Abstract

H. Richard Niebuhr makes a bold but as yet little analyzed appeal to the Stoics in "The Responsible Self", the roots of which are present in earlier works. Stoicism, especially in Ciceronian dress, is the source of his doctrine of the fitting and "cathēkontic ethics." Niebuhr's appeal to the Stoics is grounded in the belief that their theory is more adequate to the complexities of the human self than are some alternative philosophical models. Yet he is not a Stoic. His commitment is to such truth as the Stoics also see rather than to the Stoics as a movement.