Vol. XXXVIII / 1 - Studia Moralia

ST. AUGUSTINE’S CRITIQUE OF THE ADIAPHORA 169
and vice). Indeed, many things that we value highly (and which
definitely contribute to a happy life) can be put to a good or bad
use. Thus, the mere possession of wealth neither guarantees
happiness nor renders us immune to misery. By the same token,
poverty does not necessarily render one miserable or susceptible
to injury. The Stoic determinant of value, then, is always conformity
with nature: things in accordance with nature (i.e. things
“to-be-taken”) are valuable, despite the fact that they are never
the necessary conditions of happiness (at least not for the genuinely
virtuous individual). 6
On the basis of this criterion of value, however, we can at
least say that some things or states of being are “preferable” to
others.
Some valuable things have much value and others little. So
too some disvaluable things have much disvalue and others little.
Those which have much value are called ‘preferred’ and those
which have much disvalue ‘dispreferred’. That is preferred...
which, though indifferent, we select on the basis of a preferential
reason. The like principle applies to being dispreferred, and
the examples are analogous. 7
In effect, the notion of oikeiosis presupposes an innate tendency
to promote one’s being, and by implication, to choose
those alternatives which are most conducive to the attainment
of this end.
Therefore Chryssipus was right to say: “As long as the future
is uncertain to me I always hold to those things which are
better adapted to obtaining the things in accordance with nature;
for god himself has made me disposed to select these.” 8
The moral agent, then, must decide how to act in a given
situation in a manner which stands in accordance with nature.
6 STOBAEUS 2,83,10-84,2.
7 STOBAEUS 2,84,18-85,11.
8 EPICTETUS, Discourses 2,6,9.