Whatever principles you put before you, hold fast to them as laws that it will be impious to transgress.
But pay no heed to what any one says of you; for this is something beyond your own control.
—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 50 (tr Matheson)
We need not yet argue the specifics of such principles, and we can, for the moment, put aside all the arguments as to why they are good. At the very least, we should know that if we believe our principles to be right, we should also believe that we are bound by them.
Yet observe how difficult even such a conviction can be for us. I may hold that principle in high esteem, and consider it not a burden, but an honor, to obey at all times, yet there then seem to be those moments when I abandon such an inviolable measure for something else.
In my own experience, I have done this not because I don’t care for the moral standard, but rather because something else seems more important to me right then and there. That something is almost invariably a convenient or tempting circumstance.
This is exactly why Epictetus follows his praise of the respect for the moral law with a warning about listening to what others may say, or what they may do, or caring about anything else that is beyond our control. I will violate my own conscience and abandon my own convictions whenever I believe that I can make my conditions conform to my preferences.
But of course I cannot really give myself what is not within my power to give, and all I’ve done is trade my own virtue for a vain sense of utility. I will love the principle only until it is easier to ignore it, and care more for all the externals.
Most of us would likely say that honesty, for example, is a noble principle to follow. So many people I have spoken to over the years will claim that we should always tell the truth, because a man is no better than his word.
Then come the modifications and exceptions. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t tell the truth if it hurts someone’s feelings, or makes them uncomfortable or angry, or if it might cost me my job or makes me unpopular. After all, sometimes telling the truth will be very hard on us, and a few little lies here and there will make things easier.
Once we make excuses like that for ourselves, we are caring more for our circumstances than our characters. The principle isn’t really a measure of ruling our choices at all, because it becomes relative to how comfortable it may be. This is hardly Stoic, and it is hardly a life that looks to our own actions as the standard of our merit.
I should be honest with others, and hold it as a principle, out or respect for their right to know what properly concerns them, just as I would demand that same respect in return. That the truth will sometimes be difficult can always be tempered by the very love that inspires such honesty. I can teach myself to hold to the dignity of a principle when I remember to worry first and foremost for the excellence of my own action, regardless of what the world may throw back at me.
Many years ago, I knew someone who insisted that trust and commitment were at the root of friendship, but this person was quite often extremely dishonest and unreliable. My own frustrations could only be held at bay when I attempted to understand the thinking, however misguided, behind such a seeming contradiction. The principle would give way to external convenience, and I could hardly say I had never done the same myself.
Over the decades, my work would time and time again bring me face to face with the ugliness of sexual abuse. I would grow angry at the hypocrisy of the perpetrators, and even angrier at the cowardice of the enablers. Again, I have always needed to remember that I rule only my own principles and actions. This means that the only way I can try to make up for the wrongs of others is to strive for justice and courage myself. I will only fail if I compromise my conscience for comfort.
Written in 6/2012
Image: JHW Tischbein, Diogenes Looking for an Honest Man (c. 1780)
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