How the Stoics made hard decisions

The surviving Stoic texts contain no decision algorithm, and the Stoic decision trees online are modern summaries. The sources offer a handful of passages instead, each putting a different question to a choice: what it will cost, whether you can carry it, what you are aiming at, and whether it is right.

Look at what comes first and what follows

Epictetus states his rule in Enchiridion 29, part of the short handbook of his teaching compiled by his student Arrian.

The trouble he describes is not choosing badly but choosing without looking. You start something “carelessly and with cold desire,” and the ugly parts show up later, when backing out is embarrassing: the language course abandoned in February, the renovation that was supposed to take a month.

The case he takes is a man who wants an Olympic victory. Epictetus makes him count all of it: meals by rule and no delicacies, training on the trainer’s schedule in heat and cold, a strained hand or a dislocated ankle, mouthfuls of dust, a flogging, and then, after everything, defeat. If he has seen all that and still wants the contest, he should go.

Take a part-time master’s degree while working full time. What comes first is the application, the tuition and a conversation at home. What follows is two years of evenings and weekends, and the chance that the promotion you hoped for goes elsewhere anyway. None of that has to stop you, but it has to be seen before you sign.

Then he turns the look on you: “examine your own nature, if you are able to sustain the character.” That is a question of fit, not of worth; Epictetus tells the would-be wrestler to look at his own arms and thighs, because people are built for different things (Enchiridion 29). Can you face coursework at nine at night, three nights a week, after a full day? An honest no is useful information.

Know what kind of act it is

Enchiridion 4 makes the same move on a smaller scale, with a trip to the public baths.

A Roman bath came with splashing, shoving, abuse and the odd theft, and Epictetus counts all of it as part of the act you are choosing: “remind yourself what kind of an act it is” before you go. Then he attaches a second intention to the first. You intend to bathe, and also “to maintain my will in a manner conformable to nature.” A splash can spoil the bath. It can spoil the second intention only if you let it vex you, which is where the passage ends.

Suppose you are deciding whether to join a young company. You know what kind of act that is: reorganizations, plans that change mid-quarter, launches that eat weekends. If you take the job, take it intending both to do the work and to stay fair and steady through the chaos. If the company folds, the first intention failed for reasons that were never yours; the second was never at the company’s mercy. Part of every decision is a wager on how things go. This part is a commitment you can keep.

Compare the load with your strength

Seneca comes at the problem from another side in On Tranquility of Mind, written for his friend Annaeus Serenus.

His checklist has three items: you, the business, and “those for whose sake or in whose company we transact it.” You come first, because as a rule “we think that we can do more than we are able.”

Say a close friend asks you to start a small business with her. Yourself: do you have the hours, the savings and the temperament, judged on an ordinary week rather than your best one? The business: will it stay the size you agree to, or is it one of those ventures “which grow in importance, while they are being transacted”? The people: what happens to the friendship if the business struggles?

His rule of thumb is physical: “the bearer ought always to be more powerful than his load.” Just before telling you to “apply yourself to something which you can finish,” he warns against commitments you are not free to withdraw from. The bearer can still carry a great deal, once he has measured it.

An aim for the whole of life

Other decisions stall because nothing settles what would count as getting them right. Seneca takes this up in Letter 71 to Lucilius, given here in labeled paraphrase because the usual English translations are still under copyright in many countries.

The letter opens, in our words, with Seneca warning Lucilius, who has asked his advice by post, that by the time an answer arrives the situation may have changed (Letter 71.1). Particular advice goes stale; an aim travels. A few lines later he names the aim: what is honorable is the highest good (Letter 71.4). Every smaller choice can then be steered by that one fixed point.

This helps most with decisions that keep coming back, such as whether to stay late again. Asked as “what do I get?”, each is a fresh calculation. Asked as “which of these can I do honorably?”, many answer themselves, and when more than one option passes, you can pick either and stop reopening the question.

When the question is already answered

In Epictetus’s world, people often consulted a diviner before a large undertaking. Enchiridion 32 is his advice on how to do it, and when not to.

Two points carry over. The first concerns what you are asking for. You consult because “you do not know how it will turn out,” but the result, being outside your power, is neither good nor bad in itself, and whatever it is, “it will be in your power to use it well.” Polling every friend and reading one more round of reviews are modern ways of asking the diviner to take away the risk. Nobody can.

The second concerns which questions need asking at all. When a friend or your country is in danger, “you must not consult the diviner whether you ought to share it.” If a friend needs help getting out of a bad situation this weekend, the only open question is how.

None of this is against advice. Epictetus adds, citing Socrates, that divination is for questions neither reason nor any skill can answer, and Marcus told himself that when he could not see his way clearly, he should stop and get the best advice he could (Meditations 10.12, in our words). On a medical, legal or financial question, ask someone qualified. No one else can settle what is right for you to do.

The questions in one place

Together, these passages give a set of questions rather than a decision tree. The order isn’t fixed; a small decision may need only one.

The last row matters most to a Stoic, because it judges the choice rather than the result.

The virtue check

The Stoics held that virtue is the only true good, so the final test of a decision is whether it is wise, just, courageous and temperate. Marcus Aurelius told himself to keep two rules ready:

The first is to do only what reason proposes “for the use of men.” The second governs changing your mind: changing course because someone shows you “what is just or of common advantage” is fine; changing it because the other option “appears pleasant or brings reputation” is what he rules out.

Here is how the four virtues work on a family decision. Your father can no longer manage alone, and you are deciding whether he should move in with you. Wisdom asks what he actually needs and what your home can absorb. Justice asks what is fair to him, to your partner and children, and to siblings who could share the work. Courage may be needed for the conversation with those siblings; temperance may mean not volunteering to do everything yourself.

The closest free exercise is the app’s Four Virtues practice, which you can do on this site. You describe the situation, put it to wisdom, to justice, and to courage and restraint in turn, and finish with one next action.

After you decide

A Stoic judges a decision by what went into it: whether you looked ahead, measured the load, knew your aim and chose something you could do well. You can do all of that and still see the business fail, as Epictetus’s athlete can do every bit of the training and still lose. That alone doesn’t make the decision wrong.

Seneca advises never promising yourself anything on Fortune’s security (On Tranquility of Mind 13); planning with that condition in mind now goes by a modern name, the reserve clause. If the choice itself was careless or unfair, that is a mistake of conduct to learn from; the guide to failure and setbacks covers regret. Either way, the second intention from the bath is still yours.