Excising the parts that don't fit

Modern scholars who believe they are comparing similarity/difference along a spectrum called morality arbitrarily excise certain parts from more densely complicated wholes and name these parts “moral.” What is here obscured is the fact that the ancients did not think they were reflecting upon moral questions or developing disciplines to lead them in moral lives. They thought, instead, that they were reflecting upon and practicing how to live an entire life. It is true that they wrote much about the virtues, of course, but the virtues were exemplified within wider philosophical accounts of how to live. In short, where the modern way of speaking makes one think in terms of a spectrum, or a theme, or a particular area of life along or within which ancient views can be plotted or placed, the ancients did not detach their “moral” thinking from their total lives. To the degree that we compare parts without the density of the whole, we continue to project modern abstractions onto the ancient sources and obscure the fact that what is really juxtaposed in the question of “comparison" is a full way to live. “Morality” in the ancient sense is a specifically traditioned way to live a full human life.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 193

<idle musing>
This is very true. But he still hasn't given us a way forward, has he? He seems to be hinting at one, but it still not obvious to me.
</idle musing>