The Stoics and Cynics - The Sense of Virtue and Virtue

Stoics follow socrates in claiming that nothing but wisdom and virtue is truly valuable. They adopt the socratic point that things like well, health and political power are just as capable of aiding evil as furthering goodness. Any good that attaches to them is derived only from virtue, and they have no value in themselves. Here i think we can detect a family resemblance between stoicism and cynicism. This is not surprising when we recall that zeno, the founder of stoicism, supposedly associated with the cynic philosopher, crates. The cynic philosopher's faith in himself as utterly self reliant, clothed only in virtue, finds an echo in this stoic idea.