ethics

• Virtues


  Good habit or a habit of doing good
• Doing good does not come automatically to man
• Acquiring virtues


  1. Condition yourself to do the good

  2. Learn from doing — immersion

  3. Practice makes perfect
• Example of acquiring virtues


  • Swimming
• If you know how to swim and are suddenly pushed into the pool

  You won't drown
• If you don't know how to swim and are pushed into the pool

  You will drown
• Immersion in training


  Made you familiar to the condition, when the condition came you are able to respond well
• Example of virtues


  • Choosing your wife
  • Capital punishment - death penalty
• Many believe that killing murderers is murder
• Society teaches how bad an action is by how grave the punishment is
• Keeping murderers alive more murders occur
• It is virtually impossible to execute an innocent person
• The state is executing the criminal, not the individual
• Virtue and Happiness


  • Path to happiness
  • Acquiring skills and habits
  • Acquiring virtues put us to succeed
• Core of Morality


  Figuring out what will make us truly happy in a deep and lasting way by obtaining what is good for us
• Morality is not about rules but about seeking and obtaining the good
• Virtues make it possible to move toward the good
• We are most human when we make decisions towards a higher and bigger overall goal
• God


  The only thing that can truly satisfy us, He is happiness Himself
• Morality


  Directs you to happiness, helps you to do or choose the means to achieve the ultimate goal/happiness
• Confidence


  Your skills/ familiarity of the thing at hand
• 3 Kinds of Virtues

  • Intellectual
  • Moral
• Intellectual virtues


  Good habits of the mind
• Understanding


  Fixed or stable disposition of the intellect to grasp and understand why
• Principles


  Things that do the explaining; reason why behind them
• Knowledge/science


  To see multiple truths, the sum of truths about a subject matter
• Wisdom


  Fixed and stable disposition where one gets first glimpses of reality as a whole
• 4 kinds of wisdom

  • Natural wisdom of the intellect (sage/philosopher)
  • Natural wisdom of the will (man of goodwill)
  • Supernatural wisdom of the intellect (theologian)
  • Supernatural wisdom of the will (saint)
• You can be learned yet a fool, you can be ignorant yet wise
• Practical


  You have to act out
• Moral or cardinal virtues


  Good habits of the will
• 4 Cardinal Virtues


  • Prudence
  • Justice
  • Courage
  • Temperance
• Theological virtues


  Infused, manifested in us humanly
• Theological Virtues


  • Faith
  • Hope
  • Love/Charity
• Faith


  The object of faith is God
• Hope


  So long as you pedal you don't fall, the final thing you hope for is God himself (happiness)
• Love/Charity


  The object of love is God himself, we have to love others as He loves us
• Ethical life is about becoming good and better persons, improve yourself at each and every step
• Justice comes first before mercy