To live a virtuous life is what most people aim towards. A virtuous life is being able to make good and correct decisions in life. Jean Vanier lived a very virtuous life as he displayed the virtues of temperance, kindness and diligence.
Jean Vanier displays the virtue of temperance by creating “L’Arche” which although started with just two handicapped men, progressed and grew into more than 80 L’Arche communities. Temperance is displayed within Vanier’s life because by letting two handicapped people, Raphael and Phillipe both who were considered severely handicapped, into his small house. Temperance is the equivalent of justice. Jean Vanier wanted the handicapped people to have justice, so he fed them both, gardened with them and even learned from them. Vanier also displayed temperance because he valued humanism. Humanism is the ability to rationally solve human problems and that’s what Jean Vanier did by letting in those who were disabled. He went against all norms as well and helped these people just as Jesus Christ did. Especially when Jesus Christ said “I was a stranger, I was strange, I was different and you welcomed me”. This shows that again Jean Vanier displayed
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Jean Vanier was a very kind person. He was someone who didn’t reject handicapped people. He discovered it not the actual disability that hurts handicapped people, it the rejection of those around them. By being compassionate towards those who are hurt and handicapped, Vanier is living up to the virtue of kindness. By helping to take care of Eric (who was both blind and deaf). Vanier really lived up to the virtue of kindness because he was there for Eric. He was patient (another virtue!), he really reached out to Eric and realized that his heart is just like Vanier’s and that Eric needs love just as he does. By being there to love Eric, he formed a covenant with
According Aristotle, a virtuous person will always use reason and intellect, and effortlessly make the correct decisions in every situation. They have their hexis in the correct place, and they have truly lived and struggled. With a virtuous person, life will have not been easy, and a virtuous person will have had to experience difficult times and learn from these experiences. These experiences are what will make them a virtuous person. For example, a person who had lived their life in poverty, then makes the decision to work and study to get a high paying job. With this, they dedicate a great deal of their time and money to helping the homeless. This person would be an example of what a virtuous person, their soul has had struggled, and without this they would have not become this person. They need to have this struggle in order to become a virtuous person. With a virtuous person, they are naturally a good person.
This tone is also used to establish an appeal to pathos which he hopes to convince the audience of the fact that handicapped people are still people and not less than anyone else. A very prominent example of Peace’s emotion is displayed when he says, “Like many disabled people, I embrace an identity that is tied to my body. I have been made to feel different, inferior, since I began using a wheelchair thirty years ago and by claiming that I am disabled and proud, I am empowered,” (para. 15). This declaration demonstrates to his audience that Peace is honored by who he is and what disabled people can do and that he is tired of being oppressed by the media. Peace also makes this claim to support his thesis in the first paragraph that states, “The negative portrayal of disabled people is not only oppressive but also confirms that nondisabled people set the terms of the debate about the meaning of disability,” (para. 1). This is Peace’s central argument for the whole article and explains his frustration with society’s generalization of handicapped people and the preconceived limitations set on them. Peace’s appeal to pathos and tone throughout are extremely effective in displaying to his audience (society) that those who have disabilities are fed up with the limits that have been placed in the
Obviously not everyone thinks this way. While Epictetus thinks the best life, is an extremely reserved one, Aristotle says the most virtuous life is a mean between the extremes. For example, the virtue of courage is the mean between rashness, and cowardice.4 Aristotle and Epictetus would disagree, because from an Aristotelian viewpoint Epictetus' ideas do not lead to virtue. For Aristotle virtue is like an instrument that ...
In conclusion, humankind is blessed with life as God created it. One must reflect on their actions throughout life because one will be judged by God in the next life, one must see the importance of gasping liberation, and one must have a loving and open heart when helping the poor. Life should be lived to its fullest because once time is lost, it cannot be regained; life needs to be appreciated.
such that it is so closely tied to the virtuous activity in which a good life consists?
perform virtuous acts creates the desire to do the right thing for its own sake
The husband in Raymond Carvers “Cathedral” wasn’t enthusiastic about his wife’s old friend, whom was a blind man coming over to spend the night with them. His wife had kept in touch with the blind man since she worked for him in Seattle years ago. He didn’t know the blind man; he only heard tapes and stories about him. The man being blind bothered him, “My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to. (Carver 137)” The husband doesn’t suspect his ideas of blind people to be anything else. The husband is already judging what the blind man will be like without even getting to actually know him. It seems he has judged too soon as his ideas of the blind man change and he gets a better understanding of not only the blind man, but his self as well.
In the early parts of the 20th Century, Canada experimented with banning alcohol consumption. There were some exceptions to this, but most of Canada’s Provincial governments issued some sort of prohibitory laws. The exception being Québec who only prohibited hard liquor, meaning that they allowed the production and consumption of beverages, such as, beer. This drive towards prohibition started during the mid-19th Century. It all started during the Temperance Movement, when proponents voluntarily abstained from alcohol. This abstention was due to alcohol’s, perceived, moral downfalls. However, slowly, the various provinces reversed their restrictions on alcohol and moved from prohibition to system of coordination. There were several reasons for this change: lack of enforcement, lack of effectiveness in goal, change in public support or thought, and economic factors.
First off, is the element of forgiveness. In a book of mistrust, poverty, and hate…forgiveness thrives in the world of Les Miserables. The first example of this was at the very beginning, when Jean Valjean stayed with the bishop. Valjean stole his silver…and ran off. He ends up being caught by police, but when the police questioned the bishop, he claimed to have given the silver to Valjean. Jean was confused…and the bishop claimed that with the silver, he had purchased the convicts soul, and had given it to God, and from that day forward, Valjean must be a good man. Another example of forgiveness goes two ways. Javert, in his relentless pursuit of Valjean, is captured by revolutionaries. In reward for saving the lives of a few of these revolutionaries, Valjean asks for, and gets, permission to take Javert outside, and kill him. Once outside, a small monologue occurs…and Valjean releases Javert, and lets him go free. Valjean just wanted to be left alone in peace, and hoped this act of kindness would change Javert, and make him realize that Valjean was no longer the man he was. The second way…is that in the end, after Javert finally captures Valjean, he lets him go. Since Javert had broken the law… that he loved so dearly, he kills himself shortly thereafter, by jumping into a river.
Several people in Jean Valjeans life allow him to rediscover the meaning of love. The good bishop is the one responsible for initiating this rediscovery. Jean Valjean's new life begins when the bishop utters the words, “Jean Valjean, my brother, you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!” (30). This opens Jean Valjean to the good of the world and allows him to immerse himself in the love Cosette offers him, something he couldn't do without the help of the bishop. The bishop assists Jean Valjean in seeing that there are people who will help him despite his rocky background. This creates a reason for Jean Valjean to act on the experience to rebuild his life and become an honest man. This change of heart helps him feel the love that Cosette displays for him, which he has never known. He slowly begins to love and care f...
...eater good as a free man. Javert recognized this and provided Valjean with the opportunity, regardless of pass sins to make the world a better place.
All humans have different morals that change based on their environment and circumstance. Jean Valjean, in the novel Les Miserables(1961), changes from someone with confused morals to a man with more morals than most whom with respect learns to love and share.
There are many different interpretations of what the good life truly is. Individualists believe that the good life is pleasing oneself, while utilitarians believe that the good life is acting for the good of the rest of society. Philosophers, too, have their own interpretation. Plato alludes to the philosopher's good life ...
Virtues of thought are about achieving wisdom, knowledge, and reasoning. He believed that virtues can be gained through practice. Our character traits are grown throughout your life and as you gain experience. It is possible to work on your skills as you work to achieve your full potential. At the same time, virtues of character also should be at a mean state— finding the right balance by not having too much or being too deficient in a certain trait. All virtues center around the four moral or cardinal virtues: prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. Prudence is the virtue of determining the right goal or end. Temperance is the virtue of self-control while courage is the ability to overcome fear. Justice is about fairness and making sure everyone is given what they are rightfully due.
Doing things we are supposed to do without been enforced on us by anybody which defines part of our virtuous life, for example our moral virtue is doing what is good in regard to pleasure and pain. Nothing comes easy, to be happy and virtuous there pleasures and pains attached to it which as effects on individuals at different levels and this could either make us increase our morality or withdraw from our morality. Been happy is attaining everything we consider to make us happy without forgetting morality and what we “ought to do” in whatever situation we find