Lux Regiomontana. Der kategorische Imperativ in Ciceros De officiis

AbstractInterpretation of Cicero's De officiis mostly focuses on questions of traditional Quellen-forschung, especially on its relationship with the lost works of Panaetius, Posidonius and Hecato. This essay, on the contrary, tries to illuminate Cicero's work by confronting a pivotal passage of De off. (3, 19-32) with Kant's famous categorical imperative. Cicero's invention of a formula to decide moral dilemmas as well as its anthropological grounds and socio-political implications foreshadow the Kantian concept in the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. This suggests that there may even be a direct influence of Cicero on Kant.