Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Good and Morally Virtuous

Adams defines moral virtue as persisting excellence in being for the good. That is to say he believes virtuous character traits are instilled because they are intrinsically good. He will also separate being a good person and being a morally good person. While I can see the distinction he makes, there seems to be something counter intuitive about this.
The distinction made by Adams’s is that a life filled with non-moral excellence like dance is a good life, because dance is excellent but not moral. A morally good person would have moral virtues as their focus but it would not tyrannize over other excellences. Being morally virtuous is being a morally good person (26). But couldn’t a life fulfilled with dance also be a morally virtuous life? Adams’s seems to imply it can only be one or the other and never both. I find that the person whose life is focused on dance would also have some amount of dedication, hard work, and self-sacrifice. These are virtues which would leave to a morally virtuous life. Adams’s will argue since it is not the intent behind the virtues to be virtuous then the dance cannot lead a morally virtuous life. But, isn’t it possible for there to exist two of the goals, being morally virtuous and a good dancer.
Therefore, it would seem that if a person is living a good life, then his life would also be a morally virtuous life. So, I don’t necessary see how it is important to make this distinction. I’m unsure how much of this would change the groundwork of Adams’s argument. But I’m assuming since he makes a note to tell us this, there is some kind of relevance behind it.

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