Harry Scherer

All in Order: Cicero’s Analysis of the Ordering of the Cardinal Virtues

Harry Scherer

The moral philosophy of Cicero indicates an attention to order and devotion to logical soundness. For this reason, his words were referenced by the Angelic Doctor and the riches of his knowledge continue to be used today. One of the heights of his intellectual work was his organization of the four cardinal virtues. The hierarchy of these virtues is clearly laid out in De officiis, especially when he is introducing their four essences.

Cicero defines the first cardinal virtue, wisdom, in almost transcendent terms: “enim in perspicientia veri sollertiaque versatur” (“it is concerned with full perception and skillful mastery of the true”) (1.15).1 These characteristics set the practical standard for the rest of the virtues he is about to describe. The manner in which he analyzes this virtue suggests that a human person may develop this virtue but will never be able to fully achieve it. The use of the words perspicientia and sollertia indicate something stronger than mere reverence for or recognition of the truth. After he introduces the four cardinal virtues, Cicero is clear that he places wisdom first among them: “ quae prima discripta est, in qua sapientiam et prudentiam ponimus” (“that which was first assigned, in which we place wisdom and prudence”) (1.15). Later, he repeats, “primus ille, qui in veri cogitatione consistit ” (“that first one, which is reckoned in true reflection”) (1.18). It is clear, then, that Cicero considers wisdom to be the height and first of the cardinal virtues.

The second virtue that Cicero addresses is justice. He describes this virtue as being concerned with “hominum societate tuenda tribuendoque suum cuique et rerum contractarum fide” (“preserving the society of men and rendering to each his due and with good faith of things contractually obligated”) (1.15). After describing the individual endeavor of developing wisdom, Cicero immediately directs his son to

1 Marcus Tullius Cicero, De officiis, in Frederic M. Wheelock, Wheelock’s Latin Reader: Selections from Latin Literature, rev. Richard A. LaFleur, 2nd ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). Originally published 44 BC. All translations of this text are my own.

the hominum societatem. This outward-facing direction indicates that Cicero acknowledged the social nature of man and the tendency toward conflict that justice must correct. He later refers to the necessity of living out this social nature by referencing Plato: “tum facultatibus devincire hominum inter homines societatem” (“now to bind society together by the abilities of humans between humans”) (1.22). Cicero ultimately recognizes this binding together as the work of justice. Later, in his more detailed description of justice, he says, “inter ipsos et vitae quasi communitas continentur” (“ a common bond of life is maintained between themselves”), going on to speak of “iustitia, in qua virtutis splendor est maximus, ex qua viri boni nominantur” (“justice, in which the splendor of virtue is the greatest, in accordance with which men are called good”) (1.20). This common bond of life, Cicero suggests, is fortified and strengthened by an attention to justice.

Thirdly, Cicero explains the nature of spiritual courage, or fortitude: “in animi excelsi atque invicti magnitudine ac robore” (“in the greatness and strength of a noble and invincible spirit”) (1.15). Here a pattern slowly begins to develop in Cicero’s philosophy. Each of the cardinal virtues suggests a moral response to affronts against the previously described virtue. More than anything, this intentional ordering indicates Cicero’s practical experience and his ability to reconcile the failures of human incapacity with the ideals of a moral response. When one or one’s society is faced with the actions of an unwise man and neglects the value of a wise man, one’s first priority should be justice. When one is faced with injustice, one must find solace in one’s fortitude to identify and correct the injustice, depending on what one prudentially considers to be one’s responsibility. Again, because sapientiam et prudentiam survey all the other virtues, acting courageously must be done within the confines of prudential consideration.

Finally, Cicero informs his son of the proper response when one is faced with an action that falls outside of the mean, in Aristotle’s sense, of this spiritual courage. The fourth virtue that Cicero describes is temperance: “in omnium quae fiunt quaeque dicuntur ordine et modo, in quo inest modestia et temperentia” (“in the orderliness and moderation of all things which are done and which are said, wherein moderation and self-control consist” (1.15). Cicero suggests that one must moderate even the good that one does. It is in this final virtue that Cicero confirms the fourfold distinction and interconnection between these virtues. He directs his son to observe self-control in his fortitude, to

be courageous in his justice, and to be just in his wisdom. In the same way, one must be wise in one’s justice, just in one’s courage, and courageous in one’s self-control. While ensuring the necessity of recognizing the interconnection of the virtues, Cicero is clear to identify the distinctions among them through clear definitions and clarifications within the definitions. Cicero provides no escape for his son from the multi-layered moral portrait that he creates. This seems to be done intentionally so that one might see the inherent orderliness of these virtues; on the level of personal motivation, this order both impels a person to try more earnestly to develop these virtues and encourages buy-in, to use a corporate phrase, on the part of the moral agent to develop these abstract realities into practical ones.

The description and order of these virtues was so well done that St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa, refers to Cicero’s De officiis in three articles of his sixty-first question, on the nature of the cardinal virtues. In his reply to the first objection on the question of whether the four cardinal virtues differ from one another, Aquinas says, “again, temperance is said to be brave, by reason of fortitude overflowing into temperance . . . for as Cicero says (De officiis i), ‘it would be inconsistent for a man to be unbroken by fear, and yet vanquished by cupidity, or that he should be conquered by lust, after showing himself to be unconquered by toil (1.68). ’”2 Aquinas recognized and appreciated the interconnection that Cicero developed in his analysis. As this analysis suggests, Cicero’s moral philosophy can rightly be used even today to clarify fundamental questions about the essence and order of the virtues and as the foundation for an internal impulse to foster these virtues in one’s life.

2 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1981), I-II, q. 61, a. 4. 16