Cicero+on+Duties-+Book+3+Group+Analysis

The status of the world’s prosperity is based on how people act in order to make the world a better place. Cicero, in his essay entitled De Officiis, argues that the way for citizens to create a more prosperous community is to perform virtuous acts, expand knowledge, and make smart decisions in challenging situations. According to Cicero, each and every person has a set of duties that must be performed in order for society to function.

Citizens must perform virtuous deeds in order to create a successful community. “…the supreme good, to live in conformity with nature, means, as I think, to be always in harmony with virtue, yet to make free choice among things in general that are in accordance with nature…” The virtues of human nature should not be completed for selfish reasons, but should be used to accomplish tasks for the better of their community. Virtue is an instinctual attribute to the decisions that humans make in certain situations. “And further, if nature prescribes this, that man shall desire the promotion of man’s good for the very reason that he is man, it follows in accordance with that same nature that there are interests common to all.” People are able to relate to each other to a certain extent on the basis that they share common interests. If humans desire the overall goodness of their kind, that which they have so much common ground with, then they should be willing to act accordingly with this goodness.

Cicero believes that people who are ignorant are not in the right because they act on impulses and do not know the reasons for their actions. “That which is properly and with literal truth called the right is found in the wise alone, nor can it ever be separated from virtue; while in those not possessed of perfect wisdom, the perfect right itself cannot possibly be…” (Cicero: paragraph 3). In his first few words Cicero is describing how only the wise or those with knowledge know what virtuosity means and can explain their actions and be free of impulses. “And yet moral goodness, in the true and proper sense of the term, is the exclusive possession of the wise and can never be separated from virtue; but those who have not perfect wisdom cannot possibly have perfect moral goodness, but only a semblance of it.” (Cicero: paragraph #). Cicero continues to describe how only those with wisdom can have and understand morals and their true meanings and not only acknowledge, but share with others what they know as wise beings.