The idea of "woe to the conquered" is vividly expressed in Homer, in the hawk parable from Hesiod's Works and Days, and in Livy, in which the equivalent Latin phrase " vae victis" is first recorded. The phrase sometimes has a positive connotation in the context of master morality or social Darwinism, which hold that a society's strongest members should rule and determine its standards of right and wrong, as well as its goals for the greater good.
Prescriptively (or normatively), the phrase is most often used pejoratively, to protest perceived tyranny. Realist scholars of international politics use the phrase to describe the " state of nature" in which power determines the relations among sovereign states. The sociologist Max Weber analyzed the relations between a state's power and its moral authority in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. "Might makes right" has been described as the credo of totalitarian regimes. Montague defined kratocracy or kraterocracy (from the Greek κρατερός krateros, meaning "strong") as a government based on coercive power, by those strong enough to seize control through physical violence or demagogic manipulation.
That is, although all people have their personal ideas of the good, only those strong enough to overcome obstacles and enemies can put their ideas into effect, and spread their own standards to society at large. Might makes right or Might is right is an aphorism on the origin of morality, with both descriptive and prescriptive senses.ĭescriptively, it asserts that a society's view of right and wrong is determined by those in power, with a meaning similar to " History is written by the victors". For other uses, see Might makes right (disambiguation).
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