Rethinking the Stoic Reserve Clause

Stoicism as a Philosophy of Action

Among the many important and useful Stoic practices — including praemeditatio malorum, examining impressions, view from above, Stoic acceptance, etc. — the reserve clause is one of the most significant ones. Also — in my view — one of the most misunderstood.

Its importance is so great because it is closely related to taking action, following the virtues of wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance in real-life situations. It can be accompanied by techniques that allow us to face fear, deal with anger, and so on, but as those methods allow us to deal well with things that happen to us, the reserve clause is about the things that we decide to do. And as such, is prone to be misinterpreted is some cases, similarly to Stoic acceptance, which — without knowing the background — can be viewed as a call to passiveness. I believe that both of these techniques should be analyzed in detail, and “translated” into our busy everyday lives. In this text, however, I focus on the reserve clause.

What is the reserve clause? In short, it is the lack of attachment to a specific result of our actions. We commit to do something, and at the same time, we accept that the final result is not fully up to us. Donald Robertson writes in How to think like a Roman Emperor (2019) that the reserve clause can “take the form of a caveat such as ‘Fate permitting’, ‘God willing’, or ‘If nothing prevents me’ (p.193). Importantly, “we say reserve clause, incidentally, because our expectations are reserved for what is within our sphere of control” (p. 193–4).

What is it that we can control? Our intentions, motivations, and (to some extent) our actions. I added the “to some extent” part, as external circumstances can make it impossible to complete an intended action, e.g., we want to read a book, but our dog eats it, as happened to me not so long ago. In this view, we focus on setting our mind the right way, we plan our actions and do our best to execute the plan. The famous example of an archer shooting an arrow is a good illustration here — even a master archer does not control the wind or other external factors that may result in missing the target.

I mentioned above that, in my opinion, this very useful and powerful method can be misinterpreted, or used in the wrong way. And it has a lot to do with our beliefs, related to actions and their results. The problems might especially occur if someone is new to Stoicism, as the non-Stoic view (and many of the business coaches and “gurus”) teach us that we are fully responsible for the results. What follows is that failure is our fault, as we apparently made a mistake somewhere along the way.

Some could also say that the reserve clause can be seen as a sort of safe exit option: when we aim to reach a goal, the lack of expectations regarding a result may be an obstacle, blocking us from using all of our resources if we do not care for the outcome anyway (we know that the obstacle is the way, but let’s leave it for now…). Therefore, critics could say, using the reserve clause may be an impediment to putting the necessary effort in reaching the goal.

And this is a crucial point when it comes to everyday lives — as Stoics, same as other people — have careers, families, the need to provide for, and set many important goals. Goals that can be very significant when it comes to, let’s say, a promotion at work. How, then, can we use the reserve clause as a useful tool, in a way it was introduced by Stoics?

As mentioned before, many critical comments may be voiced by people who are new to Stoicism. The argument that not expecting a specific outcome may be detrimental to action may sound convincing if we forget that the main goal of Stoicism is leading a life according to Virtue. All actions and intentions are judged by their relation to wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. A practicing Stoic would put all of his strength in reaching the goal — not because of the outcome, but because taking the action is the right thing to do, it goes well with Virtue. The outcome, for a Stoic, is in fact secondary. Which does not change the fact, that the outcome is also a preferred indifferent.

This means that we prefer to reach our goal over not reaching it. But it also means that not reaching the preferred destination is not the end of the world, and it does not prevent us from fulfillment and living according to Virtue. As Stoic lead normal lives, it is also expected that when they decide to take action, they prefer a specific outcome… but they also know that it is not fully under their control. Also, preferring a failure would be…. hmm… a bit weird.

What makes it the reserve clause one of the most profound Stoic tools, is that it requires a good understanding of the underlying philosophy. If we use it as a “life hack” then it may have an opposite effect — “why bother working hard on project X, if the result is not up to me anyway?” The reserve clause seems very easy to understand, but may be quite difficult to practice. But if we use the reserve clause while accepting and understating Stoic teachings about Virtue, and Stoic fork, we can apply the reserve clause correctly.

So what would be the correct use? I would suggest a view based on probability. First of all, we decide to take actions after looking at the virtues we want to practice. That way we can increase the probability that we will choose wisely, that is, we will choose the right action, the right goal.

Second, we will do all in our power to reach the goal. This is very important — reserve clause is not an “if I fail nothing bad will happen, so I do not need to work with maximum effort” kind of method. Stoics were very active people, politicians, military leaders, businessman. Many of them achieved great things (again — preferred indifferents). It is highly unlikely that such accomplishments would be possible if they worked halfheartedly. If we stick to the probability-based view, we can say with confidence that working hard may not guarantee to reach the goal, but make it more likely. If two students use a reserve clause, and one of them studies hard, and the other looks briefly at the required material, then who is more likely to pass the exams?

Third, there are at least two other benefits of a correctly used reserve clause. One is that not being tied strongly to the outcome reduces anxiety and this gives us more space to plan and focus on doing the right things the right way. Another is the option of combining the reserve clause with praemeditatio malorum. If we are not overwhelmed by outcome-related fear, we can imagine what can go wrong and a) reduce the anxiety even more, and b) create backup plans in case things go south.

But… even after explaining all this, we should prepare for difficult situations in life, in which we do not reach our goals, and it has negative consequences, financial, career-related and the like. It would be Stoic to say to your wife: “My project failed, I lost my job, but worry not — my Virtue is intact”, but her reaction may be less Stoic. Such cases give us more occasions to practice our Stoic virtues and use the obstacles to our advantage. Remember that “Nothing happens to anyone that he is not fitted by Nature to bear” (Meditations, 5.18). But no one said it will be easy.