How to choose the right life philosophy (Hint: You can’t)

A personal look at my journey to stoicism and how I didn’t so much choose it but was inevitably drawn to it.

I didn’t know my maternal grandfather very well. I grew up in a different country, and he passed away when I was relatively young, so it is always interesting to learn more about him. As such, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he had an interest in stoic philosophy.

I only recently discovered the philosophy of stoicism – which seeks to minimise suffering by helping the practitioner overcome destructive thinking – through Seneca’s letters to Lucilius. Although I am just as prone to stewing over my misfortunes as anyone, I think I’ve always known this to be unproductive, so stoicism resonated deeply with me. And the fact that I came to this philosophy independently, decades after my grandfather, made me feel a sense of kinship with him. It also got me thinking about how people construct their worldview and adopt a life philosophy.

It is easy to imagine that many people adopt the worldview of their parents or older siblings – although not necessarily consciously or explicitly – by prolonged exposure to it. But then how do you account for all the counter-examples? Everyone is familiar with the trope of the rebellious teenager rejecting their parents’ political views. Couldn’t the extent to which family members attitudes towards morality and politics are similar or different be more easily explained by a genetic predisposition to these attitudes?

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s work on moral foundations theory proposes that our political leanings are defined by our attitudes towards the concepts of loyalty, sanctity, purity, and fairness. In “The Righteous Mind”, based on the latest research in cognitive psychology, Haidt argues that, although our political leanings (much like our preferences for certain foods and spices) are shaped by the culture we grow up in and our life experience, people have a genetic predisposition for specific ideas. In other words, our politics are greatly determined by our feelings towards certain ideas, and reason we feel this way seems to be at least partly heritable.

Likewise, there seems to be a strong case for the genetic basis of personality. In psychology, the prevailing model of trait theory describes the fundamental character traits that define a person’s attitudes and sensibilities using the acronym “OCEAN”. This acronym stands for Openness (to experience), Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. The first two traits (Openness and Conscientiousness) seem to be correlated with left and right-wing political leanings, respectively.

This idea is also backed up by Judith Rich Harris’s landmark 1998 book, "The Nurture Assumption", which challenged the prevailing dogma that parenting was the critical factor in developing personality. Using research in behavioural genetics, and twin studies in particular, she illustrated that people with the same genetic background who were raised in different environments (like twins separated at birth) were more similar than people with different genetic backgrounds raised in the same environment (like two children with different genetic backgrounds adopted by the same family). In her view, parenting matters but it doesn’t make a difference. It matters in the sense that it is far healthier psychologically to grow up in a stable household, but it doesn’t make a difference to your personality, political leanings, or attitudes to morality. This insight can help to reduce the guilt associated with modern parenting; the environment may be responsible for up to 50% of psychological traits, but there are a functionally infinite number of environmental factors that parents have no control over. This also meshes with my own personal experience; I grew up in a happy household with loving parents, and my siblings and I were inculcated with certain values and morality, yet my attitudes to politics, philosophy and morality differ greatly from those of my siblings. How does one account for those differences if not through innate characteristics (and the myriad other environmental factors, such as peer-group influence)?

Returning to philosophy, in his wonderful exploration of the history of stoicism and its practical applications, Derren Brown says that “when others inspire us, they tend to do so through the clear expression of these sketchy, adumbrated thoughts we ourselves have known but never had the perspicacity to formulate with certainty”. In other words, we are malleable and receptive to ideas only to the extent that these influences cohere with our innate disposition. I am surprised by how sceptical or indifferent people generally are about the value of stoic philosophy, despite the obvious benefits for the practitioner in terms of well-being and peace of mind; people are either receptive to the precepts and willing to try them, or they are not. And the same is true of most new ideas. That’s not to say that it’s not worth sharing your ideas with others, it just means that whether or not you convince your interlocutor is not exclusively a function of your powers of persuasion. On top of their genetically predetermined attitudes, a person’s innate capacity for cognitive reflection, their general knowledge, their level of scientific literacy, their attachment to their opinions, and their working memory capacity will also have an influence on their ability to call into question their existing biases.

So the latest research into behavioural genetics, as well as a scientific understanding of free will, gives lie to the possibility of choosing a life philosophy, but the history of stoicism can at least provide some scope for understanding how one can best live in the world. Consider, for example, the father of stoicism, Zeno of Citium: searching for meaning after a near-death experience, Zeno ended up in Athens, where he was initially drawn to the philosophy of cynicism. But Diogenes’s aloofness and disregard for others’ opinions didn’t sit well with Zeno. He felt that cynicism met many of the qualities he was looking for, but he also deviated in some reconcilable ways, so he went on to develop his own school of philosophy, which eventually evolved into what we now know as stoicism.

Ultimately, I believe we should all be more like Zeno. Unless you are content to take a ready-made, plug-and-play philosophy off the shelf, you need to read widely, about philosophy, history, and religion – take a little bit from here and there – and find what works for you. Nietzsche criticised philosophers for projecting their own values onto their philosophical systems, but this doesn't make it a philosophical search futile, because a mindful approach can still help you understand your own biases. That’s scary and it’s hard work, but isn’t that ultimately what life is all about? As Diogenes said, “living your best life means living in harmony with your true self”. How can you do that without first doing the hard work of exploring your own individuality?