Oikeiosis in Municipal IT Projects COSP
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ISSUE 68
A publication of the College of Stoic Philosophers
September 2025
Oikeiosis in Municipal IT Projects
Wilhelm Rauser
As a technical lead for a large, multi-year municipal GeoIT project, I connect an external
development team with multiple internal city departments and IT operators. The main challenge is
balancing the diverse and often conflicting technical and legal requirements from all stakeholders,
making it impossible to satisfy everyone. I believe Stoic philosophy, particularly the concept of
Oikeiosis, offers the right framework for making decisions oriented towards the common good and
for guiding one's actions in this complex environment, an approach that requires continuous
practical application.
The importance of inner attitude
Oikeiosis is a central concept in Stoic philosophy. It involves understanding one's own
personality, the physical world with the people around us, and the relationship between ourselves
and this world. Subsequently, this understanding should be put into practice through morally
considered action. We can achieve this by engaging in inner discourse and self-reflection. This
leads us to form an adequate attitude towards the environment and develop our personal moral
character. Anthony Long underscores the importance of inner attitude:
“Stoic oikeiosis identifies selfhood (i.e. the perspective we today call subjective) as the foundation
of any animal's life. By its reflexive formulation, “self-belonging” characterises the disposition of
care and ownership that an animal has in relation to itself” (Long, 1996, p. 253).
From within, we can develop an outwardly effective attitude. Through this, we can build a
relationship with the physical world and the people around us.
“Oikeiosis, the ‘appropriation’ or ‘affective relationship’
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with which we are naturally
endowed, has two faces or aspects - towards oneself and towards other human
beings” (Long, 1996, p. 172).
This attitude between us and other human beings will determine our impulses for
every action “with the result that we perform whatever is
appropriate with unfailing consistency” (Inwood, 2003, p.
243-244). This rational attitude will lead to rational action, and this
action will pursue the ultimate goal of contributing to the common
good.
“The interests of society, however, and its common bonds will be
best conserved, if kindness be shown to each individual in
proportion to the closeness of his relationship.” (Cicero, 1913,
I-50).
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ISSUE 68
A publication of the College of Stoic Philosophers
September 2025
Thus, the initial inner attitude is important. A classic example is when a project member
considers a system function or a specific requirement essential, believing it requires no effort,
while in reality, it is complex and can sometimes be implemented via other means. This often
leads to delicate discussions because of differing perspectives and knowledge backgrounds.
For this reason, I distance myself from my first impression of any situation, because:
“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.” (Epictetus, 2018,
5).
Practical application
Underlying this is an important Stoic principle with which the Enchiridion begins. It concerns
the distinction between what is within our power and what is not.
“There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our
power. Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs
are our own. Beyond our power are body, property, reputation, office, and, in one word,
whatever are not properly our own affairs.” (Epictetus, 2018, 1).
This distinction is found in many writings of Epictetus's Discourses. We also find similar
statements in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations:
“It would be wrong for anything to stand between you and attaining goodness - as a rational being
and a citizen. Anything at all: the applause of the crowd, high office, wealth, or self-indulgence. All
of them might seem to be compatible with it - for a while. But suddenly they control us and sweep
us away.” (Aurelius, 2011, III-6).
Many objective factors might justify insisting on one's own perspective. In large projects, it is
common for resources and financial means to be difficult to estimate over a
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longer period,
necessitating coordinated planning as early as possible, which must then be strictly implemented.
However, experience shows that people often add subjective interpretations and value judgments,
thereby tearing the matter out of its objective context. Thus, I often ask myself: “How can I grasp
this distinction between subject and object in reality and make it visible in practice?” Stoicism offers
a profound engagement with logic, physics, and ethics for this purpose. The practical quintessence
of this triad is divided by Epictetus in the Discourses as follows:
“There are three things in which a person ought to exercise himself who would be wise and good.
The first concerns the desires and the aversions, that a man may not fail to get what he desires,
and that he may not fall into that which he does not desire [Physics]. The second concerns the
movements (toward) and the movements from an object, and generally in doing what a man ought
to do, that he may act according to order, to reason, and not carelessly [Ethics]. The third thing
concerns freedom from deception and rashness in judgement, and generally it concerns the
assents [Logic].” (Epictetus, 2018, III, 2, 1-2).
Stoic Logic
We use this quintessence in analyzing the following exemplary situation. I find myself in a
multi-hour discussion or workshop where the requirements and structure of a software are being
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ISSUE 68
A publication of the College of Stoic Philosophers
September 2025
debated. A project group member who is not IT-savvy takes up a lot of space to present their
requirements, trying at every opportunity to point out the importance of their work and asserting
that the IT implementation actually involves no great effort, can be quickly implemented, and is
ultimately not worth discussing. They suggest it would be best to deal with fundamental questions
instead, even though these have already been discussed and agreed upon more than enough
within the group.
The reaction to such a statement often happens very quickly and can vary. One can get upset with
the person, ignore the statement, correct the facts with justifications, defend oneself, etc. Stoicism,
in its philosophical tradition, does not offer an absolute dogma that one reaction or another is
correct. Instead, it offers this triad as an approach to how one can receive, interpret, and act upon
the situation with reason. This is entirely within our power.
First, this situation triggers initial emotions in us. Here, we think of the discipline of assent (Logic)
and examine our impressions. We might feel attacked by the statement because we add our
interpretation to the actual statement. We equate our field of activity with our personality, and if our
work is spoken of poorly, then our personality is spoken of poorly. Furthermore, classifying the
statement as something bad is solely our subjective interpretation and not an objective view. We
try to interpret the person's motivation behind the statement, although they might simply be having
a bad day or struggling with the usual financial scarcity of resources in their own team. The
spectrum of reasons is vast. For this reason, one should not immediately assent
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to emotions but
first take a step back and consider the matter as it is. The Stoics argue that we are rational beings
and have the ability to actively use our reason. This means not adding subjective interpretation in
that moment and examining the situation objectively. This inner dialogue helps us not to be guided
by initial emotions but enables a rational engagement with them. A.A. Long aptly summarizes this
idea of logic:
“Logic in Stoicism may perhaps be best described as the sciences of rational discourse.”
(Long, 1986, p.122).
Stoic Physics
Moreover, the person's statements might indeed be a disapproval of one's own field of activity.
However, one's job is not what constitutes one's personality or personal character. This concerns
the discipline of desire and aversion (Physics), and thus the question: what is truly good or bad?
Work, along with wealth, status, health, etc., belongs to the class of indifferent things mentioned
earlier. Things to strive for are virtues: wisdom, justice, moderation, and courage. These are good
by nature, and their opposites are bad. For the Stoics, one must strive for these virtues, and it is
much more about how one behaves in the situation and whether one uses one's own reason for
one's actions, contributing to virtue. The field of logic teaches us to conduct argumentative
discourse, for example, the distinction between objective fact and subjective opinion. But what
constitutes the objective and the subjective?
A core aspect of Stoic thinking that helps us here is found in understanding desire and what is
truly valuable. The world (Nature) is intelligently and rationally structured, and every human being
is equally a part of it and thus also rational (human nature). We come from this world and have a
certain amount of free play.
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This is how the Stoics justify the relationship between the world and
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ISSUE 68
A publication of the College of Stoic Philosophers
September 2025
our capacity for reason:
“They believed that the essential attribute of human nature, rationality, is derived from and an
integral part of the active principle in the universe.” (Long, 1986, p.165).
It is reasonable and natural to strive for the good in life as a human being. However, the good lies
exclusively in the aforementioned virtues and the rational development of moral character. There
is nothing good in health alone, for one can be healthy but behave badly towards people and the
environment. One can be rich but have built wealth on exploitation and environmental
destruction. One can have high regard at work but feed one's contrived ego with it daily. People
often strive for the accumulation of money or the attainment of a position in society, not because
these things are good in themselves, but because they are defined as supposedly good by
society. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius breaks down these things deemed good, and
even partly his imperial status, into their physical components and treats them with disdain in
many passages of his Meditations:
“When you have savouries and fine dishes set before you, you will gain an idea of their nature if
you tell yourself that this is the corpse of a fish, and that the corpse of a bird or a pig; or again,
the fine Falernian wine is merely grape-juice, and this purple robe some sheep’s wool dipped in
the blood of a shellfish[...]” (Aurelius, 2011, VI-13).
His view is by no means pessimistic, but rather scientific, as Marcus Aurelius breaks nature down
into its physical components without any judgment. Moreover, he speaks elsewhere of the beauty
of nature in smaller things, like the accidental cracking of bread during baking or
the ripeness
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of fruits (Aurelius, 2011, III-2). From this, it becomes clear that things themselves
do not define a meaning of good and bad, but our attitude towards them does. Pierre Hadot
summarizes this conclusion well in The Inner Citadel:
“In other words, the Stoic definition of good and evil has as its consequence the total
transformation of one's vision of the world, as it strips objects and events of the false values which
people have the habit of attributing to them, and which prevent them from seeing reality in its
nudity” (Hadot, 1998, p. 109-110).
Ultimately, it is much more about the subjectively morally good or bad "how" than about the
objectively value-neutral "what." In our example situation, the "what" is the (potentially disruptive)
statement by the colleague. The "how" is my internally processed and externally displayed
reaction to it, which can be guided by Stoic principles. One can fall back on this thought in any
inner dialogue and ultimately realize that one is merely in a meeting where people are talking
about the structure of a system and that some of them are not even interested. One could argue
that this is a passive attitude towards work, where it doesn't matter at all whether a system is
developed or not. Why should I make an effort? Such meetings happen every day somewhere in
the world, and every person is active in some way. Furthermore, constructs or technological
systems were developed in the past and will change completely in the future. However, this
attitude is by no means passive but goal-oriented, because we have broken down the object into
its physical nature, like Marcus Aurelius, and grasped it objectively.
Subsequently, one can set the inner attitude for action and, for the time being, accept the
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ISSUE 68
A publication of the College of Stoic Philosophers
September 2025
situation. Today, acceptance often implies the thought: "Accept that circumstances are as they
are, and therefore do nothing, because it's pointless anyway." This is wrong. You can accept
that the circumstances around you can be as they are, but by no means that your
own action depends on them. You can accept and then do what you have resolved to do. It is
goal-oriented and much more active than passive because you are independent of circumstances
and open to outcomes, and you do not prevent your action. The goal is to do the right thing on the
way to the goal. With our mindset, we set the impulse for a morally good or bad action.
Stoic Ethics
Our human nature consists not only of rational thought and the recognition that we are part of this
world, but also that we live in a community with other human beings, recognize them, and strive
for good social behavior towards them (=Oikeiosis). This is a large area of ethics, concerned with
the development of one's own moral character and the alignment of one's own actions with the
four Stoic virtues. This development also consists in contributing to society and seeing the
interests of other people as our own interests:
“His [Cicero’s] eloquent description of this shared investment is that what is of interest to one
individual is “identical” to what is of interest to other people, and therefore is the collective interest
of an entire population.” (Johncock, 2023, p. 93).
Applied to our example situation, this means that we should actively participate in human work and
not passively accept things. Active participation in the meeting and the discussion on the
development of a common IT system is in the interest of the group. Furthermore, the later use
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of
the system extends beyond the project group and thus affects a larger circle of people. Moreover,
the temporal aspect reinforces our present action. The past cannot be undone, and the future is
uncertain and influenced by many factors. So, we can only act in this one moment, and it depends
on whether we want to contribute to the common good with our action or prefer to be guided by
indifferent things and direct our inner attitude towards them.
However, the question of the right and, above all, a good way of behaving in reaction to the
statement in the meeting remains open. A right and good way of behaving according to the Stoics
is one that is in harmony with nature. This means it should be aligned with the virtues, contribute
to our moral development, and serve the common good.
The discipline of action (Ethics) concerns the question: what action is, for example, just, or how do
I act virtuously and in a common-good-oriented manner? I can either act justly towards the person
by letting them continue to speak, simply to give them more space, as they may have a need for
more say. Equally, I can act justly towards the whole group by verbally intervening against the
person to clearly show that they are not the only one in the room and that every group member
might want to make a statement. Certainly, both can be described as just depending on the
situation. The decisive factor is the sole true inner motivation of the action, with its alignment
towards virtue. Neither the fact nor the outcome of the situation is important. For one could grant
the person more space to speak, but the inner motivation might be fear because this person is a
superior. One could verbally intervene and offer all members the opportunity for discussion, but the
inner motivation might merely be
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egoistic self-positioning within the group. Both would be
considered non-Stoic, even anti-Stoic, because the inner motivation is not virtue, even if the factual
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