QuestionsWhat is happiness?Want only what is up to you
What is happiness?Virtue and wisdom

Want only what is up to you

What is up to us and what is not

Épictète 50 · 135A former slave turned Stoic teacher: he taught that we can act only on our judgements and desires, never on the rest.
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What it claims

Happiness consists in wanting only what is up to us: this alone brings freedom and happiness.

Why

What is not up to us can always be taken from us; counting as ours only what is truly ours means nothing can hold us back.

The same idea through history
Épictète125The Handbook (written by his student Arrian) opens with this distinction.
Marcus Aurelius170
In short

"Want only what is up to you" is an argument by Épictète (Handbook, 1 and 5 (as recorded by Arrian, c. 125), 125) on the question "What is happiness?" (answer: virtue and wisdom). Its claim: Happiness consists in wanting only what is up to us: this alone brings freedom and happiness. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P4, P5). AskPhilosophy presents 2 objections, 0 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Handbook, 1 and 5 (as recorded by Arrian, c. 125)
Valid with an implicit premise

Epictetus was a slave: his master could beat him, sell him, take everything from him. From this he draws a simple rule. Separate what is up to you (what you judge, what you want, what you avoid) from what is not (your body, your property, your reputation). If you want only the first, no one can stop you from having what you want. Happiness lies there. Note: Epictetus wrote nothing; the Handbook is his teaching set down by Arrian.

P1Of things, some are up to us (our opinion, impulse, desire, aversion), others are not (the body, property, reputation, offices).
P2If you take as your own what is not up to you, you will be hindered, grieved and disturbed.
P3If you hold as yours only what is really yours, no one can compel, hinder or harm you.
P4 · implicit premiseTo be happy is to be neither hindered nor disturbed: if nothing stops you from getting what you want, you are happy.
P5 · implicit premiseWhat disturbs us is our judgement about things (Handbook 5), not the things themselves: this confirms that trouble comes from wanting what is outside our power.
Therefore happiness consists in wanting only what is up to us: this alone brings freedom and happiness.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, the computer finds someone who wants only what is up to him, whom nothing hinders, and who is nevertheless not happy (he lacks friends, health, resources).
P2 and P3 say: wanting what is not yours makes you hindered, wanting only what is yours makes you free. To move on to "being happy", P4 is needed: being free of all hindrance is already being happy. Epictetus thinks so (he speaks of "freedom and happiness" together), but the Handbook does not state it as a premise. This is the point Aristotle and Pascal dispute.
Analogy. A student wants to be top of the class. He does not control the other papers, nor the marker's mood: if he stakes his happiness there, he is at the mercy of everything. If he only wants to work as well as he can, that is up to him, and nothing can take it away. The open question is whether one can really stop wanting first place.

Objections

2

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Pascal (reporting the conversation with M. de Sacy) 1655 · attacks the conclusion

Epictetus understood well what we owe, but he loses himself in presumption about what we can do: he believes man has in his power the means to make himself perfect and happy. Pascal speaks of a "diabolical pride": man cannot, alone, cure all his vices.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in 1655, after the author's death (135).
The debate goes on (our summary) Epictetus died around 135: he cannot answer Pascal. Pascal does not say the distinction is false (he summarises it accurately), but that man's will is not enough to make him happy. A Stoic would answer that the Handbook does not promise an easy life, but daily work on one's judgements. The question remains open: is it pride, or lucidity, to believe one is master of one's desires? Note: Pascal's text is an account of the conversation, written by Fontaine.
Aristotle 330 BC · attacks premise 4

Happiness also needs external goods: it is impossible, or not easy, to do noble acts without the proper equipment. Being free in one's judgements is therefore not enough.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in -330, after the author's death (135).
The debate goes on (our summary) Aristotle lived four centuries before Epictetus: he does not target him. A Stoic like Epictetus would say these goods are mere "things not up to us" and can be preferred without staking one's happiness on them. Aristotle would answer that this is no longer happiness but tranquillity: a successful life is also played out in the world. Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus's heir, meets the same objection (see his argument).
What today's voices say
Defend it
Ryan HolidayHe presents the key Stoic practice as separating what we can change from what we cannot. On grief he says some of it is a 'second arrow': not the sadness of the loss itself but the guilt and haunting we add afterwards, which is on us.
Alain de BottonHe praises the Stoic idea that philosophy should train the mind to cope with what we cannot change, such as death.