On Obligations Student Guide Sample
On Obligations Teacher Guide Sample
Cicero was a man trying to give the politicians of his day solid principles to live by as they drove his fatherland, Rome, down the royal road of decay. His work On Obligations played a large role in Western Christendom but is daunting to read alone. Let us accompany your highschooler as he learns the principles of justice, wisdom, beneficence, courage, and propriety.
About the text:
” ‘Situations often arise when the useful seems to conflict with the honourable, so that we must then investigate whether indeed it is in conflict, or whether the two can be reconciled.’
On Obligations (De Officiis) was written by Cicero in the late 44 BC after the assasination of Julius Caesar to provide principles of behaviour for aspiring politicians. It explores the apparent tension between honourable conduct and expediency in public life, and the right and wrong ways of attaining political leadership. The principles of honourable behaviour are based on the Stoic virtues of wisdom, justice, magnanimity, and propriety; in Cicero’s view the intrinsically useful is always identical to the honourable.
Cicero’s famous treatise has played a seminal role in the formation of ethical values in western Christendom. Adopted by the fourth-century Christian humanists, it became transmuted into the moral code of the high Middle Ages. Thereafter, in the Renaissance from the time of Petrarch, and in the Age of Enlightenment that followed, it was given central prominence in discussion of the government of states. Today, when corruption and conflict in political life are the focus of so much public attention, On Obligations is still the foremost guide to good conduct.” (from the publisher)
