PhilosophyIdeas.com Database     |     Current Total Ideas: 22,104     |     home     |     back

Ideas from 'poems' by Pindar [478 BCE], by Theme Structure

green numbers give full details    |     back to texts     |     unexpand this idea

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
6017 Nomos is king
                        Full Idea: Nomos is king.
                        From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture
                        A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed.