All good, the Stoics say, is expedient, binding, profitable, useful, serviceable, beautiful, beneficial, desirable, and just or right.
It is expedient, because it brings about things of such a kind that by their occurrence we are benefited.
It is binding, because it causes unity where unity is needed; profitable, because it defrays what is expended on it, so that the return yields a balance of benefit on the transaction.
It is useful, because it secures the use of benefit; it is serviceable, because the utility it affords is worthy of all praise.
It is beautiful, because the good is proportionate to the use made of it; beneficial, because by its inherent nature it benefits; choiceworthy, because it is such that to choose it is reasonable.
It is also just or right, inasmuch as it is in harmony with law and tends to draw men together.
—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.99
IMAGE: Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Detail from Allegory of Good Government (1339)
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