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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2009
Two Influential Metaphors
In his work On Laws (De legibus), Cicero seeks to imitate Plato and portray a discussion of the best laws, just as he imitated Plato when he offered a dialogue concerning the ideal state in On the Commonwealth (De re publica) (Leg. 1.15 and 2.14). His discussants agree that laws should be based on a “science of right,” and they seek to ground his account not in the Twelve Tables of Roman history - the traditional foundation of Roman laws - but on “deepest philosophy” (Leg. 1.17).
Thus, the most learned men thought to proceed from law, as I am inclined to think is right if law is, as they define it, highest reason implanted in nature, which commands the things that ought to be done and prohibits the opposite. This reason, when made firm and complete in the mind of a human, is law
(Leg. 1.18)Here Cicero identifies right reason as a foundation for civic laws. Cicero seems to say (at least at first) that this right reason occurs not independent of human minds but only in the perfected reason of some humans; he goes so far as to identify the “mind and reason of the wise” as “the rule of right and wrong” (Leg. 1.19). Even if right reason does not occur in nature independent of human minds, however, there remains on this view a natural determinant of right and wrong, and human beings who perfect their reason have access to it.
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