老いることと徳の成就 : キケロー『老年について』を手がかりに

概要

論文の詳細を見る
Many of us tend to have the belief virtue is something we gain naturally as we age. However, there are many elderly people who seem to have no virtue at all. Therefore, some of us tend to think that one who does not have virtue to begin with, cannot gain virtue as they age. In this paper, in order to consider the idea of attaining virtue in old age, I examine Marcus T. Cicero who is said to have written about elderly people's virtue in his De senectute (On Old Age). Through this examination I show that Cicero's thoughts about aging and attaining virtue are different from what we were assuming. He admits that faults in character begin to appear as we age, e.g. paranoia, fidgetiness, ill-temper, disagreeableness, and greed. Furthermore, what he has been emphasizing is that exercising virtue while we are young is necessary. In this context, we should understand the term "virtue" as a kind of habit which is used, the classical meaning being "habitus" expressed in Latin. By interpreting it in this way, we can get to know from Cicero that we should respect virtuous predecessors, from whom we should learn virtue, and that like them we should practice virtuous conduct in ourselves. Cicero's teaching about virtue and old age has greater meaning in our contemporary society, in which the population of senior citizens keeps increasing.
2008-12-31