Sacramento Politics and Philosophy Group

The book "On Duties" (De Officiis) by Cicero was once the second most printed book in the world next to the bible back in the era of the Gutenberg press. In it, the Roman Statesman Cicero reflected on his life and posited a number of interesting moral quandaries and wrote what was basically a handbook for leadership for his son.

Cicero's book was a foundational text for deontology, which is the study of duty, and the lessons in this short book were once considered mandatory for any would-be leaders and even managers of estate in the old world. While it might seem odd to discuss ancient Roman moral duties in a world about to be fundamentally transformed by the likes of AI and other technologies, I believe this book is just as relevant as it ever was, especially given the actions of our current day elites and leaders.
De Officiis is spread across three books, and for the purpose of this discussion, we will only focus on a few specific points, particularly the following:

1. Cicero outlines two types of injustice one can do to his fellow man. The first is to cause injury or harm. This is obvious. The more interesting type of injustice he outlines is the second type, which is "a failure to prevent injury". He even considers people who "are solely occupied with their own affairs, without seeming to themselves to be doing anyone any injury" to be guilty of this type of injustice, claiming "they are traitors to social life, for they contribute to it none of their interest, none of their effort, none of their means."
2. Cicero declaims a type of injustice caused by oversubtle and even fradulent interpretation of the law, saying that when there is more law, there is less justice. He gives an example where the Senate arbitrated over a boundary dispute between Nola and Naples and negotiated with each party privately, asking each side to concede a portion of their land. When both parties did as asked out of generosity and a desire to keep the peace, the two portions of conceded land formed an unclaimed strip that the Senate took for themselves. This he strongly condemns and says such swindling is to be avoided under all circumstances.
3. Cicero considers leveraging privileged information available only to leaders to be unjust if it harms the common good. He gives an example of a merchant who knows Rhodes is experiencing a famine and is travelling there with a great deal of grain. However, as he travels from Alexandria to Rhodes, he sees a number of merchant vessels loaded with food about 2-3 weeks out. These vessels would end the famine and cause the price of his supplies to drop. Should the merchant conceal this information from the starving people of Rhodes to continue charging a higher price? The core of the moral dispute is whether or not the merchant had concealed information that was of great interest to the people of Rhodes. He discusses how there is often a conflict between what is expedient and what is morally right, and the party in favor of expediency will often downplay the externalities of their actions to benefit themselves.

Finally, some questions to spark discussion:

• Much of the modern market economy is predicated on exploiting the famine price. Arguably the entire concept of arbitrage and derivatives are a sophistcated form of famine price. Is the famine price relevant to the modern world?
• If all of the above are important and relevant to the modern era, how can we possibly inhere the same sense of duty and justice in our leaders today, especially given our individualistic, capitalistic, multinational, and multicultural world?

Topic TBD. Email Brandon with suggestions brandon@civicenlightenment.org

Topic TBD. Email Brandon with suggestions brandon@civicenlightenment.org