KATHĒKONTA: THE ETHICS OF THE ORDINARY MAN

Abstract

Stoic ethics has a broadly human and social characteristic and this characteristic is most evident through the term kathēkonta that we translate as adequate acts with a strong social emphasis, at least in the writings of the Stoic philosopher Hierocles. In this article, we broadly present the concept of kathēkonta, its importance for an ethics that takes into account the ordinary or common individual with their social relationships and circumstances. Although Stoic ethics has metaphysical (the topic of Stoic physics) and theological (Zeus or Divine Nature) foundations, the kethēkonta as an ethics of the ordinary or common individual has as a parameter the social relationships we establish, the empirical circumstances of these relationships, the agency and its characteristics as human nature. One can think that the basis of this ethics of the kathēkonta is, instead of metaphysics, both the Stoic cosmopolitanism, where we are all equal citizens of the same cosmos, and the Stoic sympathy, which connects us both through our human rationality and our nature as human beings. We will define kathēkonta as adequate social acts and we will affirm their importance, nowadays, for a foundation of social cohesion.