Marcus Aurelius Meditations
Marcus Aurelius: Socrates said, 'What will you have? the…
Socrates said, 'What will you have? the souls of reasonable, or unreasonable creatures? Of reasonable. But what? Of those whose reason is sound and perfect? or of those whose reason is vitiated and corrupted? Of those whose reason is sound and perfect. Why then labour ye not for such? Because we have them already. What then do ye so strive and contend between you?'
The passage follows a public-domain translation of Meditations. The reading beside it is ours.
We say we want reasonable people around us, then fight as if everyone else is the obstacle. Socrates turns the complaint back on us: if sound judgment is so valuable, why not work on acquiring it rather than competing for the appearance of already having it? This is a useful antidote to superiority. The person who is most certain that everyone else is irrational may be the least open to correction. Reason is not a badge; it is a practice of listening, testing assumptions, and changing course when evidence demands it. In a disagreement, do not merely ask whether the other person is wrong. Ask what a genuinely reasonable person would do next. They might ask a better question, state the opposing view fairly, or admit uncertainty. Today, trade one attempt to win for one attempt to understand. That is how sound judgment grows.
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