What is the difference between morality and virtue?
morality | virtue |
(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:
(obsolete) The inherent power of a god, or other supernatural being.
The inherent power or efficacy of something (now only in phrases).
* 2011 , "The autumn of the patriarchs", The Economist , 17 Feb 2011:
(uncountable) Accordance with moral principles; conformity of behaviour or thought with the strictures of morality; good moral conduct.
* 1749 , Henry Fielding, Tom Jones , XV.1:
A particular manifestation of moral excellence in a person; an admirable quality.
* 1766 , Laurence Sterne, Sermon XLIV:
Specifically, each of several qualities held to be particularly important, including the four cardinal virtues, the three theological virtues, or the seven virtues opposed to the seven deadly sins.
* 1813 , John Fleetwood, The Life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ :
An inherently advantageous or excellent quality of something or someone; a favourable point, an advantage.
* 1719 , :
* 2011 , The Guardian , Letter, 14 Mar 2011
A creature embodying divine power, specifically one of the orders of heavenly beings, traditionally ranked above angels and below archangels.
* 1667 , John Milton, Paradise Lost , Book X:
(uncountable) Specifically, moral conduct in sexual behaviour, especially of women; chastity.
* 1813 , Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice :
In uncountable terms the difference between morality and virtue
is that 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 while virtue is specifically, moral conduct in sexual behaviour, especially of women; chastity.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’.
Usage notes
* Although the terms morality'' and ''ethics'' may sometimes be used interchangeably, philosophical ethicists often distinguish them, using ''morality'' and its related terms to refer to actual, real-world beliefs and practices concerning proper conduct, and using ''ethics'' to refer to theories and conceptual studies relating to good and evil and right and wrong. In this vein, the American philosopher , ed., ''The Philosophy of Brand Blanshard , Library of Living Philosophers, ISBN 0875483496, "Autobiography", p. 85.Synonyms
* decency, rectitude, righteousness, uprightness, virtuousness * (personal guiding principles) morals * conventions, morals, mores * (lesson or pronouncement which contains advice) homily * (branch of philosophy) ethics, moral philosophy * ethics, moral philosophyAntonyms
* amorality, immoralityDerived terms
* antimorality * morality play * morality taleExternal links
* * *References
Anagrams
*virtue
English
(wikipedia virtue)Alternative forms
* vertue (archaic)Noun
- many Egyptians still worry that the Brotherhood, by virtue of discipline and experience, would hold an unfair advantage if elections were held too soon.
- There are a set of religious, or rather moral, writers, who teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery, in this world.
- Some men are modest, and seem to take pains to hide their virtues ; and, from a natural distance and reserve in their tempers, scarce suffer their good qualities to be known [...].
- The divine virtues of truth and equity are the only bands of friendship, the only supports of society.
- There were divers other plants, which I had no notion of or understanding about, that might, perhaps, have virtues of their own, which I could not find out.
- One virtue of the present coalition government's attack on access to education could be to reopen the questions raised so pertinently by Robinson in the 1960s [...].
- Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues , Powers; / For in possession such, not only of right, / I call ye, and declare ye now [...].
- though she did not suppose Lydia to be deliberately engaging in an elopement without the intention of marriage, she had no difficulty in believing that neither her virtue nor her understanding would preserve her from falling an easy prey.