Cicero: On Duties (De Officiis)

Cicero reflects on the current state of his life in exile. He has plenty of time for leisure and solitude, but not because he chose either of them. Rather, he can't reenter the city, nor can he conduct his normal business. Instead of getting caught up in despair, though, he's chosen to use his time to write.

After admonishing his son that he has high expectations up to which to live, between being the son of Cicero, and the student of Cratippus, Cicero returns to the issues he's considered in the first two books. He reflects that Panaetius wrote on both honorableness and usefulness, but never wrote about how to decide which action to take when what is honorable conflicts with what is useful. The Stoics, on one hand, claim that honorableness is the only thing that matters, and that whatever is honorable is also useful. The Peripatetics, with whom Cicero's son studies, claim it's the thing that matters the most. For Cicero, honorableness does take precedence over usefulness, but does not fully eclipse it.

He reiterates the importance of never building influence, advantage, nor resources by seizing or imposing on those of others. If people conduct themselves in this way, they should be able to take appropriate actions that are both useful and honorable. This is because the goal, the one determined by Cicero's conception of nature, is to preserve the common bonds among all people, not just relatives or close friends.

With each example of the potential conflicts between honorableness and usefulness, he demonstrates that attempts to hide or omit the truth for personal gain, or utility, are at such odds with virtue, or honorableness, that they generally shouldn't be made. For example, if someone is selling an estate, all of its flaws or caveats of which the seller is aware must be made known to the potential buyer. This is because, as Cicero explains, "nature is the source of what is right" (151). Nature's rightness says that no one should act in a way that preys upon another's ignorance.

He addresses the importance of conducting oneself in the same way, whether when seen or unseen. He gives as an example the story ofGyges, who found a ring with which he could make himself invisible. Under the cover of invisibility, he "violated the queen" of Lydia, killed off the king, and installed himself as the king of Lydia (137). This disgraceful act, though useful to Gyges himself, is at odds with honorableness.As Cicero states, good people would not do something "that he would dare not proclaim," which is to say that one should not act in a way inconsistent with their stated principles (153). Nothing should be hidden.

In determining how to reconcile an action's honorableness with its utility, Cicero recommends asking if it serves the fatherland. Promises should be kept only if their utility does not change, as a change in utility could mean something becomes disgraceful. For example, when Agamemnon promised to the goddess Diana that he would sacrifice the most beautiful thing born in his kingdom that year, and proceeds to sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia, Cicero deems this as disgraceful, as the action stands in opposition to the virtue of justice.

In one of the only sections in the treatise concerning the gods, Cicero poses the question "What could an angry Jupiter do to harm Regulus more than Regulus did to harm himself?" (164). Gods don't experience anger, according to Cicero; rather, they exercise "justice and trustworthiness" (164). When one swears an oath, one swears it to the gods, whose interest lies in preserving justice.

Cicero concludes his letters to his son by reiterating that "there is no utility that is contrary to honorableness" (172). He adds here that "all pleasure is contrary to honorableness" (172), a topic to which Cicero has not explicitly devoted much writing. This insistence stems from his opposition to the Epicurean school of philosophy which valued pleasure as the most important aspect of human life. Things that bring pleasure to one person may prove useful to them, but may also conflict with the virtues of honorableness, and hence, for Cicero cannot be reconciled.