Cicero’s Political Philosophy: Full Summary of The Republic (or On the Commonwealth) – Discourses on Minerva
Cicero is perhaps the most famous of the Roman Stoic philosophers. We examined Seneca and Cato (the Youngers) in this post, and mentioned the role of Cicero in developing Roman Stoic thought. Cicero wrote many philosophical works, the two most famous being On the Republic/Commonwealth and The Laws. We will begin to look at Cicero’s anthropology, and how it influences his views of political philosophy beginning in The Republic. (It should be noted that the work is in poor condition, it has not been preserved in full – the fullest copy of it belongs in the Vatican Library, but parts have been restored thanks to Saint Augustine quoting heavily from it in City of God, which allowed for some degree of restoration and understanding of missing pages.)
Cicero and the Virtue of Patriotism
The title, The Republic, is a direct homage paid to Plato. Cicero was an avid reader of the Greeks, and began to incorporate Greek philosophical ideas into his own work. While Roman Stoicism had a decidedly more political nature than Greek Stoicism and Cynicism, it also shared with Greek Stoicism the idea that the passions were bad and needed to be purgated from one’s soul. You are a slave to the passions, in other words, and you need rationality to purge it so you don’t fall into folly, disappointment, and engage in emotional behavior. This is what Roman Stoicism shares with Greek Stoicism. However, the Roman Stoics advocate an active, participatory, and engaged public (or political) life because this is deeply embedded in us – we are, as Aristotle said, “political animals.”
Cicero opens his treatise by reinforcing the old belief common in the ancient world of philosophy that humans are social animals. Cicero also critiques, as we can recover from other quotes of Cicero’s introduction, that he is criticizing the Greek Stoics and Epicureans for their rejection of community and politics (they lack patriotism – love of land, people, and community). Cicero states, “nature has given to mankind such a compulsion to do good, and such a desire to defend the well-being of the community, that this force prevails over all the temptations of pleasure and ease.”
While Cicero speaks of “desire” here, Cicero believes desire is natural but that it is properly a pathway that directs us to wisdom and knowledge. We crave knowledge and wisdom, but in attaining it, satisfy desire, and this is how we purge desire and become satiated through wisdom. Thus, Cicero is also one of the first intellectualists in philosophy (along with Aristotle). Cicero continues that this compulsion in human nature to do good for others and protect community is a result of our communitarian and social animus.
This is where he takes a shot against the Epicureans who advocate flight into the countryside and abandonment of “worldly politics.” “Yet it is not enough to possess moral excellence as a kind of skill, unless you put it into practice. You can have a skill simply by knowing how to practice it, even if you never do; whereas moral excellence is entirely a matter of practice.” Cicero is now logically connecting the dots: if humans are social animals, then why should they abandon the most social of organically evolved bodies – the civil political? Humans should be engaged in the realm of the civil precisely because they are social animals and the civil political is the highest evolved body of human sociality that also allows for the putting into practice knowledge and moral excellence to serve a most basic aspect of our nature. As he concludes, “Its most important field of practice, moreover, is in the government of a state.”
It is important to remember the time when Cicero is writing. Like with the other Roman Stoics who took cues from him, this is the late republican period. The wars of the Triumvirate are brewing, the impassioned plebeians threaten to overturn the republic by hoping to have their passions fulfilled by a dictator (Julius Caesar), and Cicero is obviously also writing this treatise to rally those aristocratic, gentlemanly, and educated members of Roman society to save the republic. As mentioned in the other post on Roman Stoicism, Roman Stoic philosophy cannot be divorced from the fact it has obvious political goals in mind.
Nevertheless, Cicero’s basic outline of human nature in the first two paragraphs of the first treatise ring true to many and are already familiar to us. He asserts, as do Plato and Aristotle, that humans are social animals. Like Aristotle, he maintains this sociality has led to the organic evolution of the civil political as the highest fulfillment of human social impulses. Following Aristotle yet again, he argues that moral excellence is a matter of virtue ethics cultivated by a combination of knowledge and habit. This should serve, primarily, the cause of politics.
Cicero continues to argue that another reason for the engagement in politics is because it is larger than yourself. Here Cicero rejects the sophists of ancient Athens. Politics is not about your self-advancement through a comprehensive knowledge of political structures and laws (e.g. ethical egoism), but that engagement in politics is yet again a part of our social animus, our want to do good for others, and also to put into practice our knowledge and moral excellence. “Yet, being the sort of man I was, I did not hesitate to brave the wildest storms and almost the very thunderbolts themselves to protect my countrymen, and, by risking my own life, to win peace and security for the rest. For our country did not give us life and nurture unconditionally, without expecting to receive in return, as it were, some convenience, providing a safe haven for our leisure and a quiet place for our relaxation. No, it reserved the right to appropriate for its own purpose the largest and most numerous portions of our loyalty, ability, and sagacity, leaving to us for our private use only what might be surplus to its needs.”
In this most striking passage, Cicero is doing multiple things all rooted in his understanding of what it means to be human. First, as already mentioned, engagement in political life is the fulfillment of sociality for the intellectual and knowledgeable. It is what you were, in some sense, called to do. Second, Cicero claims that in this knowledge of sociality and patriotism he was compelled into action to protect his home and countrymen, “I did not hesitate to brave the wildest storms and almost the very thunderbolts themselves to protect my countrymen.” This is, again, like with Aristotle, the result of knowledge leading to action which cultivates habit as the outcome of knowledge. It is not merely good enough to know, the important question is how do you act?
Additionally, Cicero’s traditionalism is on full display when he makes the argument for patriotism wrapped up in his statement over sociality. Humans, as social animals, naturally seek love. But we must also know what love is. Love is not simply an emotion or passion. It is something nurturing. It is something social. It is something that embodies companionship that is greater than yourself. It entails a coming into union with another. Cicero extends this logic to the country. The country is like the extended family. This is rooted in pietistic filialism. “Ah Rome, sweet Mother!” Rome is mother to the Romans, she has nurtured them with her lands, filled their stomachs with her resources, and now calls upon her sons and daughters to defend her in her moment of need. This is the true root of patriotism: the love of fatherland. It is also, to this extent, the love of one’s brothers and sisters who also live in the household, so to speak.
This is what Martin Heidegger would later call the rootedness of one’s Dasein (being). It is rooted in the land that one was raised, worked, and lived in. This leads to attachment, and the first sign of sociality and love. It subsequently expands as one grows older and wiser. We are social animals, but we are also animals with roots and attachment. Not simply to others, but to our homes, our land, which acts in a metaphorical (but still true) way as our parents so to speak. Thus, Cicero says he understands this filial love that is part of our social animus which is why he willingly braved the storms for his countrymen and fatherland. All of this is just from the first few pages of reading The Republic. One should be able to see just how dense a philosophical reading can be – especially since Cicero does more than just comment on human nature and anthropology in the first book. We will look at the second part of his commentary over politics in another post.
Continuing onward, toward the middle of Book I, Cicero defines a republic as “the property of the public.” This entails a notion of common good, common cause, and common sacrifice. This is another buttress against the Epicureans. In order to have a republic, there must be a common good, common cause, and common sacrifice that binds the people together. Cicero thinks this is going to be a notion of right and wrong, and he is not without his detractors (St. Augustine, for instance, argues against this in City of God). Nevertheless, this common moral excellence is what binds a republic together because it comes about through knowledge, wisdom, and engagement. Knowing right and wrong is what leads to actions and allows for common good, common cause, and common sacrifice.
But is any public association a republic? No. As Cicero states quite clearly, “A public is not every kind of human gather, congregating in any manner, but a numerous gathering brought together by legal consent and community of interest.” Here is the common good, common cause, and common sacrifice that I just spoke of. People who gather together simply to live do not constitute a republic. For readers of Hobbes and Locke and the liberal tradition in political philosophy, Cicero has harsh implications since Hobbes and Locke assert exactly the opposite – a republic or commonwealth is an association of people who have gathered in their weakness to have life and self-advancement in that society. It is as if he anticipated the rise of Hobbes and Locke when he writes, “The primary reason for its coming together is not so much weakness as a sort of innate desire on the part of human beings to form communities. For our species is not made up of solitary individuals or lonely wanderers. From birth it is of such a kind that, even when it possesses abundant amounts of every commodity…[page is missing].”
To be fair, Cicero is not critiquing a future Hobbes and Locke. He is still critiquing the Greek Cynics and Epicureans. However, students of the history of philosophy will know that Epicurus was a major influence on both Hobbes and Locke and their political philosophies. So this is why Cicero can easily be read as anticipating and rebutting Hobbes, that is because Hobbes rejects the social animus and virtue ethics of the classical political philosophers and advocates for an augmented form of Epicureanism mixed with the ethical egoism of classical sophistry.
Thus, when reading Cicero’s Republic and looking at his commentary over human nature, we see several things with profound political implications. First, humans are social animals. Second, as a result of this, the realm of the civil political is the organic continuity of our social animus. Third, knowledge translates into action and power. It is not good enough to know and do nothing about it. The question is how does one act with the knowledge and virtue that they have cultivated from knowledge? Fourth, Cicero argues it is entirely natural to love one’s land (country). In fact, this is part of what it means to be human. We have rootedness and attachment, not just to others, but to the land which can be understood (metaphorically) as a sort of parent who has nurtured us. Thus, just as we love our biological parent (hopefully), we also love our adopted parent (the land/country). This is natural Cicero tells us. Fifth, not all associations are republics. In fact, a republic is only an association of people united in something: common good, common cause, and common sacrifice. Sixth, this association (which is the political) is the result of human nature and organic evolution – not weakness, because, as Cicero states, “For our species is not made up of solitary individuals or lonely wanderers.” Cicero, like Aristotle, is another virtue ethicist and virtue political theorist.
At the same time as Cicero is commenting on human nature and anthropology in Book I, he is also commenting on wisdom, knowledge, and how it relates to political order. As such, we will return to another (re)reading of Book I to extrapolate Cicero’s commentaries on the relationship of knowledge and politics (which is important for his commentary on education toward the end of the Republic), as well as to understand the pros and cons of the three simple forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. As an aside, Cicero’s influence extended well beyond his time. He was influential over the formation of early Christianity (especially Augustine who both loved Cicero and critiqued him), and America’s Founding Fathers (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson especially).
The Three Forms of Government and Constitutional Theory
Cicero’s political philosophy is the most comprehensive from among the Roman philosophers. In fact, we owe much to Cicero, since he was the one who translated politeia as “republic” with regard to Plato, hence forever passing on Plato’s great work to us as The Republic. He paid homage to Plato by the name. We examined Cicero’s views on human nature and how it relates to politics and patriotism in this post. Now we will turn to another current within Book I of his Republic: the three simple forms of government, cycle of constitutional revolutions, and “Ciceronian realism” which is tied to his theory of political virtue.
Like Aristotle, Cicero sees three natural (simple) forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Interestingly enough, Cicero does not see democracy as the devolved or perverted form of constitutionalism as does Aristotle. In fact, Cicero doesn’t really see these three forms of having a “perverse” form per Aristotle. Instead, he just sees these three as having pros and cons that plague each – but all three have positives and negatives and he outlines them toward the end of Book I. In terms of pure theory, Cicero agrees with Aristotle that democracy/constitutional government is the best (“on paper”).
The discussion of the three simple forms of government come about when Laelius presses Scipio (essentially the stand in for Cicero in the dialogue) as to which of the three forms Scipio (Cicero) prefers. Cicero is clear that “[he] prefers a mixture of all three,” but he goes into a defense of each, then follows the defense by extrapolating on the flaws of each. Cicero owes much to Aristotle here, but he also comes to different conclusions than Aristotle does through his much darker picture of politics (which was undoubtedly influenced by the times he was living in as the Roman Republic was collapsing toward Caesarism and empire).
The Benefits of Democracy
Like Aristotle, if we understand Cicero’s “democracy” as akin to Aristotle’s “constitutionalism,” Cicero states that of the three forms ideal democracy would be the best. “The nature of every state depends on the character and will of its ruling body. So liberty has no home in any state except a democracy. Nothing can be sweeter than liberty.” Cicero acknowledges that political liberty is the greatest good to be had in politics, since liberty itself is the gateway to truth, beauty, and happiness. He then says, “Yet if it isn’t equal throughout, it isn’t liberty at all.” Thus, liberty is definitionally egalitarian and there is no conflict, per contemporary “libertarians” (American-style) of the zero-sum game between liberty and equality. Cicero sees the two as tied together, two sides of the same coin as it were. One cannot have “more liberty” than another, and claim to be a society that values liberty itself. If liberty is valued, it must be shared equally with everyone. This is what democracy, on paper, claims to stand for.
Another benefit of democracy is that it is predicated on universal merit (again, we do not need to quibble whether this plays out in real life – Cicero is looking at the forms hypothetically). Anyone can rise to the top if they are industrious, intelligent, virtuous, and hard-working. No consideration of wealth, family lineage, or filial honor is taken into consideration. Though we have limited writings from Cicero on the topic due to missing pages, his argument is rather simple: democracy is not merely the rule of people, is the universal enshrinement of liberty and merit. It is free and open to all, and anyone can rise to the top through their own hard work and talent. Democracy functions on equality, and equality is the proper understanding of liberty. But if you think Cicero is going to choose “democracy” as his preferred government choice – you’d be wrong. This is a purely hypothetic defense of “ideal democracy.” Real life is a problem.
In a democracy, however, the common good, common cause, and common sacrifice that unites people together is the cause of egalitarian liberty. This is the glue which makes a democracy a “republic,” a public thing. We must remember that in ancient political thought, a republic is simply that – the public thing, it a republic can exist within monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. They’re not mutually exclusive.
The Benefits of Aristocracy
Moving onto the benefits of aristocracy, Cicero claims that aristocracy is the result of the despotism that befalls democracy. People turn to “the best men” of society (the aristocrats) for the purpose of re-imposing order and security because democracy “has been ruined by people who cannot think straight.” (The issue of education and philosophy to politics is addressed throughout Cicero’s book, esoterically mostly in Book I, more explicitly so in the latter books, especially Books III and IV.)
According to Cicero, aristocracy is the most moderate form of government. It sits between the tyranny of absolutism (rule of one) and the reckless chaos of the mobs (devolved democracy). “Hence the aristocrats have taken over the middle ground between the inadequate autocrat and the reckless mob. Nothing could be more moderate than that. With such men protecting the state, the people must be very fortunate; they are freed from all trouble and anxiety, having made others responsible for their carefree life.” This statement is interesting because Cicero, following Plato, asserts that the mobs are feckless and do not actually care for liberty. They care about nihilistic hedonism instead. They don’t want to take responsible for their life, community, and their actions, so they push it off onto others. The question becomes, do we have a legitimate reason to complain when tyranny in its aristocratic form rears its ugly head?
For Cicero, aristocracy’s benefits are that it allows people to live their feckless and carefree lives with some resemblance of order and law (assuming the mobs aren’t toppling the aristocratic state), that aristocracy is fairly orderly and stable, and that it usually does, for a time being at least, produce the rule of best men in society. The purpose of aristocracy, as rule of best, men, is to maintain order and moderation in political society. As Cicero stated, no other form of government is more moderate than an aristocracy.
What makes an aristocracy a republic is that the public is invested in the common good, common cause, and common sacrifice of moderated order. This manifests itself in the rule of best men. In short, an aristocratic republic values order from which the fruits of liberty can be enjoyed.
The Benefits of Monarchy
For Cicero, Monarchy is the best of the three simple forms – even if it is not the most ideal. After all, Cicero claims that democracy – in an ideal world that does not exist – would be best. In the real world, however, monarchy suffices. It is before Cicero defends monarchy that he states, “I prefer a mixture of all three.” However, when pushed come to shoves, Ciceronian realism takes precedence as Scipio informs Laelius that monarchy is ultimately the form of the three that is best.
The reason for this is because monarchy, properly speaking (i.e. non-tyrannical) is most reflective of filial foundationalism and beauty. Like Aristotle, Cicero considers the family household as the basis of all civilization and politics. “The name of king is like that of father, in that a king takes thought for his subjects as if they were his children, and looks after them more conscientiously than [others].” Thus, the king is like the household father and his subjects are his children. A good father loves his children and only wants the best for them, so he provides the best for them and nurtures them to be honorable and virtuous men and women as they grow older.
Furthermore, Cicero discusses the attraction to monarchy because we have an inherent want for beauty. And there is nothing more beautiful than the ritualism, symbolism, and allegory of monarchy. “Accordingly, kings attract us by affection, aristocracy by good sense, and democracies by freedom. So in comparing them it is hard to choose which one likes best.” That said, Cicero then argues that the beauty and affection of monarchy wins out. We are social animals who desire love and beauty – this comes out most explicitly in monarchy. Cicero even pivots the discussion to nature itself – human nature that is.
“Yet in this discussion of ours we are not concerned with nationality but with nature. If sensible men, not very long ago, wanted to have kings, then my witnesses are not so very ancient; nor are they wild and uncivilized,” Cicero tells us through Scipio. What is meant here is simply this: monarchy has been the most common and natural form of government throughout human history, it attracts us by affection, want for beauty, love, and belonging, it deeply embodies human nature, wisdom, and desire all at once. Monarchy attracts us by its very nature because we share the nature of what monarchy symbolizes: beauty, compassion, fatherliness (or motherliness with a queen), filialism, and general affection. Thus, monarchy allows us to participate with, and installs us with, deep reverences for beauty, family, traditions, and closest reflects the ordered hierarchy of the world.
Monarchy as republic is tied to the common cause, common good, and common sacrifice of filial affection and defense of beauty. One lays down his life for his “father” (the fatherland) so that others may enjoy the fruits of nurturing health. Monarchy demands a common virtue found in common affection. Cicero, again, thinks that monarchy tugs at the human heart (nature) most profoundly because humans have an innate nature which seeks the beautiful, filial, and affectionate which is what a monarchy is supposed to embody – and since we all, as humans, share in this nature, that is why a monarchy can be a “public thing.”
The Cycles of Constitutions
What follows from Cicero’s defense of the three forms is one of the most remarkable analyses of the history of politics and constitutional evolution (or devolution) in ancient history and philosophy. Cicero basically argues that politics is the constant devolution of political order into tyranny. Monarchy starts first. Eventually, one king or queen is terribly unjust and cruel. The aristocrats rise up in their mutual power and overthrow the monarch. A new constitution is established proclaiming the rule of aristocrats. Eventually, the aristocrats become oligarchs and tyrants in their own right. The masses rise up and form a democracy in its place. Claiming liberty and equality, the revolution is successful. That said democracy quickly descends into anarchy by which large segments lift up “strong men” to restore order as the people want to return to their sensual and frivolous lives. This is the push back to aristocracy. Eventually the aristocrats become self-obsessed and cruel, giving way to Caesarism and the restoration of monarchy as a single “fatherly figure” arises and wins the adoration and praise of the masses whereby he overthrows the aristocracy. The cycle continues without end.
This is why Cicero prefers a mixture of all three forms – a mixture is better able to safeguard against all the problems that come with the three simple forms alone. Cicero’s commentary on the nature of cyclical constitution evolution/devolution is very thought-provoking since it has much resonance today. The drive to democracy is the push for greater liberty and equality, but once this is achieved, the people grow weak and licentious with their wealth and prostitute their liberty and equality away in favor of hedonism and nihilism, from which chaos and anarchy emerges because of lack of wisdom and virtue from among the population. The return to order commences and the cycle starts anew, moving from democracy back to monarchy. And then from monarchy back to democracy and from democracy back to monarchy, etc.
According to Cicero, not even a mixed constitution can prevent this. Although a mixed constitution has the most built in mechanisms to prevent the descent into tyranny as it calls us to defend it by filial virtue and affection (monarchial aspects), through the promise of order and rule of best men (aristocratic aspects), who seek to guarantee and uphold liberty and equality (democratic aspects), only an educated, virtuous, and courageous people can prevent the slip into tyranny and anarchy. And this struggle for virtue is why philosophy is important to society – it buttresses against Caesarism and also against nihilistic hedonism. (Again, we cannot divorce the historical reality away from the Roman Stoics and their obvious political goals of wanting to save the Roman Republic regardless of whether it was actually worth saving – Cicero, Seneca, and Cato certainly thought so.) But Cicero argues that the growth of constitutions and constitutional rights is the result of the flight from tyranny which produces a new constitution which nevertheless fails and dissolves into tyranny at a future point in time when people have lost their virtue.
On this note, Cicero sees History as cyclical but essentially political in nature. The human being is tied to the political world, as should be clear from our social animus and following Aristotle’s dictum that the State is the highest reflection and manifestation of social animus, and cannot escape the essentially political nature to History. History, then, is the tragic story of the decline and fall of political orders and their constitutions, of the story of virtuous people collapsing in their common virtue and forgoing the responsibilities necessary for preserving the republic. They give themselves over to nihilism which leads to tyranny. When people get upset with tyranny they revolt, and the constitutions change to reflection revolution. However, all people (at some later point in time) grow weak in their virtue and renege on the constitutional compact that was birthed from revolution, and they fall into tyranny once again. At which point they rise up for a restoration of peace and order, and the cycles of constitutional change and political change continue like clockwork. Again, it is obvious from Cicero’s own historical situation that he feels like this is what the Roman Republic is experiencing. The march to Ceasarism is forthcoming, and he has more than just mere thoughts to express on the subject.
Cicero, then, is not a historicist however. History is not unfolding to any grand consummation (because History cannot have a teleology as it is not something with a nature like humans). However, History is impacted by the ebb and flow of humans either embracing their nature (the call to excellence which leads to an excellent politics) or the rejection of their nature (which is the plight downward to hedonism and eventually nihilism, from which all politics sinks too). That said, Cicero is offering up an early account of a philosophy of history that is 100% tied to his philosophy of politics. Certainly many people today might find resonance with Cicero on this point.
The Cons of Democracy
Democracy suffers from two, or three, major problems. Three if you count the third separate from the second, two if you consider the third problem contingently related to the second. According to Cicero, wealth is a major problem for democracy. Democracy is premised on equality. Too much wealth becomes an obvious problem unless it is distributed. But even when it is, “the faint-hearted and the weak give way and succumb to the haughtiness of wealth.” Basically, people become so obsessed with wealth they do not care for liberty, even equality, and they certainly no longer care about virtue, moderation, and wisdom. As Cicero later says, the destruction of democracy into tyranny is a direct result of over commercialization, wealth pursuit, and the destruction of the natural land that was required in the pursuit of wealth, “As the death of aristocracy comes from its own excessive power, so freedom itself plunges an over-free populace into slavery. All excess, whether the over-luxuriance has occurred in the weather or on the land or in people’s bodies, turns a rule into the opposite.” In other words, “extreme freedom produces a tyrant” because extreme freedom demands no virtue – it is hedonism writ large where one just prostates their body to the endless pursuit of fleeting bodily pleasure. This is what follows, according to Cicero, when we give ourselves over to money. (This is Cicero’s dig against the Epicureans, basically arguing that Epicureanism is not only false, it is the bane to society because we will not isolate ourselves due to our social nature, we become perverse hedonistic atheists within society which brings about society’s collapse from within.)
The second problem to democracy is the lack of educated people. The commoners are, on the whole, dumb. Let’s not sugar coat the fact that this is Cicero’s views of plebeians, they’re just not intelligent and thoughtful people. They give themselves over to their passions – which is why they renege freedom (which demands virtue) and decide to prostitute and weather their bodies, giving themselves completely over to the desires of their passions while pushing off responsibility to others (thus giving rise to aristocracy or monarchy to bear their irresponsible lifestyle). The end result of this is the descent into chaotic anarchy.
From this lack of education flow the collapse of virtue since virtue demands moderation and the control of one’s passions and emotions. Again, Cicero and the Stoics see the two as linked, though you can see the two as separate issues. But as Cicero says in Book IV, “Too many people now, in their folly, want to get rid of [an] admirable system; they advocate a new distribution of wealth through some resolution of the plebs whereby senators would have to resign their equestrian status.” In other words, the collapse of education leads to a collapse in virtue which leads to the collapse of an orderly, admirable, and virtuous body politic.
Just like with Plato, Cicero sees the mob as a danger. Not only to themselves, but to the preciousness of God-given liberty and admirable systems that have emerged to buttress against too much haughtiness, hedonism, and nihilism. Democracy, theoretically as Cicero previously said, would be the best form of politics. Human nature and reality gets in the way of this. Anyone who says otherwise is an ignorant fool and captivated by his own delusional “folly.”
From this folly flows the danger of youth arrogance and vulgarity. Cicero tells us, “Youngsters assume the authority of older men; the latter lower themselves to take part in the youngsters’ amusement for fear of becoming unpopular and disliked. As a result even slaves behave with excessive freedom, wives enjoy the same rights as their husbands, and in this all-pervading freedom dogs and horses and even asses charge around so freely that one has to stand aside for them in the street.” Lack of wisdom, virtue, and moderation, which stems from ignorance and poor education, leads to chaos. Young men fancy themselves as the arbiters of knowledge. “Those stupid old people,” in other words, are the problem while the youth are the virtuous and enlightened people in society. But Cicero doesn’t cut the elderly generation any slack. Older people, especially those who are not virtuous and moderate, stoop themselves down to the level of young drunkards and fools for want of acceptance.
This is, in essence, the “man-child” phenomenon of today – older people who don’t want to grow up and take responsibility, they would rather “fit in” with the times. They ride the waves of populism to be accepted by the Ciceronian equivalent of Plato’s Cave society rather than defend the good, the true, and the beautiful. It is the complete collapse of orderly harmony because ignorant people fancy themselves as intelligent and the elderly generations, for fear of being shamed and attacked by the younger generation, prostitute themselves to the passions and idiocy of the young.
Essentially Cicero describes what sociologists call “the arrogance of youth” – people who are dumb but think they’re smart despite having never done serious study. They just like to hear themselves talk and think they are capable of solving all the problems that older people have been unable to resolve. The end result of this is perpetual mistrust as Cicero states, fathers distrust sons, sons distrust fathers, people across all strata of society distrust one another – distrust runs amok in society now.
For Cicero, democracy is the hardest form of government to maintain for the reasons stipulated hitherto. That said we must never forget that “on paper,” Cicero does think democracy would be the best.
The Cons of Aristocracy
Aristocracy of course, is not without its own problems. For Cicero, the obvious problem with aristocracy is the temptation that the aristocrats have. Like with democracy, the temptations tend to be material goods and wealth – as Cicero states, “When as a result of vulgar misconception, a few with money, not worth, have gained control of the state.” Basically, aristocracy is the conflict between virtuous, noble, and honorable “best men” who serve the interest of the common good vs. those aristocrats who care not for worth, honor, virtue and give themselves over to the pursuit of material goods and wealth. “Money, name, and property, if divorced from the good sense and skill in living one’s own life and directing the lives of others, lapse into total degradation and supercilious insolence,” Cicero tells us. Servants of greed degenerate aristocracy into tyranny.
Another way of looking at the problem of aristocracy is this. Men are tempted by their passions just like the mob. Aristocrats, however, have the time and ability to devote themselves to philosophical and intellectual pursuits. This would prevent them from falling prey to internal licentious and material desire. But not all men are strong enough to avoid such temptation. The end result is the giving way to excessive power in the pursuit of wealth, which awakens the masses from their hedonistic stupor who demand action, either looking for the “man of the people” (if the cycle is up-swinging back to monarchy) or “revolution” (if the cycle is down-swinging to democracy).
In the end, aristocracy has the best chance of being preserved in its simple form – but temptation runs throughout all levels of its governance; this ultimately expires in unvirtuous aristocrats essentially rigging the system for themselves. This will eventually lead to backlash – as it should according to Cicero. The difference here is that temptation and descent into tyranny is the result of the corruption of a few who then begin to rig the political system to their benefit at the expense of the masses who have entrusted them to be fair, honest, and noble. Cicero is telling us that no matter how virtuous, noble, and honorable “best men” are, they are constantly fighting temptation and the weak (i.e. the perverse) prevail over those aristocrats who remain true to virtue and fairness.
The Cons of Monarchy
The problem with monarchy is much like the others: a single ruler can always give in to his own temptations and become a tyrant. However, for Cicero, the more serious problem with monarchy is you just never quite know how the ruler is going to turn out to be. You can have a great king, like Cyrus of Persia whom Cicero highlights as an example for a good king who exhibited all fatherly and just characteristics and virtues, but the moment the king begins to sink into tyranny, the aristocrats will jump him on the spot. “As soon as a king begins to rule unjustly, that kind of government vanishes on the spot, for that same man has become a tyrant. That is the worst king of government, and at the same time the closest neighbor to the best.”
This is Cicero’s paradoxical defense of monarchy. Even after the overthrow of monarchy by the aristocrats, “It is somewhat like monarchy in being a paternal council of leading men [(fathers)] who have the best interests of the people ([children]) at heart. If the tyrant has been killed or expelled by the people acting directly, the latter behave with reasonable restraint as long as they remain wise and sensible.” However, the push back toward monarchy usually ends with him becoming a tyrant, “Like Peisistratus at Athens, he is surrounded by a bodyguard. He ends up by tyrannizing over the very people whom he emerged. If that man is overthrown, as often happen, by decent citizens, constitutional government is restored.” Even after throwing off monarchy for aristocracy, or moving to democracy, the idea of filial affection and family togetherness remains ever present in aristocratic or democratic governance. The common good never leaves us because we are social animals.
In essence, however, monarchy is a shot in the dark so to speak. One never knows if they will have a good and just monarch, or if they will have a cruel, unvirtuous, and tyrannical monarch. But then another irony is this, better to suffer under a single tyrant according to Cicero instead of thousands of tyrants. Nevertheless, there always remains a mystifying element to monarchy – especially when it is done right.
Summarizing the Three Forms of Government
This is perhaps Cicero’s most longstanding contribution to political philosophy – his bleak assessment of politics, the unruliness of the mob, uncontrollable passions, dangers of wealth, lack of an educated and virtuous citizenry, all of which come together in a tour de force which produces youngsters who are ignorant wretches but think themselves as intelligent, older people who fear the young and attempt to court over them by prostrating themselves to their causes, from which disorder gives way to tyranny. That said, Cicero does begin to offer us a pathway out of this problem: the study of philosophy, from which virtue can emerge.
Education, which comes from philosophy, is the only avenue of escape in Cicero’s outlook. Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom and the attempt to derive knowledge. From this knowledge flow virtue, understanding, and moderation; only these things can prevent political collapse. When we continue with Cicero, we will directly look at this claim that philosophy is the handmaiden of politics.
However, in this most remarkable tour de force in his writings and thought, we see incredibly insight and posing questions for us today. Basically, democracy is good (in theory) because it steadfastly holds to the principles of liberty and equality. Aristocracy is good because it is the rule of moderation and virtuous men which perpetuates longstanding order. Monarchy is good because it is most reflective of human nature: want for beauty, affection, and attachment. However, the reality of politics is not some starry eyed utopia. It is a brutal and gruesome cycle of revolutions that always exhausts itself in tyranny and nihilism. To confront this tyranny and nihilism Cicero suggests we study philosophy. But after studying philosophy and cultivating virtue, the next question follows: how do you act?
Basically, Cicero’s political philosophy is one of virtuous responsibility. But we know, even as Cicero saw in his day, people would rather pretend to be intelligent or embrace sensual hedonism and nihilism instead of owning up to the weight of virtuous responsibility. Politics is not about passion. It is about virtue. Like Aristotle, Cicero is a virtue ethicist and political theorist. The highest virtue that calls us in politics is how to successfully integrate egalitarian liberty (democracy), moderated order and compromise (aristocracy), and filial obligations, affections, and willingness to die for father and fatherland (monarchy and patriotism) into a mixed constitution and then remain virtuous enough to defend it. Perhaps it is a bridge too far. But Cicero remained true to his commitments to the very end of his life, being captured and executed for his opposition to Julius Caesar and Caesar’s de-facto heir, in 43 BCE, Mark Antony.
Education and Humanism
Besides political commentary, although Cicero’s ruminations about education and philosophy are still tied to his political philosophy, Cicero’s other great undercurrent of thought in the Republic is the relationship between philosophy and education with the health of one’s soul and how this pursuit of wisdom impacts how one acts and engages in the world. Naturally this does have direct consequences to matters political, but this is additional commentary on basic philosophical themes at other ancient thinkers gave serious consideration to. As we turn our attention away from the strictly and explicitly political in Cicero, we turn to his tremendous legacy in the formation of educational theory, his view that philosophy is the handmaiden to healthy living and society, and also his supposed contributions to primordial humanism. For education Book III and what’s left of Book IV of the Republic detail Cicero’s concerns on the matter, as does Book V of another one of his famous dialogues, Tusculan Disputations, which I’m also drawing from.
Throughout Book III of the Republic, Cicero moves into a lengthy dialogue with Philus and Laelius concerning the roles of wisdom and justice, injustice, and their roles in society and the state. What emerges between these two characters is a dispute over the nature of wisdom in society, and what role it plays. This leads us into Book IV, in which Cicero explains his views on education, philosophy, and the humanities in general and their role in producing a healthy, literate, and educated society, which he thinks is necessary for the health, stability, and justice for any order.
Education as a Moral and Humanizing Force (Books III and IV)
It is important to remember that for Cicero, there are two poles of the human being. The first is the rational, intellectual, and thinking person. This is the man who is fully alive. The alternative to this is the “brute animal,” as he calls them, people who are ignorant, suppress their intellect, and consider themselves – like the vulgar youths he criticized in Book I – mindless imbeciles who think highly of themselves despite living a life akin to an oyster.
These are the two poles of humanity, of which philosophy, and the arts (when humanized and given philosophical substance), do battle with – with philosophy and Cicero’s humanized arts, calling persons away from being brute animals and becoming intellectual, thoughtful, and virtuous people through the pursuit of wisdom from which knowledge and virtue emanate. As he states in Book III, “Their minds rose higher and succeeding in achieving, in thought or action, something worthy of what I have previously called the gift of the gods. So let us regard those who theorize about ethical principles as great men, which indeed they are.” That gift of the gods, by the way, is rational thought and speech. The great men are not conquerors, but the philosophers – those who bring light to the human mind which illuminates our world and allows for the cultivation of virtue from said knowledge. Just as it was with Plato and Aristotle, who both maintained knowledge was the first principle for cultivating virtue which leads to rightful actions, Cicero is also in agreement, “Hence my opinion that anyone who achieves both objectives, familiarizing himself with our native institutions and with theoretical knowledge, has acquired everything necessary for distinction.”
The purpose of coming to know both the native institutions of Rome and universal philosophical wisdom is to allow one to act, so one knows how to act an in accord to what. This combination of practical virtue (understanding the roots and institutions of Roman life) and intellectual virtue (philosophy) leads to the fullest embodiment of wisdom according to Cicero (or as far as we can tell considering various pages are missing in his work). Philius and Laelius then engage, for the rest of Book III, on a lengthy discussion of the nature of justice and whether politics benefits from injustice or justice. This is another philosophical treatment of the nature of justice, to which Cicero opts in favor of a just state having more benefits than a politics that is built on injustice. This discussion doesn’t concern us for this post, so I will be moving on to Cicero’s blistering critique of Greek customs and dramatic arts in Book IV.
Because Cicero lived in a time when most laws, institutions, and understanding of politics was undergirded by philosophy, he maintained that the study of wisdom (philosophy) was integral to preserving the inheritance and modification of any existing order — however imperfect it is. Cicero believes that a lack of education (and by education he means an education in the arts and humanities: philosophy, literature, culture, etc.) leads to a general barbarism within society. “Too many people now, in their folly want to get rid of this admirable system.” Unfortunately for us, Book IV is in the worst shape of his surviving manuscripts, what has been preserved is gathered from the fragments of Cicero’s original work from the Vatican Library, and also from St. Augustine’s commentary in City of God, from which he quoted Cicero extensively.
In Book IV Cicero turns to a critique of the elements of Greek culture that he sees as anti-intellectual and stoking the passions of the masses: theater, plebeian rallies, and what we would call “safe spaces” today about “positive reinforcement” of one’s beliefs and actions. Cicero harshly condemns the notion that anyone should be praised simply because they are a living person (4.12). Those who are to be praised are to be praised based on their intellect, merit, and accomplishments for society rather than being able to whip the plebeian passions and emotions into a frenzy from which one indulges and gratuitous adoration from an irrational crowd or sycophants.
Cicero’s condemnation of the vices that he sees in Greek culture rests on his insistence on education. Theater, plebeian gatherings, and positive reinforcement all prohibit the development of the intellect according to Cicero. In theater, people lax their intellect and allow themselves to be swayed by the passions of emotion and allow themselves to be corrupted by others. For example, I should laugh because everyone else is laughing, even though I may not have actually found this moment of the play to be humorous.
Plebeian gatherings, Cicero says, often results in the same, and leads to positivity among the crowd. Cicero maintains that genuinely bad ideas are subsequently praised, and those with poor intellects are heralded as visionaries and geniuses, a corruption of the intellect if they ever was. Here, it should be maintained Cicero is not arguing for the absence of any of these things in society. He merely maintains that they have their proper, limited, place in a society. In other words, Cicero would be horrified by the entertainment and “infotainment” culture of modernity as a perverse corruption of natural reason and what it means to be human. “For our species is not made up of solitary individuals or lonely wanders,” as he says all the way back in Book I.
Cicero’s main concern for education is the maintenance, but also the inherited understanding, of the communities by which people come into the world. Hence his statement that those in their folly desire to destroy admirable, albeit imperfect, systems — one is lost in a sea of ignorance and confusion which causes him to lash out in a fit of rage and iconoclasm which brings immeasurable harm to society in general to satisfy his outbreak of ego. Cicero also believes the negative or harmful sides of culture can be tamed by education. Basically, art and drama do have their place in society despite the harm brought to society by the Greek dramatists who indulge in stoking the flames of erotica and the wild passions of the uncontrollable masses – but the purpose of art, literature, and drama should be primarily intellectual rather than the purgation of wild passions. Art should teach, heal, and grow the human being in understanding himself and understanding the Form of beauty, wisdom, and justice, etc. Art directs the intellect up toward heaven, in other words, rather than indulge the fantasies of the passions and emotions.
To this end, Cicero expounds on the necessity of the “moral education” of people through the humanizing of the arts. By that he does not mean to install, via education, particular values into people. Cicero, being a believer in the natural law, believes that such values are inherent to people and the human species itself. Like Augustine and the Catholic tradition, which actually drew upon Cicero, Cicero believes, by nature, humans tend to try to the right thing (or the good thing), though they often fail at achieving this through various ways: imperfect knowledge, temperament, and lustful desires (most of which stems from a lack of quality education and cultivation of intellect according to Cicero).
The purpose for education (which is strictly a “moral education” because education is supposed to teach you to think and thinking leads to the pursuit of wisdom, which is philosophy, which leads one to an understanding of morality) in Cicero is the cultivation of the intellect. Education and the cultivation of rationality are important to understanding and expounding law. As Cicero writes, “law, in the proper sense is right reason in harmony with nature” (3.33). Cicero believes that through education in the humanities (a term he coined): philosophy, literature, and the arts, people are able to properly balance the major intellectual streams and come to an understanding of nature and therefore, act in accord with natural reason (e.g. the natural law). Achieving this, much like achieving one’s telos, is what is meant by “moral.”
Failure of education in this manner leads to: corrupt rationality, which leads to folly, which then exhausts itself in humans through a desire to destroy rather than maintain. It follows in that order. Corrupt rationality leads to folly and ignorance, which leads to a desire to destroy rather than inherit and modify. Therefore, from Cicero’s observation, the collapse of rigorous intellectual education leads to the retardation of a civilization and culture, which may eventually lead to its demise. Thus, education (in the manner by which the classical world conceived of it) is a bulwark against instability and chaos.
More importantly, Cicero considers education to be a meritorious endeavor. (We must also remember that education in the ancient world was a rarity compared to today’s mass education standards). The allure of education would naturally draw out the meritorious, intellectual, and rigorous in society. Through that education, the best and brightest of society would be best equipped to maintain the order of the communities they grew up in, and understand that their love of self, community, country, and wisdom should necessitate concern for the well-being of their own communities. As Cicero again said at the very beginning of Book I, “I simply state this basic fact: nature has given to mankind such a compulsion to do good, and such a desire to defend the well-being of the community.”
Education and the Natural Order
Throughout the Republic, Cicero praises those who devote a life to politics. Here, we must again understand that by politics, just as it was for Aristotle, this is not equivalent to our modern understanding of politics via ideology and the “man of action” (i.e. the activist) from Aristotle. Politics, practiced in this sense, is the working within, or for, the political order that safeguards stability, justice, peace, and security for communities. Politics is about the preservation of the political order that has been established, passed on, modified, and inherited over generations, rather than a medium for the promulgation of ideology and the working toward an idealized eschatological end of history.
Cicero also believes that through education, people will be better equipped to be able to work toward the mixed constitution, the mixing of the best elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. (This was, again, a major theme that was picked up on in the political theologies of Augustine and Aquinas.) In a sense, Cicero can best be seen as advocating for an elective form of monarchy and aristocracy in which people will elect their king, and ruling elders/aristocrats. The election, however, would be permanent until the death of such persons.
Therefore, education bests allows for modifications of political order and civil law to occur with minimal unintended consequences and fallout.
More importantly, as hinted at already, education helps one understand law. Cicero believes in two sets of legal codes: the Natural Law and the Civil Law. (He establishes his philosophy of law in other works.) The two are not opposed to each other. In fact, they best cooperate with one another. The Natural Law is the instinctive desires inherent to all species: the desire for happiness, peace, security, etc. The Civil Law is the law established and codified by humans that, in its best form, reflects the Natural Law. As individual persons, all can participate in the Natural Law. Civil Society should also seek to emulate this, by doing so the most well-being, health, peace, and happiness can be opened to society.
Education plays a major role in allowing this to happen, but only through the cultivation of the intellect. As Cicero says in Book I of Laws, “Philosophy helps men understand themselves and their place in the Natural Order of the world.” If the world is rationally ordered through wisdom, then it follows that there is a natural order of the world to which we belong and our rational capacities help us understand this natural order and our place therein.
For Cicero, education is one of the most important, if not the most important, quality of the human and for human society. The lack of intellectual development and education is what separates humans from the rest of the animal world. Therefore, to refuse intellectual development is to be a brute animal. One becomes an inflamed plebeian, a vulgar youth, or, thanks to the Phoenicians, gives one life over to the pursuit of wealth and luxury rather than wisdom itself. For Cicero, education is the best means to avoid slipping into brute animals that lead to what we covered earlier in this post: corrupt rationality which leads to folly and the desire to destroy.
In sum, education, which is principally the study of philosophy – and the study of the humane arts and literature – is humanizing. It allows one to understand their humanity (as rational animals) rather than as brute animals (phenomenological animals). It allows one to cultivate virtue through the attainment of wisdom which leads to a knowledge of how to act, and when to act. Furthermore, education clearly still retains political overtures. The wise and educated society leads to an engaged citizenry, as Cicero states (historically true or not), “But if you recall, all the citizens were both common people and senators. A rota system decided which months they should serve as commoners and which as senators. They received payment in both capacities for attending meetings. The same men heard all cases, including those of a capital nature, in the theater and in the senate house. The senate had as much, and as much prestige, as the masses.”
Again, only an educated, literate, and philosophically inclined society can lead to virtue and the ability to overcome the brutish and foppish ways of plebeian animals and luxury-chasing weaklings who care not for anything besides how they look to the public. The struggle of politics is against those who destroy out of the folly (the brute animals) and those who cut themselves off from responsibility in pursuit of luxury and 24/7 sensual and material pleasure and gain (who, if aristocrats, also lead to aristocratic tyranny which is equally bad).
Book V: The Ideal Statesman
All of this education and study of philosophy finally permits us to move into the ideal form and understanding of politics, and hopefully the ability – through our virtue which comes with wisdom – to avoid the shortcomings of the three simple forms and our constant abdication of responsibility. As Cicero states quite clearly, “The good life is impossible without a good state; and there is no greater blessing than a well-ordered state.” The reason for that is simple and somewhat self-explanatory, especially considering the dialogues over the problem of politics from Book I. A well-ordered state, because of the order it provides, from which we can reasonably deduce justice flows, is the state that has an orderly society that is able to pursue happiness and attempt to align themselves in accord with the order of nature to derive happiness without constant fear, chaos, disorder, or embrace of hedonism.
In fact, having just concluded the importance of moral education, Cicero opens Book V by saying, “For it is not by some accident – no, it is because of our own moral failings – that we are left with the name of the Republic, having long since lost its substance.” Cicero retains the theme of responsibility and moral virtue here. A republic exists only when it has a population that is morally virtuous and takes responsibility for their lives, actions, and building of the common good necessary for a republic to flourish.
Education is equally important to understanding the ideal statesman and ideal nature of the political, which Cicero explains through the brief, but important and deep, farm-manager analogy. “So a farm manager knows about the nature of the land, and a steward knows how to read and write; but each of them concentrates on practical efficiency rather than enjoying that kind of knowledge for its own sake.” Again, this is Cicero’s debt to Aristotle. Phronesis, or practical wisdom. Knowledge is only worthwhile when put into action. This is true for the whole of society too. It is somewhat pointless to have accrued knowledge of how to till the land or how to read and write if one doesn’t actually apply that knowledge to real life circumstances.
Thus Cicero continues, “Similarly our statesman will indeed have taken trouble to find out about justice and laws and will certainly have studied their foundations.” Here, reaching back to the long conversation over justice from Book III, Cicero states that the ideal statesman is like the farm manager, or the steward. He is wise, philosophically astute, and has taken the time to dwell upon the subjects that are relevant to the nature of politics. He understands, to use Platonic language, the form of politics. Cicero entirely endorses Plato’s idea of the philosopher king, or the philosopher statesman. Yet, Cicero equally states that such a statesman remains like the farm manager, then delegating responsibility to others, “But he should not become involved in answering queries, reading up cases, and writing decisions. He must be free, as it were, to manage and keep account of the state.”
Therefore, the ideal statesman is like the farm manager. He knows the matters of the state and political just as the farm manager knows the nature of the land and how to work it. He teaches and instructs, and helps to build from solid foundations. The statesman doesn’t get bogged down in menial tasks and other such affairs, but has responsible people, such as the steward who would keep track of matters relevant to the farm manager, in order to run the state. As Cicero continues, “He will be well versed in the fundamental principles of law (without that, no one can be just); he will have some grasp too, of civil law, but only in the sense that a ship’s captain will have a grasp of astronomy and a doctor of natural science. Each of these men draws on those areas of knowledge in practicing his skill, without being diverted from his special business.” Basically, the statesman has to be well versed in just about everything. Which is why he needs to be a philosopher.
Through this knowledge, like a farm manager’s estate, the statesman protects the land, provides for the land, sustains the land, and knows how to do these things while having others work the land, keep track of finances, and so on. Everyone has areas of knowledge for practicing skills which makes a farm flourish. The purpose of politics is flourishing within the confines of the natural order. It is not about dreams of heaven come to earth. “The aim of a ship’s captain is a successful voyage; a doctor’s, health; a general’s, victory. So the aim of our ideal statesmane is the citizens’ happy life—that is, a life secure in its moral character. That is the task which I wish him to accomplish – the greatest and best that any man can have.”
Virtue, which is moral character, which comes from knowledge as a result of philosophical education, is the key to the good life. The political body that manages this, the natural flourishing of human teleology, is the ideal political city. A politics that does not cultivate virtue, a politics that does not lead to moral character, and a politics that shuns philosophy will always, and inevitably, slip into tyranny and chaos.
While Cicero has clear intentions to his own time as the Roman Republic was threatened (and it did fall), his cautionary tale is one that any educated person has read and takes seriously. Although the Republic is a small dialogue given the porous state that it is in, it was widely influential throughout the history of political philosophy. Much of it was integrating into Catholic political thought (especially in St. Thomas Aquinas). Two of America’s Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, considered themselves disciples of Cicero. A cursory reading of Cicero’s great work is not enough – there is so much going on between the lines, with serious implications concerning human nature, the cosmos, metaphysics, ethics, and political philosophy, as well as history. We would be wise to retain the classics and reread Cicero again and again.
“For lust sets over our thoughts like a cruel mistress, ordering and compelling us to do outlandish things. As there is no way in which they may be appeased or satisfied once they inflamed person with their seductive charms they drive men to every sort of crime,” Cicero writes concerning those who deliberately seek to destroy order and bring forth instability to society at the very beginning of Book VI which details the struggle over politics. The battle against the lust for domination, which Augustine would call libido dominandi, the struggle against the plight of self-alienation through the embrace of hedonism and nihilism, and the struggle against the general ignorance of society, are all battering rams aimed at the destruction of the healthy farm – which is the healthy society, and the good society.
Conclusion
The moral person is not the person who seeks the transformation of the world. The purpose of morality, for Cicero, which gets picked up in Catholic moral teaching, is primarily for the health of one’s soul (intellect), to be a virtuous individual, which is wrapped up with the teleologically flourishing and happy individual. The moral person is the virtuous person who comes to defense of that which is already good and beautiful against those, in their folly, nihilism, or passionate outburst, threaten to destroy the good and beautiful. Morality is about opposing one’s internal lust for domination, not the twisting of a “moral compass” to give oneself license to transform, dominate, or abuse others in the name of moral enlightenment or progress. It’s easier to blame the world, or others, than look at oneself in the mirror and change oneself.
Cicero is asking us what are we willing to do to confront the forces of nihilism, chaos, and tyranny? What makes us truly human, for Cicero, is the cultivation of our intellect which leads to the development of moral character – the embrace of the highest calling of the human, “Their minds rose higher and succeeding in achieving, in thought or action, something worthy of what I have previously called the gift of the gods.” Being human is quite the task with major responsibilities. It is no surprise, then, that Cicero sees the majority of humans as basically rejecting their own humanity and becoming brute animals who need not take responsibility for themselves, others, or care for the common good. This is the struggle of politics, but it is also the struggle of history and of human life itself.
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Paul Krause is the editor-in-chief of VoegelinView. He is writer, classicist, and historian. He has written on the arts, culture, classics, literature, philosophy, religion, and history for numerous journals, magazines, and newspapers. He is the author of Finding Arcadia, The Odyssey of Love and the Politics of Plato, and a contributor to the College Lecture Today and Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters. He holds master’s degrees in philosophy and religious studies (biblical studies & theology) from the University of Buckingham and Yale, and a bachelor’s degree in economics, history, and philosophy from Baldwin Wallace University.
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