De officiis, the last text written by Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BCE), addresses the central topics of ancient ethics. It engages with Stoic philosophy to examine the requirements of virtue and utility, and their relationship to one another. In the process, Cicero develops a differentiated theory of obligations that will also have considerable influence on the development of modern deontology (in texts by authors like Immanuel Kant).

Autorentext

Philipp Brüllmann, Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg; Jörn Müller, Julius Maximilians University, Würzburg, Germany.