Practice like a Stoic: 34, Care about more people (and other beings)

Work on your circles of concern

[This series of posts is based on A Handbook for New Stoics—How to Thrive in a World out of Your Control, co-authored by yours truly and Greg Lopez. It is a collection of 52 exercises, which we propose reader try out one per week during a whole year, to actually live like a Stoic. In Europe/UK the book is published by Rider under the title Live Like A Stoic. Below is this week’s prompt and a brief explanation of the pertinent philosophical background. Check the book for details on how to practice the exercise, download the exercise forms from The Experiment’s website, and comment below on how things are going. Greg and/or I will try our best to help out! This week’s exercise is found at pp. 200-203 of the paperback edition.]

“Each of us is, as it were, circumscribed by many circles; some of which are less, but others larger, and some comprehend [i.e., include], but others are comprehended [i.e., included], according to the different and unequal habitudes with respect to each other. For the first, indeed, and most proximate circle is that which everyone describes about his own mind as a center, in which circle the body, and whatever is assumed for the sake of the body, are comprehended. For this is nearly the smallest circle, and almost touches the center itself. The second from this, and which is at a greater distance from the center, but comprehends the first circle, is that in which parents, brothers, wife, and children are arranged. The third circle from the center is that which contains uncles and aunts, grandfathers and grandmothers, and the children of brothers and sisters. After this is the circle which comprehends the remaining relatives. Next to this is that which contains the common people, then that which comprehends those of the same tribe, afterwards that which contains the citizens. And then two other circles follow, one being the circle of those that dwell in the vicinity of the city, and the other, of those of the same province. But the outermost and greatest circle, and which comprehends all the other circles, is that of the whole human race.

These things being thus considered, it is the province of him who strives to conduct himself properly in each of these connections to collect, in a certain respect, the circles, as it were, to one center, and always to endeavor earnestly to transfer himself from the comprehending circles to the several particulars which they comprehend. It pertains, therefore, to the man who is a lover of kindred [to conduct himself in a becoming manner] toward his parents and brothers; also, according to the same analogy, toward the more elderly of his relatives of both sexes, such as grandfathers, uncles and aunts; towards those of the same age with himself, as his cousins; and toward his juniors, as the children of his cousins.” (Hierocles, Fragments, How We Ought to Conduct Ourselves Towards Our Kindred)

The Stoics inherited the principle of cosmopolitanism from Socrates, and it became a centerpiece of their philosophy, particularly of the Discipline of Action. The second-century CE Stoic Hierocles summarizes this principle by imagining relations as a series of circles, starting with you and moving outward, to people close to you, to those further away, and eventually encompassing all of humankind. The modern utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer has proposed a similar metaphor, though where Hierocles talks of “collecting” the external circles to bring other people’s concerns closer to us, Singer—equivalently—speaks of “expanding” our circle of concern to others. Either way, you get the point.

The Stoics arrived at this concept by way of their doctrine of oikeiosis, a word that is difficult to translate into English but is often rendered as “appropriation,” as in the appropriation of the “welfare of others, making it our concern. It is about becoming concerned with what happens to other people as we are naturally concerned with what happens to ourselves. Oikeiosis is why the central circle is our own—not because we are the center of the universe, but because it is natural for us to care about our own well-being. As we develop morality, it also becomes natural to be concerned with the welfare of those nearest to us, such as our caretakers and siblings. The Stoics thought that once we enter the age of reason (at about seven years old, an approximate threshold supported by modern research on cognitive development) we have the ability to go beyond what comes to us instinctively.

As we develop rationality, we can understand that every human being is a member of our society, and that we should be mindful of their well-being, too, extending our concern beyond those who happen to be our relatives by accident of birth. And that is how the process of oikeiosis works: We begin with our natural instincts as social animals, then reason leads us to the progressive appropriation of the welfare of others, and so we should treat everyone justly and fairly.

An argument can be made that modern Stoics could easily add additional circles to the ones listed by Hierocles to include any sentient being capable of suffering. This is what Peter Singer argues in his landmark book Animal Liberation; the idea of expanding our concern to animals in this way sparked the animal rights movement. After all, as another utilitarian philosopher (indeed, the founder of that school), Jeremy Bentham rightly put it in his The Principles of Moral Legislation, “The question is not ‘Can they reason?’ nor ‘Can they talk?’ but ‘Can they suffer?’”