A Stoic technical term: ὁρμή is the movement of the soul toward action, the impulse. In the Stoic chain by which an act is generated: φαντασία (impression) → συγκατάθεσις (assent of the ruling part) → ὁρμή (impulse) → πρᾶξις (action). Impulse is therefore not a "blind passion" but a function of an evaluative judgment that has already been accepted; this is why responsibility for the act is located in the act of assent, not in the impulse itself.

SVF III 169–177 (the doctrine of ὁρμή as κίνησις ψυχῆς πρός τι, "a movement of the soul toward something"); DL VII 110–116; Stob. Ecl. II 86–87 W; LS 33, 53Q, 65. In Marcus: Med. 2.2; 3.1; 6.50; 8.7 (the well-known rule τέλος ἐν ὁρμῇ τὸ κοινωνικόν, "the end in impulse is the common good"); 9.6; 11.37.

In 02-02 ὁρμή is marked by the key predicate ἀκοινώνητος — "unsocial": the ruling part must not allow an antisocial impulse to jerk it about like a puppet on strings (see puppet). This is the locus of Marcus's discipline of action: the quality of an ὁρμή is determined by whether it is oriented toward the common good (TERMcooperation) or against it (antiprassein). Compare Med. 8.7 — the imperative to "direct every impulse to the common benefit" — and Epictetus' Ench. 2 — on "οἰκεία ὁρμή" ("one's own impulse," the only impulse that is up to us).