Optimisation as a moral standard
In business, personal relationships, and your inner world — seek to understand why you believe certain actions or people are more virtuous than others.
In his famous quote, Aristotle once said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." By now, these words have been printed onto countless office swag and boujie gyms.
The philosophy has become embodied in the modern-day concept of optimisation, which involves identifying the most efficient and effective ways to achieve a goal.
The interest in optimisation is no longer reserved to a hermetic group of successful entrepreneurs. Slowly but surely, optimisation and ‘productivity hacking’ as a lifestyle are imposing themselves as somewhat of a moral standard.
We see its associated habits as the key to a flourishing, fulfilled life. A happy one.
Our cultures, private lives, and workplaces have become imprinted with mechanics of optimisation. Gamified, efficient, just good.
But how did optimisation go from being a set of best practices to a moral standard?
This article aims to explain why I consider optimisation behaviour to have become morally-laden. Then, I share my considerations on why and how this may have happened. Finally, I encourage you to critically assess this new moral standard to find out if it is right for you.
The optimised individual
The optimiser categorises behaviour as productive or unproductive; some things are detrimental to our well-being, unhealthy, or a waste of time. They do not contribute to a fulfilled life. For good reason, the optimiser does not wish to waste time on lengthy conversations, bad movies, useless meetings, or long commutes.
The same applies to what they eat, so they stay away from empty calories
To the books they read. Preferring to ‘learn’ something rather than read fiction.
To their relationships. What will this person teach me?
To holidays.
To jobs.
For the sake of this article, let's define optimization as a broad set of habits.
Prioritising the healthy, morally good, or productive over instant pleasure
Valuing time and highlighting its scarcity
The incessant desire to move closer to the truth (iteration)
Optimisation as a virtue
The optimised individual (agent) is seen as more virtuous than her peers. Here’s my theory on why this may be.
1 — They often chooses the harder path over the easy one.
“My friend Josh runs a successful company. But boy, did he work hard to get there! He has skipped all social gatherings with his friends for the past 5 years. I could never do it.”
The above was an impression of someone talking about their friend Josh.
Josh engages in a process of rational deliberation to correct his passions. Hume defines ‘passions’ as “impressions of reflection (...) relatively low-order perceptions: they are responses to pleasurable or painful perceptions – and sometimes even innate impulses and instincts”.
Our passions are the result of our emotional, primal, reactive selves. They drive us to make decisions we may later regret. To choose instant pleasure over long-term success.
Josh is the kind of person who reminds himself that engaging in partying — albeit fun — will not get him closer to his goal.
2 — They strives towards human flourishing.
Aristotle defines human flourishing, or Eudaimonia, as “the highest human good, the only human good that is desirable for its own sake (as an end in itself) rather than for the sake of something else (as a means toward some other end).”
To Aristotle, “a virtue is a trait of character that enables a person to flourish”. It is no surprise, then, that a person engaging in behaviour intended to their own betterment and that of those around them is regarded as virtuous.
Betterment may come in various forms; moral progress (justice and temperance) and intellectual progress (wisdom and understanding).
The motivations of the optimiser make them virtuous and good.
A word on Stoicism
Early on in life, the discussion of moral virtue typically takes place within a family or educational setting. For some of us, it happens in a religious setting.
One thing is clear, since the beginning of time, humans have concerned themselves with finding out what is virtuous and morally desirable.
More recently, the discussion of virtue has ventured out of the traditional settings and onto the Internet. More precisely, the discussion of moral virtue has ventured onto the ‘productivity hacking’ section of the Internet.
You may have read any of Ryan Holiday’s work or follow Naval Ravikant on Twitter. Whether you like it or not, Stoic philosophy has made its comeback.
I read that print versions of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations went up by 28% in the first part of 2020 (compared to 2019).
So what is this philosophy all about? The Stoics believe that “good lies in the state of the soul itself; in wisdom and self-control” (Wikipedia).
The Stoic approach to ethics provides a simple, effective framework applicable today. A sort of guidebook if you will. Virtues are divided into four main types:
Wisdom is subdivided into good sense, good calculation, quick-wittedness, discretion, and resourcefulness.
Justice is subdivided into piety, honesty, equity, and fair dealing.
Courage is subdivided into endurance, confidence, high-mindedness, cheerfulness, and industriousness.
Moderation is subdivided into good discipline, seemliness, modesty, and self-control.
They also divide vice into foolishness, injustice, cowardice, intemperance, and the rest.
While the Stoic philosophy sounds pretty cool, does it have relevance in today's world?
I personally believe that in a world where progress is eminent and happens at a fast pace, many of us are forced to wonder, how do I thrive? Others may want to retroactively explain their success. It’s hard to deny the philosophy lends itself rather well to the phenotypic ‘Type A’ personalities.
Finally, I can’t help but wonder the ideology gained in popularity as a result of famous Stoics like Julius Ceasar (emperor), Marcus Aurelius (emperor), and more recently, Jack Dorsey (ex-CEO of Twitter).
Seems like some of us are #manifesting.
The good life, really?
By now, you may agree that optimisation as a set of best practices has entered the realm of morality.
In fact, this commitment to constant improvements and iterations is no longer an innocent set of best practices we come across in obscure Internet articles.
It has turned into a constant assessment of good versus bad.
Productive versus unproductive; worthy versus unworthy; useful versus useless.
The morality of optimisation often makes it viscerally impossible for us to stray. For many of us, it has become nearly unthinkable to enjoy things like poetry, fiction, a lazy morning in bed, or an interaction with a stranger that may or not be lucrative.
Who should we blame? The Stoics? The entrepreneurs? Capitalism? The internet?
I blame our interpretation. Our adaptation of a set of rules intended to help us flourish. With various personalities, in various settings, with different incentives problematic interpretations are inevitable.
A way forward
I must’ve been around 12 years old when I first heard the word ‘stoic’ (or ‘stoïcijn’ in Dutch). It was used to describe a person who remained indifferent to suffering. Calm, yet unnaturally removed while witnessing or experiencing suffering.
I remember being struck by this. How could one remain so indifferent? It felt antisocial and odd.
Today, I suspect this uneasy feeling may be what some of us experience when meeting a frantic optimiser. The forever rationaliser who never lets go for fear of losing grip.
It wasn’t until later, reading Meditations and Letters from a Stoic, that I understood Stoicism as a philosophy was extremely helpful. Read any of Seneca’s letters and you’ll realise, its advocates sought to educate and kindly guide.
Its modern-day interpreters, not so much.
Yet, it is in this happy discovery that lies my advice for a way forward. We should celebrate moral and intellectual progress, no matter how small. Rather than holding on to the ‘all good versus all bad’ dichotomy.
Conclusion
To make the distinction between good and bad we rely on reasoning. Any moral system reliant on rational thought can be hard to adopt in practice. Namely, because of the plethora of biases we experience as humans.
Ironically, we use heuristics to save time in decision-making all the time. Optimisation at its finest.
For example, people are notoriously bad at anticipating what will bring them happiness in the future. Think of the last time you thought talking to a stranger would actually be fun. Until it was.
We should strive to be rational. Make decisions that are most likely to lead to flourishing. All while reminding ourselves of the limits of human reasoning. We don’t have the time to make a calculated assessment of each of our actions.
So, is the solution to throw out optimisation as a moral handbook altogether?
Probably not.
But now that we’ve established the moral implications of the ‘optimiser’s lifestyle’, we may wish to evaluate it with a bit more scrutiny.
In business, personal relationships, and your inner world — seek to understand why you believe certain actions or people are more virtuous than others.
I’ll continue to seek the truth and to want to become a better version of myself all in the name of flourishment. But on a more romantic note, I’ll always keep a little space for life’s surprises. Life’s unexpected, unproductive, lazy, and coincidendal beauty.