Ethics Finder

Women

In English the word ‘man’ is ambiguous between a) adult human male, b) human being or person in general, and c) the abstract sense of ‘humanity’. Which is intended has to be determined from the context. In ancient Hebrew, Greek and Latin, however, there are different terms for each, thus the species kind is referred to by dm, anthropos and homo, respectively. This sometimes misleads readers who assume that when ancient or medieval writers speak of ‘man’ they are privileging the male over the female which need not be the case. Thus, the famous syllogism ‘Socrates is a man’, all men are mortal, therefore Socrates is mortal’ is not intended to concern only males, and in the anthropos sense it would be equally sound to argue with respect to Socrates’s wife ‘Xanthippe is a man, all men are mortal, therefore Xanthippe is mortal’. The question, therefore, of whether ancient writers are ‘sexist’ is not answered simply by pointing to English translations which use the word ‘man’ where we might prefer now prefer ‘human being’ or ‘humanity’. In Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew bible, the term ‘Adam’ is not exclusively male but is used in all three of the senses mentioned above: an adult male, a human being, and humanity; and in the New Testament where Paul writes as in “Adam all men died so in Christ are all men raised up” (I Corinthians) “all men” translates the Greek anthropou and Latin hominem, and not words for male human. Likewise for the phrase ‘son of man’ in old and new testaments: ‘man’ = mankind. All of that said there is evidence that in Judaism and early Christianity, and in Greek philosophy males were thought to be prior and /or superior to females. Genesis states that God created humankind by creating Adam, but then seeing that he needed a partner God took one of Adam’s ribs and made a woman (Eve) out of it. Here woman appears as an ‘afterthought ‘and is physically derived from man. Also, in I Corinthians Paul writes that women should be silent in church and in submission to their husbands. In philosophy, Plato regarded men and women as equal in intellectual and moral respects . His student Aristotle, however, states that human embryos are naturally male and it is only when there is a transformation that females result. He also thought that the qualities of the two sexes are different but those of males are superior. In short the theological and philosophical sources are mixed. Moving from historical ideas to the present, the task of philosophical anthropology is to give a broad and deep descriptive and explanatory account of human beings. The question is whether there are significant differences between men and women has been much discussed in recent times. The primary and secondary sexual characteristics apart the issue is whether they differ cognitively, affectively and in moral out look; and if they do whether one or other set of characteristics is better than the other. For example it has been argued that women see situations and the world itself holistically while men see them atomistically. Again, it has been argued that in ethical thinking women favour virtues of compassion and care while men favour justice and rights.

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