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  • Chapter 7 - The Psychology of Honor in Cicero’s De re publica

  • from Part II - Political Philosophy and Ethics
  • Edited by Nathan Gilbert, University of Durham, Margaret Graver, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, Sean McConnell, University of Otago, New Zealand
  • Book:
    Power and Persuasion in Cicero's Philosophy
    Published online:
    15 January 2023
    Print publication:
    05 January 2023, pp 140-169

  • Summary

    The De re publica contains a sophisticated strain of reflection on the place of the honor motive in a good life, and in particular in the good life of public service. Cicero finds a way for a conscientious public servant to be interested in receiving honor while still directing his actions at the public good and that only. Further, he finds a use for merited honor and merited shame in the moral education of citizens and political leaders. The chapter argues that Cicero’s account of how honor motivates a person, both ordinarily and in the normative case, is fundamentally more similar to the views on honor put forward by the Hellenistic Stoics than it is to the tripartite model of psyche used by Plato in his Republic. As so often in De re publica, what we have is Platonism filtered through and modified by subsequent Stoic thought. But Cicero’s own experience in politics has also given stimulus to his reflections; and conversely, the philosophical position on honor that he develops in his writing becomes part of his self-representation as a public figure.