The subject of the work is to examine a principle of Stoic thought:
the paradoxes.
I: Virtue is the only good In this book Cicero presents the Stoic classifications of what elements of life are genuinely good, and what elements are not good. There are three different qualities of something being genuinely good: righteousness (
rectum), intrinsic honor or nobility (
honestum), and intrinsic virtue (
cum virtute). This can be understood as the inner person, and the choices and actions that they engage in. Pleasure and wealth cannot be genuine goods because they lack the crucial properties that a genuine good should have. Happiness depends on a possession which cannot be lost, and this only applies to things within our control.
III: All the vices and all virtues are equal All good deeds are equally meritorious and all bad deeds equally heinous. All virtues are equal as this corresponds to the same impulse towards the good. Cicero does not attempt to defend the Stoic position of the moral equality of all offenses; instead he offers a weakened version that offenses of the same sort are equal. He notes the Stoic position that all crimes are equal since they all involve the same intent to break the law, but he then argues that crimes do not bear the same penalty since the matter depends on the status of the person injured and that of the criminal. Thus he ends up imposing gradations of vice based on external factors.
IV: All fools are mad There is a substantial
lacuna at the beginning of this section. The remaining part argues that every fool is an exile and the wise person cannot be harmed. Cicero attacks an unnamed personal enemy for causing his exile. The essay is thought to be a thinly veiled attack on Cicero's enemy
Clodius. Cicero asserts that his own exile was not a hardship since he possessed the correct Stoic wisdom and virtue.
V: The sage alone is free Only the
sage is free and every fool is a slave. Cicero attacks an unnamed military leader who is unworthy of command because he cannot control his passions and thus is not free. The target here may be
Lucullus. Cicero satirizes costly luxury and affectation of connoisseurship in collecting works of art. Freedom involves the rational control of one's will. Only the sage is free since he freely chooses the good.
VI: Only the wise person is rich If a rich person's wealth is measured by the quantity of their goods, then a wealthy person with no virtue is poor, since virtue is the only good. People confuse reasonable needs with unreasonable desires and this leads people in power to pursue irrational passions. ==Editions==