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Single Idea 2368

[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention ]

Full Idea

The desires and other passions of man are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from those passions, till they know a law that forbids them.

Clarification

'Law' is the Greek word 'nomos', which also translates as 'convention'

Gist of Idea

Men's natural desires are no sin, and neither are their actions, until law makes it so

Source

Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.13)

Book Ref

Hobbes,Thomas: 'Leviathan', ed/tr. Macpherson,C.B. [Penguin 1981], p.187

A Reaction

That is a pretty flat rejection of natural law, as you might expect from an empiricist. So prior to the first law-making, no one ever did anything wrong? Hm.

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]