Marcus Tullius Cicero
106-43 BC · Hellenistic Philosophy · Renowned
Cicero was a Roman senator and orator who spent his life defending a Roman Republic that was dying under him, first against Caesar and then against Antony. He took the philosophy of the Greeks and put it into Latin, coining much of the moral vocabulary Western ethics still uses and Europe still argues in. Antony's soldiers hunted him down and killed him for the speeches he had made against them.
Signature
The position Cicero is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Order
- leans Vertical
- Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
Positions on the 13 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Collectivism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- The Divine
- leans Describable (25 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Realism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- leans Unchanging (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Order
- leans Vertical (25 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Unity (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- mildly leans Illiberalism (37 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- leans Means (79 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- mildly between Pacifism and Militarism (46 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (25 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- mildly between Local and Global (42 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
7 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Cicero refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Deism / Agnosticism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Hybrid Regime
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Virtue / Justice
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Direct Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Skepticism / Pragmatic Test
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law / Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Compatibilism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Eternal Cosmos
What is the origin of reality? - Economy
- Distributism
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Natural Law / Sacred Tradition
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Virtue to Cultivate
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Innate Good / Political Animal
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Nation / Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?