Discourses · Chapter
X: How We May Discover the Duties of Life from Names explained
Epictetus explains that by examining our various roles or 'names'—such as man, citizen, son, brother, senator, youth, or old man—we can discern the specific duties attached to each.
What happens
Epictetus explains that by examining our various roles or 'names'—such as man, citizen, son, brother, senator, youth, or old man—we can discern the specific duties attached to each. He emphasizes that the faculty of will is superior and free, and that we are citizens of the world, parts of a whole. Losing moral qualities like modesty, fidelity, or gentleness is a true damage, far greater than any loss of money or property.
Themes in this chapter
Social Duty and Friendship
The chapter is centered on discovering duties from one's roles (son, brother, citizen) and emphasizes cooperation, concession, and acting for the whole community.
Desire and Aversion
Epictetus contrasts attachment to externals (money, body) with the true damage of losing moral qualities, urging focus on what is within our power.
Characters to notice
- Epictetus
Delivers the discourse on discovering duties from names, urging self-examination of one's roles.
Key passages
“Consider who you are. In the first place, you are a man and this is one who has nothing superior to the faculty of the will, but all other things subjected to it; and the faculty itself he possesses unenslaved and free from subjection.”
Reflect on your identity: as a human, your will is supreme and free, with all else subordinate to it.
Epictetus establishes the primacy of the rational will as the core of human identity.
“What then does the character of a citizen promise? To hold nothing as profitable to himself; to deliberate about nothing as if he were detached from the community, but to act as the hand or foot would do, if they had reason and understood the constitution of nature.”
The role of a citizen requires acting for the common good, like a hand or foot that serves the whole body.
This illustrates the Stoic ideal of interdependence and communal duty.
“But if you go and blame your brother, I say to you: You have forgotten who you are and what is your name.”
If you criticize your brother, you have forgotten your identity and the duties that come with being a brother.
Epictetus uses the example of brotherly blame to show how forgetting one's role leads to moral failure.
“No man is bad without suffering some loss and damage. If then you look for the damage in the loss of money only, all these men receive no harm or damage; it may be they have even profit and gain, when they acquire a bit of money by any of these deeds.”
Every wrongdoer incurs real loss, but if you only count monetary loss, they may seem unharmed or even enriched.
Epictetus argues that moral damage is far more significant than material loss.