Yamagata, Naoko;
(1990)
Homeric Morality.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This thesis is an attempt to answer two questions on Homeric morality. One is whether the Homeric gods are concerned with 'justice' in human society and another is what mechanism controls the social behaviour of Homeric man. Observation of human and divine behaviour, and lexical examination of terms which are considered to reflect some moral ideas, are the main grounds of argument. Part I mainly deals with the problem of morality, or rather immorality/amorality, of the gods. Part II concentrates on the morality of Homeric man. In Part I, it is shown that the gods distribute good and bad fortune to men not in response to their moral behaviour, but as required by fate, and therefore do not function as the guardians of justice in the human world. Men, however, believe that the gods are concerned with human morality. Part II describes various forces and motivations that affect human behaviour, such as fate, honour, revenge, shame, respect and pity. It is shown that human behaviour is restrained not only by man's faith in the moral gods, but by an assortment of many different forces, social and emotional.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Homeric Morality |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Thesis digitised by ProQuest. |
| Keywords: | Philosophy, religion and theology; Social sciences; Homeric gods |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10107420 |
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