Stoic account of benefits

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Often appears with: justice as a virtue · ingratitude · gratitude and ingratitude · good vs bad character · benefit as intention

Usually: argument (1) · detachment (1) · exhortation (1)

Quotable

“A benefit is that which does good; but, as you Stoics say, no one can do good to a bad man; therefore, a bad man does not receive a benefit.” Lucius Annaeus Seneca, L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits · insight

L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits primary

Lucius Annaeus Seneca · c. 59-65 CE (approx.)
BOOK I. The prevalence of ingratitude--How a benefit ought to be bestowed--The three Graces--Benefits are the chief bond of human society--What we owe in return for a benefit received--A benefit consists not of a thing but of the wish to do good--Socrates and > BOOK V. (11/22)

Seneca argues with Stoic logic that true benefits come from wishing good, so bad people cannot receive benefits and therefore cannot be genuinely ungrateful.

for the sake of him to whom it is given; but he who bestows a benefit upon himself, does so for his own sake; therefore, it is not a benefit. XII. Now I seem to you not to have made good what I said at the beginning of this book. You say that I am far from doing what is worth any one's while; nay, that in real fact I have thrown away all my trouble. Wait, and soon you will be able to say this more truly, for I shall…