Moral System
Section 2 - III.
The principle of sociality
153. Fiorentino, Grotius and others deduced human duties from sociality, as did Cicero, although not exclusively.(96) This principle can be understood in two ways: either as the instinct which human beings have for associating with their like, or as a calculation of reason by which they understand they can obtain their own individual utility by promoting the common utility. Both cases are reduced to the principle of utility; the principle of righteousness is not attained. The difference between the two cases is that instinct directs us to what is useful by a movement that necessarily impels us and cannot properly speaking be called self-interested; reasoning directs us to what is useful by means of conscious deliberation, which can rightly be called self-interested.
We should not be surprised therefore if, as an ancient author observed,(97) Cicero was thrown off balance by Carneades arguments against justice. He tried to end the dispute by saying very unphilosophically (although he may have thought it a pleasantry) that he would rather placate his opponent with kind words than provoke him to argue.(98) If we grant that human beings must follow what is useful, then there is no longer any reason why we should place anothers usefulness before our own, or, in cases of conflict, place what is useful to the group before what is useful to us individually. When the only value of social usefulness is what is useful to oneself, the former is a means, and the latter an end. These authors, however, led by a naturally upright feeling, sometimes admit that what is just can be distinguished by means of its own immutable nature from what is unjust, although they cannot fully define that nature.(99)
Notes
(96) `One single thing must therefore be proposed for everybody so that utility is the same for all. If anyone should appropriate utility to himself, all human association would be terminated. Even if nature prescribes that one human being provide for another, whoever he may be, it is still necessary, according to nature itself, that the utility of all be common, precisely because other persons are human beings' (De Offic., 3: 2). We notice here how much Cicero is aware of the truth. He sees that the human being as such must be considered, not just the citizen. But in place of considering the benefit and harm one human being can do to another, Cicero should have considered the respect of mind and heart due to human nature even when neither good nor evil can be done to human nature, and the respect due is unknown to the recipient. If he had done this, Cicero would have come very near the essence of morality.
(97) `These subtle points were as deadly as poison, and Marcus Tullius could not refute them. When he made Laelius reply to Furius in favour of justice, he passed over these unrefuted points as a trap. Consequently it seemed as if Laelius himself defended not natural justice, which had been judged stupidity, but civil justice, which Furius had accepted as wisdom, although unjust wisdom' (Lactantius, bk. 5, c. 17).
(98) Speaking in Book 1 of Laws about the opinions of the latest Academy on justice, he does not dare refute them, but prefers to pass them over in silence. `Let us say nothing about all those things dealt with in this latest disturbing Academy held by Arcessila and Carneades. There will be real trouble, if the Academy attacks the reasons which to us seem assembled and ordered wisely enough. I want to pacify the Academy; I dare not refute it.'
(99) There cannot be any more splendid eulogy in antiquity in praise of the immutable law of justice than in those lines of Cicero reported by Lactantius (Instit. 6: 8). In Lactantius' opinion they express the law of God as if the divine voice had spoken: `Right reason in harmony with nature is real, constant and eternal law, diffused in all of us. It urges duty by command; it deters from falsity by prohibition. It does not vainly command or forbid decent people, or by command or prohibition dissuade evil people. Such a law cannot be obrogated or derogated in part, nor can it be totally abrogated. Neither the Senate nor the people can excuse us from this law, nor is its interpretation or explanation to be sought from any human being. There is not one law for Rome and another for Athens, nor one law now and another later. There is one, immutable, eternal law embracing all peoples and all times. The God of all is its one, common teacher and ruler; he is the founder, arbitrator and proposer of this law. Anyone who will not obey it will flee, but having despised human nature will undergo the greatest punishments even if he escapes all other troubles.'