Making Moral Decisions: A Comparison of Marcus Tullius Cicero (De Officiis) and the Apostle Paul (Letter to the Romans) on Social Instincts

How do we know what is the better choice between two morally right proposals?  Ethics is not just about what is or is not morally right.  It is also about how to choose between two right actions.  I will here compare Marcus Tullius Cicero’s answer to this question to what Paul says in his letter to the Romans, focussing specifically on one of his points: having the right social instincts about God and fellow humans.

In discussing how to choose between two moral actions, Cicero says that we must weigh matters according to four sources (De Officiis 1.152):

prudence

social instincts

courage

temperance

Note that these correspond to the four Greek cardinal virtues of wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance.  Cicero is offering a Roman correction to these by emphasising what is practical.  He defines prudence as ‘practical knowledge of things to be sought for and of things to be avoided’ (1.153).  He corrects the idea that wisdom is the highest virtue by saying that pure knowledge leads to isolation, even a person’s ‘death’ (knowing without living).  Thus, instead of wisdom, he has the related virtue of prudence, practical wisdom that has to do with right and wrong actions.

The second cardinal virtue of justice is a virtue that has to do with the right ‘balance’ and proper ‘order’ of the individual’s life and of society.  Greek philosophers would speak about the right balance in the soul and the state.  Cicero makes this more clearly a practical virtue by terming this ‘social instincts’ about relationships, that is, our relationships to God (for Cicero, the ‘gods’) and to our fellow man (men and women).  The foremost wisdom, he says, is ‘knowledge of things human and divine’ (1.153).  We need to know what are ‘the bonds of union between gods and men and the relations of man to man’ (153).  Instead of simply having (theoretical) knowledge, we need to understand these social instincts that, Cicero says, are ‘closer to Nature’ (1.153).  ‘Nature’ is the way things should be, and people should not live against Nature.  If we do not know our relationship to God or to others, our lives will be distorted—unbalanced and unjust.

The third and fourth virtues, courage, and temperance, complete the reasoning required to choose between one moral action and another.  The right action sometimes—often—requires courage to act and not go the way of the crowd.  Temperance keeps us from acting on our desires.

I would like to focus on Cicero’s discussion of the second virtue to help us decide between moral options, ‘social instincts’.  Cicero says that duties of social instinct are closer to Nature than knowledge (153).  He means that duties related to social life are closer to Nature than pure knowledge with no social dimension or application. Justice, then, is about proper social bonds in the vertical (to God) and horizontal (toward others) directions.

Cicero assumes prudence in making moral decisions.  However, Paul raises a challenge to this in Romans 1.18-32: what if people’s wisdom is so distorted that they cannot choose what is right in the first place?

Second, like Cicero, Paul is interested in justice, dikaiosunē—a word that might also be translated ‘righteousness’ and that carries both connotations.  His argument, however, that we need and have received a righteousness from God, not ourselves (Romans 18.16-17; 3.21). 

Like Cicero in his discussion of the relationship between moral duties and social instincts, Paul understands that righteousness is about justice (justification) that has to do with the ‘social instincts’ of our relation to God and our relation to one another.  The imbalance in right relationships between us and God and between us and other humans needs to be righted. We will not fulfill our moral duties if these are distorted but will live unjustly or unrighteously.  Paul explains that humans are sinful in Romans 1.18-3.20.  In 3.21-5.21, he explains that Christ has fulfilled justice for us and that we are justified before God.  In 6.1-8.39, he explains that those in Christ are now in right relationship with God and others, and therefore they are able to live righteous lives, walking in the newness of life of the Holy Spirit.

Like Cicero, Paul argues that the social instincts closest to Nature will define our duties.  For Paul, when these natural social instincts are distorted, the result is sinful acts of many sorts. His two examples of living against Creation or nature are the distorted social instincts of idolatry (Romans 1.18-23) and homosexuality (1.24-27).  Also, others with a distorted understanding will not correct them but approve them (v. 32)—a social distortion of moral values.  Cicero hopes simply to identify these relationships so that humans might pursue what is right but does not entertain, as Paul does, the idea that precisely these two relationships have been twisted away from Nature/Creation into something created by human foolishness and distorted desires.

Thus, the problem of deciding between two moral actions in Cicero’s De Officiis needs correction by Paul’s discussion of the problem of decision itself.  How can we decide what is morally good at all when our relationships to God and to one another are distorted away from Creation/Nature?  Paul works this problem out in Romans 1-9 by showing how, despite the immense obstacle of sin stemming from our own foolishness, the amazing wisdom of God has brought restoration (cf. 11.33).  Thus, we can now be transformed by the renewing of the mind (12.2)—that mind that had been so debased and distorted by sin (1.28)—so that we can now know the (moral) will of God.  Now we can know what is good, acceptable, and perfect (12.2).