Short Road to Happiness or Short Cut to Virtue?
In early Cynic writings Cynicism is called "the short road to happiness." Crates is represented as writing "That of Diogenes is found to be the short road to happiness" (13th Letter); also, "If this way of being a philosopher is unpleasant, it is a short cut. It leads to happiness, even though, as Diogenes said, we have to walk through fire" (6th Letter). The reference here appears to be to the 30th Letter of Diogenes, in which we find, "I, feeling my superiority to hardship, preferred the steep and difficult road, for the desire for happiness was urgent upon me though it should carry me through fire and swords." Crates is also represented as writing; "Do not shun practicing (Cynicism) but avoid discoursing, for the long road to happiness is through discourses, but that through the daily practice of deeds is the short way" (21st Letter).
But in later writings we find Cynicism spoken of as a "short road to virtue". "The Cynics say that they have found a short cut and, as it were, a forced march to virtue" (Plutarch, Amatorius 759). "They (Cynics) also dispense with the ordinary subjects of instruction... hence it has been said that Cynicism is a short cut to virtue" (D. L. 6, 104). "Cynicism being a short cut to virtue as Apollodorus calls it in his Ethics" (D. L. 7, 121). "They (Cynics) say that they are traveling the short and ready road to virtue. I would that they were going by the longer. For they would more readily arrive by that road than by this of theirs" (Julian, 7, 225). Why should "virtue" have been substituted for "happiness" as the Cynic objective? They were beggars and they may have found that teachers of virtue were more likely to receive contributions than men who were merely seeking their own happiness.
Blogging Diogenes of Sinope by Farrand Sayre
The Cynics Referred to the Habits of Animals
Slump towards Animalism
Attitude of the Cynics Towards Pleasure
Happiness Did Not Exclude Pleasure
Diogenes as Hedonist
Despising Pleasure is Pleasurable
What is Virtue for a Cynic: Cats for Thievery
What is Virtue for a Cynic: Promiscuous Sexual Intercourse
Image: Crates of Thebes Public Domain
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