We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Kant and the Stoics about the Results of Human Agency
from Part II - Virtue and Eudaimonia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2025
Adam Smith ridicules the Stoics for neglecting the objects of virtuous choice. They think of life, he says, as a kind of game, the point of which is not winning but playing well, playing fairly and playing skillfully. The Stoics thus misrepresent what is at stake in our lives. This chapter discusses the difference between Kantian and Stoic ethics by focusing on questions raised by Smith’s analogy: Should the Stoics be troubled by his critique? Can the same criticism be leveled against Kantian ethics? How does the Kantian category of conditional goodness differ from the Stoic category of moral indifferents? And is Kant’s anti-eudaimonism – his insistence that virtue does not coincide with happiness – as significant a departure from Stoicism as he would have us believe?
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
