On Duties

Context and Aims

On Duties (De Officiis) is a late work by the Roman statesman and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero, composed in 44 BCE in the turbulent months after the assassination of Julius Caesar. Cast as a didactic letter to his son, Cicero’s treatise adapts and popularizes Stoic ethics, especially the ideas of Panaetius, for a Roman audience engaged in public life.

Its overarching aim is to provide a systematic account of duty (officium), understood as the set of obligations binding on individuals by virtue of their rational nature, social roles, and civic positions. Cicero is concerned not with abstract metaphysics but with a practical moral handbook for orators, magistrates, and citizens seeking to act rightly amid political upheaval.

Structure and Central Themes

The work is divided into three books, each devoted to a major moral question:

1. Book I: The Honorable (Honestum)
   Cicero first analyzes what is morally honorable, grounding duties in four cardinal sources of virtue:

   • Wisdom (prudentia): right reason concerning what is true and good
   • Justice (iustitia): giving each their due, respecting property and agreements
   • Greatness of spirit (magnitudo animi): courage, high-mindedness, and constancy
   • Temperance (moderatio): self-control, order, and propriety in conduct

   For Cicero, duty arises from human nature as rational and social. Humans are bound to pursue virtue in accordance with reason and to maintain concord with others. He discusses everyday duties—truthfulness, reliability, and moderation—alongside advice about personal demeanor, style of life, and consistency of character.

2. Book II: The Useful (Utile)
   The second book examines what is advantageous or useful, including wealth, power, security, and reputation. Cicero treats utility not as mere self-interest but as that which contributes to the preservation and flourishing of individuals and communities.

   He argues that true usefulness is never divorced from virtue: long-term stability, trust, and honor depend on justice and integrity. The book includes many historical and contemporary Roman examples, illustrating how rulers and citizens can gain influence legitimately by beneficence, liberality, and public service rather than exploitation.

3. Book III: The Apparent Conflict between the Honorable and the Useful
   The final book addresses cases where the honorable and the useful seem to conflict, such as profitable wrongdoing or politically expedient injustice. Cicero’s central claim is that any conflict is only apparent, not real:

   • Moral goodness is the highest kind of usefulness, because injustice corrodes trust and social cooperation.
   • Actions that appear useful yet violate justice are ultimately harmful to the agent and the community.

   He works through famous examples—such as whether to disclose all relevant information in commercial dealings—to show that justice and good faith must be maintained even at material cost. In doing so, Cicero attempts to reconcile virtue ethics with pragmatic considerations of success and security.

Ethical Theory and Political Application

Cicero’s account of duty integrates personal morality with civic and political obligations. He presents humans as possessing overlapping identities: as rational beings, as members of a universal community, and as holders of particular offices (roles, such as magistrate, advocate, or head of household).

Key elements include:

• Natural Law and Universal Duty
  Cicero develops a robust notion of natural law, according to which right reason is in harmony with a universal, rational order governing gods and humans. Duties are not mere social conventions but expressions of this cosmic moral law, accessible to all rational beings. This underpins his frequent claims that injustice is contrary not only to civil law but to nature itself.

• Justice, Property, and Promise-Keeping
  A central cluster of duties concerns justice. Cicero insists that:

  • One must not harm another unless provoked by injustice.
  • Property rights should be respected; acquisition must not come through fraud or force.
  • Promises and contracts must be kept, unless circumstances change such that keeping them would inflict serious injustice.

  This framework anticipates later discussions of rights, contracts, and public trust, linking moral obligations to the stability of legal and political institutions.

• Duties of Office and Civic Virtue
  As the title suggests, duties attach especially to offices and public roles. Cicero emphasizes:

  • The responsibility of magistrates to pursue the common good rather than private advantage.
  • The importance of integrity, courage, and eloquence in political life.
  • The obligation to resist tyranny and uphold the republican constitution.

  While he endorses hierarchical Roman social structures, he also stresses that those in power bear heightened duties of justice, clemency, and generosity, because their actions shape the fortunes of many.

• Self-Shaping and Consistency of Character
  Cicero treats duties not just as isolated acts but as expressions of a stable character. He urges individuals to cultivate a way of life consistent with their strengths, temperament, and station, avoiding roles that conflict with their nature or moral convictions. The ideal is a harmonious personality in which reason guides desire, and public behavior reflects inner conviction.

Reception and Legacy

On Duties quickly became one of the most influential ethical texts in Latin literature. In late antiquity and the Middle Ages, it was widely read and commented on by Christian thinkers, who adapted Cicero’s account of natural law and virtue to theological frameworks. Figures such as Ambrose drew directly on De Officiis in constructing Christian moral handbooks.

During the Renaissance, the work was central to humanist education, serving as a model of Latin prose style and a key source on the virtues appropriate to civic leaders. Its emphasis on eloquent, morally responsible statesmanship resonated with humanists seeking to combine classical learning with active political life.

In the early modern period, On Duties significantly influenced theorists of natural law and rights, including Grotius and Pufendorf, who drew on Cicero’s treatment of justice, property, and sociability. Enlightenment thinkers engaged with his argument that morality is grounded in rational, universal principles rather than in positive law alone.

Modern scholarship often highlights tensions in the work:

• Critics note the blend of Stoic theory with more traditional Roman concerns for honor, status, and pragmatic success.
• Others point to an unresolved gap between its universalistic language of natural law and its acceptance of Roman social hierarchies.

Nonetheless, On Duties remains a key text for the study of virtue ethics, republican political thought, and the history of natural law, and continues to be examined for its account of the relationship between moral principle, personal integrity, and public responsibility.