The Problem of Moral Progress and Stoic Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

The article is devoted to showing the connection between the moral progress and the cos­mopolitanism of the Stoic. Since the early Stoics considered the right reason (ὀρθὸς λόγος) as one of the basic conditions for the unification of gods and humankind into a single com­munity (κοσμόπολις), anyone who intends to join to this community must develop his or her reason to the highest level. It means that the cosmopolitan must be morally perfect, which implies that he or she has successfully completed the process of moral progress. However, the concept of moral progress in Stoicism (especially in the early one) is prob­lematic because the Stoics denied a qualitative difference between vicious people and be­lieved that all bad deeds are equal. The author of the article tries to remove this contradic­tion by introducing a two-level structure of moral progress, in which the gradation of moral development and qualitative changes in the moral character of the subject are spaced. The cosmopolitanism of the Stoics and their ideas about moral progress are united not only by the concept of «right reason», but also by their doctrine of «oikeiôsis», which implies the development of natural inclinations to the highest principles of morality. Finally, the inter­dependence of moral progress and the cosmopolitanism is demonstrated by their evolution with the development of the Stoic school. This evolution is expressed in the fact that, on the one hand, the Stoics perfected the tools for moral development, which paved a clearer path to the cosmopolis, and on the other hand, they reduced the requirements for the citi­zens of the cosmopolis, which also led to the growth of the community of gods and people.