Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
On Duties 3.11 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
Translation by Walter Miller (1913)
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 3.11
In regard to Panaetius's real intentions, therefore, no doubt can be entertained. But whether he was or was not justified in adding this third division to the inquiry about duty may, perhaps, be a matter for debate. For whether moral goodness is the only good, as the Stoics believe, or whether, as your Peripatetics think, moral goodness is in so far the highest good that everything else gathered together into the opposing scale would have scarcely the slightest weight, it is beyond question that expediency can never conflict with moral rectitude. And so, we have heard, Socrates used to pronounce a curse upon those who first drew a conceptual distinction between things naturally inseparable. With this doctrine the Stoics are in agreement in so far as they maintain that if anything is morally right, it is expedient, and if anything is not morally right, it is not expedient.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 3.11, tr. Walter Miller (1913)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/on-duties/3.11
Cicero, On Duties (De Officiis), tr. Walter Miller (Loeb, 1913). Text: Perseus Digital Library (CC BY-SA 4.0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesOn the Stoic view, and in effect for the other serious schools too, what is truly useful can never clash with what is morally right, because what is right is the only real good. Whatever seems to pay off at the cost of doing wrong only looks like an advantage.
Older wording
- “expediency”
- — usefulness or advantage
- “moral rectitude”
- — morally correct conduct
- “Peripatetics”
- — followers of Aristotle
Themes and situations
- Virtue and character
- Justice and fairness
- Duty and roles
- An ethical dilemma
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