Cui bono

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The question Cui bono? / ˈKuːi ˈboːno / ( Latin for "Whom for the benefit?") - occasionally also imprecise Qui bono? quoted - is a catchphrase with which the question of who will benefit from certain events or actions, for example crimes or political decisions, is asked. The argument with the Cui Bono principle is often a fallacy of the kind cum hoc ergo propter hoc .

origin

For the first time, the question can be traced back to the Roman orator, statesman and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero : He used it in 80 BC. In his defense speech for Sextus Roscius Amerinus , in order to direct the suspicion of murder from the accused, the destitute son of the murder victim, to Lucius Cornelius Chrysogonus , a favorite of Sulla , who illegally took all of his property. The then only 27-year-old Cicero claims that the author of this line of thought was not he himself, but the consul of the year 127 Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla . In addition, Cicero used this question two more times, both times introduced as “illud Cassianum”, “that well-known word of Cassius”: In the year 52 BC. In his unsuccessful defense of Titus Annius Milo , who was accused of slaughtering Publius Clodius Pulcher ; in 44 BC In a pamphlet designed as a senate speech against Marcus Antonius , the so-called second Philippika . The philosopher and playwright Lucius Annaeus Seneca used the expression slightly modified in his tragedy Medea : "Cui prodest scelus, is fecit" - "Whoever benefits from the crime has committed it."

Use in modern times

In the modern age, the principle of asking about the benefit when asked about personal responsibility has become an indispensable part of criminology , political analysis and history.

However, the argument based on the Cui Bono principle alone can also lead to the fallacy cum hoc ergo propter hoc , since the simultaneous presence of an interest and an event that serves this interest cannot infer the causality of the event, which yes may also have occurred by interested third parties or by mere coincidence. For example, according to the historian Wolfgang Wippermann , this applies to certain conspiracy ideologies . From the fact that the American government benefited from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in so far as it thereby constructed a justification for the illegally planned Iraq war that was already planned independently , the conclusion that it must also be behind the attacks. Another example of the question Cui bono? can be found in Arnd Krüger 's book of the same name. In it he asks who is benefiting from the massive expansion of sports coverage, which is leading to important political issues being pushed into the background.

Single receipts

  1. ↑ M. TVLLI CICERONIS PRO SEX. ROSCIO AMERINO ORATIO , chapter 84
  2. ↑ M. TVLLI CICERONIS PRO T. ANNIO MILONE ORATIO , chapter 35
  3. ↑ L. ANNAEI SENECAE MEDEA , verse 500 f.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Wippermann : Agents of Evil. Conspiracy theories from Luther to the present day. be.bra. Verlag, Berlin 2007, p. 136 ff.
  5. ↑ Arnd Krüger : Cui bono? On the effect of sports journalism. In: Arnd Krüger, Swantje Scharenberg (ed.): How the media prepare sport - selected aspects of sport journalism. Tischler, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-922654-35-5 , pp. 24-65.