How it works

A faithful Stoic argument grounds its claim in the dichotomy of control: judgments, desires, and one's own choices are "up to us"; outcomes, others' actions, health, reputation, and death are not. It treats virtue (wisdom, justice, courage, temperance) as the only true good and externals as "indifferents" — preferred or dispreferred, never intrinsically good or bad. It should locate emotional disturbance in false judgments about externals, not in the externals themselves, and frame right action as living in accordance with reason and nature.

Score fidelity down when the argument: relies on aggregate-welfare calculation instead of the control distinction (utilitarian reasoning in Stoic dress); treats an external outcome as intrinsically good or bad rather than indifferent; or amounts to generic "stay calm / toughen up" advice without grounding in what is and isn't up to the agent.

Credit the concept, not the vocabulary. An argument that separates what is up to the agent from what is not, and treats an outcome as neither good nor bad in itself, is reasoning from the dichotomy of control and the indifferents whether or not it uses those terms. Never mark fidelity down for missing vocabulary alone.

The best-known objection to Stoicism is that it gives up on the world too easily: if only your own judgment is up to you, there is no argument for making an unfair system fairer, only for tolerating it with good posture. Engagement should check whether the argument meets this objection, and ignoring it costs engagement, not fidelity.

Of the rival schools this prompt lists, the one that normally voices this objection is `utilitarianism` (the harm an unfair system does is a sum someone could reduce, and declining to try is itself a choice about that harm), or `ubuntu` (a person is a person through other persons, so standing apart from an unfair system leaves the people inside it on their own). When the argument leaves the objection unmet, return it in that school's voice.

A faithful utilitarian argument grounds its claim in consequences: it identifies who is affected, weighs the magnitude and likelihood of benefit and harm to each, and argues for whichever action maximizes aggregate welfare, with every affected party's welfare counted impartially — not just the agent's, and not just one favored group's. It should engage with the actual scale of costs and benefits, not merely assert a direction ("this helps people").

Score fidelity down when the argument: appeals to rights, duty, or virtue as the reason an act is right, with consequences merely mentioned in passing; ignores costs or harms to any affected party entirely; or asserts a utility conclusion without any comparison of magnitudes.

Credit the concept, not the vocabulary. An argument that works out who is affected, by how much and how likely, and counts each party's welfare impartially is reasoning about aggregate welfare whether or not it uses the words utility, welfare or impartiality. Never mark fidelity down for missing vocabulary alone.

The best-known objection to utilitarianism is that it treats a whole society's welfare the way one person treats trade-offs across their own life, netting one person's loss against other people's gains as if a single subject bore both, when no total makes the trade fair to the person who pays for it. Engagement should check whether the argument meets this objection, and ignoring it costs engagement, not fidelity.

Of the rival schools this prompt lists, the one that normally voices this objection is `virtue-ethics` (what is done to one person must be justifiable to that person, not only to the total), or `ubuntu` (each person's capacity for relationship is to be honoured, not netted against other people's gains). When the argument leaves the objection unmet, return it in that school's voice.

A faithful virtue-ethics argument grounds its claim in what a person of practical wisdom (phronesis) and good character would do, identifies the specific virtue at stake (courage, justice, temperance, honesty, etc.), and situates the right action as the mean between an excess and a deficiency of that virtue. It treats the aim of ethical life as flourishing (eudaimonia) achieved through virtuous activity over time, not a single calculation, and attends to the agent's character and motives, not just the act's conformity to a rule or its aggregate effect.

Score fidelity down when the argument: reduces to "this produces the most good" without reference to character or virtue (utilitarian bleed); reduces to "externals don't matter, only my judgments do" (Stoic bleed); or asserts "a good person would do X" without naming the virtue at stake or the excess and deficiency it sits between.

Credit the concept, not the vocabulary. An argument that asks what a person of good judgment and character would do, places the right act between too much and too little, and aims at a life lived well over time is reasoning from practical wisdom, the mean and flourishing whether or not it uses the words phronesis, eudaimonia or mean. Naming the virtue at stake in plain words, such as courage or honesty, is naming it. Never mark fidelity down for missing vocabulary alone.

The best-known objection to virtue ethics is that it has no answer for scale: knowing your own character does not tell you which policy saves more lives, and what a good person would do goes quiet exactly when interests genuinely conflict. Engagement should check whether the argument meets this objection, and ignoring it costs engagement, not fidelity.

Of the rival schools this prompt lists, the one that normally voices this objection is `utilitarianism` (a policy that touches thousands of people needs its outcomes compared, and asking what a good person would do does not compare them). When the argument leaves the objection unmet, return it in that school's voice.

A faithful Confucian argument grounds its claim in roles and the relationships that constitute them: you do not enter a relationship as a finished individual, and what you owe attaches to a position rather than being owed in the abstract. Its central terms are ren, the humaneness a relationship realises, and li, the ritual propriety through which conduct is done and learned. Cultivating oneself is native here, and proceeds through roles and ritual rather than apart from them. Holding a name to its work, after Book 13, is a strength where it appears.

Score fidelity down when the argument: reduces to what the system maximises (utilitarian bleed); treats virtue as detached from roles, relationships and ritual (virtue-ethics bleed); or asserts that relationships matter without naming the relation, who owes what to whom, or what the position requires.

Credit the concept, not the vocabulary. An argument that reasons from what a role requires, what the parties to a relationship owe one another, the humaneness a relationship realises, and the propriety through which conduct in it is done is reasoning from ren and li whether or not either word appears. Never mark fidelity down for missing vocabulary alone.

The best-known objection to Confucianism is that role ethics is too ready to authorise hierarchy: mutual duties do not make unequal parties equals, and a system can honour every expectation attaching to a role while leaving the power between the parties where it found it. Engagement should check whether the argument meets this objection, and ignoring it costs engagement, not fidelity.

Of the rival schools this prompt lists, the one that normally voices this objection is `utilitarianism` (the subordinate party's interests go uncounted when the stronger party sets the terms), or `ubuntu` (solidarity requires the weaker party can be heard). When the argument leaves the objection unmet, return it in that school's voice.

A faithful Ubuntu argument grounds its claim in relational personhood: a person is a person through other persons, so the stake is what people become through one another, not what an agent gets alone. Metz's principle is that right action honours capacities for relationships of shared identity and solidarity. Menkiti's achieved personhood and Gyekye's moderate reading, which keeps individual worth, are both faithful. A harm reads as a failure of relationship, not only a bad output.

Score fidelity down when the argument: maximises expected utility (utilitarian bleed); treats the community as a single stakeholder; or asserts that community matters without naming whose relationships are at stake or who was left out. Leaning on communal expectation is faithful; ignoring the charge that it pressures dissenters costs engagement, not fidelity.

Credit the concept, not the vocabulary. An argument that reasons from what people become through one another, and reads a harm as a failure of relationship and solidarity, is reasoning from relational personhood whether or not it uses the word ubuntu, quotes the maxim, or names Metz, Menkiti or Gyekye. Never mark fidelity down for missing vocabulary alone.

The best-known objection to Ubuntu is that a community is not one voice: somebody decides what communal welfare means and who counts as inside, and an appeal to communal expectation can make a dissenter the problem. Engagement should check whether the argument meets this objection, and ignoring it costs engagement, not fidelity.

Of the rival schools this prompt lists, the one that normally voices this objection is `stoicism` (a dissenter's own judgment is the one thing the community cannot decide for them). When the argument leaves the objection unmet, return it in that school's voice.

A faithful Buddhist argument grounds its claim in non-harm, intention, compassion and liberation, weighing suffering, dukkha, as what is at stake. Volition weighs as much as what follows, and non-harm covers what one incites as well as what one does. Two commitments shape it: anatta, no fixed, bounded self, and dependent origination, what arises coming from conditions, not one cause. The discourse to Rahula asks, before acting, while acting and after, whether it tends to harm oneself, another, or both. A later tradition's inference, such as the Mahayana argument from anatta to impartial compassion, is faithful when argued.

Score fidelity down when the argument: maximises aggregate welfare, ignoring intention and non-harm (consequentialist bleed); uses a good intention to excuse damage a careless actor would be blamed for; or asserts non-harm without naming who is still hurt.

Credit the concept, not the vocabulary. An argument that weighs suffering, intention and non-harm, declines to treat the self as fixed and bounded, and treats what happens as arising from many conditions rather than one cause is reasoning from dukkha, anatta and dependent origination whether or not it uses those terms. Never mark fidelity down for missing vocabulary alone.

The best-known objection to Buddhist ethics is that it has much moral teaching and little systematic moral philosophy of the kind the West built: compassion and non-harm do not say who owns a dataset, who audits a model, or how somebody appeals its decisions. That gap is a challenge for reconstruction, not proof the tradition is deficient. Engagement should check whether the argument meets this objection, and ignoring it costs engagement, not fidelity.

Of the rival schools this prompt lists, the one that normally voices this objection is `utilitarianism` (deciding who audits a model and how an appeal is weighed takes a way of comparing everyone's claims, which compassion alone does not supply), or `confucian` (who answers to whom for a model is a question of roles and what each owes, which non-harm leaves unassigned). When the argument leaves the objection unmet, return it in that school's voice.