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To Kill A Mockingbird: A Virtuous Character Study

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A Study in Virtue How does a person become virtuous? In the words of Plato, A potentially virtuous person learns when young to love and take pleasure in virtuous actions, but must wait until late in life to develop the understanding that explains why what he loves is good. Once he has learned what the good is, his informed love of the good explains why he acts as he does and why his actions are virtuous. (Homiak, 2015) Through the development of characters, To Kill a Mockingbird does an extraordinary job of illustrating how a virtuous character is a learned trait. If this is true, it leads us to question how do virtuous actions and virtuous character differ, is a virtuous character needed in order to live ethically, and can a person do a morally right action for reasons that do not demonstrate good moral character? …show more content…

Atticus, a lawyer and father, is asked to represent an African American, Tom Robinson, who is accused of beating and raping a white woman. Even though the entire town of Maycomb, Alabama, judged Tom guilty even before his trial began, Atticus knew Tom had the constitutional right to a fair trial and refused to withdraw from the case even after receiving threats towards himself and family. Atticus had a strong sense of right and wrong that he strived to pass on to his children. He applied his sense of right and wrong to his daily life by performing actions that coincided with his beliefs. For example, the night Atticus was warned that numerous towns people were headed to the jail to murder Tom. All night he sat on the front steps of the jail refusing to let anyone pass even when he was physically threatened. He allowed his children to witness this scene as well as many others that taught them it is not enough to have a virtuous character if it is not backed up by virtuous actions (Mulligan,

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