Overview
DISCUSSION QUESTION CHOICE #1: What does it mean to be a good person? Compare how at least two (2) philosophers / texts in part 2 address these questions and explain how they compare to your own understanding of the question. Use what you have learned in the Required Readings on Ethics, the hermeneutic circle of meaning in the texts you've selected, your own judgments and reasoning to make your case. Remember the requirement to quote both from the Required Readings and the Philosophical Texts at least once each in your Original Post.
DISCUSSION QUESTION CHOICE #2: How do we have a "duty" to be good? Compare how at least two (2) philosophers / texts in part 2 address this question and explain how they compare to your own understanding of the question. Use what you have learned in the Required Readings on Ethics, the hermeneutic circle of meaning in the texts you've selected, your own judgments and reasoning to make your case. Remember the requirement to quote both from the Required Readings and the Philosophical Texts at least once each in your Original Post.
DISCUSSION QUESTION CHOICE #3: How ought we to live our life? Compare how at least two (2) philosophers / texts in part 2 address this question and explain how they compare to your own understanding of the question. Use what you have learned in the Required Readings on Ethics, the hermeneutic circle of meaning in the texts you've selected, your own judgments and reasoning to make your case. Remember the requirement to quote both from the Required Readings and the Philosophical Text at least once each in your Original Post.
Write a "Reply Posts" answering the questions of two classmates who asked questions in their Response Posts to your Original Post
post #1
Good Afternoon Everyone,
“The superior person thinks of virtue; the small person thinks of comfort. The superior person thinks of the law; the small person thinks of favors.”(Legge) Confucius in this text seems to be saying that you should put respect above all. This applies to all aspects of life, whether that be respect for the law, your elders, or what you know deep down to be virtuous. I personally believe this to be a good way of living life; it can remove a lot of unnecessary stress involved in the consequences of not following a set path. In my mind, I read this and think of someone who keeps their word and trusts their gut feeling. I think we have all had moments where we knew we made the wrong decision, but convinced ourselves that we didn’t, however, deep down we knew we messed up. In order to become better people, we must learn from those mistakes and realize we are better than the person we were yesterday, last week, or even many years ago.
“Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect; and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate. Hence in respect of its substance and the definition which states its essence virtue is a mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme.”(Ross) Aristotle brings a better understanding of what I meant in the last paragraph. In this text, Aristotle says that the right choice is a mean between two vices, excess, and defect. The two vices are a great example of the gut feeling I was writing about. To make the good choice, in my view, is to know your place in any given situation, whether it be as a cop who is off duty, and you see someone in trouble, whether you see someone struggling to lift something, or even something as simple as holding the door open for someone following behind you. We all have an idea of what is right, and we have to find the sweet spot where our effort is most useful.
References
James Legge, The Chinese Classics (Confucian Analects). Vol 1. (1893). This text is in the Public Domain.
W.D. Ross, The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, Text is in the Public Domain