Resumen de Justus Lipsius, morally acceptable deceit and prudence in the ciceronian tradition

Gary Remer

• Cicero, not Tacitus, is the primary and consistent source of Lipsius' political morality, specifically his belief that the ruler is morally justified, when political necessity demands, in dissimulating and deceiving. Lipsius bases his political morality, which he terms 'mixed prudence', on Cicero's rhetorical perspective. From his earliest political writings to the Politica, Lipsius adopts prudence as his political touchstone, whose meaning he derives from Cicero's 'decorum'. The standard of political morality, for Lipsius as for his intellectual forebear Cicero, must, like the orator's speech, be contextually determined. Therefore, under some circumstances, as when the welfare of the state is at stake, Lipsius sanctions the prudent use of conventionally immoral practices.