47 pages • 1 hour read
Cicero: On Duties (De Officiis)
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Honorableness versus Utility
Cicero sets out to define for his son how he should conduct himself when faced with moral decisions. He proposes that the best kinds of decisions are those based on honorableness and utility. Honorable action arises from accordance with the four human virtues (wisdom, justice, greatness of spirit, and moderation). It also concerns the public good, while utility is comprised of things that preserve individual human lives and are thus concerned with the private good.
Obviously, benefits for the public come into conflict with benefits for the private good. In Book III, Cicero tries to reconcile situations in which what is honorable is at odds with what is useful. He argues that other philosophers have wrongly defined anything useful to also be honorable. According to Cicero, something that is useful to one person could also be disgraceful, and, hence, not honorable. Cicero seems to favor honorableness over utility, as actions that are honorable tend to benefit the greatest number of people.
Deciding whether to act in accordance with honorableness or usefulness would have weighed heavy on Cicero's mind at the time of On Duties' writing. If one associates the public good with honorableness and thus service to the Republic, or Senate, it makes sense that Cicero would favor it. On the other hand, if usefulness is associated with the private good, it becomes inextricably linked to the First Triumvirate, all of whom Cicero perceived as acting based on their self-interest. Interestingly, the Roman Republic could only survive as such if each of its citizens acquiesced to subverting their individual wellbeing for those of the state, or, the honorable. By framing human nature as motivated by harmony among humans based on the four virtues, Cicero sets up a morality in which the Republic is always preserved.
Indictment of Julius Caesar
On Duties grapples with the fallout of Julius Caesar's rise to power and subsequent assassination. As a Roman citizen who had climbed the political ladder to attain consulship, Cicero had a personal and public interest in the Roman Senate's preservation. Caesar and the First Triumvirate were not elected to power, and eventually Caesar would declare himself Dictator for Life. This kind of unilateral power grab was at odds with the Senate's vote-based actions, and thus presented a disruption in Cicero's understanding of how the Republic should operate.
In each book, Cicero gives examples of how Caesar's rise to power and subsequent actions went against honorableness. It's not surprising, given Cicero's loyalty to the old ways of the Senate, that he would find Caesar's assassination to be both useful and honorable. In Cicero's conception, Caesar's rule was disgraceful, and thus taking him out of power would be useful not only to individual citizens of the Roman Republic, but honorable to the Republic as a whole.
The Four Roles of Humans
According to Cicero, every human plays four roles in their lives: the universal, the individual, the circumstantial, and the chosen. The universal role includes all humans. Its nature is the capacity for reasoning, which sets humans apart from all other animals. The individual accounts for the differences in humans' qualities, as in ambition, wit, dishonesty, and melancholy. These qualities not only account for personalities, but determine how a person will conduct themselves when faced with questions of moral duty. For example, an honest person will have an easier time undertaking an honorable action than will a dishonest one. Cicero believes these qualities to be innate, and thus advises that humans should always bear them in mind when making choices. As he writes, "it is futile to oppose nature" (67).
Circumstantial roles are those beyond human control and include positions into which people are born. Cicero's examples here include "kingship, public offices, noble birth, honors, and wealth" (69). On the other hand are chosen roles, or those which people choose to pursue for themselves, regardless of their given circumstances. He gives as examples of the former men who follow their father's path into public office, or military affairs, and of the latter, men who "pursue a course of their own" (69). The chosen roles, for Cicero, are most important, as they will set the course for a life to take.
With respect to accounting for these four roles when making moral decisions, Cicero argues that "nature has the greatest force, followed by fortune" and reminds the reader that they must consider both "when choosing a way of life" (70). In this passage, he again emphasizes the importance of nature in shaping a person's capacity for making moral decisions. Though nature and fortune seem like uncontrollable forces, Cicero does not believe that humans are wholly subject. Instead, he believes that humans have free will and writes that humans are capable of recognizing behavior and choices that are "unrighteous and vicious" (71).
Unlock all 47 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: