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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 July 2025
This chapter considers the presentation of virtue and happiness in the Meditations and asks how far this matches the distinctive features of Stoic thinking on these topics. The main topics considered are (1) the virtue–indifferents distinction, (2) the presentation of the virtues as forming groups or as unified in some way, (3) the virtue-happiness relationship and the idea of happiness as ‘the life according to nature’, meaning according to human or universal nature (or both). Overall, it is suggested that, although Marcus’s focus in the work is on the contribution of these ideas to his overall project of ethical self-improvement, his presentation largely reflects the ideas and connections between them that we find in the standard ancient accounts of Stoic ethics.
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