Augustine argues that the only way to find true happiness and fulfillment is to turn to God and live a life of piety and devotion. Similarly, Euthyphro argues that prosecuting his father for murder is a pious act, and Socrates suggests that piety involves pleasing the gods. Both Augustine and Plato suggest that living a virtuous life involves acting in accordance with objective moral standards. However, there are also important differences between these works.
Virtue has positive connotations across all interpretations of the word. The most common definition refers to moral characteristics. When people speak about another’s virtue, they mention honesty, courage, and kindness, to name a few. Virtue is also about accepted moral standards, so the normalized virtuous qualities change even though the meaning stays the same. For instance, in archaic terms, virtue refers to a woman’s sexual purity, and it was considered a desirable quality to have to find a husband.
Walter Spencer, an eminent classics professor at the University of Illinois, examines the use of conspiracy rhetoric in Cicero’s orations of the Verrines and In Catilinam. To portray Verres and his sociatas as a group of conspirators, Cicero separates Verres from the Roman republic by emphasizing his repeated repudiation of Roman authority, customs, and laws. Additionally, Cicero characterizes Verres’ comrades as criminal conspirators through the word choice manus and by describing their subversion of the republic. Spencer notes that Cicero convinces the jury that a vote for acquittal would facilitate the conspiracy. Cicero employs pathos to present Verres as a heinous menace to the Roman people.
This discussion on free will is important because it gives emphasis to the reality that man is not credited to his own instincts and that man’s action will always come from him because he is free to do so. Whereas Dante views free will as the freedom to make judgement that is supported by reason. (Purg. XVI). Furthermore, Virgil claims that love is the source of both good and evil deeds. (Purg XVII)
In this story written by Cicero, he is ridiculing, (rightfully so), and explaining every reason to Catiline why he deserves punishment and negative sanctions. Catiline’s intentions were to destroy Italy and all the people because of a feud that happened between him and Cicero. The feud was that the two of them were running for a consul position, but because Catiline’s intentions were known to everyone, he was banned from running, therefore, he got mad. While ridiculing and explaining to Catiline, Cicero wouldn’t allow him to speak, but then again, what would he have said? How would he respond to: “You need to die!
In the play "The Tragedy of Julius Caesar" by Shakespeare, two individuals named Brutus and Antony give a funeral oration to the people of Rome in concern of the justification of Caesars death. Both of them share an opposite view towards the death of Caesar, Antony thinks his death was unjustified, while Brutus believes in the opposite. Despite the fact that Brutus was able to deliver a better ethical appeal. Antony delivers a more persuasive rhetorical speech since he appeals to the crowd more with his emotional and logical appeal Ethical appeal was used by both individuals in their funeral orations, evidently Brutus was able to execute a better ethical appeal than Antony. Brutus wanted to make the people of Rome feel like the death of Caesar was necessary for the sake of Rome.
In Westerns Studies, we were educated on six different virtues that were displayed by six different Romans. The six different virtues that were displayed were, honesty displayed by Regulus, service without reward displayed by Cincinnatus, courage displayed by Horatius, forgiveness displayed by Saul and compassion/kindness displayed by Androcles. Among those six virtues, the virtue that was the greatest was the virtue of service without reward, which was displayed by Cincinnatus. Cincinnatus displayed the virtue of service without reward when he was given the task to lead the men of Rome into a battle, and when he returned the white-haired Fathers offered him power over Rome, but he did not want that and instead went back to his farm (Bennett,
Trevor Jackson Dr. Jack Wells HIST 322-01 22 April 2024. Paper Two: Reading 4 and 13 of Cicero’s Letter to Quintus. Marcus Tullius Cicero was a man of philosophy and rhetoric. In the first letter, the Roman age was in a bit of a pickle in the middle of the brutal rivalry between Clodius and Milo.
A healed sin becomes reconciling friendship, becoming a source for fuller healing that embraces all. One can only redeem their sin if their redemption is done by heart and is meaningful. People who do not experience forgiveness, guilt swallows them up and they feel as if they are drowning. As Richard Baxter said, “that sorrow, even for sin, may be overmuch. That overmuch sorrow swalloweth one up.”
Why are models based on optimality often used to explain adaptation? What does the use of games theory add? Optimality models and game theory are two fairly interlinked ideas, each of which, or a combination of the two, may be used to explain why a species has adapted to perform the behaviours observed in the wild. An optimality model aims to discover which phenotype/behaviour from a set of these, known as strategies, is optimal in terms of individual fitness of an organism (Rice, 2012). In order to construct an optimality model, first a question must be posed – for example, why do some female spiders consume their mate after copulation?
Virtue is defined in many ways. Some say that it comes from the Latin word ‘virtus’, meaning virtue or courage, which comes from the other Latin word ‘vir’, which means man, meaning that virtue is the qualities of a man, such as courage. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines virtue as, “conformity to a standard of right [and/or] a particular moral excellence” (Merriam-Webster 899). With all these definitions floating around, it is hard to determine what virtues really is and what it really means to have virtue. In Plato’s Meno, Socrates and Meno discuss the definition of virtue and whether it can be taught.
1. Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote the quote, “ Constant Practice devoted to one subject often outdues both intelligence and skill.” Cicero was an amazing lawyer and was actually the first in his family that accomplished being in the Roman office. As you can tell he was very smart and has a lot of intelligence in him, also he was a figure that many looked up to and was a leading one too. He even had writings, and many saying and and quotes.
The last theory is Aristotle’s virtue ethics which states that we should move from the concern towards good action and to focus on the concern with good character. This paper argues that Aristotle’s virtue ethics is better than the other ethical theories. The divine command theory says that what is morally right and what is morally wrong is determined by God and God alone. People who follow the divine command theory believe that God is the creator of all things, therefore, he must also be the creator of morally right and wrong acts.
Pelagius’ idea was that humans could receive salvation when they earned it and chose to just stop sinning. Augustine thought differently in the fact that all physical things are evil, and that all spiritual things are good. He disagreed by stating that immorality is a matter of will and that it resulted from Adam and Eve
Aristotle claimed that virtues are ‘hexis’ – often translated into ‘habit’. Many dispute this translation and prefer to use the term ‘disposition’. Whatever the translation we use, he seems to be referring to us having the ‘appropriate feelings’ in the face of particular situations. Aristotle claims that ethical virtues involve a median between two extremes. On one side of the spectrum we find deficiencies, and on the other excess.
