Character vs Morality - What's the difference?
character | morality |
A being involved in the action of a story.
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1
, passage=The stories did not seem to me to touch life. […] They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.}}
* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=April 26, author=Tasha Robinson, work=The Onion AV Club
, title= A distinguishing feature; characteristic.
A complex of mental and ethical traits marking a person or a group.
* Motley
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=3
, passage=Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.}}
Strength of mind; resolution; independence; individuality; moral strength.
A unique or extraordinary individual; a person characterized by peculiar or notable traits, especially charisma.
A written or printed symbol, or letter.
* Holder
Style of writing or printing; handwriting; the particular form of letters used by a person or people.
* Shakespeare
(computing) One of the basic elements making up a text file or string: a code representing a printing character or a control character.
(informal) A person or individual, especially one who is unknown or raises suspicions.
(mathematics) A complex number representing an element of a finite Abelian group.
Quality, position, rank, or capacity; quality or conduct with respect to a certain office or duty.
(dated) The estimate, individual or general, put upon a person or thing; reputation.
* Addison
(dated) A reference given to a servant, attesting to his/her behaviour, competence, etc.
(uncountable) Recognition]] of the distinction between good and evil or between right and wrong; respect for and obedience to the rules of right conduct; the mental disposition or characteristic of [[behave, behaving in a manner intended to produce morally good results.
* 1841 , , Heroes and Hero Worship , ch. 3:
* 1910 , , Theft: A Play In Four Acts , "Characters":
* 1911 , , Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens , ch. 16:
* 1965 , "
(countable) A set of social rules, customs, traditions, beliefs, or practices which specify proper, acceptable forms of conduct.
* 1912 , , Pygmalion , act 5:
* 1917 , . The Yukon Trail , ch. 14:
(countable) A set of personal guiding principles for conduct or a general notion of how to behave, whether respectable or not.
* 1781 , , "Sheffield" in Lives of the Poets :
* 1994 , "Man Convicted of Murder in '92 Bludgeoning," San Jose Mercury News , 4 Nov., p. 2B:
(countable, archaic) A lesson or pronouncement which contains advice about proper behavior.
* 1824 , , St. Ronan's Well , ch. 16:
* 1882 , , "Vanitas Vanitatum" in Ballads ,
(uncountable, rare) Moral philosophy, the branch of philosophy which studies the grounds and nature of rightness, wrongness, good, and evil.
* 1953 , J. Kemp, "Review of The Claim of Morality'' by N.H.G. Robinson," ''The Philosophical Quarterly , vol. 3, no. 12, p. 278:
(countable, rare) A particular theory concerning the grounds and nature of rightness, wrongness, good, and evil.
* 1954 , , "Ethics and Moral Controversy," The Philosophical Quarterly , vol. 4, no. 14, p. 11:
As nouns the difference between character and morality
is that character is a being involved in the action of a story while morality is recognition of the distinction between good and evil or between right and wrong; respect for and obedience to the rules of right conduct; the mental disposition or characteristic of behaving in a manner intended to produce morally good results.As a verb character
is to write (using characters); To describe.character
English
Noun
Film: Reviews: The Pirates! Band Of Misfits, passage=But Pirates! comes with all the usual Aardman strengths intact, particularly the sense that its characters and creators alike are too good-hearted and sweet to nitpick. The ambition is all in the craft rather than in the storytelling, but it’s hard to say no to the proficiency of that craft, or the mild good cheer behind it. }}
- a man of thoroughly subservient character
- He has a great deal of character .
- Julius Caesar is a great historical character .
- It were much to be wished that there were throughout the world but one sort of character for each letter to express it to the eye.
- an inscription in the Runic character
- You know the character to be your brother's?
- in the miserable character of a slave
- in his character as a magistrate
- a man's character for truth and veracity
- Her actions give her a bad character .
- This subterraneous passage is much mended since Seneca gave so bad a character of it.
Usage notes
A comparison of character'' and ''reputation'': It would be well if ''character'' and ''reputation were used distinctively. In truth, character is what a person is; reputation is what he is supposed to be. Character is in himself, reputation is in the minds of others. Character is injured by temptations, and by wrongdoing; reputation by slanders, and libels. Character endures throughout defamation in every form, but perishes when there is a voluntary transgression; reputation may last through numerous transgressions, but be destroyed by a single, and even an unfounded, accusation or aspersion.Derived terms
* cartoon character * character actor * character assassination * character class * character encoding * characterise / characterize * characterisation / characterization * characteristic * characterless * character recognition * character set * character theory * Chinese character * control character * dominant character * escape character * fictional character * in character * null character * out of character * player character * round character * staple character * stock character * whitespace character (character)See also
* codepoint * font * glyph * letter * symbol * rune * pictogramStatistics
* ----morality
English
Noun
- Without morality , intellect were impossible for him; a thoroughly immoral man'' could not know anything at all! To know a thing, what we can call knowing, a man must first ''love'' the thing, sympathize with it: that is, be ''virtuously related to it.
- Ellery Jackson Hubbard. . . . A man radiating prosperity, optimism and selfishness. Has no morality whatever. Is a conscious individualist, cold-blooded, pitiless, working only for himself, and believing in nothing but himself.
- Science and art without morality are not dangerous in the sense commonly supposed. They are not dangerous like a fire, but dangerous like a fog.
King Moves North," Time , 30 Apr.:
- It may be true that you cannot legislate morality , but behavior can be regulated.
- I have to live for others and not for myself: that's middle class morality .
- He smiled a little. "Morality is the average conduct of the average man at a given time and place. It is based on custom and expediency."
- His morality was such as naturally proceeds from loose opinions.
- Deputy District Attorney Bill Tingle called Jones "the devil's right-hand man" and said he should be punished for his "atrocious morality ."
- "She had done her duty"—"she left the matter to them that had a charge anent such things"—and "Providence would bring the mystery to light in his own fitting time"—such were the moralities with which the good dame consoled herself.
p. 195:
- What mean these stale moralities ,
- Sir Preacher, from your desk you mumble?
- Robinson sums up the conclusion of the first part of his book as being "that the task of the moralist is to set in their proper relation to one another the three different types of moral judgment . . . and so reveal the field of morality as a single self-coherent system".
- Hume's morality' which ‘implies some sentiment common to all mankind’; Kant's '''morality''' for all rational beings; Butler's ' morality with its presupposition of ‘uniformity of conscience’.