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"Might makes right" or "Might is right" is an aphorism on the origin of morality, with both descriptive and prescriptive senses. Descriptively, it asserts that a society's view of right and wrong is determined by those in power, with a meaning similar to " History is written by the victors ".
The idea that might makes right was certainly not new in Socrates’ time. The early poet Hesiod expressed this attitude in a parable: Now I will tell a fable to kings who have understanding: Once a hawk addressed a nightingale with colorful neck.
When Callicles argues that might makes right, Socrates points out that all action must aim at some objective good; any other view is indefensible.
Apr 21, 2008 · So although Spinoza is often seen as subscribing to the view that “might makes right” (see Barbone and Rice 2000, 19; McShea 1968, 139), this is misleading if it is taken as a normative claim.
Jun 23, 2023 · The idea that might makes right was certainly not new in Socrates’ time. The early poet Hesiod expressed this attitude in a parable: Hesiod goes on to say that humans should not act like...
"Might makes right" can paradoxically be considered both a deflationary definition of justice, a brutal description of the ways of the world, and a principle of injustice, and yet, nonetheless, function as a justification for action, that is, as a way of showing the justice of an action.
Jun 26, 2023 · In Plato’s Republic, book I, Socrates enters into an extended discussion of justice that engages the might-makes-right philosophy which Antiphon promoted and Thucydides uncovered as a driving...
