Seneca, On the Happy Life 19: Virtue Always as an End 1

"But," says our adversary, "you yourself only practice virtue because you hope to obtain some pleasure from it." In the first place, even though virtue may afford us pleasure, still we do not seek after her on that account: for she does not bestow this, but bestows this to boot, nor is this the end for which she labors, but her labor wins this also, although it be directed to another end.

 As in a tilled field, when ploughed for corn, some flowers are found amongst it, and yet, though these posies may charm the eye, all this labor was not spent in order to produce them—the man who sowed the field had another object in view, he gained this over and above it—so pleasure is not the reward or the cause of virtue, but comes in addition to it. Nor do we choose virtue because she gives us pleasure, but she gives us pleasure also if we choose her.

The highest good lies in the act of choosing her, and in the attitude of the noblest minds, which when once it has fulfilled its function and established itself within its own limits has attained to the highest good, and needs nothing more. For there is nothing outside of the whole, any more than there is anything beyond the end. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 9 (tr Stewart)

The ancient Epicureans, or the modern Utilitarians, or the sensualists of any time or place, might still insist that we desire virtue because we understand that it leads to what is pleasurable. We can simply employ our reason, they claim, to see that being a bad man is actually not very satisfying at all, and that being a good man will give us the satisfaction we crave. By all means, the argument goes, practice virtue, but in the knowledge of why we should practice it.

Seneca will still not budge in this matter, because I suspect he recognizes the gravity of what is at stake. There can be no confusion as to whether good actions or good feelings are the complete goal, and there can be no circularity in stating that not all pleasures are desirable, while at the same time saying actions are desirable precisely because they are pleasurable. The fundamental issue is whether the highest good of human nature, toward which all other goods are ordered, is defined by how we live, or by how we feel.

Remember that the Stoic does not deny us pleasure, or ask that it be removed from our lives. The Stoic will gladly embrace the reality that a good man can fell pleasure through his virtue, and that such pleasure can be of the most wonderful and the most beautiful sort. What matters is not only what we do and what we feel, but why we do what we do, and how our actions and passions are rightly related.

I often think not only of whether I should help my neighbor, but also of why I should help my neighbor, and toward what end my deeds are ordered. Perhaps I want my neighbor’s gratitude, or a favor in return down the line, or the respect of the community, or maybe just that warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from having made a difference. I may or may not receive such benefits, but as soon as I have any of them in mind as my purpose, I haven’t really helped my neighbor at all, but done something for the sake of my own passions. The giving became a means to the receiving, and in this sense the giving became entirely accidental.

Virtue is only virtuous when it is for its own sake, just as love is only love for the sake of the beloved. Once I have passed the good on, so to speak, to something beyond itself, I have compromised and relativized both virtue and love.

Is the farmer right to enjoy the beauty of wild flowers in his cultivated field? Yes, but that is not why he should have cultivated the field. Is the worker right to enjoy praise and promotion for his efforts? Yes, but that is not why he should have worked hard. Is any man right to feel pleasure for having done the right thing? Yes, but that is not why he should have done the right thing. The pleasure is not the end itself, but something that can accompany the end. My own variation of Seneca’s lesson is that I should gladly enjoy a good life, but it hardly became good because I enjoyed it.

My own experience has taught me that I will sometimes initially feel a certain pain when I have followed my conscience, but that such pain will usually be replaced by rather unexpected pleasures when I can think through why anything I did really mattered. A worry about the things outside of my power gives way to an appreciation for the things within my power.

Yet as soon as I treat feeling itself as a cause of what is good in life, or as the end of what is good in life, I have thrown away any and all of the benefits. By deliberately seeking only an incomplete good, I have lost all of what is good. 

Written in 11/2004

Image: Vincent van Gogh, Wheat Field (1888)