Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
On Duties 3.20 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
Translation by Walter Miller (1913)
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 3.20
That rule, moreover, shall be in perfect harmony with the Stoics' system and doctrines. It is their teachings that I am following in these books, and for this reason: the older Academicians and your Peripatetics (who were once the same as the Academicians) give what is morally right the preference over what seems expedient; and yet the discussion of these problems, if conducted by those who consider whatever is morally right also expedient and nothing expedient that is not at the same time morally right, will be more illuminating than if conducted by those who think that something not expedient may be morally right and that something not morally right may be expedient. But our New Academy allows us wide liberty, so that it is within my right to defend any theory that presents itself to me as most probable. But to return to my rule.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 3.20, tr. Walter Miller (1913)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/on-duties/3.20
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 notesCicero explains why he builds his rule for conflicts between right and advantage on Stoic teaching: reasoning from the view that right and useful always coincide is more illuminating, while the New Academy lets him adopt whichever theory seems most probable.
Older wording
- “Peripatetics”
- — followers of Aristotle
- “New Academy”
- — the sceptical phase of Plato's school, which favoured weighing probabilities
Themes and situations
- Virtue and character
- Learning and progress
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