This is why, if you align your self-interest with virtue, holiness, goodness, country, parents, and friends, all of these are protected. But if you put your self-interest in one place and put your friends, country, family, and justice somewhere else, all those good things get crushed under the weight of self-interest. Whatever you identify with — that's where you'll naturally lean. If you identify with your body, that's where your focus goes. If you identify with your will, that's where it goes. If you identify with external things, that's where it goes. Only when I identify with my will can I be the friend, son, and father I should be. Because then it's in my interest to be faithful, modest, patient, self-controlled, helpful, and to honor my relationships. But if I put myself in one place and honesty in another, then Epicurus becomes right when he says either virtue doesn't exist or it's just whatever people think is virtuous.
For this reason, if a man put in the same place his interest, sanctity, goodness, and country, and parents, and friends, all these are secured: but if he puts in one place his interest, in another his friends, and his country and his kinsmen and justice itself, all these give way, being borne down by the weight of interest. For where the I and the Mine are placed, to that place of necessity the animal inclines; if in the flesh, there is the ruling power; if in the will, it is there; and if it is in externals, it is there. If then I am there where my will is, then only shall I be a friend such as I ought to be, and son, and father; for this will be my interest, to maintain the character of fidelity, of modesty, of patience, of abstinence, of active co-operation, of observing my relations (towards all). But if I put myself in one place, and honesty in another, then the doctrine of Epicurus becomes strong, which asserts either that there is no honesty or it is that which opinion holds to be honest (virtuous).