Kathēkon () (plural: ''kathēkonta'' ) is a Greek concept, forged by the founder of

Stoicism Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics believed that the universe operated according to reason, ''i.e.'' by a God which is immersed in nature itself. Of all the schools of ancient ...

Zeno of Citium Zeno of Citium (; , ; c. 334 – c. 262 BC) was a Hellenistic philosophy, Hellenistic philosopher from Kition, Citium (, ), Cyprus. He was the founder of the Stoicism, Stoic school of philosophy, which he taught in Athens from about 300 BC. B ...

. It may be translated as "appropriate behaviour", "befitting actions", or "convenient action for nature",Nova Roma
interview of A. Poliseno, "Stoicism in Ancient Rome", or also "proper function". ''Kathekon'' was translated in Latin by

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

as '' officium'', and by Seneca as ''convenentia''. ''Kathēkonta'' are contrasted, in Stoic ethics, with ''katorthōma'' (κατόρθωμα; plural: ''katorthōmata''), roughly "perfect action"

In Stoicism

According to Stoic philosophy, each being, whether animate or inanimate (plant, animal or human), carries on fitting actions corresponding to its own nature, which is the primary sense of ''kathēkon''. The morality of the act resides not in the act itself, but the way in which it is realized.

Perfect actions

While the acts of a layperson are always misguided (ἁμαρτήματα ''hamartēmata'' "mistakes," or ''peccata''), the acts of the sage are always ''katorthōmata'', perfect actions, because the sage acts in view of the good, while the ordinary being (layperson, animal or plant) acts only in view of its survival. Such a ''katorthōma'' is done in harmony with all virtues, which the Stoics believed were intertwined, while the layperson may only act in accordance with one virtue, but not all of them. Stoics believe that all virtues are intertwined and that the perfect act encompasses all of them. Stoics often referred to these ''katorthōmata'' as ''kathēkonta'' which "possessed all the numbers" (''pantas apechon tous arithmous''), a metaphor for perfection referring to all of the virtues being in harmony. The sage also ''necessarily'' carries out ''katorthōmata'': in exceptional circumstances, a sage could carry out a ''katorthōma'' which, according to ordinary standards, would be deemed monstrous, such as mutilating himself.

Diogenes Laërtius Diogenes Laërtius ( ; , ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Little is definitively known about his life, but his surviving book ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek ph ...

, '' Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'', VII, 108–109 (SVF III, 495, 496; transl. in Long, A. A.; Sedley, D. N. (1987), 59E)

Indifferent actions

Stoic philosophers distinguished another, intermediary level between ''kathēkonta'' and ''katorthōmata'': ''mesa kathēkonta'', or indifferent actions (which are neither appropriate, nor good). A list of ''kathēkonta'' would include: to stay in good health, to respect one's parents, etc. ''Para to kathēkon'', or actions contrary to befitting actions, would be the reverse of this type of actions (to insult one's parents, etc.) Intermediary actions refers to "indifferent things" (ἀδιάφορα – '' adiaphora''), which are in themselves neither good nor bad, but may be used in a convenient way or not. Such "indifferent things" include wealth, health, etc. These are not excluded from the domain of morality as one might expect: Cicero thus underlined, in '' De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum'' (About the Ends of Goods and Evils, III, 58–59), that when the wise person acts in the sphere of "indifferent things," he still acts conveniently, according to his own nature.

References

Bibliography

* Long, A. A.; Sedley, D. N. (1987).'' The Hellenistic Philosophers: vol. 1. translations of the principal sources with philosophical commentary'' {{Stoicism Concepts in ancient Greek ethics Concepts in ancient Greek philosophy of mind Stoicism