Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
On Duties 3.70 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
Translation by Walter Miller (1913)
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 3.70
"That I be not deceived and defrauded through you and my confidence in you"! How precious are these: "As between honest people there ought to be honest dealing, and no deception"! But who are "honest people," and what is "honest dealing" —these are serious questions. It was Quintus Scaevola, the pontifex maximus, who used to attach the greatest importance to all questions of arbitration to which the formula was appended "as good faith requires"; and he held that the expression "good faith" had a very extensive application, for it was employed in trusteeships and partnerships, in trusts and commissions, in buying and selling, in hiring and letting—in a word, in all the transactions on which the social relations of daily life depend; in these, he said, it required a judge of great ability to decide the extent of each individual's obligation to the other, especially when counter-claims were admissible in most cases.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 3.70, tr. Walter Miller (1913)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/on-duties/3.70
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 notesHonest dealing between honest people is a precious standard, though who counts as honest and what honest dealing requires are hard questions. Scaevola held that the formula as good faith requires covers nearly every transaction of daily life, from partnerships to hiring and selling, and takes a skilled judge to apply.
Older wording
- “pontifex maximus”
- — Rome's chief priest
- “trusteeships”
- — legal roles of managing property for another
Themes and situations
- Justice and fairness
- Community and our duty to others
- An ethical dilemma
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