ABSTRACT
The chapter aims to discuss the Stoic argument concerning the compatibility between fate and the moral accountability. Starting from the conception of philosophy as unitary system, it expounds Zeno’s conception of causality, the existence of fate based on the assumption that everything happens by antecedent causes and shows that Chrysippus’ distinction between causes was designed to avoid the necessary connection between the antecedent causes and the impulses and assents and not as the expression of a new approach to a physical problem. By the analogy between the cylinder and the cone and human action, Chrysippus intended to demonstrate that our actions, albeit included in the causal network, are determined mainly by our nature, but not by it alone. Both assent and representation bring about human action as cooperating causes. Assent is not externally forced by representation, though we do not have any possibility of acting otherwise because assent acts within the framework of “what remains” after the external antecedent cause has acted.
