The Four Cardinal Virtues
Wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance are the four pillars of virtuous character, unified expressions of a single rational excellence.
Stoics identified four primary virtues: phronesis (practical wisdom), andreia (courage), dikaiosyne (justice), and sophrosyne (temperance). These four are not separate qualities but unified expressions of a single rational excellence directed at different spheres of life. One cannot possess one truly without possessing all.
There is nothing good except virtue and nothing bad except vice.
The unity of the virtues thesis connects Stoic ethics to the Socratic tradition while giving it a distinctly rational foundation.
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