The foundational divide between moral law and virtue is usually cast in Greek terms as “the universal” vs. “the particular.” Is moral law the same everywhere? Yes, say the universalists. What we call virtue in Sparta is also virtue in Athens. If murder is wrong in one city, it is wrong in all. To universalists, there can be no separate morality for each and every culture, creating thereby a world in which we are strangers to one another, a world in which moral evaluations are turned upside down as we move from place to place.
Those who defend the other side of the debate—the particular—argue strong and moderate versions. The strong holds that there is no universal language of moral virtue, no general moral truth. There is only the code of virtue embedded in our culture—in our own “language game,” as twentieth-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein later put it. Wittgenstein famously argued that the limits of his language were the limits of his world. A weaker version of his thesis holds that, while there may not be a bright line between moral universals and particulars, there can be major distinctions between virtuous and non-virtuous behavior, and what cultures consider right or wrong.
Philosophers never truly settled this matter to anyone’s satisfaction. Which is why it goes unresolved to this day. It surfaces most dramatically in times of violent cultural encounter. Thus, there are those who would defend al Qaeda terrorism on the grounds that, within Osama bin Laden’s frame of reference, killing as many enemy non-combatants as possible, including women and children, is the “right thing to do.” In carrying out his violent quest, as the argument goes, bin Laden was only defending his religious convictions.
I recall occasions post-9/11 when I was challenged on this issue in specifically gendered terms. The questions went something like this: What if they (Arab women) don’t even have the words for gender equality that we take for granted? If the faith demands that a woman wear a burqa, how can we say that her equality is violated when a man requires her to do so? Or beats her with a stick should she unwittingly display a bit of ankle? We may not like it, but it is the way the culture works. These were for me rather surprising questions to be put by young American university students in an age of gender parity. But perhaps, I mused, it isn’t so odd after all if we trace the debate from ancient to present and think through the ways our forebears determined all questions of truth, justice, and moral conscience.
We need to add one more ingredient to this already fulsome mix—namely, whether the moral law we set for ourselves was conceived along lines of what we now refer to routinely as race, gender, ethnicity, or religion. The Greeks distinguished between those who were authentically Greek and those who were barbaroi, barbarians. Among the authentically Greek, a further internal distinction was made, and it was by gender. Are men and women identical when it comes to moral law? Can women know the truth of the Forms (Plato’s question) as men of merit can?
Furthermore, if men and women play different social roles based on their respective natures, how do we calibrate their moral standing? How can we judge where the greatest moral good is to be found? Are men, on average, more capable than women of understanding and internalizing universal standards of Truth and Virtue? Plato’s argument cannot be unpacked in detail here but, to reduce it to its simplest form, he held that men were, by nature, more likely to be fit subjects for the contemplative life, a way of life made possible within the polis or city.
In The Republic, Plato’s utopian picture of the ideal if not perfect city—those who rise to the heights in which truth is contemplated—are overwhelmingly male and form a class he calls “the guardians.” What sort of society was good, just, and worthy of serving as a template of human virtue? Plato’s formula was simple: A just man can exist without a just city, but a just city cannot exist without at least a few just men. Plato’s guardians were responsible for society’s highest functions; as public, spirited, virtuous men, they would rule for the common good.
As it turns out, Plato made room for women: a few could get in on the act. But, according to him, it would be difficult. Why? Because women were oriented to the particular, to an ethic circumscribed by the household. Such citizens would not be capable of achieving the necessary virtue. They would not easily surrender themselves to the unconditional bond between individual and state that Plato believed necessary to render the polis as one. It follows that the few women who made it into the guardian class would be mated with the boldest and bravest male guardians.
But those women were forbidden from knowing their own infants. When a guardian woman gave birth, her child was taken at once to a special section of the city. There, minders cared for the young. When a child needed to nurse, he or she was handed randomly to a lactating female. Why all these wrenchings? In addition to the hope that breeding between superior males and females would continue to perpetuate an aristocracy of the best and the brightest, it was held that private homes, sexual attachments, and dedication to personal aims would undermine a citizen’s allegiance to the city. Plato cried: “Have we any greater evil for a city than what splits it and makes it many instead of one? Or a greater good than what binds it together?”
And so, the gauntlet was thrown. Every subsequent dispute or dialogue about gender and virtue and conscience owes something to these early formulations. In them, women are a divisive force in the polis. Their devotion to their children and their petty, private worlds limits their moral imaginations and knowledge. Mind you, we need women as we need children to be born. But in the context of early Greek philosophy, women were not trustworthy moral beings. This underlying perception set the basis for all subsequent debates about women and their political and social roles, including their niche in what one might call the “moral economy.” Plato considered them civically unreliable in light of their attachment to narrow, family loves. Does the same hold for that other titan of Greek philosophy, Aristotle? Yes, but this wants a bit of explaining. Aristotle ranks action, the vita activa, above all other human enterprise. In his estimation, two classes of people are cut off from thevita activa: women and slaves.
So it was that the Greek philosophers consigned women to a world of lesser virtue, for the oikos, or household, can never rise to universal moral truths. The home is too mired in the realm of biology and reproduction—an indispensable realm, surely, but limited. Women, slaves, and laborers are “necessary conditions” of the state. Men, by contrast, are integral. In such ways was the class or category “woman” deemed inferior to the class or category “man.” From that premise the rest was straightforward: Women are to be barred from citizenship and an active participation in the polis. They cannot be judged in the same way as a free male. And so, despite disagreements on the moral life, Plato and Aristotle held hands on the gender question—with exceptions here and there. That Plato was willing to admit a few women into his guardian class does little to remedy his overall view of the morally limited family and the private life that the overwhelming majority of women serve.
by Jean Bethke Elshtain, VQR | Read more:
Those who defend the other side of the debate—the particular—argue strong and moderate versions. The strong holds that there is no universal language of moral virtue, no general moral truth. There is only the code of virtue embedded in our culture—in our own “language game,” as twentieth-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein later put it. Wittgenstein famously argued that the limits of his language were the limits of his world. A weaker version of his thesis holds that, while there may not be a bright line between moral universals and particulars, there can be major distinctions between virtuous and non-virtuous behavior, and what cultures consider right or wrong.Philosophers never truly settled this matter to anyone’s satisfaction. Which is why it goes unresolved to this day. It surfaces most dramatically in times of violent cultural encounter. Thus, there are those who would defend al Qaeda terrorism on the grounds that, within Osama bin Laden’s frame of reference, killing as many enemy non-combatants as possible, including women and children, is the “right thing to do.” In carrying out his violent quest, as the argument goes, bin Laden was only defending his religious convictions.
I recall occasions post-9/11 when I was challenged on this issue in specifically gendered terms. The questions went something like this: What if they (Arab women) don’t even have the words for gender equality that we take for granted? If the faith demands that a woman wear a burqa, how can we say that her equality is violated when a man requires her to do so? Or beats her with a stick should she unwittingly display a bit of ankle? We may not like it, but it is the way the culture works. These were for me rather surprising questions to be put by young American university students in an age of gender parity. But perhaps, I mused, it isn’t so odd after all if we trace the debate from ancient to present and think through the ways our forebears determined all questions of truth, justice, and moral conscience.
We need to add one more ingredient to this already fulsome mix—namely, whether the moral law we set for ourselves was conceived along lines of what we now refer to routinely as race, gender, ethnicity, or religion. The Greeks distinguished between those who were authentically Greek and those who were barbaroi, barbarians. Among the authentically Greek, a further internal distinction was made, and it was by gender. Are men and women identical when it comes to moral law? Can women know the truth of the Forms (Plato’s question) as men of merit can?
Furthermore, if men and women play different social roles based on their respective natures, how do we calibrate their moral standing? How can we judge where the greatest moral good is to be found? Are men, on average, more capable than women of understanding and internalizing universal standards of Truth and Virtue? Plato’s argument cannot be unpacked in detail here but, to reduce it to its simplest form, he held that men were, by nature, more likely to be fit subjects for the contemplative life, a way of life made possible within the polis or city.
In The Republic, Plato’s utopian picture of the ideal if not perfect city—those who rise to the heights in which truth is contemplated—are overwhelmingly male and form a class he calls “the guardians.” What sort of society was good, just, and worthy of serving as a template of human virtue? Plato’s formula was simple: A just man can exist without a just city, but a just city cannot exist without at least a few just men. Plato’s guardians were responsible for society’s highest functions; as public, spirited, virtuous men, they would rule for the common good.
As it turns out, Plato made room for women: a few could get in on the act. But, according to him, it would be difficult. Why? Because women were oriented to the particular, to an ethic circumscribed by the household. Such citizens would not be capable of achieving the necessary virtue. They would not easily surrender themselves to the unconditional bond between individual and state that Plato believed necessary to render the polis as one. It follows that the few women who made it into the guardian class would be mated with the boldest and bravest male guardians.
But those women were forbidden from knowing their own infants. When a guardian woman gave birth, her child was taken at once to a special section of the city. There, minders cared for the young. When a child needed to nurse, he or she was handed randomly to a lactating female. Why all these wrenchings? In addition to the hope that breeding between superior males and females would continue to perpetuate an aristocracy of the best and the brightest, it was held that private homes, sexual attachments, and dedication to personal aims would undermine a citizen’s allegiance to the city. Plato cried: “Have we any greater evil for a city than what splits it and makes it many instead of one? Or a greater good than what binds it together?”
And so, the gauntlet was thrown. Every subsequent dispute or dialogue about gender and virtue and conscience owes something to these early formulations. In them, women are a divisive force in the polis. Their devotion to their children and their petty, private worlds limits their moral imaginations and knowledge. Mind you, we need women as we need children to be born. But in the context of early Greek philosophy, women were not trustworthy moral beings. This underlying perception set the basis for all subsequent debates about women and their political and social roles, including their niche in what one might call the “moral economy.” Plato considered them civically unreliable in light of their attachment to narrow, family loves. Does the same hold for that other titan of Greek philosophy, Aristotle? Yes, but this wants a bit of explaining. Aristotle ranks action, the vita activa, above all other human enterprise. In his estimation, two classes of people are cut off from thevita activa: women and slaves.
So it was that the Greek philosophers consigned women to a world of lesser virtue, for the oikos, or household, can never rise to universal moral truths. The home is too mired in the realm of biology and reproduction—an indispensable realm, surely, but limited. Women, slaves, and laborers are “necessary conditions” of the state. Men, by contrast, are integral. In such ways was the class or category “woman” deemed inferior to the class or category “man.” From that premise the rest was straightforward: Women are to be barred from citizenship and an active participation in the polis. They cannot be judged in the same way as a free male. And so, despite disagreements on the moral life, Plato and Aristotle held hands on the gender question—with exceptions here and there. That Plato was willing to admit a few women into his guardian class does little to remedy his overall view of the morally limited family and the private life that the overwhelming majority of women serve.
