On the Intention of Cicero's de Officiis

8/14/2019 On the Intention of Cicero's de Officiis

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On the Intention of Cicero's "De Officiis"Author(s): Douglas KriesSource: The Review of Politics, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 375-393Published by: Cambridge University Press for the University of Notre Dame du lac on behalfof Review of PoliticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1408717

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On the Intention of Cicero'sDe OfficiisDouglas Kries

Recent scholarship has yielded a great deal of information on Cicero's Deofficiis; this essay, however, seeks to move beyond information about the work

in favor of an interpretation of Cicero's intention in writing it. To this end, theessay analyzes the genre and intended audience of De officiis, the allegedlyStoic teaching contained in it, and the puzzle presented by its crucial thirdbook. The understanding of Cicero's intention that emerges from theseinvestigations is then briefly compared with Cicero's teaching in De finibus.The essay ultimately claims that De officiis should be interpreted as advocatinga sort of Stoicism for the unphilosophical even while urging the views of thePeripatetics on the more sophisticated.

That Cicero's stature among political thinkers has diminished incontemporary imes is hardly news, but it is still astonishing o con-sider how far De officiis in particular has fallen in the standardcurriculum or students of politics in the West. Without going into thedetails of the story, one notes that Cicero's last philosophical projectsoon established tself as a standard edagogical ool in late antiquity,that it became a common book in the medieval schools, that it was akey text in the curriculum of the Renaissance humanists, and that itheld a preeminent position in both the grammar chools and the uni-versities of the Enlightenment. Ambrose imitated the book, evenborrowing ts title;1 Thomas Aquinas cites it frequently n treating moraland political matters in the Summa theologiae; Erasmus andMelanchthon each published editions of the text; Montesquieu wasinspired by it and Kant against it.2 Indeed, if one compares ists ofbooks commonly read by students of politics today with such listsfrom the

past,the most

strikingdifference would have to be the vir-

tual omission of De officiis from contemporary ists, especially in theUnited States.

1. In his impressive new commentary on Ambrose's book, Davidson arguespersuasively hat the title of the work was originally not De officiis ministrorum, s ithas come to be known in recent centuries, but simply De officiis. See Ivor J. Davidson,Ambrose De officiis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 1: 1-2.

2. The works cited in notes 5 and 6 below each contain more extensive

treatments of the influence of Cicero's De officiis.


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On the other hand, the tools available to those hardy studentsof De officiis who do remain, and especially to English-speakingones, have never been greater. For starters, we now have an au-thoritative new critical edition of the Latin text

byM.

Winterbottom,published in 1994 in the esteemed Oxford Classical Texts series.3Two new English translations have appeared, one by M. T. Griffinand E. M. Atkins, which was published by Cambridge UniversityPress in 1991,4 and another by P. G. Walsh, published by OxfordUniversity Press in 2000.5 Both are extensively annotated and in-clude indices, chronologies, synopses, and learned introductions.Most impressive of all is the massive commentary of Andrew R.

Dyck, which appeared in 1996 in a volume that runs to over 700pages and includes a long list of secondary iterature written mostlyby trained classicists.6 Whatever he cause of the neglect of De of-ficiis by the political thinkers of our time, it cannot be a lack ofaccess to vital information about the work.

Ironically, while present-day students of De officiis must beenormously grateful for all the genuine advancements achievedby the recent scholarship just cited, it is also true that these vol-umes do not aim at providing a justification for studying De officiis,and indeed some of the very information contained within themcould cause a potential reader to be disinclined. One reads, forexample, that the occasion for Cicero's writing the work was insome ways largely accidental. Cicero had planned to visit hisson who was studying at Athens, and had indeed started thejourney, but unfavorable winds and news of recent political de-velopments in Rome caused him to

changehis mind.

Perhapsit

seemed better to Cicero simply to send an extended letter toyoung Marcus rather than turn his attention from truly impor-tant affairs. Thus, the three books that comprise De officiis were"dashed off at a remarkably quick rate";7 such haste, we learn,is visible in "a certain carelessness in structure and argument"and "a tendency to repetition" in the work.8 Deficiencies like

3. M. Winterbottom, De officiis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). AllLatin quotations rom De officiis will be taken from this edition.

4. M. T. Griffin and E. M. Atkins, Cicero On Duties (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1991).

5. P. G. Walsh, On Obligations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). AllEnglish quotations from De officiis used in this essay will be taken from Walsh'stranslation.

6. Andrew R. Dyck, A Commentary on Cicero, De Officiis (Ann Arbor, MI:University of Michigan Press, 1996).

7. Dyck, Commentary n Cicero, pp. 39 and 37.8. Griffin and Atkins, Cicero on Duties, p. xix.

376 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS


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these were not likely to matter, though, for Marcus was a profli-gate young man of twenty-one who was more interested inpursuing pleasures than studies anyway (he eventually becamea

degeneratealcoholic). Worst of all, we are told that Cicero him-

self did not bother to be very innovative in De officiis, for he waspretty much just passing on the teaching of another work, onewritten in Greek by Panaetius. Panaetius's book is lost, but somecommentators still tend to be remarkably confident that the goalof Cicero's project was primarily to dress up Panaetius's book inRoman garb so that it might speak to a Roman audience. Ulti-mately, Dyck's judgment on the philosophical value of De officiis

is that, "It shows us less of Cicero the philosopher than Cicerothe father and politician," but perhaps we should not be dis-traught at this, since Cicero pursued philosophical questions only"in the amateur way he considered suitable to a Roman gentle-man and statesman."9 Griffin and Atkins are a little more kind:"Even if Cicero did not always succeed, he did at least try to usethe tools of Greek philosophy ... to live and act rationally."10Walsh's assessment is not exactly negative, but he speaks of

Cicero's enthusiasm for philosophy rather than his skill at it,and he emphasizes Cicero's ability to communicate to a popularaudience rather than to a more sophisticated one.1

The recent commentators have much to say that is not reflectedin the previous paragraph, f course, but it is still the case that thesenew volumes, for all their merits, may well not move students ofpolitical philosophy to return to the work that so inspired theirpredecessors. What is still wanting is not so much more informa-tion on De officiis but rather an interpretation-an interpretationthat argues for its timeless significance and the enduring benefitsto be gained from its study. The present essay is more modest inscope, but it will begin to establish the outlines of such an interpre-tation by considering the basic intention of Cicero in composing Deofficiis. Three particular problems will be analyzed in order to ar-gue for this understanding f Cicero's intention: he work's intended

audience and genre; the work's imputed Stoicism; and the perplex-ing nature of the work's third and final book. As a result of suchanalysis, De officiis reveals itself to be a much more subtle philo-sophical project than has been generally understood and one whosepotential contributions are much greater than is usually acknowl-edged in our time.

9. Dyck, Commentary on Cicero, p. 39.

10. Griffin and Atkins, Cicero on Duties, p. xxviii.11. Walsh, On Obligations, p. xvi.

CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 377


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Genre and Intended Audience

As already indicated, De officiis is formally addressed to Cicero'sson, a young man of twenty-one years who was studying in Ath-ens. It seems that the immediate purpose of the aborted trip duringthe summer of 44 B.C. was to exhort young Marcus to pursue hisstudies more diligently, for letters from those watching overMarcus's progress were not at all encouraging. Consequently, Deofficiis has sometimes been viewed as a sort of extended personalletter sent in lieu of an actual visit, and indeed Cicero suggests at

the very end of the work that if he had made his way to Athens hewould have spoken to Marcus in person about officia (3.121). At thesame time, one wonders just how much should be made of the fa-ther and son relationship in reading De officiis. For one thing, Ciceroaddresses most of his works to one person or another, and it is farfrom obvious that the choice of addressee seriously impacts thecontent of the work as a whole. Would the works addressed toBrutus, for example, be substantially different if

theyhad been ad-

dressed to some other prominent senator? Besides, Cicero couldcertainly have exhorted Marcus to study harder via private corre-spondence; why was there a need to say these things publicly?Indeed, at the end of the preface to the third book, Cicero breaks offan exhortation to Marcus by stating that he has already writtensuch things in private correspondence: "But enough of this, for Ihave exhorted you by letter at length and often. Now let us get

back to the remaining section of the work before us" (3.6). Mostimportantly, Cicero clearly says at one point that De officiis is meantto have a wider audience than Marcus: "[T]he discussion on whichI have embarked is concerned not with you personally, but withthe whole category of youths [non de te, sed de toto genere]" (2.45).12

A few paragraphs later, Cicero refers in passing to other fa-mous letters from fathers to sons: "Letters have survived composedby three men who we are told were masters of practical wisdom:

the first was sent by Philip to Alexander, the second by Antipaterto Cassander, and the third by Antigonus to his son Philip" (2.48).From the context, it seems that Cicero has read these letters or atleast knows their contents. Unfortunately, these letters have notcome down to us. It is necessary to avoid falling into the trap ofassuming that one knows the contents of ancient documents that

12. Although Dyck, Commentary n Cicero, emphasizes De officiis as an act of

parenting by Cicero, he does note (p. 16) that the work was also addressed to alarger audience.

THE REVIEW OF POLITICS78


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CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 379do not survive, but one can at least wonder whether De officiis shouldbe read as belonging to a tradition of letters from fathers to sonsthat contain fatherly advice to young statesmen. Perhaps it wouldbe a little

presumptuousfor Cicero

indirectlyto liken himself to

Philip, Antipater, and Antigonus; certainly it is quite presumptu-ous to liken his son to Alexander, Cassander, or Philip. Furthermore,the monarchical overtones of the literary tradition or genre wouldpresumably require alteration by the republican Cicero. Still, theliterary precedent provided by such letters would give Cicero anopportunity to address himself not only to Marcus but also to theyoung aristocracy of Rome, which would explain the work's fre-

quent references to contemporary political events, including therecent assassination of Julius Caesar. Yet another clue about thegenre of De officiis is found in the letter to Atticus in which Cicerofirst tells Atticus about the new project he is working on: "Here Iphilosophize (what else?) and expound the subject of Duty on amagnificent scale. I am addressing the book to Marcus. From fa-ther to son what better theme [qua de re enim potius pater filio]?"13What is noteworthy about this brief passage for our purposes is

Cicero's suggestion that his goal is not to speak directly to Marcus,but that addressing the book to Marcus will give the project its"theme" or, we might even say, its "conceit."

Given these various considerations, it seems best to concludethat De officiis should not be read as the personal letter of a fathertrying to exhort a not-too-promising son. Rather, the intended au-dience of the work is aspiring young statesmen and the father andson

aspectof the work

providesthe form or

genre.If this is the

audience and genre, though, one wonders about the relationshipof the De officiis to Cicero's philosophical project. Certainly he formof the work cannot be said to be the philosophical dialogue thatCicero often employed in his philosophical writings. Moreover, inthe famous passage in De divinatione in which Cicero explains thesequence and purpose of his philosophical works, De officiis is notmentioned.14 t is hardly necessary to conclude, however, that Cicero

has nothing to say to philosophers in De officiis. While De officiismay well not have been planned by the time of the writing of Dedivinatione, there is no reason to think that it could not have grownout of the ethical reflections that were undertaken in writing De

13. Letters to Atticus, trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1999), 15.13a.2, #417. Cicero also connects the theme of duty tothe theme of father and son early on in De officiis: "I intend o begin with the subject

most suited to both your years and my paternal authority" 1.4).14. De divinatione 2.1.


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finibus. Moreover, even if the intended audience of De officiis is pri-marily young republican aristocrats rather than philosophers,studying what Cicero says to young statesmen may well tell us a

great deal about his understanding of political philosophy.Machiavelli's Prince is also a book written in the form of an ex-tended exhortation to a young "statesman," but few commentatorsconclude that Machiavelli has nothing to say to serious philoso-phers in it. Finally, in the letter to Atticus cited at the end of theprevious paragraph, Cicero quite clearly links the activity of phi-losophizing to De officiis. It is therefore entirely possible that Cicerointends De officiis to speak not only to the youth of the Roman world

but also to the more philosophically inclined.

Stoic Posturing

At the beginning of De officiis, Cicero says that he will adoptthe general viewpoint of Stoicism, and indeed, even more par-ticularly, that of the Stoic philosopher Panaetius. The manner inwhich he declares himself to be a Stoic, however, is most curious.For starters, he begins the work by reminding young Marcus thathe is studying with the Peripatetic Cratippus, "the outstandingphilosopher of our day," and Cicero continues on to say that hisown views "do not differ markedly from those of the Peripatet-ics" (1.2). In the preface to the second book, he mentions Cratippusagain and speaks of the similarity of his own views with those ofCratippus's tradition of philosophy (2.8). He speaks of Cratippus

also in the preface to Book 3, saying that he is "the outstandingphilosopher in our recollection" (3.5), and later in the book sug-gests that Marcus himself belongs to the Peripatetic school (3.20).One might, then, expect a discussion on officia-obligations orduties-that would be in accord with Peripatetic principles ratherthan Stoic ones. On the other hand, Cicero himself always claimedto be an adherent to one branch of the ancient Academy, the so-called new or skeptical Academy, and in fact in De officiis he

forthrightly says that he belongs to the philosophical school ofthe Academy (3.20; also 2.7-8). We might, then, expect an exposi-tion of duties that would be in accord with Academic principles,especially since Cicero thinks that the Peripatetics and the Aca-demics were once the same school and still hold very similar viewswith respect to the matter at hand (3.20; 1.2).

Initially, n stating his intention o follow the Stoics, Cicero claimsthat all three schools-the Academics, the Peripatetics, and the Sto-ics-are able rightfully to speak with authority about obligations,



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for "only those who maintain that right behavior alone is worthseeking, or those who claim that it should be our chief aim for itsown sake, can enunciate principles of obligation which are steadyand

unshiftingand inherent in nature"

1.6).Since the Stoics claim

that "right behavior" or virtue or honestum is the only good and thePeripatetics and the Academics claim that such is the highest orchief good (although not the only one), all three schools meet thestated criterion. In a seemingly arbitrary choice, however, Cicerothen simply states, without explanation, that he will follow theteachings of the Porch over the other two alternatives: "So at thisparticular ime in my enquiry I follow the Stoics chiefly" (1.6).

Indeed, the choice of Stoicism is stranger than merely beingarbitrary. Not only is Marcus a Peripatetic and Cicero an Academic,but the Stoics are often the targets of criticism and sometimes evenridicule by Academic skepticism in general and Cicero in particu-lar. This is clearly the case with respect to physics and theology, ascan be seen in De natura deorum, De divinatione, and De fato, butCicero is also quite willing to criticize Stoic ethics, as is clearly evi-dent in De finibus. In Book 3 of the latter work, he places in the

mouth of Cato Uticensis what is generally understood to be themost thorough statement on early Stoic ethics that has come downto us, but in Book 4 he articulates n his own name a rather severecriticism of the ethical principles of Stoicism. In Pro Murena, a speechin which Cicero found himself at odds with Cato, Cicero was evenwilling to criticize publicly Cato's Stoic ethical principles.15 It is,therefore, at the very least certainly odd that Cicero is suddenlywilling to wrap himself in the mantle of Stoic ethics in De officiis.'6Walter Nicgorski states this paradox very bluntly: "If at all seriousabout philosophy, how can Cicero be both a skeptic and a stoic?"17

But Cicero gives his readers plenty of hints that De officiis is notas Stoic as it professes to be. This begins right with his first an-nouncement, mentioned above, that he will be following theteachings of the Porch: "So at this particular ime in my enquiry Ifollow the Stoics chiefly, not translating them, but following my

usual procedure of drawing from their wells as much as, and inwhatever way, my judgement and inclination dictate" (1.6). The

15. Pro Murena 29.61-31, 66; cf. Definibus 4.74.16. Other texts in which Cicero is often thought to assume the position of the

Stoics include his De legibus and his Paradoxa Stoicorum. here s not space to commentthoroughly on those works in this article, but they are addressed obliquely in theconclusion of the present essay.

17. Walter Nicgorski, "Cicero's Paradoxes and His Idea of Utility," PoliticalTheory 12 (1984): 559.



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passage is of course ambiguous. It tells us both that Cicero will andwill not be writing in accord with Stoic principles. Immediatelyafter this enigmatic statement, he tells his readers that Panaetius,

the famous Stoic whom he is supposedly following, made two egre-gious mistakes. First, he did not define officium, which is a seriousoversight, because "every rational approach to instruction on anysubject ought to begin with a definition" (1.7). Second, in classify-ing officia, Panaetius neglected to treat two important points, andin classification, "the most grievous fault is to leave something out"(1.10). Cicero proceeds similarly in the preface to Book 3. First, hesays that, "Panaetius, then, discussed obligations in the most scru-

pulous manner without provoking disagreement, and I havefollowed him very closely though with some amendments" (3.7).What does the qualifying clause "though with some amendments"mean? Cicero then proceeds with another implicit criticism ofPanaetius, telling the reader that this Panaetius whom he is follow-ing has failed to discuss the most important question of allconcerning officia, namely, what conclusions one should draw aboutapparent conflicts between the honestum and the utile.

Most importantly, Cicero never tells us in his essay that theethical theory of the Stoics is true, or even most probably true.What he says is that questions about duties or officia "will be morenobly [splendidius] expounded" (3.20) by the Stoics, because theyclaim that everything honorable is useful and nothing is usefulwhich is not honorable, whereas the Academics and Peripatetics(Cicero's and Marcus's schools) admit that there are some honor-

able things that are not useful and some useful things that are nothonorable, even if they insist that the honorable things are higher.Here Cicero admits forthrightly that, at least on one level, De of-ficiis does not aim at directly stating what is true but rather whatis noble. The extent to which the work might indirectly state whatis true while ostensibly treating only what sounds noble will betaken up below.

The Crux of the Problem: Book III

Cicero's remarks on why he chooses to write under the guise ofStoicism lead us straight into the crux of the problem explored inDe officiis. The first book of the work treats what is honestum orhonorable; the second book considers what is utile or useful. Theimmediate and obvious question that arises concerns the relationbetween the two, for a moment's reflection seems to indicate thatwhat is honorable or virtuous might conflict with what is at least



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thought to be useful. Statesmen especially face difficult choiceswhere the two do not always appear to go hand in hand. The statedtheme of Book 3 of Cicero's work is precisely this problem.

Cicero tells us that Panaetius's book, Peri tou kathekontos, an-nounced that it would take up the problem of the honestum irst, theutile second, and then treat the question of seeming conflicts betweenthe two (since Panaetius wrote in Greek, presumably he used thewords kalon and sympheron).18 n any event, Cicero says, Panaetiustreated the first two topics (albeit incompletely) but the third not atall.19 Cicero goes to some length to try to explain Panaetius's ailureto complete the work, thus calling the reader's attention o Panaetius's

omission. Panaetius's ailing turns out to be all the more remarkablebecause, says Cicero, Panetius's student Posidonius tells us thatPanaetius ived for thirty years after he finished his treatment of thefirst two topics in the series. Moreover, we learn that neither didPosidonius, who became a famous Stoic philosopher of no small abil-ity himself, attempt o answer the question that Panaetius had asked,despite the fact that Posidonius had written that "no topic in thewhole of philosophy is as vital as this" (3.8).

If we are not already perplexed at why Panaetius and Posidonius,the most famous names of what has come to be known as the"middle" Stoa, abandoned the crucial third question, Cicero drawsthe reader's attention to two possible explanations. The first is thatPanaetius had deliberately not addressed the question. Cicero pro-tests against this explanation in such a way and to such an extentthat he seems to protest too much. He assures the reader thatPanaetius did intend to treat the matter because he promised to doso at the end of the last completed book, not mentioning as a possi-bility that perhaps Panaetius wanted to draw attention to theseriousness of the problem by noting that it needed to be taken upbut then walking away from it. In an apparent aside, Cicero goes onto tell his readers hat Posidonius had said that another of Panaetius'sstudents, Publius Rutilus Rufus, drew a comparison between

18. Dyck, Commentary on Cicero, p. 17; Walsh, On Obligations, p. xxix.19. Dyck's commentary emphasizes "source-criticism" as an appropriateapproach o De officiis, and so he emphasizes Cicero's reliance on Panaetius. He givesan argument o justify his approach on pp. 18-21 (Commentary n Cicero). I havesuggested, to the contrary, hat Cicero seems critical of Panaetius, which would meanthat source-criticism may not be a good approach o Cicero's book, especially since itis impossible to compare t with Panaetius's ost work. Whatever one decides aboutusing source-criticism or Books 1 and 2 of De officiis, it seems that source-criticismwill not work well for Book 3, since Cicero himself indicates hat he is not followingPanaetius n this final book: "So now I shall complete the remaining part of this workwith no props to lean on, battling t out by myself, as the saying goes" (3.34).



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Panaetius's unfinished work and a famous unfinished painting, TheVenus of Cos. Just as this painting by Apelles had not been finishedbecause no one could hope to match the excellence of the parts thathad been finished, so no one had dared o finish the work of Panaetiusbecause of the excellence of the earlier books. Cicero, of course, isundeterred and will soon boldly offer to finish Panaetius's work

Rejecting the explanation hat Panaetius's book was deliberatelyleft unfinished because it was unfinishable, Cicero offers instead asecond possible explanation for Panaetius's failure to treat the topicof the relation between the honestum and the utile-one that is morein accord with Stoic principles hemselves. In the strict Stoic view of

the matter, here is no difference between the honestum and the utile,and even to think that they might be different is a sign of a lack ofwisdom on the part of the questioner. A fundamental principle ofthe Porch was the view that only virtue can make a human beinghappy, and happiness s generally conceded to be the goal of all rightliving. If this is so, then there can be nothing "useful" hat is outsideof the "virtuous," but rather only the virtuous is useful. Since thehonestum and the utile can never conflict, so the argument oes, there

would be no reason for Panaetius even to raise this question, and hewas therefore correct not to record any teaching on this point; in-deed, he should not even have raised the matter as a topic fordiscussion (3.9-13). Cicero says that there is something to this inter-pretation of Panaetius's silence, but that it needs qualification. Onthe one hand, he grants that there can be no real comparison of thehonestum and the utile for the Stoic sage; the conflict simply does notexist for sages. Such people, however, are very rare-apparentlySocrates and Hercules were true sages, but the Scipios and the Deciiwere not (3.15-16).20 On the other hand, most people have a sort ofvirtue that is imperfect, and Cicero says that his own book De officiisis devoted not to the sort of virtue that is the highest but rather o the"intermediate" uties, as they are called by the Stoics.21 The "inter-mediate" morality s a semblance of the real thing, and for that reasonthe many mistake the intermediate for the highest (3.14-16). As a

20. Cicero begins Book 3 with praise of Scipio Africanus and even says that heis Cicero's superior. But by paragraph 16 even this Scipio is demoted to the statusof being common or at least to being inferior to the Stoic sage.

21. See also 1.8. For analysis of this aspect of the teaching of Stoicism, see I.G.Kidd, "Stoic Intermediates nd the End of Man," in Problems in Stoicism, ed. A. A.Long (London: The Athlone Press, 1971), pp. 150-72. (Originally published undera different itle in Classical Quarterly 1955]: 181-94); also "Moral Actions and Rulesin Stoic Ethics," in The Stoics, ed. John M. Rist (Berkeley, University of CaliforniaPress, 1978), pp. 247-49 ff: See also John M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1969), esp. chaps. 5, 6, and 10.



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result of this confusion, many people may become perplexed at whatseem to be differences between the honorable and the useful, andCicero presumes that explaining such problems for people who arestill

workingtoward true virtue is what Panaetius must have been

planning for the conclusion of his work. At any rate, such is whatCicero will provide, he says, in the final book of De officiis, sincePanaetius must have been prevented by "some accident or pressureof work" from completing the job himself (3.33).22 In completing heproject by descending to the intermediate morality, Cicero says hewill be offering a "defense of Panaetius" against those who find itunseemly that Panaetius would ever have thought of juxtaposing

the honorable and the useful (3.34).Cicero's admission that De officiis is devoted not to the highestplane of morality but only an intermediate one must not be over-looked, for it implies that there is something about the morality ofDe officiis that Cicero knows is inadequate, nd the discerning readershould wonder what that inadequacy might be. Indeed, Cicero'sconfession that he will not be treating the highest themes placeseverything n the final book of De officiis under a sort of suspicion.He begins his exposition by indicating that he will need a rule todissolve all apparent conflicts between the honestum and the utile.The rule or principle seems to become more strict as Cicero dis-cusses it. First, it is simply that it is "wrong o harm a neighbour orone's own profit" (3.23), but it soon grows into the principle that"what is useful to the individual is identical with what is useful tothe community" (3.27), and this is not simply Cicero's principlebut even "the law of nature"

(3.27).The rationale

givenfor this

principle is that the fellowship of the human race is the highest orsupreme good. If this is so, then all individual goods, such as exter-nal goods, must yield to the common good of the whole race. Thishighest or common good is identified with honestum and the indi-vidual good-one should say "apparent" good-is identified withutile. It therefore follows that there can be no true conflict betweenthe honestum and the utile. All conflicts are only apparent ones be-

cause the truly useful is the honorable and the honorable s what istruly useful.Cicero does not give much of an argument or this principle or

rule. He begins with an assertion regarding the superiority of thefellowship of humanity to individual concerns and moves withoutmuch trouble to the complete or absolute hegemony of the com-

22. Cicero's generous stance in Book 3 toward those who are confused aboutthe

honorable and the useful conflicts with his harsh remarks oward them in Book2 (2.10).



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386 THE REVIEW OF POLITICSmunity. The conflict between the honestum and the utile, which is aconflict only for the vast majority of human beings who are notsages, is thus resolved, but only if the individual is completely po-liticized. In this connection

Cicero appeals to the analogy regardingthe body and its individual parts. Just as the individual membersof the human body only achieve their function and end when theysubordinate hemselves to the overall purpose of the body, so indi-vidual human beings can only achieve their function and end whenthey are completely subordinated to the common good.23

Thus, the rule that began with an injunction against harmingother human beings becomes restated as a rule that what is useful

to the individual is identical with what is useful to the community,but it is restated again as an identifiable Stoic premise that the onlygood is the honorable or honestum (3.33). Here Cicero more or lessadmits that his argument for the principle is thin:

Now that I am putting the finishing touches, so to say, to this work whichhas been launched but is not quite complete, I model myself on thosegeometricians who tend not to demonstrate everything but ask us to allowthem to take certain

thingsfor

grantedso that

they maymore

readily explainthe points which they wish to put across. In the same way, if you approve,my dear [Marcus] Cicero, I am asking you to allow me to claim that nothingis worth seeking on its own account except the honourable. If Cratippusdoes not permit you to accept this, you can at any rate concede that thehonourable is what is chiefly worth seeking on its own account (3.33).

Cicero gives the discerning reader two important pieces of infor-mation here. The first is that he recognizes that his argument is

hypothetical and thus unproven. If the Stoic principle is granted,then it is not hard to point out that the only useful reality is thehonestum. Indeed, the rest of Book 3 is devoted to raising manycases in which the honestum and the utile do not seem to coincide,but Cicero always appeals to the unestablished principle about theidentity of the two.24 More subtle, though, is the quotation's com-

23. This analogy s, of course, not as perfect as it might be. An arm cut off froma body cannot be even an arm any longer, for its very function is to be a part of agreater body. An arm has no end outside of the body to which it belongs. Yet, evenif one admits that a human being can only be perfected in and through a politicalcommunity, it does not follow that a human being is only a part that can have nofunction or end outside of the city. Given what he says about the Peripatetic nsistencethat human ends are not reducible to virtue only, one wonders if Cicero does notknow the limitations of the analogy he is using.

24. The serious analysis these cases deserve is not possible here, but theygenerally involve a pattern whereby a case implying the need for a distinctionbetween honor and

utilityis

proposed and Cicero vigorously appeals to his ruleand reasserts the lack of such a distinction.


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ment on Aristotle. Cratippus, the Peripatetic, will not admit theStoic principle regarding the chief good, but will instead insist thatthere are other goods, including external goods, that are also to be

soughtfor their own sake. Cicero

suggeststhat whether the Stoic

or the Peripatetic principle is supposed, the result will be the samefor the question about the relationship between the utile and thehonestum. But, of course, if the Peripatetic position is once granted,if one concedes that not all goods are reducible to one final good,but that there is a collection of goods for human beings, then itfollows that the various goods might come into conflict and thehonestum and the utile might not coincide.

My understanding of Cicero's intention in De officiis, then, isthat he wants to communicate two different messages to two dif-ferent readerships. On the one hand, there is his rhetorical messageaddressed to the young republican aristocrats. This aspect of thework is Stoic in that it treats moral matters as if virtue is the onlygood, and thus the moral code it articulates is quite demanding,involving as it does the complete subordination of the private tothe political good. On the other hand, there is Cicero's subtle mes-

sage addressed to the more philosophically sophisticated of hisreaders. This aspect of the work is Peripatetic n that it grasps thatnot all ends are reducible to a unity, and thus it points to the poten-tial conflict between virtue and external goods, a conflict that maybe endemic to political life.

Confirmation from De Finibus

If there is something o be said for this interpretation f Cicero'sintention in De officiis, one might anticipate finding confirming evi-dence for it in De finibus.25 De officiis is the last writing project onphilosophical ethics that Cicero produced,26 ut De finibus was writ-

25. There are also rich new resources for students of De finibus, namely a newcritical text in the Oxford Classical Texts series as well as a new translation n the

Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy series. See L. D. Reynolds, De FinibusBonorum t Malorum Libri Quinque Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); RaphaelWoolf, trans., and Julia Annas, ed., Cicero: On Moral Ends (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2001).

26. With he exception of the later Phillipics, De officiis s the last work of Cicero'spen. De finibus was completed during the summer of 45 B.C.; the aborted visit toAthens was to take place during he summer of 44. Cicero entered Rome to confrontAntony in September of 44 but soon recognized Antony's growing political powerand withdrew. Work on De officiis began in late October and the first two bookswere

completed byNovember

5,even as Cicero was

beginningthe series of attacks

on Antony that would ultimately culminate in his death in December of 43.



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388 THE REVIEW OF POLITICSten only about a year and a half earlier and is, by Cicero's ownaccount, his chief statement on ethics.27 Of course, philosopherssometimes change their minds, but one would anticipate that the

teaching of De officiis might well conform to, or at least not be in-consistent with, De finibus.As is well-known, this latter work is comprised of five books

divided into three dialogues. The first book is a statement of Epicu-reanism by Torquatus and the second a critique of his philosophicalposition by Cicero. In De finibus, Epicureanism is clearly rankedvery low by Cicero, but it does at least receive serious discussion.In De officiis it is occasionally alluded to, but it is considered too

mean even to bother with. Books 3 and 4 of De finibus are devotedto the second dialogue of the work. As noted earlier, Cato Uticensisdelivers a statement of Stoicism in Book 3 that is generally thoughtto be the most complete account of pre-imperial Stoicism that hascome down to us. In Book 4, Cicero gives in his own name a pointedcritique of Cato's philosophy, the primary thrust of which is thatStoicism views human beings not as comprised of body and soulor body and mind, but as bodiless beings. The Stoics therefore saythat the only good is virtue, which they attach not to body but toreason, and thus they neglect external goods or goods of the body.Since they have a distorted view of human nature, happiness forthem consists only in the rational good of virtue. Given this cri-tique of Stoicism from Book 4 of De finibus, which is delivered inCicero's own name, it would seem odd if Cicero's adoption of Sto-icism in De officiis is meant to be taken at face value.

But the really interesting part of De finibus for understand-ing De officiis is Book 5. Most of the book is devoted to a speechby Piso, who delivers the philosophical position associated withAntiochus of Ascalon, the position sometimes referred to as thatof the "old" Academy. Piso claims that there is an unbroken tra-dition of philosophy stemming from Plato and his Academy. Thistradition includes the Peripatetics, especially Aristotle andTheophrastus, and indeed Piso says that he is relying especiallyon the Nicomachean Ethics in articulating the position that he andAntiochus share. The Nicomachean Ethics seems to be even moreimportant than Plato to Piso's understanding of the ethical teach-ing of the Academy. As Piso describes it, one of the importantteachings of that work is the existence of both internal goods-such as virtue-and external ones. If this teaching is true, then itfollows that a virtue such as wisdom, while it may be the high-

27. See De divinatione 2.1.


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CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 389est perfection available to human beings, is still not, all by itself,sufficient to guarantee perfect happiness.28

What is especially strange about Piso's position is that he claims

that the "old" Academic position is actually shared by the Stoics.To be sure, the Stoics have changed the terminology of the Acad-emy, so much so that they might appear o hold something radicallydifferent, but Piso insists that in fact they teach the same doctrinewith different words. They say that only virtue is good, so that allwho are virtuous are happy, and they do not want to talk aboutexternal "goods" because, of course, they are not virtues and hencenot true goods. Still, the Stoics admit that a life including external

advantages is preferable to one that does not include such advan-tages. Piso thus concludes that the Academy, the Peripatetics, andthe Stoics hold the same view, although they may express it withdifferent words.

Cicero himself (that is, the character of Cicero in the dialogue)delivers a relatively brief critique of Piso's speech at the end of Book5, but the critique is sharp and Julia Annas describes it well whenshe says that it is "devastating."29 Cicero finds Piso's position withrespect to the Stoics thoroughly incoherent. Cicero asserts that,granted the fundamental Stoic principle identifying virtue as thesole good, the Stoics are completely logical in their conclusion thatvirtue alone confers happiness.30 He insists, however, that such aconclusion clearly contradicts the teaching of the Peripatetics. Inrunning together the positions of the Peripatetics and the Stoics,

28. 5.9-23. Piso is not sure whether Aristotle or Nicomachus is the author ofthe Nicomachean Ethics (5.12), but of course we do not know for sure whether thework Cicero would have known by that name was the same as the work we knowby that name. On the important question of what Aristotle's texts were like duringCicero's time, see the recent treatment by Jonathan Barnes, "Roman Aristotle," inPhilosophia Togata, ed. Jonathan Barnes and Mariam Griffin. (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1997), 2: 1-69. Texts n the Nicomachean Ethics as it presently exists that wouldsupport Piso's interpretation of Peripatetic ethics include 1.8.1099a31-b8;1.10.1100b22-1101a20; 0.7.1177a28-35; 0.8.1178a24-68, 178b33-1179a17; f. also the

implications of 4.1-2.29. Cicero: On Moral Ends, 143, n. 55. It should be noted that Cicero himself

employs an argument very much like that of Piso as one part of his refutation ofCato in Book 4 (4.3-15). In Cicero's eyes, it seems that the argument of Piso's OldAcademy, while unsound, might still be useful for refuting Stoicism.

30. Of course, Cicero has already rejected the fundamental remise of the Stoicposition in Book 4 of De finibus. His point here in Book 5 is that if the premise isonce accepted, he Stoics accurately eason about what it implies. To use the languageof introductory ogic, Cicero thinks that the position of the Stoics is valid (that is,their conclusion follows from their

premises) but unsound (their premises are notall true).


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390 THE REVIEW OF POLITICSPiso has obscured he important distinction between the two re-garding he role played by external goods in attaining happiness.In fact, he has distorted he Stoic definition of happiness o that it

now seems to require external goods. In the end, Piso's view thatthe Stoic principle on virtue and happiness an be reconciled withthe Peripatetic eaching on a hierarchy f goods that includes ex-ternals as one component f happiness s simply nconsistent; iso'sfailure to see this only obfuscates a proper analysis of the argu-ment between he Stoics and their critics, such as the Peripatetics.

How does this admittedly uperficial ummary f the De finibushelp explain De officiis? What Piso does in the former work is to

attempt o reconcile the views of the Peripatetics nd the Stoics,but such a reconciliation s immediately nd thoroughly efuted nCicero's own name. Yet, the reconciliation unwisely pursued byPiso is precisely what Cicero himself ostensibly nsists on in De of-ficiis, even while he hints that the reconciliation s questionable nphilosophic grounds. Thus, the surface eaching articulated n Deofficiis is most similar f not identical o the one articulated y Piso,but the teaching hinted at in De officiis s most similar f not identi-cal to Cicero's own criticism f Piso.

Why would Cicero articulate n De officiis a position hat he hascriticized n De finibus? A clue that might help us answer his ques-tion emerges rom considering he roles played by young people inboth works. In the first dialogue of De finibus, the youth Triarius spresent for the conversation, istening first to Torquatus nd thento Cicero's lambasting of Epicureanism. At the end of Book 2,

Triarius,serious

youngman who was

apparently lwaysill-dis-

posed toward he philosophical chool of Epicureanism, ays thatCicero has emboldened im to be harsh against he philosophy ofthe Garden. The second dialogue of De finibus is set in the privacyof a library, o no young person s present o hear Cicero criticizeCato's Stoicism.31 n the third dialogue, oung Lucius s present orPiso's speech, and he says that he is convinced by it (5.76). This isprior to Cicero's aunching nto his attack on Piso, but when Piso

then accuses Cicero of trying o steal Lucius or his own pupil, Ciceromerely says that Lucius can make up his own mind: "You can takehim if he will follow," he says to Piso, but he then adds cryptically,"By being at your side he will be at mine" (5.86). It seems, then,that Cicero teaches in De finibus that a politically astute philoso-pher should criticize Epicureanism arshly n front of the young

31. Cicero calls attention to this factby including

a short discussion of theeducation of the absent young Lucullus at the beginning of the conversation (3.9).


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CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 391but should criticize Stoicism when the young are not present. Hemay criticize he Old Academy of Antiochus nd Piso before youngpeople, but he should still be satisfied f the young follow the Old

Academy. This pattern s repeated n De officiis. Epicureanism sspoken of as being beneath contempt and not really worthy of aserious reatment. toicism, have suggested, s indeed subtly criti-cized in De officiis, but not openly, for in speaking with Marcus,Cicero does not subject Stoicism o anything ike the severe treat-ment it receives when the young are absent n De finibus. Finally,what s openly advocated n De officiis s a philosophically nconsis-tent position not unlike that of the Old Academy. This position isweak in the eyes of real philosophers, ut it is not a bad one foryoung people like Marcus, Lucius, and other young Roman repub-licans to accept.

The young who are unphilosophical, hen, should earn of thewickedness of the Garden, but they should not learn of the inepti-tude of the Porch, or at least they should learn of it only in acircumspect manner. The more philosophically nclined, though,should earn o

recognizehe weaknesses f the Porch and the Old

Academy. The positive philosophical position that emerges fromboth De finibus and De officiis s that of the Peripatetics. hatview ischaracterized y both a certain subordination f external goods tothe claims of virtue as well as the recognition hat external goodsstill play a role in the attainment f happiness. n adopting uch aposition, Cicero points to a fundamental roblem of political liferather han to an easy solution. Virtue and the honorable must be

the highest ends of politics, but the recalcitrance f external goodsand utility prevents heir lower claims from being completely ab-sorbed by the higher ones.

Conclusion

If there s something o be said for the preceding emarks, omecommon ways of thinking bout Cicero's ntention n De officiis needto be revised. The goal of Cicero in the work is not primarily oexhort his wayward on to amend his ways (although e does that)nor to criticize Caesar, Antony, and other would-be tyrants (al-though he does that also). Even less is it his intention o provide asimple recasting of Panaetius's ook on duties for a Roman audi-ence. Rather, De officiis would seem to be a work ntended or twoaudiences.

First, it is a sort of handbook of duties orobligations,

basedloosely on Stoicism, hat would be suitable o aspiring republican


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statesmen. Cicero found in the teachings of Zeno's disciples a doc-trine both good and bad. The moral severity of Stoicism would beof assistance to any regime, particularly one that, in Cicero's view,was in a state of moral decline. At the same

time,Stoicism's un-

yielding attachment o principle even when principle conflicted withreality was hardly helpful for politics, nor could Stoicism refute thephilosophical arguments made against it by the Peripatetics. Cicerothus uses Stoicism rather as a civil religion. He does not want todestroy it, but he does want to reform it along more politically salu-tary lines, and this is one of the purposes of De officiis. The workgives its readers noble words in defense of a noble cause. In it we

find praised those qualities that Cicero thinks important or repub-licans, for it exhorts the young to aspire to honestum and tosubordinate any individual concerns they might have about theirindividual utile to preeminent concerns about republican virtue. Itis this exhortation to virtue in general that presumably endearedthe De officiis to Christians rom Ambrose to Thomas Aquinas, andspecifically its exhortation to republican virtue that endeared it toRenaissance humanists.

Second, Cicero's last philosophical project also poses a seriousquestion for political philosophers. His ironical treatment of theproblem of the relationship between the honestum and the utile isperhaps not immediately transparent o the young republicans, butit is not opaque to the more philosophically-inclined. Among thosescholars who have grasped the problem best are Marcia Colish andWalter Nicgorski. Colish is willing to say that, "Cicero's argumentin the De

officiis,for all its

dependenceon

Stoicism,ends

bysub-

stantially reversing the direction of Panaetius' ethics."32 Nicgorskicomments that,

Cicero's emphasis throughout De Officiis as well as elsewhere in hiswritings is on making stoicism come down to earth, on forcing it to facethe urgent claims of necessity and utility. ... He works to open the stoicmoral teaching to an explicit acknowledgement of the peripatetic viewthat there are other goods besides the highest good.33

If anything, the reading proposed here goes even further, suggestingthat De officiis should be understood as a serious criticism ofStoicism-even as anti-Stoicism. In Cicero's view, the Stoics havenot attended to the problem presented by external goods. The moralseverity of a Cato Uticensis is most helpful in the battle for the

32. Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition rom Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages.

vol. I, Stoicism in Classical Latin Literature (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), p. 151.33. Nicgorski, "Cicero's Paradoxes and His Idea of Utility," p. 570.



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republic, but it is not a philosophically adequate position. With thisimplicit criticism, Cicero points to a morality that seems moreadequate to himself, the morality of the Peripatetics which, whileholding moral virtue to be the highest good for man, recognizesthe exigencies of political life that render man a problem or tensionto himself.

To conclude, I would like to return to the image, mentionedabove, of the unfinished Venus of Cos, to which Cicero says thatPosidonius says that Publius Rutilius Rufus likened Panaetius'sunfinished work, Peri tou kathekontos:

[J]ust as no artist had been found to fill in that part of the painting of TheVenus of Cos which Apelles had left unfinished (for the beauty of herfeatures made t hopeless o think of matching t with the rest of her body),so no one had completed what Panaetius had left out, because of theconsummate xcellence of the parts which he had finished (3.10).

It becomes clear as one reads De officiis that the problem that makesit impossible for the painting to be finished is precisely the prob-lem that makes it impossible for a Stoic treatise on duty to befinished, and that this must be Cicero's reason for referring to thepainting in his work. The Stoics paint officia or kathekonta beauti-fully, so beautifully that they paint them as if human beings had nobodies, the needs and desires of which might genuinely conflictwith officia or kathekonta. By making the most attractive part of thewhole too attractive, they make it impossible to depict the whole.

On the Intention of Cicero's de Officiis

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