Where Do Our Responsibilities Begin and End?
Learning to Distinguish What Is Ours—and What Is Another’s
In book 1, chapter 25 of the Discourses, Epictetus engages in a discussion that does not directly mention what late modern interpreters of Stoicism have called the “dichotomy of control”, that is, the distinction between what is up to us and not up to us. But it runs along the same lines with slightly different language, since he speaks of “what is yours” (ta sa) and what is another person’s (tōn allotriōn). He advises that we should guard (tērei) in every way what is our own, but not seek or long after (ephieso) what belongs to other people.
Why? Those familiar with the passages that introduce the “dichotomy of control” will recognize the language he uses here. Things that are our own are “unhindered and unrestrained” (akōlusta kai aparapodista), and the opposite is the case for things that are another’s. That is because the things that really are up to us, nobody else has power or authority (exousian) over, but the things that are another’s, someone else does (perhaps them, or perhaps yet another person).
He also tells us that people ask for directions or commands. “Tell me what to do” (entailai moi). He responds: “What should I have to tell you? Hasn’t God given you directions?” We’ve already been given some guidance (entolēn) when we arrived here in the world, and even a sort of order (diatagma), consisting precisely in making that distinction between what’s ours or up to us, and what’s someone else’s and up to them.
All of this is applicable to the relationships that we have with other people, even more so what he says next about what is ours and what is another’s.
Your fidelity is your own. Your self-respect is your own. Who is capable of taking such things from you? Who else will hinder you from making use of them, except for you? But how do you act? You preoccupy yourself with what is not your own, and you lose what is your own.
There’s a lot to unpack from this short passage. Those terms “fidelity” (pistis) and “self-respect” (aidēmon) actually name two of the specific moral virtues that the Stoics recognized as being subordinate, that is, as falling under the headings of the cardinal virtues. Fidelity is an important component of the virtue of justice, and self-respect (or “modesty”, more frequently written as aidomusunē) similarly belongs within the scope of temperance. The Stoics recognized a host of other subordinate virtues, and Epictetus might have used any of the other ones as examples in this passage.
Each of us, as a human being, a rational animal whose very nature (the Stoics think) is social, has the capacity for each and all of the virtues. Whether or not we develop them within us, that’s a different matter. But just assuming we possess some measure of certain of those virtues (which clearly seems to be what Epictetus ascribes to the person he is addressing), it is up to us what we do with them, the use that we make of them (khrēthai), as he says.
What about the virtues, or the lacks thereof, the vices, of other people? They are those persons’, not ours. Whether or not they develop them, possess them, hold onto them, act upon them — while we might be able to provide them with some guidance, support, education, or the like — those are ultimately up to them.
What are the implications of all of this for our many relationships? When we become entangled or intertwined with others, particularly when the relationship is a close, intense, or even intimate one, there are two correlative temptations we become subject to and often give in to as well.
One of these is to wrongly think that whatever virtue we possess somehow becomes contingent upon what the other person does. We feel and fear that our fidelity could be lost by what our family member, our friend, our significant other, even a person we vouched for, does or fails to do. We think our perseverance or industriousness could be undermined by someone else that we are connected with. Our temperance, even when we maintain ourselves within reasonable limits and exercise self-control, could be undermined in our minds by what our partner indulges in. All of these are mistakes.
The other works the opposite direction, and involves holding ourselves responsible for the virtue or vice of others, as if they are something in our power, rather than human beings who just like ourselves, possess what Epictetus calls the prohairesis, the faculty of choice that lies at the core of our very being. If they develop or lose their self-respect, act in accordance with or against justice, exhibit courage or cowardice, that is not because we made them do so. And if we retain our fidelity while they cast it away, we have to avoid mistakenly assuming that their error drags our moral character down as well.
In fact, Epictetus tells us that if we preoccupy ourselves (spoudasēs) with the characters, the choices, the motivations, the actions of others, even how they appear to others, that is things that are not our own, we are losing the things that are our own. We can lose our focus on, and our attention to our own side of the proverbial street. By attempting to control more than one actually can, one inevitably loses one’s grasp even on what did reside in one’s power.
Does this mean that we shouldn’t care at all about the actions and character of those who we are close with? Not at all! In fact, when we are in a relationship with another person who we feel matters, it’s reasonable to feel concern for them. But unless you really do want to overstress yourself by making yourself responsible for what actually are their responsibilities, which is likely to introduce unneeded frustrations and resentments into the relationship, it might be useful when you run into a situation where you’re blurring the lines between what’s yours and what’s not, to remind yourself of what Epictetus has to tell us.
As always, we end with three questions it might prove productive to ask yourself:
When a person you’re connected with behaves badly, do you think or feel that this “reflects upon” you?
If you do think that the actions or character of another person does reflect upon you, can you explain why and how this is actually the case?
When you do shift your focus away from what is yours — your own character and actions — to what another person is doing, does that ever put the virtues you’re developing at risk?
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