Epictetus · Philosophy

Playing Your Role Well

Epictetus’s ethics of roles - the idea that we are actors assigned parts we did not choose, and that virtue lies not in selecting the role but in playing it well.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned Epictetus’s teaching that we must play well the role assigned to us, fulfilling its duties. Half a world away, Confucius built an entire ethics on a similar foundation - that society flourishes when each person fulfils the duties of their station. State Confucius’s version.

Leads to Confucius.

epoché — a humanities education that remembers you.