The fact that there is no word for morality as such in any ancient or medieval language should already caution us against the assumption that we know what ancient morality in general could be. And, in fact, we do not. The reason is strikingly simple: it did not exist. No one did (or does) conceive or practice morality in general. Just as there is no such thing as religion in general except in the minds of the academics who claim to study it—it does not have beliefs, it does not have practices, it does not have adherents, and so on—there is no such thing as morality in general. Indeed, strictly speaking, we cannot even think it. Morality as such is an abstraction that modern linguistic habits present to us as a possibility for thought; upon inspection, however, it turns out to be impossible to conceive. Try all you’d like; you’ll only be able to come up with particular exernplifications of the thing you think you seek. 192-93
<idle musing>
OK, that's an eye-opening observation. But, again, is there a way forward?
Because it's Friday, I guess we'll have to wait until Monday to find out. This is worse than one of those old serials on TV, where they say, "Tune in tomorrow to find out…"—or worse yet, "Tune in next week"!
</idle musing>
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