Desire, Action, Assent

Book two of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations opens while he is already emperor and already at war, and Derren Brown thinks it hides something the first book does not: a plan. He finds a threefold structure running underneath the notebook entries, borrowed from the philosopher Pierre Hadot, and uses it to take on one of Marcus's strangest claims, that no one does wrong on purpose. Brown tests that claim against real cruelty before Marcus turns the argument on himself, with a warning about time that Brown says is worth sitting with.