The Dichotomy of Control in Ethics

Grappling with suffering in the world

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

One of the most well-known and popular principles of Stoicism—what has become known as the dichotomy of control—goes like this:

Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing. The things that are within our power are by nature free, and immune to hindrance and obstruction, while those that are not, within our power are weak, slavish, subject to hindrance, and not our own.

Remember, then, that if you regard that which is by nature slavish as being free, and that which is not your own as being your own, you'll have cause to lament, you'll have a troubled mind, and you'll find fault with both gods and human beings; but if you regard only that which is your own as being your own, and that which isn't your own as not being your own (as is indeed the case), no one will ever be able to coerce you, no one will hinder you, you'll find fault with no one, you'll accuse no one, you'll do nothing whatever against your will, you'll have no enemy, and no one will ever harm you because no harm can affect you.

This is the opening line of the Handbook that one of Epictetus’s students (Arrian) compiled from his collective teachings, and it’s one of the first Stoic ideas that many people encounter. The dichotomy of control receives a great deal of attention in modern writings on Stoicism (including my own), and it’s a staple feature of pop-culture Stoicism.

Yet it is also the subject of much misunderstanding. Contrary to some interpretations, Epictetus certainly did not mean that we shouldn’t care about anyone or anything outside of yourself. As Chris Gill and I write in Stoic Ethics: The Basics, the dichotomy of control actually requires a much more nuanced understanding of our social affections. The Stoics were staunchly prosocial and advocated caring about other people.

But that subject has already been addressed before (see, for example, Michael Tremblay, Will Johncock, and Greg Sadler). Today my focus is on a different aspect of the dichotomy of control: how it can help us understand the limits of our ability to help others. If you’ve been reading Stoicism for Humans for a while, you know that I sometimes struggle with how to deal with other people’s suffering. Not just me, of course—this is one of the central concerns of humanity, and also one of the central concerns of venerable wisdom traditions such as Buddhism, Christianity, and others. How can we face a world in which so much goes wrong, in which bad things happen to good people, in which there is great pain, illness, suffering, and death?

Stoicism is often used as a tool to deal with our own suffering: facing our own hardship, pain, death, etc. Less explored is the question of how Stoicism can help us face the unfixable suffering of others. That is the issue we will explore today.

As always, I can’t claim to offer any definitive solutions to this eternal problem. I’m just going to share with you how I think through this issue for myself, and how Stoic principles have helped me face the harsh realities of the world, including the suffering of others. You may disagree with my interpretation, or you may find my ideas helpful. Either way, I think this conversation should be a bigger part of contemporary Stoicism, so let’s start thinking this through.

The Dichotomy of Control and Caring About Others

Let’s start with the facile and false solution that the dichotomy of control might seem to offer, which is to not care about anything outside our control, including other people. This view is quite mistaken, as Epictetus makes clear when he takes a negligent father to task for avoiding the suffering of his child:

Epictetus once received a visit from a government official, and after questioning him about various specific points, asked him whether he had a wife and children; and when the man replied that he had, he went on to ask, How do you find family life, then?

‘Miserable,’ the man said.

How so? For it’s surely not for this that people marry and have children, to be miserable, but rather in the hope of being happy.

‘Well, for my part,’ the man said, ‘my little children are such a source of distress to me that, not long ago, when my little daughter was ill, I couldn’t bear even to be in the room with her during her illness, but fled and stayed away until someone told me that she was well again.’

Well then, do you think you were right to have acted in that way?

‘I was behaving naturally,’ he said.

‘But that is the very thing that you must convince me of, replied Epictetus, that you were behaving in accordance with nature, and I will then convince you that whatever is one in accordance with nature is rightly done.

Discourses, 1.11, 1-5

Epictetus then proceeds to dismantle the man’s excuses one by one until he admits that he acted wrongly—that running away because he couldn’t bear to see his daughter suffering was neither natural (in the Stoic sense) nor affectionate. The truly affectionate person would be able to tame their own emotions and do the right thing, which is helping the child as much as possible.

Epictetus advocates understanding that we can’t control what other people do or what happens to them, but he certainly doesn’t suggest we should stop caring about them. Which raises the question: how do we manage to care about other people and still bear to see them suffering? Marcus Aurelius deals with this difficult task by following Epictetus’ advice to “stick to the facts” when evaluating external events:

Say nothing more to yourself than what the first impressions report. You have been told that some person is speaking ill of you? That is what you have been told: as to the further point, that he has harmed you, that you have not been told. I see that my little child is ill? I see just that; I do not see that his life is at risk. And so, in this way, always keep to first impressions and add nothing of your own from within, and then nothing bad will befall you. Or rather, add that you are well acquainted with everything that comes to pass in the world.

Meditations, 8.49

While this can be read as simply looking for the truth, it also serves as a way to reduce the emotional impact of difficult circumstances. By tamping down the evaluative and emotive content of an impression as much as possible, we can take action in situations that might otherwise be too unbearable.

I don’t know if Marcus Aurelius ever sat beside one of his sick children—his job of running the empire probably kept him away from home most of the time—but he was surely sensible of Epictetus’ admonitions to the negligent father in Discourse 1.11. As we explored in a previous post, Marcus was a sensitive soul and was probably deeply impacted by the illness and death of so many of his children. He would certainly have needed to find ways to cope with their suffering (and his own) while still doing his duty to Rome. So while verses such as

From now on, whenever you take delight in anything, call to mind the opposite impression; what harm is there in saying beneath your breath as you're kissing your child, “Tomorrow you'll die”? Or similarly to your friend, “Tomorrow you'll go abroad, or I will, and we'll never see each other again.”

Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24, 88

can be easily misinterpreted when taken out of context, they surely would have helped Marcus to deal with the constant threat and harsh reality of constant bereavement. As Epictetus put it in Discourse 3.24.60, “What is to prevent you from loving somebody as one who is subject to death, as one who may leave you?”

What We Can’t Do: Alleviate All Suffering

So we’ve now established what the dichotomy of control does not do (ask us to detach from or not care about other people) and what it does enable us to do (care about others with the knowledge that they may suffer and will certainly die). The Stoics recognized that it’s simply a brute fact of life that we are mortal and subject to suffering, and that every person must confront these realities at some point.

Some people take the Stoic idea that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and that pain and hardships are simply indifferents, to mean that we should not bother to help people who are experiencing pain or hardship. Why don’t we just tell them to be indifferent to suffering? If their happiness does not depend on an absence of pain or hardship, then why should we bother alleviating their pain or hardship?

This is a pretty complex question, which probably needs a blog post to itself, but I will just briefly say that this is yet another misinterpretation of what Stoicism is all about. Preferred indifferents such as health and good relationships are more choiceworthy than their opposites like pain and illness. We are justified in choosing them for ourselves, and in helping others attain them, when it is possible and virtuous to do so. It is appropriate for us to alleviate the pain of others when it’s within our power.

What I have struggled with in the past is the distinction between knowing what instances of suffering I’m able to alleviate and what instances I just have to accept—in other words, what is and isn’t within my power.

Clearly, there’s only so much we can do to prevent or cure illnesses and accidents in those we love. We have to try to navigate this line gracefully. For example, when my kids were small, I was always anxious as they clambered around the playground on their own. Would they know to stop at that ledge? Would they try to make a leap that was too big for their size? I didn’t want to impede their autonomy or (heaven forbid!) be a helicopter parent, but the stakes were high. I could just envision my toddler tumbling down the side of a slide and landing the wrong way, with devastating consequences.

The dichotomy of control was very helpful in these situations as I tried to focus on allowing my kids the freedom to explore without hovering over them. Now that they’re older, I use the same principle to decide whether to allow them to walk to a neighbor’s house alone, or how much freedom they can have online, or whether to let them make a bad choice about doing their homework. And whenever they get sick or injured, using Marcus Aurelius’ advice to just focus on the facts enables me to attend to the necessary tasks without dissolving in worry or anxiety. We may not always know where to draw the line between taking action and just accepting things, but I think most of us acknowledge that there is a continuum here and we have to situate our choice somewhere along this continuum.

What’s much, much harder for me is knowing how to apply the dichotomy of control to people who are less obviously within my sphere of influence. Namely, other people in the world whom I may have no connection with, but whom I might potentially be able to help. All the people who have no food, who have no love in their lives, who are desperately sad or ill or unwanted. How can I help them? How much can I help them? Where should I start, where should I stop? Should I give up some of my own comfort to alleviate some of their pain? How would I even do that?

It's not a new insight that living in the 21^st century comes with special challenges, such as being constantly bombarded by news and images of suffering from every corner of the globe. Natural disasters, environmental devastation, wars, famine, disease, poverty. These are all facts of the world beyond the control of any one person, especially a regular (i.e., non-powerful) person like me. At a certain level, we just have to accept that there’s very little we can do to alleviate these vast and entrenched causes of suffering.

And yet, each one of us does have greater than zero ability to alleviate suffering. We certainly can’t single-handedly produce world peace or eradicate poverty, but we might be able to help a few people in a few ways. So where do we draw that line? For those of us living comfortable lives in rich countries, what are the ethical demands on us to help others?

At times I’ve started to dwell too much on irremediable suffering, which results in depression and anxiety. When I kiss my children good night, sometimes I’m captured by the thought that there are children who don’t have anyone to kiss them goodnight, or who receive abuse instead of love, and it makes me unable to enjoy the moment with my own kids. This is clearly not good, and it’s something I’ve had to work to overcome.

Psychologists know that fixating on things we can’t control always leads us down the road to bad mental health and poor functioning, which is why Epictetus’ dichotomy of control is such sound psychological advice. I suppose it’s also why humans have a natural tendency to turn away from other people’s suffering and just not think about it. Often there’s nothing we can do to help them. This is why the father in Discourse 1.11 told Epictetus he was behaving “naturally” by abandoning his daughter during her illness.

But Epictetus refuses to accept this man’s claim that he was behaving naturally. Epictetus agrees that many fathers would feel the same, but he still insists the father’s behavior was unnatural. Why? Because for the Stoics, the standard of natural behavior is not “average” or “common” or what most people actually do. The standard is virtue, which they hold to be the natural endpoint of all human development. While Epictetus doesn’t mention virtue in this dialogue (or much in general), he leads the negligent father to understand that what is natural in this case is “family affection accompanied by reason,” and that reason prompts good judgment and just behavior.

Of course, this is the special case of a father and daughter. It can’t be obligatory for us to extend the same degree of care toward everyone as we do toward our closest associates (children, friends, family members, neighbors). It’s simply impossible. But what we can do is show an attitude of care and respect toward all humans (animals, plants, etc.). So let’s now turn to this attitude, which we can think of as love, cherishing, or goodwill.

What We Can Do: Love and Goodwill

Instead of dwelling on the unfixable pains and illnesses of the world, instead of getting depressed and thinking there’s nothing I can do to help, I try to focus on showing goodwill toward everyone and everything in the world. The dichotomy of control has helped me understand that there is an important distinction between helping and loving.

“Help” implies two parts—a person who does the helping, and a person who receives help. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped; if a person refuses to receive your help, or in some way is not in a position to accept it, then the helping action is not completed. You tried to help, but you didn’t in fact help. That’s because the outcome did not depend on you.

But the act of loving or showing goodwill does not depend on anyone or anything else except you. It’s a one-way action. You are the giver, and once you give the love or goodwill, the action is completed. Even if the other party does not want your love or goodwill, even if they reject it, you have still successfully produced it. These attitudinal actions are completely up to you and within your control.

And ultimately, when you truly love or wish goodwill toward someone, you naturally want to benefit them. Helpful actions will automatically flow from your helpful attitude when those actions are available. I may not be able to help a child on the other side of the world, but if I have properly cultivated my goodwill then I will be ready to help the neighbor’s child who knocks on my door, or the elderly person in my community who needs a good meal.

Instead of feeling bad because there is so much suffering and I can’t help everyone, I am devoting more energy to developing the positive emotions of cherishing and goodwill. Not only does it make me happier, more energetic, and able to live a better life, it also primes me to be helpful when the opportunity presents itself. I try to remember Mother Teresa’s famous words: “In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”

At times a little voice in my head still whispers, “But you’re just ignoring all the need out there! You should be doing more.” These are the times when I remind myself what virtue is all about. Virtue means cultivating the best elements of humanity within yourself: rationality, social affection, creativity, curiosity, and good judgment, among other qualities. Virtue doesn’t mean fixing things that can’t be fixed. I think virtuous people understand where to invest their time and energy, using good judgment to improve what is within their capability to improve. Virtue does not place bureaucratic demands on us, such as securing the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Virtue asks us to be an exemplary human, not an exemplary machine.

I also remind myself that I did not create this world or anything in it—not the ravages of disease or illness, not the unfairness of society, not the unsavory characters that all to often populate it. Since these things are not my fault, I have no reason to feel guilty that I can’t fix them. If something comes across my desk, so to speak, and I fail to take action, that would certainly be my fault. But it doesn’t make sense to feel depressed, anxious, or unhappy about something I didn’t do, want, or cause in any way.

Bringing out the best features of our humanity means consistently showing wisdom and love, not feeling guilty about things we can’t control. Humans are not gods or superheroes who can spend their whole lives rushing around rescuing 8 billion other people. We are just individual creatures who are granted the ability to see and understand without being granted the superhuman strength to fix everything. I don’t think we are meant to feel depressed and guilty. (And neither did the ancient Stoics; they classify pity, or “a pain for someone who is suffering undeservedly,” as one of the bad emotions.) A flourishing human finds strength through accepting what she can’t control and showing good judgment and goodwill where she can.

I also remind myself to think about what a flourishing family, community, workplace, institution, or society looks like. It’s not one in which we exclusively focus on the bad things. Of course we don’t ignore the suffering, but we learn to put it in its place beside all the wonderful things that a part of human existence. Focusing on all the beautiful elements of each life—of life itself—is what makes a life worth living. Instead of focusing on the bad, why don’t we look at the things that go right and try to create more of that?

Even though I may not be able to take away people’s pain, I can contribute to a beautiful and flourishing world. Popular culture today tends to devalue all the traditional ways people have found life worth living: the small and tender moments with loved ones; appreciating the plants and animals around us; a friendly morning wave as you pass a neighbor. Each of these small actions may not save the world, but without them the world may not be worth saving. If we focus exclusively on all those big things outside of our control, we miss thousands of opportunities to contribute in hundreds of little ways that we can control. Or, as George Eliot put so well at the end of Middlemarch:

The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Concluding Thoughts

Today I’ve shared with you one of the most personal ways Stoicism has helped me grapple with my ethical responsibilities in the world. I hope you’ve found something of benefit for you as well. As I mentioned above, while pop-culture Stoicism is often used to help people deal with their own suffering, I think we need to expand the conversation around how Stoicism can help us deal with the suffering of others. The dichotomy of control is an obvious place to start, but only when contextualized within virtue and living according to nature.

And one final thought about how Stoicism can be of help: I think a philosophy like Stoicism is crafted to be of use to everyone, from the least powerful to the most powerful in society. Since I don’t have much power in the world, my good judgment may benefit the few people my life touches. But a senator or tech magnate who uses Stoicism to develop good judgment can have a huge impact on many people. We both hold ourselves accountable for making good and ethical decisions, and we both do what is right in our own lives, but the senator’s decisions will have more far-reaching consequences. It’s good for everyone in society (ideally) to live by the same code of ethics, even if some people’s decisions are more materially consequential than other people’s. This ensures an equality of ethical standards across the board.

So I’m hopeful that by securing Stoicism as an ethical framework for everyone, we can establish standards for ethical action at all levels of society. Who knows, maybe someday there will be a Stoic president, prime minister, or enlightened multi-billionaire (though hopefully not another Stoic emperor). Meanwhile, in my own life, I’m focusing on cultivating goodwill and dealing effectively with everything that comes across my metaphorical desk—trying to do small things with great goodwill.

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