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Cicero and Eighteenth-Century Political Thought
Abstract
Cicero is one of the most important and influential thinkers within the history of Western philosophy. For the last thirty years, his reputation as a philosopher has once again been on the rise after close to a century of very low esteem. This Companion introduces readers to 'Cicero the philosopher' and to his philosophical writings. It provides a handy port-of-call for those interested in Cicero's original contributions to a wide variety of topics such as epistemology, the emotions, determinism and responsibility, cosmopolitanism, republicanism, philosophical translation, dialogue, aging, friendship, and more. The international, interdisciplinary team of scholars represented in this volume highlights the historical significance and contemporary relevance of Cicero's writings, and suggests pathways for future scholarship on Cicero's philosophy as we move through the twenty-first century.
This article seeks to show the importance of Cicero for Kant by pointing out the systematic relationship between their respective views on ethics and law. Cicero was important to Kant because Cicero had already elaborated an imperative, “quasi-jural” conception of duty or obligation. Cicero had also already prefigured the distinction between ethical duties and duties of justice. The article does not establish any direct historical influence, but points out interesting systematic overlaps. The most important in the realm of ethics are a universal rationalism; a rule-based normative framework of duty; and skepticism about (Cicero), or rejection of (Kant), eudaimonism. In the realm of political theory, it is the centrality of law and of property that unites both thinkers; both reject voluntarism in thinking that consensus flows from the right external laws, not the other way around, and thus creates a juridical community; and lastly, both Cicero and Kant believe that transparence, or publicity, is a key ideal that might be presupposed by both the ethical and the juridical domain. The article thus shows that both Cicero and Kant separate ethics from law, but there are indications that neither has given up the aspiration to bridge the two realms on a higher plane. This reading of Kant yields both a more Ciceronian Kant and allows us to perceive Kantian aspects of Cicero.
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