Aristotle on matricide
Yet there seem to be some acts which a man cannot be compelled to do, and rather than do them he ought to submit to the most terrible death: for instance, we think it ridiculous that Alcmaeon in Euripides’ play is compelled by certain threats to murder his mother! [Nicomachean Ethics, Bk III, Chap 1., (1110a1)]
Why is this a paradigm case of such acts? What is so special about a mother that wouldn’t also be true of a father or a daughter?
Aristotle is clearly addressing virtue in men. Would a woman feel the same way about her most nightmarish case? What form would supreme moral outrage take for her? It is not mutatis mutandis the same as his.
Moral etiquette in extremis: Sophie’s choice
If she had to kill someone in her family, and the choice was her daughter or her son, who would it be?
(There is a correct answer.)