Virtuous Minds By Phillip Dow Summary

In the essay Plain Truth, James Chalmers believed that the colonies could not win a war against England, because Chalmers believes that America’s army is not strong enough to fight against the British. Chalmers recalls from Common Sense how it mentions that America has the largest disciplined army under the heaven, but if that is the truth, America wouldn’t need support from either Spain or French. Also, neither Spain or French would help America, because if they did, it would encourage their royal colonies to fight for their independence as well. America by its own power at this stage without the help of other countries would not be strong enough to be able to go against the British. Chalmer also mentions how common people would not fight

"Virtue" is truly a complex word - an element of the essence of man - that Jane Austen portrays in her novel “Pride and Prejudice”. Through a profound scrutiny of the character of the protagonists, and through her interpretation of how vanity, pride, and self - knowledge intervenes in the development of

John Paul Lederach’s The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace goes could only have been written by someone who had spent many years in the field of conflict management. With its underlying focus of the essence of peacebuilding, it looks far beyond what one may learn in any textbook or seminar. While the first 8 chapters of the text are ripe with areas for further analysis, here I will focus only on theme, found in one chapter, in the interest of brevity. In chapter 2 of The Moral Imagination we are introduced to real life micro-case studies. The cases aim to help the reader understand how people experiencing violent conflict throughout the world have worked to “transcend the cycles of violence that bewitch our community,” building on Lederach’s statement on why the book was written. That being said, we can see that Lederach is operating under the assumption that current day peacebuilding and conflict management is not working as well as it should. It is clear that he thinks there is something more that needs to be involved in current strategies and models. He believes we must move from looking at actors in a conflict as separate involved parties and instead view parties as “a web of relationships which include our enemies.” This requires a shift in thinking for those in thefield of peacebuilding and for those involved in the conflict, but in making this shift, we can look at conflicts as existing within our communities rather than between our

What is morality? Where does our sense of morality come from and why is it important for us to know? The cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist, and scholar, Steven Pinker discusses this in his essay, “The Moral Instinct”. In this essay, Pinker claims that our morality sense is innate, it constantly changes, and it is universal among each culture. Pinker also explains that moral sense shapes our judgement as it is something that we value and seek in other people. The science of the moral sense is important since it shows how morality impacts our actions and it explains why we act in certain ways.

In the second section, he outlines the principle, or cardinal virtues: Prudence, Temperance, Justice and Fortitude, which could also be termed wisdom, self-control, fairness, equity, and steadfastness. He uses the vivid illustration of an athlete, or mathematician who practices a virtue, making a shot in tennis, or solving problems till they become internalized, a part of the person who disciplined himself to perfect them.

The Moral Themes of Peter Singer In The Moral Instinct, Steven Pinker cites Haidt’s “primary colors” of the moral sense (329). Pinker believes that all moral decisions can be categorized with these primary colors and, though everyone can see these colors, they are prioritized differently by different people. Haidt identifies five primaries—harm, fairness, community, authority, and purity—all of which make up the moral spectrum. These recurring moral themes can be found everywhere from cultural norms to the decisions and beliefs of individuals. Though the themes can be identified in works regarding ethics and morality, they—if applied correctly—can also give insight into the way the author prioritizes the moral colors.

Gladwell, Malcolm. “Building a Smart Mind.” Marita’s Bargain. Gladwell says that these KIPP schools are really doing an excellent work with the kids. Gladwell states that half of the students are african american and the rest are hispanic, which is a pretty good amount of the students. Knowing that these kids are from low income families, you really get a feel that these kids are really trying to get a good education and maybe they want to get out of where they live at the moment. Gladwell does not state it, but it is implied that the KIPP schools inforce math more than any other subject. It is well to understand that many of the students that attended a kipp school go on to college and have a good

In chapter 2 the author discusses the difference between virtues and morals. “Virtues are qualities of a person that make that person a good person in community, and that contribute to the good of the community, or to the good for which humans are designed. They are qualities of character. For example, a good person has integrity and seeks justice. Moral ideals in this sense are moral aspirations to strive for, out beyond human reach. This then creates an ethics of moral idealism.” The author also talks about Matthew chapter 5 and the Sermon on the Mount, or the Beatitudes. He talks the idealistic interpretation of the Beatitudes; there is also a grace – based prophetic interpretation, and how shall we relate gospel virtues to traditional virtues.

Philip E. Dow wrote the book, Virtuous Minds, as a mission to make intellectual character a priority in a world of laziness, cheating, and dishonesty. In the workplace, educational institution, and in everyday life these vices run rampant. It is important to Dow we see how intellectual character is a virtue in our lives, and our relationships with God and people. In part one of the book Dow goes through, “The Seven Intellectual Virtues”, chapter by chapter. The first, is intellectual courage. To be intellectually courageous is to earnestly seek to know truth. Earnestly seeking truth may be frightening, it requires you to open yourself to threatening ideas that could change the way you think. This bravery is what promotes growth in our daily

To begin with, the by and large acknowledged rundown of excellences is free of religious wording or suggestions. This makes the virtues satisfactory to the mainstream world. In the meantime the religious world discovers them a characteristic expansion of its convictions. For instance, Catholicism has grasped virtue project, and both secularists and theists would promptly concur on the rundown of 52 ethics given by the Virtue Project. Theists would include confidence, trust and philanthropy to that rundown while secularists would disregard them, a minor distinction. The distinctions that the numerous conviction frameworks convey to this are to a great extent ones of wording and accentuation. It is a moral framework that is unbiased

Every day in life we have to face tough decisions whether their good or bad. We have to makes decisions in regards to family, friends, work, and school. For this purpose, we have ethics that we use in our everyday lives. According to the book The Moral Life written by Louis P. Pojman and Lewis Vaughn, ethics is defined as the study of morality using the methods of philosophy, and morality concerns beliefs about right and wrong actions and good and bad persons or characters (pg.1, 2014). There will be times when our personal ethics and believes will be challenged by others who have different views and believes than ourselves. Ethics is used when a problem arises and we need to solved that problem based on our own ethics and believes. Going into the nursing profession, I will have to apply different forms of moral ethics when dealing with my patients such as cultural relativism ethics, virtue ethics, and ethics of care.

To conclude, the efforts to use moral enhancement to further empower human virtues that help provide moral facilitation, and education of virtues is something that has already been regulated through psychiatry. Chemical and medical intervention have been a powerful regulator for those who lack self control, empathy, intelligence and positivity closer to a societal norm. Many individuals, however seem to think that they do not have all the same moral virtues that they would like. If we were to look what an ideal posthuman model of moral enhancement would go beyond being just a therapeutic solution of fixing individuals isolated flaws. Once the most obvious flaws are addressed there are still many more complex virtues that will need to be solved in order to create a more difficult perfection of character. The problem is that these more difficult virtues can be challenging to enhance in order to achieve the ideal character is a challenge for moral enhancement. The main goal of moral enhancement should be intelligence, self control, niceness and positivity. We can see that there is already substantial evidence to prove that the medical community has already begun the process of regulating weaknesses in these four virtues. While controlling these virtues have been under way, the challenge of regulating smaller and more complex issues are the greatest challenges to successful moral enhancement.

I do not think that the world is in need of any more religious theorists; nevertheless, I choose to believe in the Infinite, knowing full well that this belief alone does nothing to distinguish me from a mathematician, physicist or philosopher. I also admit that it is not

Based on the difference in the two parts of the soul that shared in reason, Aristotle then distinguished virtues into two kinds. People with well-formed reasoning part of the are believed to have intellectual virtues. They possess “philosophic wisdom and understanding and practical wisdom” (1103a). Philosophic wisdom here refers to the ability for one to reason logically about complicated philosophic problems, while the practical wisdom makes people understand “what sort of thing conduce to good life in general” (1140a).

We are born with faculties like we are with passions. “We are not made up of good or bad nature; we are not praised nor blamed”(page 225, Mayfield). This quote is explaining with passions and faculties are how we feel and desire which is neither right nor wrong, good or bad. Since passions and faculties are not defined, state of character is virtue. State of character is our actions and our habits. “The virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well” (page 225, Mayfield). In order to have true virtue you need to act to “accordance with a golden mean of moderation” (page 78, Palmer). This means that you need to find an intermediate so you will be praised and succeed. You can’t take too much or too little. Too much for someone could be too little for someone else, therefore each person needs to find their own individual mean.