THE ANGLOSPHERE'S ANCIENT REGIME:

Hawley argues that Cicero's "political philosophy rests on the pillars of popular sovereignty, republican liberty, and natural law." He demonstrates how the tension inherent to this trinity was ignored by many readers of Cicero throughout history, such as Machiavelli, Grotius, Pufendorf, and the English republicans, before finding a resolution of sorts in the political philosophy of Locke, which formed the basis on which the Founding Fathers established the United States. An adequate understanding of the underlying principles of the US thus requires an adequate understanding of Cicero's political philosophy.

Just as individuals have property, so too is the republic itself the property of the people. In order for the people to own their republic, they must be free.

Hawley is meticulous in the execution, and his approach enables him to respond constructively to two different schools of thought: those who posit a sharp divide between the ancients and the moderns (e.g. Benjamin Constant, Isaiah Berlin, Leo Strauss, and the Straussians) and those republican/neo-Roman scholars (e.g. J. G. A. Pocock, Quentin Skinner, Philip Pettit) who argue that liberalism and republicanism stand in opposition. The key lies in a close reading of the most important works of Cicero's political philosophy, written during the dying days of the Roman republic: De republica, De legibus, and De officiis.

Cicero is the earliest extant philosopher who understands and defends liberty as the neo-Roman scholars do, i.e. freedom from domination or interference. He does so, however, while remaining committed to certain fundamental tenets of the liberal order, such as property rights. Such commitments flow from his understanding of the natural law, applicable to all human beings, discoverable through reason, rewarding those who obey it and punishing those who reject it. Connected to this are other assertions of universal import: humans are social by nature and the reason people form political communities is to defend their property. Thus, the impulse to protect property, far from breaking communal bonds in favor of individual privileges, strengthens our social ties by promoting interactions based on good faith. And just as individuals have property, so too is the republic itself the property of the people. In order for the people to own their republic, they must be free.

Here Hawley draws a contrast between Cicero's philosophy and that of Plato and Aristotle, with whom he is typically grouped as an ancient. Private property is foreign to Plato's ideal city, and while Aristotle may have deviated from his teacher in terms of the practicality of his prescriptions, his opposition is based on how such a political organization would impede citizens from practicing virtues such as liberality. If Cicero was less bothered by this, Hawley argues, it is because he differed from the Greek philosophers in his understanding of what constitutes the highest human end: individual liberty. He could not subscribe to a natural law overly restrictive of human behavior because he believed that humans have two natures: a universal human nature and also the individual's own particular nature. Differences between human beings may result in a good life that is different for different people.

This has implications for the regime. If liberty is the greatest good, then the most virtuous do not have the right to rule the community, even if it is desirable for them to do so. The people and their rights are accorded greater importance than one might expect from an "ancient": For all of his respect for Plato's philosophy, Cicero does not disdain democracy's tendency to encourage the pursuit of liberty. 

But Cicero's "liberalism," if one may refer to it as such, is certainly a liberalism of limits. He advocates a mixed regime as a means of tempering monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic excess. But the effectiveness of a moderate regime is ensured not by institutions alone. Citizens, especially those who aspire to the senate, must possess great virtue, an education provided not by the state, but privately, as Cicero's De officiis was for his own son. Finally, because Cicero can conceive of a law that applies to all humans, he is able, like the Stoics, to entertain the notion of a universal regime including all of mankind. In his philosophy we can detect the potential for liberal cosmopolitanism.

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