Ciceros On the Law and Artistotle

br Cicero 's On the Law and Artistotle Cicero 's "On the Law Cicero 's treatise "On the Law " comprises what might be considered a prevailing vision of Greek thought regarding the application of Divine or even Divine Will to the pragmatic application of justice and law in human society . Foremost among the assertions conveyed by way of the dialogue between Cicero and Quintus is the notion of "law " as an absolute condition imposed upon the universe , itself , by a Divine Creator . Cicero remarks that "This , then , as it appears to me , has

been the decision of the wisest philosophers---that law was neither a thing to be contrived by the genius of man , nor established by any decree of the people , but a certain eternal principle , which governs the entire universe , wisely commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong (Cicero ) and it is this central assertion , unsupported by objective evidence , which forms the spine of Cicero 's argument in "On the Law

Although there is no objective evidence offered in support of the argument for a Divine source of law , Cicero reinforces his thesis with anecdotal evidence and by using an appeal to a poetic sense of history and romantic glory . When he asserts that "it is impossible that the divine mind can exist in a state devoid of reason and divine reason must necessarily be possessed of a power to determine what is virtuous and what is vicious " this quite sweeping statement is backed , not by correlative evidence as such , but by an emotional appeal to history "Nor , because it was nowhere written , that one man should maintain the pass of a bridge against the enemys whole army , and that he should the bridge behind him to be cut down , are we therefore to imagine that the valiant Cocles [i .e , Horatius] did not perform this great exploit agreeably to the laws of nature and the dictates of true bravery (Cicero

At any rate , such assertions , prima facia , while seeming to demand correlative evidence for the purposes of pragmatic application , are echoed by Aristotle , who opined in his "Nichomachean Ethics " that "Every art and every investigation , and likewise every practical pursuit or undertaking , seems to aim at some good : hence it has been well said that the Good is That at which all things aim (Aristotle 1094a ) despite the very real presence of corruption or dishonesty within the practice of the "art " itself . However , Aristotle is careful to point out that ethical behavior , while originally instilled into humans by the Divine is also something which becomes more readily evident by practice . In other words , ethical behavior to Aristotle is a form of "habit " one which is increasingly more potent the more one practices , a process which Aristotle likened to achieving prowess at playing the harp Moreover , the faculties given us by nature are bestowed on us first in a potential form we exhibit their actual exercise afterwards . This is clearly so with our senses : we did...