[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Welcome back to the On Duties podcast, a production of the Ciceronian Society. I'm Christopher Anadale. I teach philosophy at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. I also run a small YouTube channel with my name on it. Joining me today is Dr. Ethan. Alexander Davy. Ethan.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Yes. I teach political science at Cambridge University, specifically political theory and constitutional law. And I'm a big fan of Cicero and the Romans generally, so I look forward to these episodes.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Great. We're glad you're joining us again here this Wednesday morning. This is the version of On Duties. We're reading from the Cambridge text and the History of Political Thought, translation by Griffin and Atkins. You're welcome to read along with us or with any version which you happen to have in a slightly different translation.
We have gotten as far as the middle of Cicero's treatment of liberality. We just finished with book one, chapter 45, here. Now, on page 20 of this version, we are, by my account, about a third of the way through.
The first book of On Duties consists of three books, so we'll pick up here, I think, with chapter 46. Ethan, would you like to read that?
[00:01:30] Speaker A: One will do, thanks.
Since we do not live with men who are perfect and clearly wise, but with those who are doing splendidly if they have in them mere images of virtue, I think that we must understand this too. No one should be wholly neglected if any indication of virtue appears in him. Moreover, one must particularly foster those who are most graced with the gentler virtues, modesty, restraint, and that very justice which I have now been discussing at length. For a brave and great spirit in a man who is not perfect nor wise is generally too impetuous.
But those other virtues seem rather to attach themselves to a good man. That is all on the question of conduct.
Hmm.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: So this is the first treatment that Cicero is here at this point, talking to us about the different standings according to which we ought to give be liberal towards and be generous towards people with whom we are related.
And the first is conduct. Well, is he a good man or a bad man? We don't live with perfect people. We shouldn't expect to be generous only to those who are pure and good. But what does he say? We ought not to neglect any indication of virtue, especially those more modest virtues, modesty, restraint. And justice seems to be saying. He doesn't say much about it. He says, now I'm finished with talking about conduct and virtue. One ought to be generous towards those who are at least trying to be good. Is that right?
[00:03:19] Speaker A: One ought to be Generous toward those who are trying to be good. And I think this might be the passage that I had in mind in the previous episode when I said that one of the duties of the gentleman is to foster gentlemanliness in others. So he is the one who has cultivated these virtues in himself, and he can them in others. And where he sees them, he ought to try to foster them. Especially, as he says, those with the gentler virtues, modesty, restraint and the justice that I have been discussing is to try to find those people and to help them further develop so that they too can exercise the virtues.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: Right. I have thinking here. You and I both share a common profession and station. Where university teachers and I might think, since this is a work of practical advice. Part of the practical advice is among the people you encounter, people in your charge, people over whom you have influence. Find the people who are sort of working on these particular. Particular virtues and lift them up, give to them. Why? Precisely because those particular virtues of modesty and restraint in a person who already has a sort of inward greatness of spirit and ambition, those are the virtues that are going to make him into a gentleman. So among the 100 or more students I might see each semester, I ought to be sensitive too, that the two or three who could really profit from get the sort of most return on a certain kind of attention and investment and generosity from my part as a superior or as a teacher, as a mentor.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: Right. I think that's well said. I mean, this is a big part of what a liberal education is about, is trying to. Again, to foster those qualities in those who at least display some hint of them to begin with.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Just so. Just so.
All right. Well, let me take us into the next chapters. Chapters 47 and 48. I'll cover together.
On the subject of the goodwill that each person has towards us. The first consideration of duty is that we should grant the most to the one who is most fond of us.
But we should judge goodwill, not, as adolescents do, by the strength of its burning passion, but rather by its firmness and constancy.
If services have already been rendered, that is, if you have not to inspire gratitude, but rather to requite it, then you must take even greater care. For no duty is more necessary than that of requiting gratitude.
For if, as Hesiod commands, you should return in greater measure, provided that you can anything that you have needed to borrow, what should we do when challenged by an unsought favor?
Should we not take as our model the fertile fields which bring forth much more than they have received?
We do not hesitate to perform dutiful services for those whom we hope will assist us in the future.
What then ought we to be like towards those who have already assisted us?
There are two aspects of liberality. First, granting a kind service and secondly, returning it. Whether we grant one or not is up to us. A good man, however, is not permitted to fail to return one, provided, of course, that he can do so without injustice.
Ethan, your thoughts?
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Yeah. So this is one of those moments where, and I forgot to mention this before, but in the introduction to my old translation with the Latin by Walter Miller, he says in there that. I think he describes Cicero as the most Christian of the pagans. Right. So in many ways it feels like we're reading and listening to a Christian, but of course, there are some differences. Right. So this emphasis on giving back to those who have given to us, I think we know that Christianity demands more of us than that right, to give to people who have not given to us. And Cicero doesn't exclude that possibility, but it seems his focus is we owe the most to those who have already given to us, to those with whom we already have relationship, to those who are already fond of us, and we owe them a return of that generosity and that good feeling.
So there's more of an emphasis on that than we would find in Christianity, which asks you to give even to those who have given you nothing and possibly couldn't give you anything.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: That's an interesting point.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Of course, there is almost a kind of.
There's a rising above or even an expectation that that's the baseline. Right. Even the pagans will help those who have helped them.
That's no credit to you. Right, says the Lord.
But to give to one who hasn't given to you, I'm thinking here in Cicero's defense, or sort of to think through his worldview, to fail to requite generosity might be, I say, to fall the farthest short of ideal human behavior. That is, if you want to achieve great things, you also want to avoid great errors. And the greatest error for a gentleman would be to receive generosity and not to even attempt to recognize and requite it. So that's a duty in the sense that your natural perfection, which, of course Christian perfection would seek to go beyond, would require you, above all, in addition to being generous yourself, to take into account people's prior generosity to you. So it's not a thing to be despised as unworthy, but perhaps to be an object of ambition, to be achieved, and then to rise to the next level. With the help of God's grace.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: I like the way you put it better than the way I put it. I think that's okay.
All right.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: So it would be possible to misunderstand this initial statement. Right. We should think most of those who are most fond of us. But when we think of it in terms of sustaining relationships. Through the mutual paying and giving of obligation. That both the attraction of that ideal. And the sort of superior attractiveness of the Christian ideal. Maybe both make sense.
Ethan, why don't I ask you to read chapters 49 and 50? I think also go together. Though it's Most of page 21. Do you think you could take us through that?
[00:10:22] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Thank you so much.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: We must, moreover, discriminate between kind services we have received.
And there is no doubt but that the greater the kindness, the more is owed to its bestower. Here we must, first of all weigh up the spirit in which each man has acted. His devotion and his goodwill. For many men do many things out of a certain rashness. Failing to use their judgment. Or may be inspired by a frenzied or sudden impulse of the spirit towards everyone like a gust of wind.
Such favors should not be considered as important. As those that are conferred through judgment with forethought and constancy.
In granting favors, on the other hand, and in requiting gratitude. The most important function of duty, if all else is equal. Is to enrich above all the person who is most in need of riches. But people generally do exactly the opposite. For they defer above all to him from whom they expect the most.
Even though he does not need them.
Also, the fellowship between men and their common bonding Will best be preserved. If the closer someone is to you, the more kindness you confer upon him.
Perhaps, though, we should examine more thoroughly. What are the natural principles of human fellowship and community.
First is something that is seen in the fellowship of the entire human race. For its bonding consists of reason and speech. Which reconcile men to one another.
Through teaching, learning, communicating, debating and making judgments. And unite them in a kind of natural fellowship.
It is this that most distances us from the nature of other animals. To them we often impute courage, as with horses or lions.
But we do not impute to them justice, fairness or goodness. For they have no share in reason and speech.
Very good.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Thank you so much.
So, what have we here? If I could take the lead on this.
Chapter 49, a long one. We've gone from saying that we should requite generosity. We should favor those who have shown most favor to us. And that's just a matter of gentlemanliness and of appropriate human spirit.
We should discriminate between services done to us. The greater the kindness, the more we owe.
Weigh the spirit in which a man has acted, but also enrich above all the person who is most in need. So to give generously to a benefactor who has no need of what we can give him. And here we sort of also kind of feel like we're hitting the ceiling of natural generosity, looking forward to supernatural generosity. What. What can we requite to God for what he's given us?
We ought to take into account, not act as most people act, which is to defer above all to him from whom they expect most to give generously to the man who's already wealthy. Well, this amounts to a certain kind of criticism of maybe a kind of what we might call a patronage system in Cicero's time, doesn't it?
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Right, it does. Right. And the patronage system was quite a thing in the Roman Republic, but. Right. So it is not just. It is not generous to give to those from whom we expect some kind of benefit.
But of course, we're still within this context of requiting. So if we have a friend who has helped us before, who has been good to us, and he is in need, we should come to his rescue before we requite others.
So it's still within this context of maintaining existing relationships and returning kindness with kindness.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Right, Right, exactly.
And then the following section.
The closer someone is to you, the more kindness you should confer upon him. And here we're getting close to something like the preference that I show for my family, which is not simply a sort of irrational prejudice for people in my bloodline or people whom I see every day, but really amounts to a recognition of a real difference in my duties towards people who are differently related to me.
What do you make of this final paragraph about the principles of human fellowship and community, the bond of the human race and this comparison to animals?
[00:15:10] Speaker A: Right, so here is where we get. Cicero is beginning to set up his hierarchy of duties to different sorts of people.
And we begin here with the minimum. So we are all, as human beings, we are all part of one general community, one universal community.
And we owe to human beings, as human beings at least something.
And when we get to late, much later in the book, when it comes to things like international relations and war, it turns out we owe them quite a lot, or they're quite significant things. But just as members of the same species, we owe our fellow human beings something. And that's because we Share something. We share the faculty of reason and speech, the ability to understand what justice is.
And so that means that we owe at least something to our fellow man, even if we have no closer relations with them. And later on he gets a little bit more specific about what we might owe them.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I would just close by noting that we can impute a certain kind of courage to animals, but we would never impute justice to them because justice depends upon this logos and speech and the kind of sophisticated community that we have among ourselves as human beings. So we might say an animal can show courage or cowardice by kind of analogy, but never justice or injustice. We don't regard the animals, even among their own spec as behaving with justice towards each other.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: We assume here that all members of the human race can understand justice to some degree that is deserving of our respect.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Okay, I think I did the last reading. Ethan, would you mind reading chapters 51 and 52?
I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. No, no. Did you read last, did you not?
[00:17:18] Speaker A: I think I did, yes. I'm.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: I'm so sorry. That's. Why don't I take the 51 and 52?
[00:17:22] Speaker A: That's right. But you almost fooled me there.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that. That's. I.
I'd forgotten myself on page 22 then.
The most widespread fellowship existing among men is that of all, with all others.
Here we must preserve the communal sharing of all things that nature brings forth for the common use of mankind in such a way that whatever is assigned by statutes and civil remain in such possession as those laws may have laid down, but the rest should be regarded as the Greek proverb has it, everything is common among friends.
The things that are common to all men seem to be the kind that Ennius defines in one case, from which we can extrapolate to many cases.
A man who kindly shows the path to someone who is lost lights another's light, so to speak, from his own, for his own shines no less because he has lit another's.
With this one instance, he advises us that if any assistance can be provided without detriment to oneself, it should be given even to a stranger.
Therefore, such things as the following are to be.
One should not keep others from fresh water, should allow them to take fire from your fire, should give trustworthy counsel to someone who is seeking advice, for they are useful to those who receive them and cause no trouble to the giver.
We should therefore both make use of them and always be contributing something to the common benefit.
Since though the resources of individuals are Small, but the mass of those who are in need is infinitely great.
General liberality must be measured according to the limit laid down by Ennius, and that his own light shine no less, then we shall still be capable of being liberal to those close to us.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: Right. So the key line here seems to me with respect to people who are just members of the human race and we have no other connection to them, we should give them any assistance that we can without detriment to ourselves, without detriment to ourselves and without detriment to those who are most close to us. Right.
And then of course, a lot of this seems to be in the context of travelers encountering each other on the road. Right. So don't deny to a stranger fresh water or fire or any of these things which it doesn't cost you anything to give him, it doesn't harm you to give him.
And we at least owe other members of the human race that.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Right? Well, it seems in economic terms where there is no scarcity, it would be mean and base to try to prevent somebody from drawing from it if they can benefit at no cost to you. Well, there's the sort of primary, sort of absolute baseline of generosity expected towards anybody, even a stranger. I thought it's interesting that he goes from the obvious examples of if there's a source of fresh water, you don't stand in the way of people getting access to it, since a fire can be lit from a larger fire without diminishing the first fire. Obviously people can light their fire from your fire if you already have one going. And then his third one is social. Right? Give good advice, give sound advice. Doesn't hurt you to give good advice to someone.
You shouldn't be suspicious of what they'll do with the good advice that you give.
Advice like fresh water, like fire, is one of those things which should be given freely because it is of absolutely no cost.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Right. And in this context of travel it might be, how do I get to that city over there?
Don't tell them the wrong way. Be kind and give them good directions or what steps or preparations they might want to undertake when they get to this place. So give what you can, give what you can, and that does no harm to you.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: Well, it seems also fundamentally irrational and even anti human to try to be sparing with things of which there is an infinite abundance, things like fire and water and the like.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Of course, in modern times countries go to war over supplies of fresh water. So this gets sticky, but right, as you say, assuming that we're not dealing with Conditions of scarcity. One should give these things freely.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: Right?
[00:22:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: So I think we're back on sequence now. Could I ask you to read 53 and 54?
[00:22:17] Speaker A: Yes.
There are indeed several degrees of fellowship among men to move from the one that is unlimited. Next, there is a closer one of the same race, tribe and tongue through which men are bound strongly to one another.
More intimate still is that of the same city. As citizens have many things that are shared with one another. The forum, temples, porticoes and roads, laws and legal rights, law courts and political elections.
And besides these acquaintances and companionship and those business and commercial transactions that many of them make with many others, a tie, narrower still is that of the fellowship between relations.
Moving from that vast fellowship of the human race, we end up with a confined and a limited one.
For since it is by nature common to all animals that they have a drive to procreate, the first fellowship exists within marriage itself. And the next with one's children.
Then there is the one house in which everything is shared. Indeed, that is the principle of a city. And the seedbed, as it were, of a political community.
Next, there follow bonds between brothers. And then between first cousins and second cousins who cannot be contained in one house and go out to other houses as if to colonies. Finally, there follow marriages. And those connections of marriage from which even more relations arise.
In such propagation and increase. Political communities have their origin. Moreover, the bonding of blood holds men together by goodwill and by love.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: Okay, end of chapter 54. Obviously, here we can feel the focus narrowing. We've gone from the absolute minimal obligations we owe of generosity, injustice towards strangers, towards anybody, especially with goods that are abundant and not scarce, and which can be given with no loss to ourselves.
Now, in a sense, it's beginning to bite a little bit into who and what we are. To the limited resources that I have. Well, to whom do I give? Well, we consider first bonds of race, tribe and tongue, of nationality, of co. Ethnicity, of tribe. Then the more intimate bonds of city, and then within the family, to marriage, to spouse, to children, to the household, then sort of expanding outward to the larger network of families.
We haven't been told precisely here.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: What.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Is owed at each level. But we've been given the principle previously, haven't we, that the one, the closer tie should outweigh or be preferred to the more remote one.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: That's right. And so I've been trying to think about how to characterize the obligations of race, tribe and tongue, on the one hand, and the obligations to those with whom one shares daily interactions and political rights and political participation in all of that.
By the way, the word behind tribe there is nation is the origin of our word nation.
So it seems to me maybe one way of thinking about that is that we owe more to the people with whom we share a city or town than we do to the.
The larger nation. But that could be tricky given what Cicero says about that our first duty later on is to our fatherland. And how are we defining that?
Or are we talking about, you have co ethnics here, you have co ethnics in some other place, and you owe more to the ones with whom you have daily interactions and duties than to the ones who are farther afield. So, I mean, that's a little complicated to think about how that would apply to our present situation. But this is the kind of question that he wants us to grapple with.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: Right? And it seems to me, as we put more layers on the board, think of overlapping transparencies perhaps, as we have more and more layers to consider and more and more relationships and, you know, cousins. And then I also have the behavior of my cousins, whether they've been generous or favorably or ill disposed towards me in the past.
The more factors we take into account, I think the more we retreat from the area of general rules where I can say, don't stop people from having access to fresh water if you're standing in their way, or they ask to light from your fire, ask you for advice on the road.
I can't really give a rule about this because the job of a wise person is to take account of the reality of all the different elements of the relationship and judge under this present circumstance, what's the prudential level of generosity to be given to this person in this time, given the limitation on resources, the demands of other people, the expectations for the future, the uncertainties of the present circumstances.
And it would, I assume, be easier to get this wrong because there is no, it's not a matter of just being baseline correct about giving people access to abundant resources, but of assigning what little or much that you have to each appropriately according to the overall network and all the totality of demands upon you.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: And also, when we get into a paragraph for chapter 54, it also seems complicated.
What do we owe to which parts of our family and our kin? Those are a series of questions in there that can be difficult.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Right. And we also, of course, he calls this the seedbed of the city and of political life. So this is really, right, the household.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: The family is the seedbed. Right?
[00:28:42] Speaker B: Right. The family is the seedbed. So we have to get this right. We would say that this is where we will sort of face our initial and most important test of generosity and correctness. I would hope that, you know, Cicero himself is practicing justice and appropriate liberality among the members of his household and his immediate family, including his son, to whom he's writing this book of advice.
And that's the foundation that, in a sense, is the gateway through which he's then approaching his generosity to his fellow citizens, to his fellow defenders of the republic, to other people with whom maybe he shares a common citizenship but not a common ideology or loyalty. People who are trying to subvert the Republic, for example.
Any final thoughts on that? I think we're about at the half hour mark right now. Thoughts of where we've come so far. We've come through the end of chapter 54.
[00:29:39] Speaker A: Well, right. We have more questions to sort out about what we owe to whom, and we'll see more about that in the next few sections.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: All right. Well, we'll return to book one, chapter 55, next week. Next Wednesday. I want to thank you for joining Ethan and myself today for this episode of the On Duties podcast. We look forward to you being with us in the future. In the meantime, feel free to like and share this video to leave a comment below if you have any questions or ideas or reactions to what we've said. You should also check out our society's
[email protected] thanks very much for watching. Goodbye.
