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The following Spark quotations come from the Cave’s

The Best of the Early Stoics: The Lives, Writings & Teachings of the Early Stoics.

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Spark 1 ▪ What Motivates a Living Thing

Spark 1 Quotation

The Stoics declare that nature originally made no difference between plants and animals. Nature regulates the life of plants without the use of impulse and sensation, just as certain plant-like processes go on in us. But for animals, impulse was added to this general rule of nature later on. Impulse makes animals pursue what is suitable. Nature’s rule for animals is to follow the direction of impulse. . . . For those beings we call rational, the rational life correctly became the natural life when reason was given to them by means of a more perfect rule. Reason was added to shape impulse as a skilled craftsman.—Diogenes Laertius

Spark 1 Questions

1. What do you make of the Stoic division of living beings into plants, animals, and “those beings we call rational” (i.e., human beings)? Is this how contemporary science generally views livings beings?

2. If “plant-like processes” are those that do not involve “impulse and sensation,” what, do you think, are some “plant-like processes [that] go on in us”? Are we humans also, like other animals, moved by “impulse” (or instinct) to “pursue what is suitable”? If so, what do you judge is “suitable”? Compare us human beings to one or two animals (say a dog, lion, or chimpanzee, or another animal of your choosing).

3. According to the Stoics, it is natural for an animal to live by impulse (or instinct). Not so for us human beings. Rather, for us, reason is intended “to shape impulse as a skilled craftsman.” What do you believe the Stoics meant by saying this? Give one or two examples. Do you agree or disagree? Explain.

Spark 2 ▪ The Goal of Life

Spark 2 Quotation

The Stoics declare that the goal of life is to live in conformity with nature—that is, with our own nature as well as with the nature of the whole cosmos. Accordingly, one holds back from every action forbidden by the law common to all things—that is to say, the right reason that pervades all things and is the same as Zeus, who leads the administration of every existing thing. This very thing is the virtue of the happy man and the good flow of life, when all actions promote the harmony of the divine power dwelling in each man with the will of the administrator of the whole cosmos.”—Diogenes Laertes

Spark 2 Questions

1. According to the Stoics, what is the goal of life? What does it mean “to live in conformity with nature”? What is the role of “right reason” relative to the goal of life? How is the god Zeus related to “right reason” (by the Stoics)?

2. What is happiness for the Stoics? That is, what is “the virtue of the happy man and the good flow of life?”

3. Do you agree with the Stoics regarding the goal of life and happiness? If you do agree, why? If not, what do you believe the goal of life is? In your mind, what is happiness?

Spark 3 ▪ Self-Preservation or Pleasure

Spark 3 Quotation

The Stoics say that an animal’s first impulse is to self-preservation since nature endears the animal to itself from the beginning. . . . Nature has made the animal so that it is near and dear to itself. As such, it pushes away all that is harmful and pulls near all that is suitable and fitting. The Stoics declare false the assertion—made by some*—that the first urge or impulse of animals is directed toward pleasure. By contrast they say that pleasure, if it is anything at all, is a byproduct that never comes until nature by itself has sought and taken those things suitable to the animal’s constitution.—Diogenes Laertes

*Either the Cyrenaic philosophers or Epicureans.

Spark 3 Questions

1. Is it accurate to say that “an animal’s first impulse is to self-preservation”? Is this true for human beings?

2. If “self-preservation” is our human “first impulse” (as animals), then what do we need or require to preserve ourselves? What things are “suitable and fitting”? Healthful? Beneficial? What things are not suitable and fitting? Harmful? Is what we need the same for every dimension of our existence (our bodies and minds, for instance)?

3. The Stoics deny that our “first urge or impulse is directed toward pleasure.” Others, such as the Cyrenaic philosophers and Epicureans, disagreed, positing pleasure as “the goal of life,” and “our first good, present at birth,” “the beginning point and goal of living happily.”* Who do you agree with? Explain?

*To learn about their positions, read chapters 12 (“Aristippus of Cyrene & Cyrenaicism”) and 15 (“Epicurus & Epicureanism”) in the Cave’s Happiness: What the Ancient Greeks Thought and Said about Happiness.