Cicero's On Duties: A Dutiful Life

Although Cicero writes to his son in his novel, On Duties, his writings have pertained to humanity during his time and have a lasting impression today. Cicero defines duty in a threefold sense, through honor, benefit, and nature; he gives guidelines and suggestions on how to live a dutiful life using these three themes. He breaks each theme into practical terms and examples, helping explain the way he sees the human race becoming a better people. Through his many examples, Cicero shows the true meaning of being dutiful in his time, which has extended to present day in many forms as well.
Cicero makes the claim in his writings that duty is inseparable from nature. He explains each are foundational to each other in multiple ways. As humans, …show more content…
One of the main challenges that Cicero states is that humanity faces the fight between honorable and beneficial. Although often times, decisions are often both honorable and beneficial or neither, but sometimes there is a decision that needs to be made between the honorable decision and the beneficial decision. Cicero writes honor is one of the most important parts of humanity, but also the preservation of the individual and the community. He states, “Custom has stumbled over this word and strayed from the path, gradually sinking to the point where she has severed honourableness from benefit” (II.9). He explains culture has made being honorable while being beneficial a very difficult task, which is interesting, especially because he states it is a person’s duty to care for others, or be beneficial to others. Therefore, the duty of preserving one’s community and the individual does not occur often, according to Cicero. He states humanity already is not fulfilling their duty in this aspect, so, in the future, it will be just as …show more content…
These three themes are the highest priorities in order for a person to fulfill their duty, and Cicero outlines these so well because he hopes all people will follow his suggestions on living a healthy and successful life. Through honor, he highlights four main goals, but most importantly truth. With nature/fellowship, he states humanity must work to preserve themselves and others he/she cares for because he states preservation is innate in human nature. Lastly, Cicero believes benefit is extremely important to the foundation of preservation and honor, but only when there is benefit for everyone, not a selfish benefit. These three themes perpetuate the definition of duty throughout his