The questions about Virtue were the questions I found the most interesting in class on Tuesday. In “The Nic” one main question was: “What makes virtue virtuous?” Is virtue gained by habit or does one obtain it spontaneously? Another topic was motives. Often I struggle between not taking action, and questioning my motives, or taking action, letting my motives be put aside. Is something that looks good, and perhaps is good, still good if I have the wrong motives while participating in it? As you can imagine, this makes my decision-making a hard process. Some would say there is absolutely nothing good about an action, if it is done with the wrong motives. However, others say that if the product turned out good, motive or not, you’ve accomplished good, so it doesn’t matter. I’m not sure what I think about this. Motivation is very important. In a way it is what runs every human being. I don’t think you can make it as an adult in this big world without a motive. Our goals run our lives just like food runs our body. Most people have some sort of motive. They have something they want to obtain or attain. Their motive may be as simple as getting food on the table. Motives drive our worldview. They affect our perspective of the things we see and hear every single day. There are always motives. If you think about it, motives are a running force in the heart of humanity.
P.S. I commented on Ben's post.
good stuff, A. Another way to say this would be that our ends course through things (as final causes). If we have an action that does not have as its end a good (of either a higher or the highest sort), it does affect the nature of the action.
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