes responsibility possible
- Ethical intuitionism provides epistemic access
- Foundationalism prevents regress
- Correspondence theory anchors truth in reality
- Moral realism makes virtue objectively valuable
- **Result:** Complete philosophical architecture for Core Stoicism
---
### **WHAT IF WE REMOVED EACH COMMITMENT?**
#### **Remove Substance Dualism:**
- Internal-external division becomes arbitrary
- Freedom questionable if mind is material
- System becomes physicalist self-help
#### **Remove Libertarian Free Will:**
- Moral responsibility evaporates
- Training becomes pointless (outcomes predetermined)
- System becomes deterministic fatalism
#### **Remove Ethical Intuitionism:**
- No epistemic access to moral reality
- Can't know virtue is good
- System becomes moral skepticism
#### **Remove Foundationalism:**
- Infinite regress in justification
- No secure starting points
- System becomes coherentist relativism
#### **Remove Correspondence Theory:**
- No objective standard for truth
- Reality-alignment impossible
- System becomes subjective idealism
#### **Remove Moral Realism:**
- No objective good/evil
- Virtue arbitrary preference
- System becomes emotivism or cultural relativism
**Conclusion:** All six are necessary for Sterling's Core Stoicism. The system is philosophically ambitious and makes strong metaphysical claims. This is its strength: it provides objective grounding for Stoic practice.
---
**END OF STERLING'S SIX COMMITMENTS INDEX**
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**5. Greek-English Concordance** (Greek terms with English equivalents for scholarly reference)?