The Stoic Ramparts · The Emperor's Notebook
The Council of Elders
The philosophers you most trust say the city should be governed by a permanent council of the wise, and that the city's judgement is worse than theirs. The council has no mandate, no way to be removed, and no obligation to explain. Accept the council?
The Stoic case for rule by the wise, offered at the height of the Roman empire, when the Stoics had influence in the palace and no institution to contain it.
The options, scored on six axes
| Option | welfare | rights | virtue | care | justice | agency | risk | revers. | agent harm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Accept the council Rule by those whose judgement is demonstrably better is the best available rule, and consent adds nothing to an argument that is already correct. harms: There is no way to remove them or to make them answer; Their judgement is demonstrably better on average, which is not the same as better in every case; A permanent council is the mechanism by which a court becomes a caste gains: The city is governed by the people best able to govern it; It is the position the Stoics actually held, and held against the emperor; It takes expertise seriously rather than treating it as a bias | 0.58 | 0.46 | 0.78 | 0.50 | 0.56 | 0.22 | 0.55 | 0.25 | 0.40 |
Accept, but require published reasoning The council rules, and every decision comes with its reasoning in public, so that anyone may contest the argument without contesting the authority. harms: Publication of reasons does not change who has to be persuaded by them; A council with a reputation for reasoning can survive bad reasoning longer; It still cannot be removed gains: Judgement becomes contestable in the only way that preserves the authority; It builds the discipline the council would otherwise lack; It is the difference between a court and an oracle | 0.62 | 0.62 | 0.80 | 0.58 | 0.72 | 0.50 | 0.40 | 0.40 | 0.35 |
No permanent council; rotate the duty Keep the philosophical discipline but distribute the office on a fixed rotation, so that no one holds it long enough to become a class. harms: Rotation guarantees mediocre governance at the top of each term; It optimises for the office rather than for the city; Nobody is in office long enough to be responsible for an outcome gains: No one can entrench, because the term ends; The city is governed by people who have to do it at least once; It refuses the permanent caste that the Stoic proposal always becomes | 0.58 | 0.66 | 0.74 | 0.60 | 0.70 | 0.66 | 0.42 | 0.50 | 0.40 |
Decline: the city keeps itself The city's own judgement is the only one with standing, and a better argument from philosophers does not transfer authority. harms: The city will sometimes decide badly, and it will do so repeatedly; It gives up the one place where expertise could be applied to governance; Self-government means the strong dominate, whatever the constitution says gains: Nobody governs who has not given them the right to; It matches the claim to authority to the consent of the governed; It is the position every modern constitutional order is built on | 0.50 | 0.64 | 0.56 | 0.50 | 0.60 | 0.86 | 0.50 | 0.60 | 0.35 |
Who is in the room
- The council of the wisewelfare 0.60
- The city, which is being governed without its consentwelfare 0.80
- The emperor, who would otherwise hold sole authoritywelfare 0.55
- The city's grain and ration administration, which records and enforces whatever it is toldagentwelfare 0.45
The lesson
A claim to rule by superior judgement is a claim that has to be argued, continuously and in public, or it becomes a claim to rule by right. The Stoic insight — that most people are governed worse than they are governed — is true and does not license the conclusion, and the gap between the two is where constitutional government was invented.
Where it comes from
- Meditations — Marcus Aurelius, 180
- The Human Condition — Hannah Arendt, 1958
- Letters to Lucilius — Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 65
The default court, seated automatically
Accept, but require published reasoning
margin 0.001 · decided on agency · 4 advisors
- Accept, but require published reasoning2.653
- No permanent council; rotate the duty2.652
- Decline: the city keeps itself2.465
- Accept the council2.097
Seat is held by Epictetus, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham and Aristotle. A verdict is a fact about the court, not about the world.
Epictetus presides over this case.