Morality Sentence Examples

He wasn't known for his morality or virtues.

Julia had her own ideas about morality, obviously.

Philip was by nature dull and phlegmatic. He had learnt morality from Fenelon's teaching, and showed himself throughout his life strongly adverse to the moral laxity of his grandfather and of most of the princes of his time.

Crime is infrequent, and morality, always above the Polynesian average, has improved.

Agrippina was a woman of the highest character and exemplary morality.

This spirit was exhibited on the philosophical side by Kant who in his Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft (1793) set forth his doctrine of rational morality (Vernunftglauben) as the only true religion.

But apart from the doubtful morality of his transactions he must still be regarded as one of the great Scottish writers.

But, above all, it is antecedently certain that defection from the ordinary standard of morality would have precluded the success which the sophists unquestionably sought and won.

The distinction between religion on the one hand and law and morality on the other is not indeed clearly conceived by Grotius, but he wrestles with it in such a way as to make it easy for those who followed him to seize it.

Even Gautier, while he contends that chivalry did much to refine morality, is compelled to admit the prevailing immorality to which medieval romances testify, and the extraordinary free behaviour of the unmarried ladies.

Urban was serious and humble, opposed to all nepotism, simony, and secular pomp. He was himself of blameless morality and reformed many abuses in the curia.

Of his many works the most important are his chronicles of the four kings of Castile during whose reigns he lived; they give a generally accurate account of scenes and events, most of which he had witnessed; he also wrote a long satirical and didactic poem, interesting as a picture of his personal experiences and of contemporary morality.

Morality has no connexion with religion.

Simony was universally practised and the morality of the clergy was very low.

The pettiest princeling had his army, his palaces, his multitudes of household officers; and most of them pampered every vulgar appetite without respect either to morality or to decency.

In 1876 Eismarck proposed to introduce into the Criminal Code a clause making it an offence punishable with two years imprisonment to attack in print the family, property, universal military service, or other foundation of public order, in a manner which undermined morality, feeling for law, or the love of the Fatherland.

In a speed at Konigsberg in November 1894, he summoned the nobles ci Prussia to support him in the struggle for religion, for morality for order, against the parties of Umsturz, or Revolution, and shortly afterwards an amendment of the Criminal Code, commonly called the Umsturz- Vorlage, was introduced, Vmsturz.

The discussion of this measure occupied most of the session of 1895; the bill was amended by the Centre so as to make it even more strongly a measure for the defence of religion; and clauses were introduced to defend public morality, by forbidding the public exhibition of pictures or statues, or the sale of writings, which, without being actually obscene, might rudely offend the feeling of modesty.

The LancelotGuenevere romance took form and shape in the artificial atmosphere encouraged by such patronesses of literature as Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughter Marie, Comtesse de Champagne (for whom Chretien de Troyes wrote his Chevalier de la Charrette), and reflects the low social morality of a time when love between husband and wife was declared impossible.

The first mentioned of these was severely criticised by Pascal in the fifth and sixth of his Provincial Letters, as tending to inculcate a loose system of morality.

They were also ridiculed in witty verses by Moliere, Boileau and La Fontaine, and gradually the name Escobar came to be used in France as a synonym for a person who is adroit in making the rules of morality harmonize with his own interests.

The diffusion of the Greek race far from the former centres of its life, the mingling of citizens of many cities, the close contact between Greek and barbarian in the conquered lands - all this had made the old sanctions of civic religion and civic morality of less account than ever.

Besides the lectures noted he published Studies in Genesis (1880), The Foundations of Morality (1882) and some volumes of sermons.

Hans Sthen, a lyrical poet, wrote a morality entitled Kortvending (" Change of Fortune "), which is really a collection of monologues to be delivered by students.

Christian's finances were certainly readjusted thereby, but the ultimate gainers by the confiscation were the nobles, and both education and morality suffered grievously in consequence.

The descendants of one of these, Henry, known only for his translation of an Italian morality play Freewyl (Tragedio del Libero Arbitrio) by Nigri de Bassano, settled at Pyrgo in Essex.

Church and state, law and morality, commerce and art are reduced to factors in the totality of human life, from which the specialists had isolated them.

It is the age of unconscious morality, when the individual's life is lost in the society of which he is an organic member.

There is a marked growth of refinement and of ideas of morality, and a condemnation of the shameless vice and oppression which went on amid a punctilious and splendid worship. It is extremely significant that between the teaching of the prophetical writings and the spirit of the Mosaic legislation there is an unmistakable bond.

It is plain that Prodicus was an affected pedant; yet his simple conventional morality found favour, and Plato (Rep. 600 C) couples him with Protagoras in his testimony to the popularity of the sophists and their teaching.

It may have been that the sophists' preference of seeming to reality, of success to truth, had a mischievous effect upon the morality of the time; but it is clear that they had no common theory of ethics, and there is no warrant for the assumption that a sophist, as such, specially interested himself in ethical questions.

Prodicus in his platitudes reflected the customary morality of the time.

If Hippias, Polus and Thrasymachus defied conventional morality, they did so independently of one another, and in this, as in other matters, they were disputants maintaining paradoxical theses, rather than thinkers announcing heretical convictions.

Again, it is certain that the theoretical and practical morality of the sophists, regarded as a class, was " neither above nor below the standard of the age."

In a word, the present writer agrees with Grote that the sophists were not a sect or school with common doctrine or method; that their theoretical and practical morality was neither above nor below that of their age, being, in fact, determined by it; and that Plato and his followers are not to be regarded as the authorized teachers of the Greek nation, nor the sophists as the dissenters, but vice versa.

Officers were appointed to watch over domestic life and public morality, and to promote instruction among the women as well as the youth.

The philosophy of Epictetus is intensely practical, and exhibits a high idealistic type of morality.

While he owed to Reid all his theory of morality, he repaid the debt by giving to Reid's views the advantage of his admirable style and academic eloquence.

He was much fascinated by the Stoic morality, and it has been noticed that the Tusculan Disputations and de Officiis are largely Stoic in tone.

As psychology recognizes a distinction of pleasure and pain, and metaphysics of good and evil, so morality assumes the difference between right and wrong in action, good and bad in character; but the distinction in psychology and metaphysics applies to what is, the difference in morality is based on a judgment of what is by what ought to be.

The materialism of Hobbes, the pantheism of Spinoza, the empiricism of Locke, the determinism of Leibnitz, Collins' necessitarianism, Dodwell's denial of the natural immortality of the soul, rationalistic attacks on Christianity, and the morality of the sensationalists - all these he opposed with a thorough conviction of the truth of the principles which he advocated.

Confucian ethics are the basis of morality and social order.

Morality, important though it be as preparatory to the "higher life," does not alone lend itself to that awakening of the spiritual faculties without which progress along the Path is not possible.

In good citizenship morality is practised out of regard to certain preconceived notions of the needs, the health and happiness of ourselves, our fellows and the community at large.

This prohibition of a custom which had undoubtedly given rise to grave abuses seems to have been inspired by a genuine desire to improve public morality, and received the support of the official aristocracy and a section of the clergy.

One of the first acts of her reign was a proclamation against vice, and Lord Chesterfield regretted the strict morality of her court.

Now the second presupposition depends, according to Paley, on the credibility of the Christian religion (which he treats almost exclusively as the revelation of these "new sanctions" of morality).

As there is no law in Homer, so there is no morality.

The first name is that of Theagenes of Rhegium, contemporary of Cambyses (525 B.C.), who is said to have founded the " new grammar " (the older " grammar " being the art of reading and writing), and to have been the inventor of the allegorical interpretations by which it was sought to reconcile the Homeric mythology with the morality and speculative ideas of the 6th century B.C. The same attitude in the " ancient quarrel of poetry and philosophy " was soon afterwards taken by Anaxagoras; and after him by his pupil Metrodorus of Lampsacus, who explained away all the gods, and even the heroes, as elementary substances and forces (Agamemnon as the upper air, &c.).

And this conduct is the result, not only of his fierce and inexorable character, but also (as the silence of Homer shows) of the want of any general rules or principles, any code of morality or of honour, which would have required him to act in a different way.

But, be this as it may," the doctrine of karma is certainly one of the firmest beliefs of all classes of Hindus, and the fear that a man shall reap as he has sown is an appreciable element in the average morality.

The low rates in Ireland, Holland and England are especially noticeable, and in the last named, the decrease between 1870 and 1905 amounted to more than 50%, not, however, entirely due, it is said, to improved morality.

Fervent preachers came amongst them, widely differing in morality, education, earnestness and eloquence from the parish clergy, whose deficiencies gave such succour to Luther.

In its origin this system was a perfectly honest attempt to widen the sphere of obedience by making morality wholly objective and independent of the vagaries of the individual conscience.

Jansen accordingly denounced free-will as dishonouring to God, and destructive of the higher interests of morality.

Hence the precepts of morality are with Empedocles largely dietetic.

He does, however, lay much stress upon the naturally social character of man; and this points forward to that treatment of morality as a function of the social organism which characterizes modern ethical theory.

His purpose was to defend what may be called a humanist position in moral philosophy; that is, to show that morality was not an affair of mysterious innate principles, or abstract relations, or supernatural sanctions, but depended on the familiar conditions of personal and social welfare.

Moreover, it is in sympathy that he finds the obligation and sanction of morality.

To understand the genesis of human morality we must study the ways of sociable animals such as horses and monkeys, which give each other assistance in trouble, feel mutual affection and sympathy, and experience pleasure in doing actions that benefit the society to which they belong.

The most famous of the systematic exponents of evolutional utilitarianism is, of course, Herbert Spencer, in whose Data of Ethics (1819) the facts of morality are viewed in relation with his vast conception of the total process of cosmic evolution.

He shows how morality can be viewed physically, as evolving from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; biologically, as evolving from a less to a more complete performance of vital functions, so that the perfectly moral man is one whose life is physiologically perfect and therefore perfectly pleasant; psychologically, as evolving from a.

There is no doubt that much remains still to be done in illustrating human morality by the facts and principles of biology and natural history.

Much of Cudworth's work still remains in manuscript; A Treatise concerning eternal and immutable Morality was published in 1731; and A Treatise of Freewill, edited by John Allen, in 1838; both are connected with the design of his magnum opus, the Intellectual System.

A much more favourable judgment must be given upon the short Treatise on eternal and immutable Morality, which deserves to be read by those who are interested in the historical development of British moral philosophy.

Just as knowledge contains a permanent intelligible element over and above the flux of sense-impressions, so there exist eternal and immutable ideas of morality.

In virtue of the mystic identity between the cosmic phenomena and sacrifice, Rita may be also viewed as the principle of the cultus; and from that sphere it passes into conduct and acquires the meaning of morality and is equated with what is " true."

The Confucian morality could be adopted without difficulty in Japan.

The Tao-teh-king, or book of aphorisms on " the Tao and virtue " ascribed to Lao Tsze, is wholly unlike such a composition as Deuteronomy; and the disciples of Confucius carefully refrained from attributing to him any kind of supernatural inspiration in his conversations about social and personal morality.

Hirata answered by anticipation the modern reproach against Shinto, founded on the absence of any definite morality connected with it, by laying down the simple rule, " Act so that you need not be ashamed before the Kami of the unseen."

In India the union of morality and religion was effected in another manner.

The mere reasonings of theoretical science leave no room for art, and practical prudence usurps the place of morality.

The pure morality and simple-minded piety of this community seem early to have attracted Spinoza, and to have won his unfeigned respect.

This change in the attitude of common-sense morality in respect to "anything that is lent upon usury" is one of the most peculiar and instructive features in the economic progress of society.

After a severe struggle, de la Gardie's party prevailed; and its triumph was marked by that general decline of personal and political morality which has given to this regency its unenviable notoriety.

Her social influence was not as great as it might have been, owing to her holding no recognized position at court, but it was always exercised on the side of decency and morality, and it must not be forgotten that from her former life she was intimate with the literary people of the day.

His eloquence gained him a hearing and a numerous following, including many laymen, but consisting principally of poor ecclesiastics, who formed around him a party characterized by a rigid morality and not unlike the Lombard Patarenes of the 11th century.

In view of the vast consequences ensuing from this exodus of Dutch families from the Cape a somewhat detailed consideration and in some cases lax sexual morality.

For three generations they remained Hindus; since then there has arisen amongst them a strange new sect called Zikari, with exceedingly loose notions of morality.

Zeno, we have reason to believe, adopted the Cynic Logos for his guidance to truth as well as to morality.

They were at pains to insist upon purity of heart and life as an indispensable condition for success in prophesying and to enlist piety in the service of morality.

The introducer and expositor of such a twofold morality was a remarkable man.

Founding ethics on the native and cultivable capacity in men to appreciate worth in men and actions, and, like the ancient Greek thinkers whom he followed, associating the apprehension of morality with the apprehension of beauty, he makes morality wholly independent of scriptural enactment, and still more, of theological forecasting of future bliss or agony.

Wollaston upheld the "intellectual" theory of morality, and all his reasoning is independent of any authority or evidence derived from revelation.

Religion, though not identified with morality, had its most important outcome in a faithful following of the eternal laws of morality, regarded as the will of God.

For some the belief in future rewards and punishments was an essential of religion; some seem to have questioned the doctrine as a whole; and, while others made it a basis of morality, Shaftesbury protested against the ordinary theological form of the belief as immoral.

It has become the chief pleasure town of Germany; and though the standard of morality, owing to the enormous influx of people-bent on amusement, has become lower, yet there is so much healthy, strenuous activity in intellectual life and commercial rivalry as to entitle it, despite many moral deficiencies, to be regarded as the centre of life and learning in Germany.

He is also very probably the author of another very ancient standard work of Tibetan Buddhism, the Samatog, a short digest of Buddhist morality, on which the civil laws of Tibet have been founded.

Society may have at one time been matrilinear in the communities that become the historic Hellenes; but of this there is no trace in the worship of Zeus and Hera.18 In fact, the whole of the family morality in Hellas centred in Zeus, whose altar in the courtyard was the bond of the kinsmen; and sins against the family, such as unnatural vice and the exposure of children, are sometimes spoken of as offences against the High God.I" He was also the tutelary deity of the larger organization of the phratria; and the altar of Zeus c Pparpcos was the meetingpoint of the phrateres, when they were assembled to consider the legitimacy of the new applicants for admission into their circle.20 His religion also came to assist the development of certain legal ideas, for instance, the rights of private or family property in land; he guarded the allotments as Zein KAdpcos,2' and the Greek commandment " thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark " was maintained by Zeus " Opcos, the god of boundaries, a more personal power than the Latin Jupiter Terminus.22 His highest political functions were summed up in the title IIoXtfin, a cult-name of legendary antiquity in Athens, and frequent in the Hellenic world.23 His consort in his political life was not Hera, but his daughter Athena Polias.

The morality attaching to the oath, so deeply rooted in the conscience of primitive peoples, was expressed in the cult of Zeus "OpKCOS, the God who punished perjury.

The laws of the state and the various rules of conduct laid down by religion or morality are merely devices adopted for general convenience.

No one professed a more austere morality, and few medieval writers indulged in cruder satire on the female sex; yet he passed some years in the society of a concubine, and his living masterpiece of art is the apotheosis of chivalrous passion for a woman.

Had Petrarch been possessed with a passion for some commanding principle in politics, morality or science, instead of with the thirst for selfglorification and the ideal of artistic culture, it is not wholly impossible that Italian humanism might have assumed a manlier and more conscientious tone.

Philosophy seeking knowledge for its own sake; morality, manifested in the sense of truth, right, and virtue; and religion, the belief in and communion with superhuman powers ruling and pervading the universe, are human characters, of which it is instructive to trace, if possible, the earliest symptoms in the lower animals, but which can there show at most only faint and rudimentary signs of their wondrous development in mankind.

Lastly, still following the main lines of human culture, the primitive germs of religious institutions have to be traced in the childish faith and rude rites of savage life, and thence followed in their expansion into the vast systems administered by patriarchs and priests, henceforth taking under their charge the precepts of morality, and enforcing them under divine sanction, while also exercising in political life an authority beside or above the civil law.

Solomon Stoddard died on the 11th of February 1729, leaving to his grandson the difficult task of the sole ministerial charge of one of the largest and wealthiest congregations in the colony, and one proud of its morality, its culture and its reputation.

Thus the principle of virtue - Edwards has nothing to say of " morality " - is identical with the principle of religion.

However moralists may differ on first principles, there seems to be remarkably little practical divergence when they come to lay down the particular laws of morality.

In other words, seeing that the highest human good is realizable only in a community, the theory of the state as the organ of morality, and itself in its structure and institutions the expression of ethical ideas or qualities, becomes an integral part of philosophy.

For the content of morality we are necessarily referred, in great part, to the experience crystallized in laws and institutions and to the unwritten law of custom, honour and good breeding, which has become organic in the society of which we are members.

Shortly after the Poems Slavery, there appeared in 1843 a more ambitious work, The Spanish Student, a Play in Three Acts, a kind of sentimental "Morality," without any special merit but good intention.

His most celebrated work is his Cases of Conscience, deliberate judgments upon points of morality submitted to him.

Denying the possibility of innate ideas, he asserted that morality comes by revelation, and is therefore not only certain, but the only real certainty.

Its objects are to promote a high morality among Jews, regardless of differences as to dogma and ceremonial customs, and especially to inculcate the supreme virtues of charity and brotherly love.

Though himself pious, of blameless morality, hospitable to a fault, and so exempt from avarice, says his secretary Conti, that he could not endure the sight of money, it was Sixtus's misfortune to have had no natural outlet for strong affections except unworthy relatives; and his great vices were nepotism, ambition and extravagance.

If we cut away the mass of mere fiction which Philostratus accumulated, we have left a highly imaginative, earnest reformer who laboured to infuse into the flaccid dialectic of paganism a saner spirit of practical morality.

The various tribes were indeed converted to the faith one after another; but it took centuries to break them in to anything like obedience to Christian principles of morality.

In most respects he was a perfect exponent of the ideals and foibles of his age, and when he broke a promise or repudiated a debt he was but displaying the less satisfactory side of the habitual morality of the 14th century the chivalry of which was often deficient in the less showy virtues.

The harsh treatment of individuals only calls forth resistance when constitutional morality has sunk deeply into the popular mind.

The over-haste of the Puritans to drill England into ways of morality and virtue had thrown at least the upper classes into a slough of revelry and baseness.

Those who cared for religion or morality Moralaad had forgotten that man is an imaginative and emotional religious being.

This may have been a proper thing to do if their distrust of Shelburne was incurable, but the next step, coalition with Lord North against him, was not only a political blunder, but a shock to party morality, which brought speedy retribution.

Between 1835 and 1861 Whewell was the author of various works on the philosophy of morals and politics, the chief of which, Elements of Morality, including Polity, was published in 1845.

Again, Ritschl divides all theology into two compartments, morality and religion; service of men in the Kingdom of God, direct relation to God in the Church by faith.

Like him, armed with bow and arrows, she deals death to mortals, sometimes gently and suddenly, especially to women, but also as a punishment for offences against herself or morality.

He argues in the first book against the innateness of our knowledge of God and of morality; yet in the fourth book he finds that the existence of God is demonstrable, being supported by causal necessity, without which there can be no knowledge; and he also maintains that morality is as demonstrable as pure mathematics.

Morality, Locke thinks, as well as mathematical quantity, is capable of being demonstrated.

Only we are more apt to be biassed, and thus to leave reason in abeyance, in dealing with questions of morality than in dealing with problems in mathematics.

The determinist equally with the libertarian moral philosopher can give an account of morality possessing internal coherence and a certain degree of verisimilitude.

For the distinction between main and contributory causes of conduct (causae adjuvantes and causae principales - the a'reov and vvairwwv of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy) preserved the possibility of regarding character, the main cause, as the responsible and accountable element in morality.

Morality in effect - to such an extreme position is he driven in his opposition to the Thomists - becomes the arbitrary creation of the Divine Will and in no sense depends for its authority upon rational principles or is a form of knowledge.

But the most important point at issue between the opposing theories has remained throughout the history of the controversy, the morality or immorality of their respective solutions of the problem.

Moreover, without a belief in the freedom of the will the conception of moral obligation upon which the existence of morality depends and from which all other moral terms derive their meaning loses its chief significance.

The science of morality must be content in its search for causes to recognize the rationality of choice as a real determining agent in human affairs.

For thorough-going deter minism of the older type the dependence of morality upon freedom did not of necessity prove an obstacle.

Modern determinists differ from the earlier advocates of their theory in their endeavour to exhibit at least the compatibility of morality with the absence of freedom, if not the enhancement of moral values which, according to some of its advocates, follows upon the acceptance of the deterministic account of conduct.

If a coherent theory capable of giving an explanation of the ordinary facts of morality and not involving too violent a breach with the meaning of moral terms in their accepted usage were all that need be required of determinists in order to m reconcile the defenders of the moral consciousness to the loss of their belief in the will's freedom, it would follow without question that the determinists have proved their case.

And though reflection upon conduct may lead us to suppose that our past acts were determined, that desire of pleasure or the wish to avoid pain controlled our wills, the unphilosophical observer interprets, in offenders against morality, such arguments as a mere excuse.

Distinctive Particulars of Christian Morality 821 Development of Opinion in Early Christi C. Modern Ethics - continued Page Association and Evolution 837 Free-will.

And experiments in morality (apart from the inconvenient practical consequences likely to ensue) are useless for purposes of ethics, because the moral consciousness would itself at one and the same time be required to make the experiment and to provide the subject upon which the experiment is performed.

Nevertheless there is a sense in which moral philosophy may be said to originate out of difficulties inherent in the nature of morality itself, although it remains true that the questions which ethics attempts to answer are never questions with which the moral consciousness as such is confronted.

It may be that criticism of morality first originates with a criticism of existing moral institutions or codes of ethics; such a criticism may be due to the spontaneous activity of the moral consciousness itself.

But when such criticism passes into the attempt to find a universal criterion of morality - such an attempt being in effect an effort to make morality scientific - and especially when the attempt is seen, as it must in the end be seen, to fail (the moral consciousness being superior to all standards of morality and realizing itself wholly in particular judgments), then ethics as a process of reflection upon the nature of the moral consciousness may be said to begin.

If this be true it follows that one of the chief function of ethics must be criticism of mistaken attempts to find a criterion of morality superior to the pronouncements of the moral consciousness itself.

False analogies drawn between ethics and mathematics or between morality and the perception of beauty have wrought much mischief in modern and to some degree even in ancient ethics.

Yet morality has been subordinated to legal and social sanctions, and moral advance has been held to be conditioned by political and social necessities which are not moral needs.

In the practical wisdom of Thales, one of the seven, we cannot discern any systematic theory of morality.

Among the prejudices from which the wise man was free he included all regard to customary morality beyond what was due to the actual penalties attached to its violation; though he held, with Socrates, that these penalties actually render conformity reasonable.

This alternative is the less dangerous to morality, and as such the Stoics chose it.

It will be convenient to consider first the new form or universal characteristics of Christian morality, and afterwards to note the chief points in the matter or particulars of duty and virtue which received development or emphasis from the new religion.

The first point to be noticed is the new conception of morality as the positive law of a theocratic community possessing a Christian written code imposed by divine revelation, and and Jewish sanctioned by divine promises and threatenings.

Hence, even if the notion of law had been more prominent than it was in ancient ethical thought, it could never have led to a juridical, as distinct from a philosophical, treatment of morality.

Thus the jural form in which morality was conceived only emphasized the fundamental difference between it and the laws of the state.

Then, when Christianity threw off the Mosaic ritual, this religious sense of purity was left with no other sphere besides morality; while, from its highly idealized character, it was peculiarly well adapted for that repression of vicious desires which Christianity claimed as its special function.

They are naturally connected with the more general particu- characteristics just stated; though many of them may also be referred directly to the example and precepts of Christ, and in several cases they are clearly morality.

We may notice, in the first place, that the conception of morality as a code which, if not in itself arbitrary, is yet to be accepted by men with unquestioning submission, tends naturally to bring into prominence the virtue of obedience to authority; just as the philosophic view of goodness as the realization of reason gives a special value to self-determination and independence (as we see more clearly in the post-Aristotelian schools where ethics is distinctly separated from politics).

It is, however, in the impulse given to practical beneficence in all its forms, by the exaltation of love as the root of all virtues, that the most important influence of Christianity on the particulars of civilized morality is to be found; p y although the exact amount of this influence is here somewhat difficult to ascertain, since it merely carries further a development traceable in the history of pagan morality.

In the preceding account of Christian morality, it has been already indicated that the characteristics delineated did not all exhibit themselves simultaneously to the same extent, or with perfect uniformity throughout the church.

So again, there is a marked difference between the writers before Augustine and those that succeeded him in all that concerns the internal conditions of Christian morality.

It is plain, however, that on this external legalistic view of duty it was impossible to maintain a difference in kind between Christian and pagan morality; the philosopher's conformity to the rules of chastity and beneficence, so far as it went, was indistinguishable from the saint's.

This ecclesiastical jurisprudence, and indeed the general relation of the church to the ruder races with which it had to deal during this period, necessarily tended to encourage a somewhat external view of morality.

Passing to consider what actions are virtuous, we first observe generally that the morality of an act is in part, but only in part, determined by its particular motive; it partly depends on its external object and circumstances, which render it either objectively in harmony with the " order of reason " or the reverse.

Faith is the substantial basis of all Christian morality, but without love - the essential form of all the Christian virtues - it is " formless " (informis).

This doctrine is obviously hostile to all reasoned morality; and in fact, notwithstanding the dialectical ability of Scotus and Occam, the work of Thomas remained indubitably the crowning result of the great constructive effort of medieval philosophy.

As the properly philosophic interest of scholasticism faded in the 14th and 15th centuries, the quasi-legal treatment of morality came again into prominence, borrowing a good deal of matter from Thomas and other schoolmen.

The oldest, the Astesana, from Asti in Piedmont, is arranged as a kind of text-book of morality on a scholastic basis; later manuals are merely lists of questions and answers.

In the r7th century, however, the interest of this quasi-legal treatment of morality gradually faded; and the ethical studies of educated minds were occupied with the attempt, renewed after so many centuries, to find an independent =an ' 'ism.

There was, however, in his theory an originality, a force, an apparent coherence which rendered it undeniably impressive; in fact, we find that for two generations the efforts to construct morality on a philosophical basis take more or less the form of answers to Hobbes.

Its theoretical basis is the principle of egoism; while, for practically determining the particulars of duty it makes morality entirely dependent on positive law and institution.

Cumberland is content with the legal view of morality, but endeavours to establish the validity of the laws of nature by taxing them on the single supreme principle of rational regard for the " common good of all," and showing them, as so based, to be adequately supported by the divine sanction.

The Cambridge school, regarding morality primarily as a body of truth rather than a code of rules, insist on its absolute character and intuitive certainty.

In his treatise on Eternal and Immutable Morality his main aim is to maintain the 1 In spite of Hobbes's uncompromising egoism, there is a noticeable discrepancy between his theory of the ends that men naturally seek and his standard for determining their natural rights.

Cumberland is a thinker both original and comprehensive, and, in spite of defects in style and clearness, he is noteworthy as having been the first to lay down that " regard for the common good of all " is the supreme rule of morality or law of nature.

A notion so vague could not possibly be used with any precision for determining the subordinate rules of morality; but in fact Cumberland does not attempt this; his supreme principle is designed not to rectify, but merely to support and systematize, common morality.

It is true that Locke is not particularly concerned with the ethico-theological proposition which Clarke is most anxious to maintain, - that the fundamental rules of morality are independent of arbitrary will, whether divine or human.

At least when he comes to argue the need of future rewards and punishments we find that his claim on behalf of morality is startlingly reduced.

Thus, on the whole, the impressive earnestness with which Clarke enforces the doctrine of rational morality only rendered more manifest the difficulty of establishing ethics on an independent philosophical basis; so long at least as the psychological egoism of Hobbes is not definitely assailed and overthrown.

Taking the different impulses in detail, he first shows how the individual's happiness is promoted by developing 1 It should be observed that, while Clarke is sincerely anxious to prove that most principles are binding independently of Divine appointment, he is no less concerned to show that morality requires the practical support of revealed religion.

On this view morality, though dependent for its actuality on the social compact which establishes government, is actually binding on man as a reasonable being.

We may take this latter treatise as representing the first in the development of English ethics, at which what were afterwards called " utilitarian" and " intuitional " morality were first formally opposed; in earlier systems the antithesis is quite latent, as we have incidentally noticed in the case of Cumberland and Clarke.

The fourth, again, is the merely formal principle that " right and wrong must be the same to all in all circumstances," which belongs equally to all systems of objective morality; while the fifth prescribes the religious duty of " veneration or submission to God."

Stewart lays stress on the obligation of justice as distinct from benevolence; but his definition of justice represents it as essentially impartiality, - a virtue which (as was just now said of Reid's fourth principle) must equally find a place in the utilitarian or any other system that lays down universally applicable rules of morality.

It will be seen that neither Reid nor Stewart offers more than a very meagre and tentative contribution to that ethical science by which, as they maintain, the received rules of morality may be rationally deduced from self-evident first principles.

A more ambitious attempt in the same direction was made by Whewell in his Elements of Morality (1846).

The principle of purity, again, " that the lower parts of our nature ought to be subject to the higher," merely particularizes that supremacy of reason over non-rational impulses which is involved in the very notion of reasoned morality.

Paley, however, holds that scripture is given less to teach morality than to illustrate it by example and enforce it by new sanctions and greater certainty, and that the light of nature makes it clear that God wills the happiness of his creatures.

In this way the utilitarian method is freed from the subversive tendencies which Butler and others had discerned in it; as used by Paley, it merely explains the current moral and jural distinctions, exhibits the obvious basis of expediency which supports most of the received rules of law and morality and furnishes a simple solution, in harmony with common sense, of some perplexing casuistical questions.

The fact is that there are several different ways in which a utilitarian system of morality may be used, without deciding whether the sanctions attached to it are always Varieties adequate.

We may regard morality as a kind of supplementary legislation, supported by public opinion, which we may expect the public, when duly enlightened, to frame in accordance with the public interest.

Indeed, the acquired tendency to virtuous conduct may become so strong that the habit of willing it may continue, " even when the reward which 3 I should be observed that Austin, after Bentham, more frequently uses the term " moral " to connote what he more distinctly calls " positive morality," the code of rules supported by common opinion in any society.

Catholic France was a school for Englishmen in many subjects, but not in morality; the great struggle between Jansenists and Jesuits had a very remote interest for them.

It is to be observed that, in Comte's view, devotion to humanity is the principle not merely of morality, but of religion; i.e.

It is more important to notice the general effect of his philosophy on the method of determining the particulars of morality as well as of law (as it ought to be).

Thus present man is a being that can only be understood through a knowledge of his past history; and any effort to construct for him a moral and political ideal, by a purely abstract and unhistorical method, must necessarily be futile; whatever modifications may at any time be desirable in positive law and morality can only be determined by the aid of " social dynamics."

But in Kant's view the universal content of this will is only given in the formal condition of "only acting as one can desire all to act," to be subjectively applied by each rational agent to his own volition; whereas Hegel conceives the universal will as objectively presented to each man in the laws, institutions and customary morality of the community of which he is a member.

But the moral philosophy of the 18th century, freed from scholastic trammels, was a genuine native product, arising out of the real problem of conduct and reaching its conclusions, at least ostensibly, by an analysis of, and an appeal to, the facts of conduct and the nature of morality.

Nevertheless the application of the historical method to inquiries concerning the facts of morality and the moral life - itself part of the great movement of thought to which Darwin gave the chief impetus - has caused moral problems to be presented in a novel aspect; while the influence of Darwinism upon studies which have considerable bearing upon ethics, e.g.

To this revolt, and to the general tendency to find the principle of morality in an ideal good present to the consciousness of all persons capable of acting morally, the widespread recognition of reason as the ultimate court of appeal alike in religion or politics, and latterly in economics also, has no doubt contributed largely.

It is only in the present day that there are noticeable signs of dissatisfaction with current morality itself, and a tendency to substitute or advocate a new morality based ostensibly upon conclusions derived from the facts of scientific observation.

What interested him chiefly, in so far as he made a study of morality, was the development of moral conduct in its preliminary stages.

He was principally concerned to show that in morality, as in other departments of human life, it was not necessary to postulate a complete and abrupt gap between human and merely animal existence, but that the instincts and habits which contribute to survival in the struggle for existence among animals develop into moral qualities which have a similar value for the preservation of human and social life.

Regarding the social tendency as originally itself an instinct developed out of parental or filial affection, he seems to suggest that natural selection, which was the chief cause of its development in the earlier stages, may very probably influence the transition from purely tribal and social morality into morality in its later and more complex forms. But he admits that natural selection is not necessarily the only cause, and he refrains from identifying the fully developed morality of civilized nations with the " social instinct."

Spencer looked to ideas derived from the biological sciences to provide a solution of all the enigmas of morality, as of most other departments of life; and he conceived it " to be the business of moral science to deduce from the laws of life and the conditions of existence what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness and what kinds to produce unhappiness."

It is frequently impossible to discover whether he wishes by an appeal to evolutionary principles to reinforce the sanctions and emphasize the absolute character of the traditional morality which in the main he accepts without question from the current opinions about conduct of his age, or whether he wishes to discredit and disprove the validity of that morality in order to substitute by the aid of the biological sciences a new ethical code.

The discovery of the so-called evolution of morality out of non-moral conditions is very frequently an unconscious subterfuge by which the evolutionist hides the fact that he is making a priori judgments upon the value of the moral concepts held to be evolved.

To accept such theories of the origin of morality would carry with it the conviction that what we took for " moral " conduct was in reality something very different, and has been so throughout its history.

They cannot give up their belief in customary morality.

Almost any system of morality or immorality might find some justification in Nietzsche's writings, which are extraordinarily chaotic and full of the wildest exaggerations.

For he saw clearly that to be successful evolutionary ethics must involve the " transvaluation of all values," the " demoralization " of all ordinary current morality.

Thus, though incidentally there is much to be learned from Nietzsche, especially from his criticism of the ethics of pessimism, or from the strictures he passes upon the negative morality of extreme asceticism or quietism, his system inevitably provides its own refutation.

And it is perhaps unfortunate that metaphysical doctrines enunciated chiefly for the purposes of criticism not in themselves vitally necessary to the theory of morality propounded should have been.

Green's principal objection to evolutionary moral philosophy is contained in the argument that no merely " natural " explanation of the facts of morality is conceivable.

For morality implies a power in the individual of rising above the interests of his own narrower self and identifying himself in the pursuit of a universal good with the true interests of all other selves.

Only, therefore, to those philosophers who believe in the existence of a criterion of morality, i.e.

What ambiguity they possess arises from the ambiguity of morality itself.

Bradley's Ethical Studies had presented with great brilliancy an idealist theory of morality not very far removed from that of Green's Prolegomena.

But further, it is becoming increasingly apparent that psychology (upon which Taylor would base morality) itself involves metaphysical assumptions; its position in fact cannot be stated except as a metaphysical position, whether that of subjective idealism or any other.

And the need which most philosophers have felt for some philosophical foundation for morality arises, not from any desire to subordinate moral insight to speculative theory, but because the moral facts themselves are inexplicable except in the light of first principles which metaphysics alone can criticize.

There is no doubt a distinction between morality as a form of consciousness and reflection upon that morality.

Taylor is more persuasive when he is developing his second main thesis - that of the alleged existence of an ultimate dualism in the nature of morality.

But in his exposition of the fundamental contradiction involved in morality elaborated with much care and illustrative argument he appeals for the most part to facts familiar to the unphilosophical moral consciousness.

With Taylor's presentation of the difficulties with which morality is expected to grapple probably few would be found seriously to disagree, though they might consider it unduly pessimistic. But when he turns what is in effect a statement of certain forms of moral difficulty into an attack upon the logical and coherent character of morality itself, he is not so likely to command assent.

For just as there is no self-realization which does not involve self-sacrifice, so there is no room for that species of egoism within the confines of morality which is incompatible with social service.

Martineau's chief endeavour was, as he himself says, to interpret, to vindicate, and to systematize the moral sentiments, and if the actual exhibition of what is involved, e.g., in moral choice is the vindication of morality Martineau may be said to have been successful.

And Martineau is curiously unsympathetic to the universal and social aspect of morality with which evolutionary and idealist moral philosophers are so largely occupied.

Westermarck's Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, testify to a continued interest in the history of morality and in the anthropological inquiries with which moral philosophy is closely connected.

Finally it has become apparent that many problems hitherto left for political economy to solve belong more properly to the moralist, if not to the moral philosopher, and it may be confidently expected that with the increased complexity of social life and the disappearance of many sanctions of morality hitherto regarded as inviolable, the future will bring a renewed and practical 1 Cf.

Westermarck, Origin and Development of Moral Ideas (1906); George Gore, Scientific Basis of Morality (1899), and New Scientific Basis of Morality (1906), containing an interesting if unconvincing attempt to explain ethics on purely physical principles.

Salvian was a 5th-century socialist of the most extreme type, and a zealous ascetic who pitilessly scourged everything that fell short of an exalted morality, and exaggerated, albeit unconsciously, the faults that he desired to eradicate.

The revolutionist, as he would recommend him to be, is a consecrated man, who will allow no private interests or feelings, and no scruples of religion, patriotism or morality, to turn him aside from his mission, the aim of which is by all available means to overturn the existing society.

So also its insistence on the chief end of man "to know and do the will of God" made for the strenuous morality that helped to build up the modern world.

Their devotion and energy may be freely admitted; but the mendicant orders, especially the Carmelites, were not uniformly distinguished for morality.

Whatever may have been its morality, in a political point of view the plantation of Ulster was successful.

But her finest achievement was the education of her son; she taught him that lofty religious morality which in his case was not merely a rule for private conduct, but also a political programme to which he remained faithful even to the detriment of his apparent interests.

It was no longer upon religion or morality, it was upon imperial and Roman rights that these chevaliers s lois based the princes omnipotence; and nothing more clearly marks the new tradition which was being elaborated than the fact that all the great events of Philip the Fairs reign were lawsuits.

How far the character, habits and morality ot the Christian Spaniards were affected by Oriental influences is not a question which it is easy to answer.

As a matter of public morality I cannot think that General Gordon's process of reasoning is defensible..

Schmid in Jena, Buhle in Gottingen, Tennemann in Marburg, and Snell in Giessen, with many others, made it the basis of their philosophical teaching, while theologians like Tieftrunk, Staudlin, and Ammon eagerly applied it to Christian doctrine and morality.

That reason is practical or prescribes ends for itself is sufficiently manifest from the mere fact of the existence of the conception of morality or duty, a conception which can have no corresponding object within the sphere of intuition, and which is theoretically, or in accordance with the categories of understanding, incognizable.

The presence of this conception is the datum upon which may be founded a special investigation of the conditions of reason as practical, a Kritik of pure practical reason, and the analysis of it yields the statement of the formal prescripts of morality.

The supreme end prescribed by reason in its practical aspect, namely, the complete subordination of the empirical side of nature to the prescripts of morality, demands, as conditions of its possible realization, the permanence of ethical progress in the moral agent, the certainty of freedom in self-determination, and the necessary harmonizing of the spheres of sense and reason through the intelligent author or ground of both.

Mrs. Reynolds, like Carmen, had reservations about the morality of their method, but was otherwise supportive.

The best method of birth control is abstinence and a little pill is no substitute for morality.

She was strong willed – especially when it came to issues about morality.

The individualism of Sartre's thought seems to banish morality from serious consideration.

In time, this becomes corrosive to private morality.

Morality with religion for its sanction has hitherto been the basis of social polity, except under military despotisms.

Morality is always the striving after the most perfect meaning and its best exemplification.

Thus he creates his religious existentialism as a philosophy of multiplicity and emancipation from knowledge, morality and rules of mind and action.

The Soldier's Tale is a morality fable in which the Devil appears in different guises.

This sometimes seems to have been lost on certain self-appointed guardians of evangelical morality.

As late as the 1940s and 1950s, education white papers were still imbued with the language of morality and idealism.

There's no sense in morality, I suppose, unless you are fundamentally immoral.

At the same time, if he preaches morality, he after all teaches the very same idea himself.

It is often suggested that we have no ethics of our own; very often the bourgeoisie accuse us communists of rejecting all morality.

I will make enemies if I impose morality on people.

The Good, the Bad and the Obligatory Colin McGinn has argued that ordinary morality requires that each of us be morally perfect.

Page^ This, then, is the traditional system for determining the morality of actions.

Anyway, his attitude to sexual morality may have caused a Victorian eyebrow or two to rise.

We must destroy bourgeois ideas and values, bourgeois morality, the bourgeois standards which create the mental and moral slavery of the proletariat.

The fact that many Orthodox ' leaders ' lived lives of dubious morality is not of importance.

Politics cannot be detached from morality, but morality cannot be detached from spirituality.

But beyond that, what can humanist morality do for our fellows.

The only slight doubt is about the morality of the requirement to use second-hand pantiles.

Hence, morality and patriotism cannot be meaningfully contrasted as distinct strands of normative thinking; patriotism cannot be meaningfully contrasted as distinct strands of normative thinking; patriotism is the precondition of moral functioning.

Instead of producing a drama-documentary of events, Spielberg manages a limp morality play which becomes very tiresome.

This ecclesiasticism violates every principle of morality, and hardens the conscience that has to do with it.

The stress now no longer falls on the observation of basic morality and the cultivation of wholesome attitudes as a means to higher rebirths.

They may dislike mucky morality, financial shadiness and jobs for the boys, but it rarely affects how they vote.

The account has a nice ring to it, and can be offered as a good morality tale in which good triumphs over evil.

Despite Schopenhauer, religion and its relation to morality still seem quite vigorous.

In morality they are singularly superior to their neighbours.

The anonymous objections are very much the statement of common-sense against philosophy; those of Caterus criticize the Cartesian argument from the traditional theology of the church; those of Arnauld are an appreciative inquiry into the bearings and consequences of the meditations for religion and morality; while those of Hobbes (q.v.) and Gassendi - both somewhat senior to Descartes and with a dogmatic system of their own already formed - are a keen assault upon the spiritualism of the Cartesian position from a generally " sensational " standpoint.

The decrees of this council defined Roman Catholicism against the Reformation; and, while failing to regenerate morality, they enforced a hypocritical observance of public decency.

His theory of the development of free-will (the objective spirit), which takes its start from Kant's conception of history, with its three stages of legal right, morality as determined by motive and instinctive goodness (Sittlichkeit), might almost as well be expressed in terms of a thoroughly naturalistic doctrine of human development.

The spirit of the book reflects the general transition between allegory and narrative, morality and drama.

Similarly the cynical contempt which Nietzsche shows for morality and the conventional virtues is counterbalanced by the theory of the 0bermensch, 'the highest type of manhood.

His revolt against Christian faith and morals turns him into a proudly atheistic "free-thinker," and preacher of a new "master" morality, which transposes the current valuations, deposes the "Christian virtues," and incites the "over-man" ruthlessly to trample under foot the servile herd of the weak, degenerate and poor in spirit.

It was written from the point of view of a Quaker who did not believe in revealed religion, but who held that "all religions are in their nature mild and benign" when not associated with political systems. Intermixed with the coarse unceremonious ridicule of what he considered superstition and bad faith are many passages of earnest and even lofty eloquence in favour of a pure morality founded on natural religion.

Steeped in pagan learning, emulous of imitating the manners of the ancients, used to think and feel in harmony with Ovid and Theocritus, and at the same time rendered cynical by the corruption of papal Rome, the educated classes lost their grasp upon morality.

Warburton boldly admitted the fact and turned it against the adversary by maintaining that no merely human legislator would have omitted such a sanction of morality.

Yet it is in this religion of Zeus that we see most clearly the achievement of progressive morality; Zeus himself punishes and abolishes the savage practice; the story related by Plutarch, 2 how a kid was substituted miraculously for Helen when she was led to the altar to be offered, is a remarkably close parallel to the biblical legend of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac.

After her repudiation he married, probably for political reasons, his full-sister Arsinoe (II.), the widow of Lysimachus, by an Egyptian custom abhorrent to Greek morality.

It has always been maintained by convinced libertarians that without a belief in the freedom of the will morality becomes unmeaning (see Determinism).

Lastly, we must observe that, in proportion as the legal conception of morality as a code of which the violation deserves, supernatural punishment predominated over the philosophic view of ethics as the method for attaining natural felicity, the question of man's freedom of will to obey the law necessarily became prominent.

He traces this opposition into the forms in which it appears in the social life of mankind (as, e.g., in the difficulty of reconciling the conflicting claims of individual self-development and self-culture and social service), and finds " a hidden root of insincerity and hypocrisy beneath all morality " (p. 243), inasmuch as it is not possible to pursue any one type of ideal without some departure from singleness of purpose.

The austere simplicity of the ritual which Farel had introduced, and to which Calvin had conformed; the strictness with which the ministers sought to enforce not only the laws of morality, but certain sumptuary regulations respecting the dress and mode of living of the citizens; and their determination in spiritual matters and ecclesiastical ceremonies not to submit to the least dictation from the civil power, led to violent dissensions.

Lecturer makes rapier points about constitutional discrepancies, Solid wants to bludgeon us with street morality; some points I even agree with.

Moreover, God has ordained, even in the bible, morally repugnant things, by the standards of human morality.

Morality would not be a rational if moral skepticism were true.

In a moralistic or a strong-willed mother the morality or the strong will power go hand-in-hand with a dominant sense of pride.

Morality is synonymous with freedom; the freedom to grow into an autonomous person.

Authority transference is the admiration of the pattern of authority and morality that is exerted by the parent.

Morality, considered as the unthinking acceptance of social values, is derived from the social conditioning of the child.

These sites are quite upfront about their morals and morality concerning sex and related issues.

As you may have guessed, Frylock is the most intelligent among his Aqua Teen cohorts and frequently spends his time in vain trying to convey a sense of morality to both Meatwad and Shake.

If issues of morality and fairness don't convince you, perhaps the threat of being kicked out of college will.

Giving them the knowledge will give them the confidence to make decisions and creative positive morality when buying games on their own.

With all of the focus on Fable's morality system, it really seems like they could've spent some more time on the actually content of the game.

Nevertheless, Fable is a worthwhile adventure, and the morality system is definitely worth checking out.

Through his research on how children formed their judgments about moral behavior, he recognized that children learn morality best by having to deal with others in groups.

Morality is acting in accordance to what the social group says is right and moral.

Some teenagers and adults move beyond conventional morality and enter morality based on reason, examining the relative values and opinions of the groups with which they interact.

Because of this, his model is based on a concept of morality based on equity and justice, which places most men in stage five or six.

Nevertheless, the morality of care theory opened up explorations of moral reasoning in many groups and cultures.

Self-oriented morality coincided with Kohlberg's pre-conventional morality.

Authority-oriented morality again is similar to Kohlberg's Law and Order stage.

Peer-authority morality is moral conformity based on the conventions and rules of a social group.

Collective-oriented morality is an extension of the peer-authority stage.

Objectively-oriented morality is akin to Kohlberg's universal principles stage.

Briefly, the social learning theory approach claims that humans develop morality by learning the rules of acceptable behavior from their external environment, an essentially behaviorist approach.

Psychoanalytic theory proposes instead that morality develops through humans' conflict between their instinctual drives and the demands of society.

Cognitive development theories view morality as an outgrowth of cognition, or reasoning, whereas personality theories are holistic in their approach, taking into account all the factors that contribute to human development.

Those who believe infants are born with no moral sense tend toward social learning or behaviorist theories, because all morality must therefore be learned from the external environment.

Others who believe humans are innately aggressive and completely self-oriented are more likely to accept psychoanalytic theories where morality is the learned management of socially destructive internal drives.

What constitutes mature morality is a subject of great controversy.

Each society develops its own set of norms and standards for acceptable behavior, leading many to say that morality is entirely culturally conditioned.

The rise in crime, drug and alcohol abuse, gang violence, teen parenthood, and suicide in Western society has also caused a rise in concern over morality and moral development.

People also show a lack of consistent morality by sometimes choosing to act in a way that they know is not moral, while continuing to consider themselves moral people.

The Moral Balance model proposes that most humans operate out of a limited or flexible morality.

If given proper encouragement and the opportunity to practice a coherent inner sense of morality, however, most people will develop a balanced morality to guide their day-to-day interactions with their world.

This is clearly seen in the adolescent's increased facility and interest in thinking about interpersonal relationships, politics, philosophy, religion, and morality.

She may wear a skimpy outfit when saving the world and dispensing justice, but there's nothing skimpy about her intelligence, morality and physical power.

This essentially means that ethics in the workplace are no different then ethics anywhere else, since morality doesn't usually change based on location.

Fahrenheit 451, his most famous novel, is the only one he considers to be true science fiction, and a case could be made that it is really a throw-back to an earlier form of literature, the morality play.

Whether you believe that fairy tales are just morality plays for children, or that they have grown from basic cultural archetypes and our fundamental beliefs, they speak in a kind of literary shorthand.

It was about privacy and morality.

Again she had abandoned morality and shamed herself in front of him.

She was strong willed – especially when it came to issues about morality.