Founder of a Metaphysics of Morals 279ure" and "broken by desires" to describe actions that fall short of virtue
and moral character, while Kant argued that only actions done from duty
alone were moral, while any action motivated by pleasure was nonmoral.
Both Cicero and Kant offer a duty-based theory of morality.
Though Cicero, like Kant, considered duty and virtue to be the funda¬
mental concepts of morality, Cicero opted for a form of eudaimonism,
which held that whatever is in accordance with duty will also turn out to
be ultimately more pleasant than what is in contradiction to virtue. Ulti¬
mately, duty, like all things, derives from nature:
From the beginning nature has assigned to every type of creature the tendency to pre¬
serve itself, life and body, and to reject anything that seems likely to harm them, seek¬
ing and procuring everything necessary for life, such as nourishment, shelter and so
on. Common also to all animals is the impulse to unite for the purpose of procreation,
and a certain care for those that are born.^13
Duties are based ultimately on these tendencies. Dutiful actions may there¬
fore be characterized as "following nature." What is our duty is also what is
natural, and Cicero's claim that we should follow nature is perhaps the most
famous precept of his moral philosophy.
Cicero did not derive his duties from nature in any straightforward way.
First of all, nature has given reason to human beings, and reason is their
essential character. Therefore, duties are based on reason as well. So, for
Cicero there could be no conflict between following nature and following
reason. What is truly rational is also natural. Second, nature, "by the power
of reason, unites one man to another for the fellowship both of common
speech and life."^14 We are social animals, who need others not just for the
necessities of life, but also for company and for flourishing. We need the
approval of others, and the moral life is fundamentally concerned with
such approval. We do not want just to be seen as good or honorable, we
also want to be good or honorable. Accordingly, the duties must be derived
from the fundamental "sources of honorableness." There were four such
sources for Cicero: (1) perception of truth (ingenuity), (2) preserving fel¬
lowship among men, (3) greatness and strength of a lofty arid unconquered
spirit, (4) order and limit in everything that is said or done (modesty, re¬
straint). These four sources seem to him "bound together and inter¬
woven."^13 Most duties have their origin in all of them, though some may
be traced to just one of these sources. Much of Book I of On Duties is taken
up with the attempt to show "how duties have their roots in the different
elements of what is honorable."^16 Duties dealing with the "communal life"