Epictetus Ethical Theory

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Pamela Betancourt
Epictetus's Ethical Theory
Epictetus's Ethical Theory focuses on the idea of how to live a happy life, and an important aspect of his theory to achieve happiness is what an individual can and cannot control. For example, if a person were to miss the bus because it arrived earlier than usual, they would have two options 1: get mad at the bus driving for arriving earlier, ruining your mood for the rest of the day, or 2: just say, "it's okay, I'll just catch the next bus." So what this example shows is that although we cannot control external forces, we can control our internal forces. In this case, a person cannot control the time the bus will arrive, but they can control their behavior or reaction to missing the bus. Epictetus says that …show more content…
Things that are in a person's power or control are their opinions or judgments, impulse, desires, aversions, and goals. Things that are not in a person's power are their body, possessions, reputation, position, status, and property. In other words, the things that a person can power are things that are in their own doing, while things that are not in their power are the things that are not their doing. Now some of the things that are categorized under the things a person cannot control, may seem to be things that a person thinks they can control. For example, an individual may think that they have power over their reputation, but they don’t; and here's why. Imagine a student taking a test, when in the middle of the test their friend asks them for the answers. The student says no, but the teacher sees the student talking and thinks they are cheating. Now the teacher thinks that the student is a cheater and warns other teachers. The students' reputation as a good and honest student is now ruined because the teacher did not believe that the student was not cheating and spread the image of a cheater to all the other
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