Neither the Buddhists nor the Stoics believed in what has come to be called “original sin”—that we are a fallen and flawed and broken species. On the contrary, they believe we were born good. To them, the phrase “Be natural” was the same as “Do the right thing.” For Aristotle, virtue wasn’t just something contained in the soul—it was how we lived. It was what we did. He called it eudaimonia: human flourishing.
