Citizens of the World
How the virtue of justice reaches across all
Mind Candy is a newsletter on practical philosophy and human flourishment—aka how to live the “the good life.” Each month we tackle a new theme. This month we’re exploring virtue.
This Week at a Glance:
This week, we close out our monthly exploration of virtue with a look at justice.
By the time you finish this meditation, you’ll learn:
🍭 Why justice is so important to the cardinal virtue;
🍬 That justice is about making morally correct decisions;
🍫 And how justice connects us not just to our family, but to the entire planet.
If the virtue of wisdom runs through all the others, it is justice that determines how best to put that wisdom to use.
Justice anchors us to being good, not just for ourselves but for those around us. Justice is what helps us determine how to act, it is what, as the Stoics believed, brings us proper decision-making so we can pursue the best course of action every day.
Within Stoicism, justice is not a virtue solely dedicated to what we would think of as the justice system. Rather, justice is the virtue that helps support doing what is morally correct—it is about doing the right thing, not just for ourselves but for the world. As Socrates once said, “Justice is the virtue that makes us useful to ourselves as well as others.”
But in order to properly understand our decisions and actions, we need to understand how they interact and influence ourselves and the world around us.
“Each of us is, as it were, circumscribed by many circles,” the Stoic philosopher Hierocles once wrote, “some of which are less, but others larger, and some comprehend, but others are comprehended, according to the different and unequal habitudes with respect to each other.”
This concept is known as the Hieroclean Circle and represents how a Stoic approaches their actions.
The Self and Family
“For the first, indeed, and most proximate circle is that which every one describes about his own mind as a centre, in which circle the body, and whatever is assumed for the sake of the body, are comprehended. For this is neatly the smallest circle, and almost touches the centre itself.”
One of the first things you’re told when going through pre-flight instructions is put your own mask on before helping another. Hierocles believed the same—in order for us to assist the world, we first need to focus on ourselves.
Mind.
Body.
Action.
The first step of justice is searching for what is best for us, ensuring we are taking care of our own well-being and ensuring we are making proper decisions that align with the four cardinal virtues—wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. From this perspective, it is about properly aligning our mind and body, ensuring we’re feeding ourselves and using wisdom to properly guide our own actions.
It is through this that we build our own moral character.
This also encompasses what Epictetus taught his students, specifically, that we are in control of “our faculties of judgment - motivation, desire, and aversion - in short, everything that is our own doing.”
After taking care of ourselves, we can and should, turn our attention to our families, of which, the second and third circles contain. This includes all aunts and uncles, grandparents, as well as nieces and nephews. Hierocles says we also include any other remaining relatives here.
In short, our family is our second priority after ensuring we’ve made proper decisions and actions for ourselves.
Our Local Societies
“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.”
After we’ve taken care of ourselves and our family, ensuring we’ve made proper decisions for them, we can turn our attention to our local communities. This would include our neighborhoods, the city we live in, and even our county or state.
Here we must keep in mind that the Stoics viewed justice as being that of providing kindness to others, being fair to them even though they have no relation to us. Seneca essentially saw anger as being brought forth due to the feeling of being slighted in some way. So a Stoic works to interact with the world from the perspective of being kind and fair, what they may consider the opposite of anger.
But here we begin to make decisions and take actions with, and for, those who are not directly within our families or related to us. Here, the actions we take are for a broader audience, they are to ensure we’ve aligned our virtuous character and positioned it to be best applied to our fellow citizens.
We are, in essence, in the pursuit of making our local communities a better place to live, work, and interact.
We may be volunteering, running for local office, or just a citizen. The key to these circles is we are taking action to best provide assistance to something larger than ourselves.
This can be as complex as figuring out how to lower local taxes while trying to pay for city repairs, to as simple as holding the door open for someone, or assisting with bringing groceries to the car for someone in need.
But because we’re assisting people outside of ourselves, we need to keep in mind that our actions, while applied to, and made for, the broader community, does not necessitate their reaction. In fact, our fellow citizens are themselves individuals acting from their own decisions and values.
Cicero articulated this dilemma well with the metaphor known as the Stoic archer. In essence, an archer has everything within his control to hit a bullseye up and until he releases his arrow.
He controls his training, his breathe work, the way he holds the bow, the power and craft to aim and pull back.
But once the arrow is released, the second the arrow leaves his fingers, he has relinquished any control and has been forced to hand it over to fate.
So in situations dealing with others, we must always keep in mind that while we can influence, while we can propose solutions, or make decisions for the broader good based upon our own judgments and wisdom, we cannot control the end result or the individuals who interact with our decisions. For this, we must lean into what is often referenced as the Stoic reserve clause—”fate permitting.”
Fate permitting is essentially the hope that while we cannot control the outcome, we can hope fate intervenes and finds a way to ensure our actions hit their intended target.
This is a hard concept to not only buy into but also accept. First one needs to accept the fact that we do not control others, as Epictetus so pointed out, “Not up to us are our body and property, our reputations, and our official positions - in short, everything that is not our own doing.”
Second, it is hard to devote ourselves to a cause and “throw our hat in the ring” only to watch it not work out as we’d wanted.
When we make decisions, we show the world a part of ourselves. Each action, each decision is a glimpse at our character, at our wisdom. This means we’re emotionally invested.
Even with these potential obstacles, setbacks, or frustrations, we still step into the ring, we still make attempts, because we do so with the understanding that we are part of a larger whole.
“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”
The World
“But the outermost and greatest circle, and which comprehends all the other circles, is that of the whole human race.”
The final circle is summarized simply as the world. This is a recognition that we are part of a much bigger whole, something far outside ourselves.
The concept, often referred to as cosmopolitanism, was representative of the statement “citizen of the world.”
We have a shared humanity, not just with our fellow humans, but with all of the world, with nature, and with the planet. Our just actions are therefore representative of not just what is good for people but what is good for the whole of the planet because we citizens occupy it.
Within the Meditations Marcus Aurelius often references this shared humanity.
“To look at it in such a way that we understand what need it fulfills, and in what kind of world. And its value to that world as a whole and to man in particular—as a citizen of that higher city, of which all other cities are mere households.”
(Meditations, 3.11)
“Be straightforward. Look at things like a man, like a human being, like a citizen, like a mortal.”
(Meditations, 4.3)
“If thought is something we share, then so is reason—what makes us reasoning beings.
If so, then the reason that tells us what to do and what not to do is also shared.
And if so, we share a common law. And thus, are fellow citizens.
And fellow citizens of something.
And in that case, our state must be the world. What other entity could all of humanity belong to? And from it—from this state that we share—come thought and reason and law.
Where else could they come from? The earth that composes me derives from earth, the water from some other element, the air from its own source, the heat and fire from theirs—since nothing comes from nothing, or returns to it.
So thought must derive from somewhere else as well.”
(Meditations, 4.4)
“So by keeping in mind the whole I form a part of, I’ll accept whatever happens. And because of my relationship to other parts, I will do nothing selfish, but aim instead to join them, to direct my every action toward what benefits us all and to avoid what doesn’t. If I do all that, then my life should go smoothly. As you might expect a citizen’s life to go—one whose actions serve his fellow citizens, and who embraces the community’s decree.” (Meditations, 10.6)
Marcus reminds himself that when we reject this shared connection, when we perform selfish actions not representative of fairness and kindness, we in the process degrade our soul.
So we need to do what is best not just for ourselves but for the common good, not just for all of mankind, but for our larger system, for the world. We are not represented by states or borders but by our shared lives on this planet.
And as such, Hierocles finishes his description of our commitment to each other stating:
“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 centre, and always to endeavour earnestly to transfer himself from the comprehending circles to the several particulars which they comprehend.”
Our actions become the right actions, become just actions, when we do what is morally correct, leaning into the concept of the Hieroclean Circles, and understanding we have a shared connection with everything on the planet. When we accept this, and when we follow this, we more easily act with kindness and fairness.
3-Bullet Summary:
Justice is the virtue that allows us to take wisdom and properly apply it to situations;
Justice is in itself a rejection of anger and instead an embrace of fairness and kindness;
Held within justice is the concept of the Hieroclean Circles, representating the different levels of commitment that we have to the world.
Until next time,
D.A. DiGerolamo
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Hat tip to Tim Ferriss for his recent share of this quote in his 5-Bullet Friday.