Cicero - On Duties - Reading Summary PDF

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CICERO - On Duties (excerpts) (44 BC)

FYI here is a good, shorter, summary: http://www.bostonleadershipbuilders.com/cicero/duties/epitome.htm 1. Letter to son MARCUS, as an attempt to define ideals of the public behavior, how the citizen of a republic must live, behave, and observe moral obligations. 2. No part of life, whether in public or private affaires, abroad or at home, in your personal conduct or your social relations, can be free from claims of duty. 3. The discussion of duty is twofold. 1. supreme good in itself considered, 2. rules by which the conduct of life may be conform with supreme good. There is also another division of duty: perfect duty (what is right in itself) vs contingent duty (that for the doing of which a satisfactory reason can be given). Working off of PANAETIUS' three questions to be considered in determining what we ought to do, CICERO draws up 5: whether contemplated act is right or wrong, whether act is conducive to convenience, pleasure, affluence, power, etc. i.e. benefit of actor and those dependent on him, whether what appears to be expedient seems repugnant to the right, and between 2 rights things which is the more right, and between 2 expedient things, which is the most expedient. 4. Btw man and beast is essential difference; because man has reason, can take into view the whole course of life and consider beauty, consistency and order to be preserved; from these elements the right is composed and created. 5. Whatever is right springs from 1 of 4 sources : perception and skilful treatment of truth, maintaining good fellowship with men, greatness and strength of a lofty and unconquered mind, order and measure that constitute moderation and temperance. All 4 are connected, but duties proceed from each (from first is investigation and discovery, from other 3 virtues proceed the preserving of things on which life depends so as to maintain fellowship of society and greatness of mind). 6. Of 4 heads, first (cognizance of truth) is closest to human nature. In quest of knowledge, 2 faults are to be shunned: taking of unknown things for known and giving our assent to them too hastily + bestowing too much zeal and labor on things obscure and difficult. 7. Of the remaining 3 heads, the second principle (constitutes bond of human society) has the widest scope. Of this, there are 2 divisions: justice and beneficence. There are 2 kinds of injustices: that of those who inflict injury + that of those who do not, if they can, repel injury from those on whom it is inflicted. 8. Wealth is sought sometimes for the necessary uses of life, sometimes for indulgence in luxury. Wrong-doing for the sake of gain is never to be tolerated. Most of all, however, people are led to lose sight of justice by the craving of military commands, civic honors, and fame. Also, in every form of injustice, it makes a difference whether the wrong be committed in some disturbance of mind or with premeditation; things which are done from some sudden impulse are more venial than what si done with plan and forethought. 9. For omitting to defend the injured, and thus abandoning duty, there are many reasons in

current force. The very thing which is right to do, can be termed virtuous only if it be voluntary. Forsaking social duty by professing to confine their attentions to their own affairs constitutes a second form of injustice. 10. But there are frequent occasions when those things that are generally regarded as worthy of a just man are reversed, and become the opposite of right. When the fundamental principles of justice (laid down before) are modified by circumstances, duty is also modified. For example, promises are not to be kept, when by keeping them you do harm to those to whom they are made, nor yet if they injure you more than they benefit him to whom you made them. 11. There are also certain duties to be observed towards those who may have injured you, for there is a limit to revenge and punishment. Wars then, are to be waged in order to render it possible to live in peace without injury; but, victory once gained, those are to be spared who have not been cruel in war. Also, justice is to be maintained even towards those of the lowest condition. Wrong may be done in two ways, either by force or by fraud (fraud being the most detestable). 17. There are several degrees of relationship among men. None is more enduring then when good men, of like character, are united in intimacy. Also, no association is closer than that which unites each of us with our country. Comparison of the degree of service to be rendered in each relation: 1. country + parents, 2. children + entire family, 3. the kindred with whom we are on pleasant terms. 19. Courage is well defined by the Stoics as the virtue that contends for the right. No one, then, who has sought a reputation for courage by treachery and fraud, has won the fame he sought. A soul truly and wisely great regards the right to which the nature of man aspires as consisting in deeds, not in fame. 20. A brave and great soul is characterized by 2 things: 1. contempt of outward circumstances in the persuasion that a man ought not to admire or wish or seek aught that is not right, 2. one should undertake the conduct of affairs great, indeed, but at the same time arduous in the highest degree. Desire for money must especially be shunned. The greed of fame, as well. 21. While living as one pleases is common to those greedy of power and to the men of leisure, those who devote themselves to learning with superior ability, or those who have sought retirement, deserve approval for despising fame but seem to dread toil and trouble and imagined shame and disgrace from the disappointments which they must encounter. At the same time, for those who might undertake public trusts, there is a need for elevation of mind and contempt of the vicissitudes of human fortune. On the other, they are liable to stronger mental excitement and are more heavily burdened with care then those who live in retirement, and they should therefore bring to their duty a corresponding strength of mind. In fine, all transactions, before you enter upon them, you should make diligent preparation. 22. Since military achievements are very commonly regarded as outranking civil service, this opinion needs to be refuted; for wars have often been encouraged from the desire of fame, and there have been many civic transactions that have surpassed feats of arms in importance and in renown. 23. The virtue which we demand of a lofty and large mind is generated by strength of mind, not of body. Yet the body must be disciplined, and brought into a condition in which it can obey counsel and reason in following out affairs to their issue, and in enduring toil. Skill in the settlement of controversies is more desirable than courage in disputing them by arms; but care must be taken lest we resort to peaceful measures rather to avoid fighting than for the public good. But war should be undertaken in such a way that it may seem nothing else than a

quest for peace, yet when occasions and need demand, there must be hand-to-hand fighting, and death is to be preferred to slavery or poltroonery. 24. As to the destruction and plundering of conquered cities, care must be taken that nothing can be done precipitately, nothing cruelly. We ought to be more ready to encounter danger for ourselves than for the state. Also, not being willing to make the least sacrifice of reputation for the well-being of the state, is an error. 25. Those who preside over the state obey 2 precepts of PLATO: 1. that they so watch for the well-being of their fellow-citizens, forgetting their own private interests, 2. that they care for the whole body politic, and not just one portion. Most pitiful in every aspect is the canvassing and scrambling for preferment. PLATO also exhorts us to regard as enemies those who bear arms against us, not those who desire to care for the interests of the state in accordance with their own judgment. Also, those who preside should be like the laws, i.e. inflicting punishment not by anger, but by justice. 26. In prosperity, we should avoid pride, fastidiousness, and arrogance. We must also take heed lest we open our ears to flatterers. Though those indicative of the highest tone of spirit, come under the direction of men in public life, there are men of great mind in private life. He who observes rules set out (mainly avoiding luxury, practicing generosity, etc.) may live in dignity and at the same time with simplicity. Book III 8. Where the is moral wrong expediency cannot be. Whatever is right is expedient. Bad men consider things that seem expedient independently of the question of right. Furthermore, even if we escape the view of gods and men through concealment, still nothing ought to be done by us avariciously, nothing unjustly, nothing lustfully, nothing extravagantly. 9. For this reason, PLATO introduces the story of Gyges. If a wise man had ring making him invisible, he would not think himself any more at liberty to do wrong than if he had it not; for it is right things, not hidden things, that are sought by good men. 10. There occur cases where the question is not whether the right is to be sacrificed on account of the greatness of the benefit to be gained (for that is unquestionably wrong), but whether that which seems expedient can be done without guilt. Advantages that are properly our own we are not to abandon, or to yield up to others, if we ourselves need them; but each one must minister to his own advantage only so far as it may be done without wrong to others. In the case of friendship, office, welath, pleasure, other things of that sort, are not to be preferred to friendship, but a good man will not do nothing against the state for the sake of his friend, not even if he were a judge in his friend's case. Also, religion and good faith are to take precedence of friendship. 11. But it is in the affairs of the state that wrong is the most frequently committed under the show of expediency. However, the power of right eclipses the show of expediency....