Adiaphora

Adiaphora, also: adiaphora (from Greek ἀδιάφορα " not distinctive in " / " unausgezeichnet " adiaphoron, Sg, also Adiaphorismus / - isms; German means things) are according to the understanding of the Stoic philosophy as well as in Christian theology things in are ethical point of neutral, that is, beyond an assignment as good or evil.

Specifically, there are two of each other divisive issues:

• What's for the people that really good - and what is it ultimately indifferent?
• Are there specific actions that are neither good nor evil, ie are morally neutral?

The adiaphora in the Stoic ethics

The Stoics, who coined the term, defined only two things as morally fixable:

• The virtue as the only good and
• Vice as the only evil.

Everything else is a adiaphoron. So things are like life, the beauty, the wealth or health morally neutral, as it were " indifferent ". Well, that is only what virtue is. Everything else is indifferent, especially all conventional cargo / evil.

Among the indifferent in themselves goods, there are those to which man has a natural inclination. Virtue consists in the rational choice and rational use of these nature-friendly things. Whether this but actually acquires, possesses or loses, is ultimately indifferent to the virtue and happiness of the people.

Ethically important to the Stoic adiaphora - teaching is the elaboration of the difference between the morally good and the außermoralisch good. Thus, the focus is directed to the question of what constitutes human morality.

The Stoic doctrine was adiaphora within the school partially ( Ariston of Chios, etc.) developed one-sided in the sense that all is not identical with the inner attitude absolutely indifferent. This could promote a cynical libertinism.

Philosophical positions

• The core of human morality:

According to Plutarch, the way is only hypothetical concern: He acts as if life, wealth, honor, etc. were real goods.

Kant emphasizes that well could be the human will alone.

• The possibility of specific neutral actions:

Fichte and Kant - and previously Epicurus ( 341-270 BC) - were considered in the concrete there would be no adiaphora.

Reception in Christianity

• The hypothetical relationship to the world of Adiophorie:

The company represented by Plutarch " hypothetical world ratio of Adiophorie " is also seen as a specifically Christian: no exaggerated concern for the goods of life and consciousness of their undeserved gift and temporary character.

• The possibility of indifferent acts:

In the patristic Clement of Alexandria and Origen attacked the doctrine on the adiaphora. For Origen, however, with the new viewpoint that indifferent things of God or charity could be good by the relationship to. For Augustine, however, there was no action, " which could remain neutral between virtue and sin."

Others

In the 16th century there was a Adiaphoristenstreit between orthodox Lutherans and followers of Melanchthon that certain religious practices (as opposed to the actual matters of faith ) considered as adiaphora. The Oxford English Dictionary has this term as an indifference to religious matters.