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Single Idea 1477
[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
]
Full Idea
Manliness is not a natural human attribute, otherwise women would be just as brave. It is due to pressure from laws, and this pressure has no free will, but is a slave of convention and criticism.
Clarification
'Law' is the Greek word 'nomos', which also translates as 'convention'
Gist of Idea
Being manly and brave is the result of convention, not of human nature
Source
Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 988c)
Book Ref
Plutarch: 'Essays', ed/tr. Waterfield,Robin [Penguin 1992], p.389
A Reaction
This is the first glimmerings of seeing gender as a cultural creation, rather than as a fact. Presumably he takes the same view of some of the supposed feminine virtues.
The
29 ideas
with the same theme
[morals as social rules, rather than private or true]:
6017
|
Nomos is king
[Pindar]
|
6016
|
Early sophists thought convention improved nature; later they said nature was diminished by it
[Protagoras, by Miller,FD]
|
536
|
We should follow the law in public, and nature in private
[Antiphon]
|
1557
|
To gain the greatest advantage only treat law as important when other people are present
[Antiphon]
|
5070
|
Socrates conservatively assumed that Athenian conventions were natural and true
[Taylor,R on Socrates]
|
1563
|
Every apparent crime can be right in certain circumstances
[Anon (Diss), by PG]
|
2173
|
As religion and convention collapsed, Plato sought morals not just in knowledge, but in the soul
[Williams,B on Plato]
|
5071
|
The Cynics rejected what is conventional as irrational, and aimed to live by nature
[Taylor,R on Diogenes of Sin.]
|
3024
|
Cyrenaics teach that honour, justice and shame are all based on custom and fashion
[Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius]
|
5075
|
Aristotle said there are two levels of virtue - the conventional and the intellectual
[Taylor,R on Aristotle]
|
21
|
Moral acts are so varied that they must be convention, not nature
[Aristotle]
|
2807
|
Some say slavery is unnatural and created by convention, and is therefore forced, and unjust
[Aristotle]
|
5855
|
We all feel universal right and wrong, independent of any community or contracts
[Aristotle]
|
3045
|
Stoics say justice is a part of nature, not just an invented principle
[Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
|
13325
|
Trouble in life comes from copying other people, which is following convention instead of reason
[Seneca]
|
1477
|
Being manly and brave is the result of convention, not of human nature
[Plutarch]
|
7410
|
Self-preservation is basic, and people judge differently about that, implying ethical relativism
[Hobbes, by Tuck]
|
2368
|
Men's natural desires are no sin, and neither are their actions, until law makes it so
[Hobbes]
|
6680
|
It is a funny sort of justice whose limits are marked by a river
[Pascal]
|
19956
|
True goodness is political, and consists of love of and submission to the laws
[Montesquieu]
|
9750
|
We must only value what others find acceptable
[Kant, by Korsgaard]
|
21998
|
Bourgeois interests create our morality, law and religion
[Marx/Engels]
|
23874
|
Armies and businesses create moralities in which their activity can do no wrong
[Marx, by Weil]
|
2875
|
That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil
[Nietzsche]
|
22471
|
Nietzsche thought it 'childish' to say morality isn't binding because it varies between cultures
[Nietzsche, by Foot]
|
23879
|
In a violent moral disagreement, it can't be that both sides are just following social morality
[Weil]
|
15672
|
Actions norms are only valid if everyone possibly affected is involved in the discourse
[Habermas]
|
8002
|
Sophists don't distinguish a person outside one social order from someone outside all order
[MacIntyre]
|
20174
|
Relativists say all values are relative; pluralists concede much of that, but not 'human' values
[Kekes]
|