[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Welcome back to the On Duties Podcast, a production of the Ciceronian Society. You can learn more about us, our annual conference, and our other activities by visiting ciceroniansociety.org we are continuing our journey through the entirety of Cicero's On Duties. We're reading this Cambridge translation, but other translations will work just as well for you. We finished last week at the end of chapter 99 in book one, and we're going to push on into the triple digits today.
I'm Chris Anadale. I teach philosophy at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Joining me today, Ethan Alexander Davy from Campbell University, Benjamin Peterson from Abilene Christian University, and Coyle Neal, incoming at the College of the Ozarks. All three of these guys, all four of us people associated for a long time back with the Society. Gentlemen, welcome to the show today.
Good to be here, right?
So we have been talking about seemliness. We've introduced the topic and we're getting now into the kinds of duties and expressions that go along with the seemly.
I think starting with chapter 100, I'll take the rare privilege of reading first myself and give first comment to Ethan. All right, so page one, chapter 100 on page 39 of this edition.
The duty which is derived from this follows above all the road that leads to agreeing with and preserving nature.
If we follow her as our guide, we will never go astray.
We will follow that which is by nature discriminating and clear sighted, that which is suited to bonding men together, that too, which is vigorous and courageous.
Seemliness, however, appears to the greatest effect in the element that we are discussing at present.
Nor is it only the movements of the body that should be commended when they are suited to nature, but also those of the spirit, when they too are adapted to her.
For the power of the spirit, that is its nature, is twofold. One part of it consists of impulse, called in Greek horme, which snatches a man this way, and that the other of reason, which teaches and explains what should be done and what avoided.
Reason therefore commands and impulse obeys.
All action should be free from rashness and carelessness nor should anyone do anything for which he cannot give a persuasive justification that is practically a definition of duty.
One must ensure, therefore, that the impulses obey reason, and neither run ahead of it, nor through laziness or cowardice, abandon it and that they are calm and free from every agitation of spirit.
As a result there will shine forth in their fulness, both constancy and moderation.
If impulses overstep their bounds. If leaping away, so to speak, whether attracted by something or repelled, they are not adequately restrained by. By reason, then indeed they transgress due measure and limit, they abandon, they cast off obedience, they do not submit to reason, to whom they are subject by the law of nature.
The body, too, as well as the spirit, is then agitated by them. One can see the faces of angry men, of men aroused by some passion of fear, of men exulting in excessive pleasure. The faces, the voices, the gestures, the postures of them all are transformed,
[00:03:53] Speaker C: Right? So this returns. I mean, we're in this new topic on seemliness, but this returns us to something that Cicero has said many times already, right? That we are not to be driven by our base passions, but those passions have to be refined and controlled by our reason.
And I think the last paragraph, the last sentence that Chris read sums it up. We see what those people who are driven by their passions look like. They look out of joint, they are out of harmony. They are likely to make mistakes because they are controlled by their passions rather than.
Rather than being controlled by rational forethought and the consideration of whether an action is justified. So all of our feelings, all of our passions have to be mediated by the kind of.
By reason and by this sense that we have, among other things, this sense of decorum. What is the proper way to act in this particular instance?
[00:05:08] Speaker A: Ben, I like this.
Cicero seems kind of fond of these kind of pithy ways of describing what he's talking about.
Never do anything for which you cannot give a persuasive justification. Right. And so that's a kind of example of what he means by. That's how you make sure you're doing your duty. I think in a prior one, he was talking about, you know, decisions of state. You know, if you're leading a state, if you're deciding whether to get into war, things like that. Never do anything. You know, you don't ever want the. The event to arrive that you say, wow, I didn't think about that. You know, I wasn't sure. I didn't. I didn't think through that possibility. Right? So here's another kind of pithy, you know, if you want to know you're on the right track, if you're never having to ask, or if you never are doing something, and then you go, man, I don't even know why I did that, or I can't even give an. Give an explanation or a reason for why I did that, then you're on a good track yes. This is a. You know, the note down here is kind of interesting. I haven't fully digested it, but the Note on page 40, kind of he suggesting that here Cicero is using Stoic terminology, although he seems to be in the substance of what he's saying, following a little bit more Plato and Aristotle, where there's a kind of effort that has to be made for the reason to control the impulses or the passions. Right. And so this is a kind of a constant potential battle within the spirit of the person. So those are some of the thoughts I had about that.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: Thanks, Coyle.
[00:06:47] Speaker D: Yeah, I always find the ancients talking about the connection between the spirit and the body is interesting. Plutarch has a great essay on anger, where if you find yourself getting angry, you should just look in a mirror and you'll realize how dumb you look and you'll immediately stop. But, and you guys have talked about this on, on the podcast already, right? This, this nature and reason connection, right? Nature is the standard, and reason is the tool that we use to align ourselves with the standard that is, that is universal across ancient philosophy.
[00:07:21] Speaker C: Right?
[00:07:21] Speaker D: Plato, Aristotle, all of the Hellenistic philosophers, even Diogenes. I mean, that as much as we can tell, that's, that's what he's trying to get at.
It's really, really fascinating to kind of compare that with the Christians when, when, when they come along and say, yeah, you guys have misunderstood. Nature and reason are also part of the problem. Right? They are, they are fallen too.
And you're, you're not going to be able to accomplish this wholeness that you're looking for by, by looking within and looking at the world. You need someone from outside to, to accomplish this.
But of the, of the efforts to, to. To try to do so kind of on our own resources.
Cicero is a great one. Cicero is again, like I said in the last episode, he's kind of my guy on this stuff.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: That's great. I would just endorse everything said, including this attention to the way in which one must be seemly and appropriate and moderate in body and in spirit. And the two, of course, interact. So the powerful emotions, the fact that impulses are not governed by reason, is reflected in the distortion of the face of the body. And that by contrast, the person who is well governed, who is seemly, who is virtuous, has a certain kind of aesthetic, you know, pleasing aspect to them because they are just as they should be. That's really why I'd say kind of a working definition of beauty.
[00:08:46] Speaker D: Right?
[00:08:51] Speaker B: They're just Most fully what they are, what they should be.
Let's move on to chapters 103 and 104. I'll ask Ethan to read and Ben to do first. Comment, gentlemen.
[00:09:10] Speaker C: The return to our delineation of duty.
From all this we realize that all impulses should be controlled and calmed.
That our attention and forethought should be aroused in such a way that we do nothing rashly or at random, without consideration or care. Furthermore, we have not been created by nature to seem as if we were made for jesting and play, but rather for earnestness, for greater and weightier pursuits. We may, of course, joke and play, but in the way that we sleep and otherwise rest. That is, when we have given time enough to weighty and serious matters.
The humor itself should be of a well bred and witty type, neither extravagant nor excessive. We do not allow boys complete freedom in their play, but only as much as is compatible with acting honorably. Similarly, the light of an upright character should shine forth even from our jokes.
There are in general two brands of humor. The one, ungentlemanly, insolent, outrageous, indecent.
The other, refined, sophisticated, clever, witty. Not only our own Plautus, an attic old comedy, but also the books of the Socratic philosophers are packed with the latter sort. Many things said by other men are also witty, as for example in the collection made by the elder Cato, known as the Apothecums. It is easy to make the distinction between a well bred and an ungentlemanly joke. The former, provided the time is right, as when one is relaxing, is worthy of even the most serious man. The latter, if the words are indecent and the subject dishonorable, are worthy of any free man. A certain proportion must be maintained in play, lest we lose ourselves altogether and lapse into behavior that is dishonorable. Carried away by pleasure. Examples of honorable play are provided by the Campus Martius and the Pursuit of Hunting.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: Very interesting here that even the way we joke and the jokes we tell is part of seemliness.
And it's interesting. It follows directly from this kind of control of nature or control of reason.
In line with nature. It kind of flows.
Flows right into there from the kind of joking we should do.
And it's a very interesting
[00:11:43] Speaker E: argument here
[00:11:44] Speaker A: that we are actually made by nature for earnestness, right? To actually try to pursue serious topics in our conversation. You know, try to try to.
Basically, the general posture is seriousness, but when you're relaxing, there's some time to blow off steam and tell witty jokes, right?
So it's an interesting.
Again, I think I probably have in my head a version of hey. Yes. I think probably most of us have in our head some idea of, hey, there's time for work, and then there's just time for blowing off steam and relaxing and just sort of cutting up and joking. But he says even that we still ought to be controlled, you know, by reason, the way that we're engaging in these kinds of relaxation and jokes and things like that.
So no, you know, no locker room talk. Right. You know, the insolent, outrageous, indecent kinds of talk.
So the interesting argument here that, again, he's going to be concerned with
[00:12:49] Speaker C: kind
[00:12:49] Speaker A: of the whole of life and in all the different areas of our life, are we.
Are we acting justly? Are we acting with the other verses, but also just in a way that is sort of decent, gentlemanly, and there's a way to do that even in the kind of less serious parts of life.
[00:13:07] Speaker D: Well, yeah. It's not often, I have to say Cicero is just wrong about this, but he lumps in the refined, sophisticated, clever, witty.
And I have to assume he just hasn't read any Aristophanes because it is full of the crudest, crassest humor you will. You will ever run into in the ancient world.
[00:13:28] Speaker C: It's.
[00:13:29] Speaker D: It's great. I love it, but it's not. I'm not going to be reading it to my kids anytime.
And of course, Cicero himself could. Could do some of this. If you read through his Philippics, he says some, Some things about Mark Mark Antony that are.
That are up there with the. The old comedy.
Having said that, of course, he's right. Right. I mean, there, there. There needs to be seamliness in, in humor, and that can be a difficult needle to thread sometimes. Although one of my favorite Cicero stories is when Julius Caesar was in power, Cicero would say just terrible things about him from the floor of the Senate. He would tell jokes, and Caesar would have his spies in the Senate writing down the jokes. And then Caesar assembled them all and published them, especially favoring the jokes that were about himself. So the kind of worse Cicero was to Caesar, the more money Caesar made off of it.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: So.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Oh, wow, that's great.
Okay, I, I don't have a whole lot to add, except I will say that it's interesting to hear a theory of humor here.
I note that sort of violations of this rule, if an otherwise seemly and honorable man were to indulge in laughter at these rude sorts of jokes, we might say it is perhaps the smallest kind of violation of propriety, since he's simply behaving inappropriately.
The dishonor seems to be relatively small here. So we might all hope to improve if he is correct about this, and develop, we might say, a more seemly sense of humor to learn to sort of maybe smile slightly or inwardly at the kind of things that would make us guffaw when we were 14 years old.
So the comparison to boys, right, as well, your sense of humor is like the boyhood of your overall life. So even when you're relaxing, even when the stakes are low or non existent, you should maintain a certain sense of decorum and try to be a little bit better and to be ruled by reason.
My other observation, he says, is it's quite easy to know to tell the difference between a well bred and an ungentlemanly joke. But then his test is simply that one is worthy of and the other is unworthy. So he's actually appealing maybe to this kind of aesthetic sense that you have that if you're laughing at toilet humor, you know, in a sense as a person who's otherwise honorable and well formed, that that's, that's not the kind of thing that you should, should find quite that funny. So it was interesting to me that he says it's, there's quite an easy test and the test is simply that you, you recognize it because of the way that you're formed.
Ethan, back to you.
[00:16:08] Speaker C: Right, yeah. So, yeah, I have a few things on this.
So first of all, the anecdotes about how perhaps Cicero was not entirely consistent in his own behavior are interesting and maybe that's the case. But what he's saying is certainly consistent with the old gentlemanly ethic that even refers to gentlemen and to free men. So if you are not a slave, if you are the better sort of of man of free man, then even in your leisure time, you have to be under control. You have to tell the right sorts of jokes. And right, as Chris suggested, the sort of joke that the phrase that I've often heard, I love that you don't even have to think about it, right. It's the kind of thing that's so crude it's obvious and makes you guffaw at it.
That sort of humor is not appropriate. And it reminds me of something I heard some time ago at my church. There are a lot of young men who come into the church and one of them was saying once that he sometimes met with some of his old school friends. And he said that in talking to them, almost everything that came out of their mouths was indecent. And there wasn't a single thing that had any.
Had any redeeming quality. And he asked, what am I supposed to do with people like this who are my friends who have. Whose entire conversation is indecent?
And I think the contemporary American attitude would be, well, people just need to let off steam. They need to be able to tell the locker room jokes and all of that.
But for Cicero, that kind of behavior, if indulged in, even in your leisure time, is liable to corrupt you. And so you have to tell the right kind of joke. You have to tell the kind of joke that requires a little bit of thought and is not pure crudeness. So I think this is something where I think contemporary people would probably push back on what.
What Cicero is offering here, which is quite demanding.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: He does seem to suggest that you're not going to find an honorable and virtuous character joined to a really sort of robust, low sense of humor. That's just not a combination that occurs in nature and in society. And perhaps people would disagree. Would disagree with that.
I think we'll go next to chapters 105 and 106. Ben, may I ask you to read those? And Ethan, you take the beginning us with the commentary.
[00:18:57] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:18:59] Speaker E: It is a part of every inquiry about duty always to keep in view how greatly the nature of a man surpasses domestic animals and other beasts. They perceive nothing except pleasure, and their every instinct carries them to it. A man's mind, however, is nourished by learning and reasoning. He's always inquiring or acting. He is led by a delight in seeing and hearing. And furthermore, even if anyone is a little too susceptible to pleasure, provided that he is not actually one of the beasts. For some are men not in fact, but in name only.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: But if he is a little more
[00:19:34] Speaker E: upright than that, although captivated by pleasure, he will deceitfully conceal his impulse for it because of a sense of shame.
From this we understand that bodily pleasure is not sufficiently worthy of the superiority of man, and that it should be scorned and rejected. But if there is anyone who assigns some worth to pleasure, he must take care to keep his enjoyment of it in proportion the nourishment and care we give. Our bodies should therefore be measured by the needs of healthiness and strength, not of pleasure. If we wish to reflect on the excellence and worthiness of our nature, we shall realize how dishonorable it is to sink into luxury and to live a soft and effeminate lifestyle. But how honorable to live Thriftily, strictly, with self restraint and soberly.
[00:20:24] Speaker C: Yeah, so this is another passage that I think would be considered countercultural today. Right. So in all sorts of ways. So I would start from the end of it, from the end of paragraph 106, right.
That it is dishonorable to sink into luxury and to live a soft and effeminate lifestyle. And how honorable it is to live thriftily, strictly, and with self restraint and soberly.
So to be the playboy, if you can afford it, that is to become an influencer and to be able to travel around the globe and stay in different cities and sample the local cuisine. That seems to be the dream of a lot of people today, a lot of young people in particular.
And for Cicero, that would be a soft and effeminate lifestyle, not worthy of a real man or a woman, for that matter.
The idea that it is important to be thrifty, even if you have wealth, to use it for the appropriate purposes.
That's another discussion that we had much earlier.
And to live soberly.
And that luxury. That luxury can corrupt us. Of course, this is a very big theme in ancient political thought, that luxury is too much. Luxury will corrupt us, will take our virtue away. And so we need to be on our guard against that.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Coyle, what do you think?
[00:22:03] Speaker D: Yeah, again, it's. It's. This is part of his. His broad theme of reason needs to dominate and pleasure certainly has its place, but will easily dethrone reason if you're not careful. Right.
And then the result is a life that looks like what. What Ethan was saying there in 106.
Like Ethan said, this is a cultural. I do.
I do wonder if Cicero tips the balance maybe too far the other way. Although that is. That is what we need in our culture right now. So maybe that's not a bad thing either. So that's. That's where. That's where I would land on this passage.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: It's funny here because it's not quite the ascetic ideal out of. Out of Nietzsche, but there is something seemly about a certain kind of asceticism and being better than this. The same way we might say that the appropriate reaction to toilet humor is a sort of wry frown like, okay, yeah, I guess that's amusing when you're. When you're nine.
[00:23:02] Speaker C: Right.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: But to be above it, right? And not to be above it is maybe to recognize a certain kind of defect in oneself, in one's reactions. And a similar sort of defect seems to be present here in the person who is aware that he takes a Little bit too much pleasure in the pleasures of the body, in food or in any other sensual pleasure, and that he ought then to control that reasonably with a certain amount of shame, he ought to try to conceal that from others and not sort of take too much delight at table or in any other sort of sensual pleasure.
Similarly, it seems that.
The most excellent attitude towards bodily pleasures is to disdain them, is to simply be better than them. But if one could not do this, then he should keep his enjoyment in proportion. So we might say for the one who is perfect, a certain kind of above it all nobility of character with respect to the goods of the body and for the person who's not quite above it, at least a sense of shame which allows him to sort of keep private and off to the side a moderate indulgence in the goods of the body. That seems to be what he's getting here. All of this kind of moving in this direction, not out of any sort of religious impulse or dislike for the body or a sense of spiritual or holiness superior to it, but as a matter of being fully human being, sort of living the whole package of reason, controlling and directing the impulses as appropriate.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: Ben?
Yeah, this is very. Just the implication that he draws in a parenthetical. At least it's parenthetical in our translation that there are in fact people who are essentially beasts, right? Who aren't in fact do not share in the nature of the human being, which is to be. Which is defined by what makes it different from the other animals, right? It's interesting because, I mean, you could imagine defining human nature. I mean, what, what's the dependent rational animals, right? I think is Alistair McIntyre's, you know, idea of we do have an animal nature, right? But it's. We don't only have an animal nature, right? And it's an interesting point here to suggest there at the same time, most people realize and have that sense of shame about if they're overindulging in pleasure, they don't want to seem like it.
They don't want to seem too ravenous.
Yeah, it is a very interesting, as you said, Chris, just that what's the motivation here? It's not from necessarily holiness but from almost. I mean, this is connected to what he said about loftiness of spirit or greatness of spirit, that that's part of the essence of that virtue is to disdain the things of the world and including bodily pleasure.
But he is more comfortable with the notion of, hey, taking care of your mind and your body because it's healthy, right. And so you're kind of flourishing, you know, there's a notion of flourishing here.
So very, very interesting, really driving home this notion he's been developing throughout the book of the idea of nature and how it ought to be human nature and ought to be the controlling frame for thinking about our duties and about the different virtues, specifically here of seemliness.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: That's great. Thanks very much. In our final minutes, just for a final comment, I just want to revisit, since we're coming to the close of this section, that Cicero had begun earlier by saying that seemliness accompanies virtue and honorableness in the same way that beauty accompanies health, that everything healthy and well proportioned in the human body is beautiful for just that reason. And it seems to me that that ties in. Ben with something that you were just saying.
I'll go around the circle, maybe. Ethan first, any final comments before we leave this chapter behind?
[00:27:10] Speaker C: All right. On that very point, to pursue pleasure to excess, as is obvious, is going to disrupt your health. It's going to make you less healthy and therefore less beautiful in that sense. So that's why the, the orientation is on the health of body and soul. That is beautiful and not pleasure is not the measure because pleasure, when pursued to excess, damages the body and the soul.
[00:27:46] Speaker D: Ben
[00:27:49] Speaker A: Just interesting to contemplate the notion here that seems to be coming out in the chapters we read today.
Moderation, control of the passions and impulses, restraint especially. I think what's interesting and throughout Cicero is pretty consistent about you shouldn't get too low when you're at a low point.
Don't get too angry or at least don't let it show on your face. You're feeling that impulse of anger, but also not, not too high when you're in the highs.
[00:28:22] Speaker E: Right?
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Not. He said the same thing about when you're leading a state.
If things are going badly, just you got to keep doing your duty, you got to keep staying the course. But if things are going well, also don't get too high minded and thinking about how awesome you are and how well you're doing. Always understand that fortune is going to be coming here. I think there's a similar notion here. Pursue that equipoise, which is not too much reaction to bad things, not too much reaction to physical pleasure or to joking or humor.
Keep it balanced, keep it steady.
Find that equipoise.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: Coyle
[00:29:08] Speaker D: I don't have big thoughts on this, but I want to think more about this or on humor.
Live in a moment when stand up comedy is sort of ascendant.
Did I freeze out again?
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Yeah, you froze again. You just started.
[00:29:21] Speaker D: Sorry.
All right. Sorry.
Yeah, I don't, I don't have grand thoughts on this, but I want to think more about Cicero, on humor. We, we live in a cultural moment when stand up comedy is ascendant, especially on streaming platforms. Uh, and I, I know he draws this line between kind of high comedy and low comedy. There does need to be a place for comedy of the body because bodies are hilarious.
But there's got to be a way to do that in a way that is sort of gentlemanly and seemly and so on too. So what does that look like? I don't. Again, I don't have big answers. I just think that that probably merits more attention down the road.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: That's a great, that's a great place for us to finish, too. That's really some. Some food for thought and something we might return to as we continue going through. I want to thank my co hosts again this week. Coyle Neal, Ethan Alexander, Davy, Ben Peterson.
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