Our instincts do require us to learn good teachings in order to decipher correctly how to interpret our instincts, especially when we find ourselves in situations our ancestors never had to deal with (which many people encounter today on a daily basis in the modern world).
This is not to suggest that our instincts are always correct but rather that those qualities which have allowed humans to build prosperous civilizations are essentially ‘good’ to us at an instinctual level. The prosperity that many generations of humans gained when the members of their communities abided by these qualities have left us with an inherited genetic memory - that which we call ‘instinct’. My explanation for this occurrence is that humans naturally come up with labels for these qualities because our instincts tell us that these virtues define the quality of that which is ‘good’, for these are the personal qualities that made our ancestors’ tribes safer and more stable. Every human culture has a set list of virtues that developed and date back to ancient human history the periods of early civilization and tribalism.īecause the names we prescribe to virtues are labels of our own invention, many people dismiss these as nothing but noble lies yet these concepts are universal to humans, appearing in every culture. Virtues even appear within other non-European cultures there is for example the Eightfold Path of Buddhism and Confucianism also has a set of virtues, too. There are the well known cardinal virtues of Platonic thought, and the later seven heavenly virtues of Catholic Christianity that heavily influenced concepts of chivalry for European knights and stood in contrast to the seven deadly sins. Yet virtues are universal concepts appearing in every human culture. Over generations as the social class of knight declined in influence these chivalrous ideals became the code of the remaining classes of nobility and trickle downed to lower social classes as the concept of a gentleman took shape. Most codes of chivalry were very similar to each other and covered the same general ideas of what constituted honorable and noble behavior. For example The Latin Rule, a document of 72 clauses, outlined the regulations and prescribed the etiquette for members of the Knights Templars. The specific codes each order followed sometimes differed between these groups of knights. Chivalry was an informal code practiced among historical knights, with some codes specifically tied to certain knightly orders. Historically, the code of chivalry is a code of conduct followed by knights. “Chivalry! – why, maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection – the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant – Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword.” -Walter Scott, Ivanhoe (1820) I believe my code is a relevant moral compass for the modern world and can be of assistance to others, which is why I am sharing it here in this article.Ħ Concluding Thoughts on Virtues, Faults and the Code of Chivalry What is Chivalry and Virtues? It is a philosophical code by which I live my life in accordance with traditional ideas through a lens of Humanist ideals. After spending many years studying all major religions and looking for common threads between them I developed what I refer to as ‘Chivalric Humanism’. As atheism is not a moral philosophy in and of itself, I have needed to construct my own ethical code. Yet I still find value in these traditional ideas such as virtues and codes of chivalry, as I respect and acknowledge what these ideas produce in society is good for all. I was raised as a Lutheran but have abandoned superstitious ways of thinking about the world and my place within it in favor of a more objective, scientifically based one. As many people are under the erroneous impression that chivalry is only a set of rules for how a man treats a woman it is probably worth being more clear on what is meant when I refer to such things. I have written several articles that mention virtues and chivalry for a modern gentleman but it occurs to me that I have yet to publish an article dedicated expressly to the topic of what virtues and a code of chivalry is.
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