  We might wonder why anything should be called according to nature, or preferred, if there are circumstances in which it is not.  Why not reserve the label ‘according to nature’ for what is fated? The heterodox Stoic Aristo of Chios denied that any indifferents were to be preferred by nature, pointing out that the same thing could be preferred in one circumstance and dispreferred in another (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors 11.64–7).  However, the orthodox Stoics seem to insist that preferability, and being in accordance with nature, is an intrinsic character of some things, and Diogenes Laertius reports a distinction between appropriate actions that do not depend on circumstances, such as looking after one’s health and sense-organs, and appropriate actions that are appropriate only in certain circumstances, such as mutilating oneself (Diogenes Laertius vii.108–9).  So it is not true of all, but only some, appropriate actions that their appropriateness is circumstantial. Perhaps the idea is that while it is only true for the most part that health (or strength or well functioning sense organs) is in accordance with nature, this does not mean that the naturalness of health (strength, well functioning sense organs) depends on the circumstances.  On this view, what health is for a species is defined by the species’ nature, and that is unconditionally according to its nature.