Truly masters of our own judgments?
On the axis: Scope of action · our judgments
Stoicism places our judgments on the side of what is up to us, but do we truly choose them, or are our opinions, emotions and desires dictated to us by the body, our history and the causes that make us? If even the inner world escapes us, does the dichotomy still hold?
Justification
The root of all unhappiness, Epictetus argues, is to expect one's happiness from things that are not in our power. Hence the opening move of the : sorting our concerns into two classes by the single criterion of mastery, what is wholly up to us (judgments, desires, aversions) and what is not (body, goods, reputation). The is not one thesis among others but the operation that conditions everything that follows: all disturbance arises from having claimed a hold on what eludes us. Where the older Stoics dwelt on cosmic fate, Epictetus brings the division down to the concrete use, here and now, of what is properly mine.
Of things, some are in our power, and others are not.Enchiridion, §1
Enchiridion, §1 · Discourses, I.1