Moral Independence
This week's concept is Moral Independence, rooted in the Stoic idea of the "hegemonikon" (the Greek word for what the Stoics called your governing self or ruling faculty, meaning the part of you that judges, chooses, and decides who you are). Moral Independence is the recognition that this inner faculty cannot be touched, overruled, or corrupted by anything outside you unless you hand it over willingly. By the end of this week, you will have a clearer sense of where you actually live inside yourself, and why protecting that place is the most important work you can do.
Passage
When, then, this faculty sees that all the other faculties which surround it are blind and deaf, and unable to see anything but the very acts for which they have been appointed to serve and minister unto it, while it alone sees clearly and surveys, not only all the rest, determining what each is worth, but itself also, is it likely to pronounce that anything else is supreme but itself?
— Epictetus, Discourses 2.23.11
Reflection
Epictetus now makes a bolder claim. Your faculty of reason, the thing that surveys all your other capacities and measures their worth, also surveys itself. This reflexive quality is what makes it unlike everything else you possess. Your appetite for food cannot evaluate your appetite for food. Your anger cannot step outside itself and ask whether it is warranted. But your governing self can look at all of these and ask: is this worth anything? Is this true? Should I follow this? Because it alone can do this, Epictetus argues, it cannot honestly name anything else as supreme. Moral Independence, then, is not a preference or a philosophical opinion. It is what you are forced to conclude the moment you look clearly at how your own mind actually works.
Go deeper
Think of a recent moment when one strong impulse, desire, fear, or anger, seemed to take over your decision-making: what would it have looked like if the part of you that can stand back and evaluate had been in charge instead?
Practice
The Surveyor
Set a timer for five minutes. Think of one recurring impulse in your life, something that pulls you regularly, maybe toward distraction, avoidance, or a particular reaction to a particular person. Now write from the perspective of the part of you that can observe that impulse from the outside. Describe it plainly: what is it, what does it promise, and what does your observing faculty actually think of that promise?