- A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?
A utilitarian view asserts that it is obligatory to flip the switch. According to simple utilitarianism, flipping the switch would be not only permissible, but, morally speaking, the better option (the other option being no action at all).
An alternate viewpoint is that since moral wrongs are already in place in the situation, flipping the switch constitutes a participation in the moral wrong, making one partially responsible for the death when otherwise the mad philosopher would be the sole culprit. An opponent of action may also point to the incommensurability of human lives.
Under some interpretations of moral obligation, simply being present in this situation and being able to influence its outcome constitutes an obligation to participate. If this were the case, then deciding to do nothing would be considered an immoral act if one values five lives more than one.
In Ecce Homo Nietzsche called the establishment of moral systems based on a dichotomy of good and evil a "calamitous error",and wished to initiate are-evaluation of the values of the Judeo-Christian world. He indicates his desire to bring about a new, more naturalistic source of value in the vital impulses of life itself.
Nietzsche's genealogical account of the development of master-slave morality occupies a central place. Nietzsche presents master-morality as the original system of morality—perhaps best associated with Homeric Greece. Here, value arises as a contrast between good and bad, or between 'life-affirming' and 'life-denying': wealth, strength, health, and power, the sort of traits found in a Homeric hero, count as good; while bad is associated with the poor, weak, sick, and pathetic, the sort of traits conventionally associated with slaves in ancient times.
Symposium (Plato)
Socrates said that he had sought out Diotima of Mantinea (lit. "honored by Zeus") for her knowledge. Socrates then proceeds to relate her story of Love's genealogy, nature and purpose (201d).
Diotima explains that Love is the son of "Resource" (father) and "Poverty" (mother). Love has attributes from both parents. Love is beggarly, harsh and a master of artifice and deception (203d) and is delicately balanced and resourceful(204c). Diotima states that humans have the yearning to procreate, mentally and physically, this desire is the expression of humanity's desire for immortality (207a-b). Diotima's explanation of Love entails how to become a Philosopher, or a Lover of wisdom, and by doing so one will give birth to intellectual children of greater immortality than any conceived through procreation.
Platonic love
The spiritual ideas of platonic love—as well as the fundamental spiritual emphasis of all of Plato's writings—have been de-emphasized over the last two centuries.
The English term dates back as far as Sir William Davenant's Platonic Lovers (1636). It is derived from the concept in Plato's Symposium of the love of the idea of good which lies at the root of all virtue and truth. For a brief period, Platonic love was a fashionable subject at the English royal court, especially in the circle around Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of King Charles I. Platonic love was the theme of some of the courtly masques performed in the Caroline era—though the fashion soon waned under pressures of social and political change.
Barbara Graziosi, professor of Classics at Durham University, described Platonic love as the "Christian apology" of Greek love.
In the history of sexuality, Greek love is a concept of homoeroticism within the classical tradition. It is one of the "classically inspired erotic imaginings" by means of which later cultures have articulated their own discourse about homosexuality. The metaphor of "Greek love" becomes most vivid historically in periods when the reception of classical antiquity is an important influence on dominant aesthetic or intellectual movements.
"Greek love" should not be understood as referring to historical homosexual practices in ancient Greece, but to the conceptualizing of those practices among other cultures:
The ancient Greeks did not conceive of sexual orientation as a social identifier, as Western societies have done for the past century. Greek society did not distinguish sexual desire or behavior by the gender of the participants, but rather by the role that each participant played in the sex act, that of active penetrator or passive penetrated.This active/passive polarization corresponded with dominant and submissive social roles: the active (penetrative) role was associated with masculinity, higher social status, and adulthood, while the passive role was associated with femininity, lower social status, and youth.
wikipedia and Britannica Encyclopedia
