Choosing the Path That Enlarges Others
Created at: August 10, 2025
When choices confuse you, follow the one that enlarges others. — Jorge Luis Borges
A Compass for Confusing Crossroads
At the outset, the line attributed to Jorge Luis Borges offers a simple compass for moral fog: when uncertain, choose the option that expands another person’s horizons. Borges’s fiction—especially The Garden of Forking Paths (1941)—is obsessed with branching choices and labyrinths; this aphorism reframes such mazes as ethical spaces, not merely intellectual puzzles. Rather than asking what maximizes our personal gain, it invites a different question: which path increases someone else’s agency, dignity, or possibilities? In moments when the metrics are muddy or the stakes feel equal, this rule of thumb reorients our attention outward, turning confusion into a chance to do generative good.
Turning Outward: The Ethics of Ubuntu
From this starting point, the aphorism resonates with Ubuntu, the Southern African ethic summarized as “I am because we are.” Desmond Tutu’s reflections in No Future Without Forgiveness (1999) describe personhood as intrinsically relational; my flourishing is bound up with yours. To “enlarge others,” then, is not self-negation but a practical recognition that community growth rebounds to the individual. The shift is subtle yet decisive: instead of choosing the “bigger life” for oneself, one chooses the bigger life for someone else—and finds one’s own life quietly enlarged in the process. This outward turn creates a positive feedback loop in which generosity compounds into shared strength.
Dignity as a Decision Rule
Moreover, the heuristic sits squarely within classic moral thought. Kant’s Groundwork (1785) insists we treat humanity always as an end, never merely as a means; choosing what enlarges others honors that imperative by prioritizing their autonomy and respect. While utilitarianism (Mill, 1863) aggregates welfare, this rule safeguards individuals from being sacrificed to totals. Indeed, Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971) famously tests arrangements by their effects on the least advantaged—an institutional echo of “enlarging others.” When options look ethically equivalent, selecting the one that most affirms another’s agency preserves dignity without requiring perfect foresight. It becomes a tiebreaker that privileges people over convenience.
Capabilities: Enlargement Made Concrete
In this light, Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach clarifies what “enlargement” means: increase what people are substantively free to be and do. Development as Freedom (1999) and Martha Nussbaum’s Creating Capabilities (2011) emphasize expanding real opportunities—health, education, political voice, and the power to pursue valued lives. A choice that funds training instead of mere short-term aid, for example, enlarges future options as well as present relief. By translating moral intention into capability gains, we can gauge whether our decisions widen horizons or just rearrange the furniture. Thus, the aphorism matures from a warm sentiment into an operational criterion for policy, philanthropy, and everyday help.
Leadership That Multiplies Others
Next, leadership reframed through this lens becomes multiplication rather than accumulation. Robert K. Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership (1970) asks whether those served grow as persons—arguably the textbook definition of “enlargement.” Empirically, Jim Collins’s Good to Great (2001) profiles Level 5 leaders who pair fierce resolve with humility, channeling success into team capacity rather than personal glory. Adam Grant’s Give and Take (2013) further shows that other-focused contributors thrive when they give with discernment. Choosing to share credit, coach successors, and design systems where others can win turns authority into a scaffold for collective ascent.
Guardrails: Listening Over Paternalism
Even so, “enlarging others” can slide into paternalism if we impose what we believe should enlarge them. Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) warns against top-down “banking” models of help; instead, he advocates dialogic, co-created learning. Human-centered design likewise begins with listening (IDEO, Field Guide to Human-Centered Design, 2015). Practically, the rule should be asked in the second person: what enlarges you, as you define it? Pairing this with boundaries—Grant’s “otherish” giving—prevents burnout and preserves integrity. Thus, the heuristic remains humble: it seeks to amplify others’ chosen capabilities, not our projections.
Practicing the Heuristic, Moment by Moment
Practically speaking, the rule thrives in small decisions: in a meeting, invite the quiet colleague to present; in code review, mentor instead of merely patching; with a child, offer choices rather than commands; in philanthropy, fund scholarship plus mentorship, not just fees. When trade-offs are tight, ask which option leaves another person with more voice, skill, or opportunity tomorrow. Over time, these micro-choices accumulate into cultures where people expect to be expanded, not diminished. Thus the labyrinth clarifies: at each fork, look for the path that enlarges someone else—and you will likely discover, as Borges might, that the maze was a school for becoming more human.