A Virtuous Life or Moral Sainthood
My purpose is to argue that a perfectly virtuous life is not a compelling ideal; however, living a virtuous life is preferable to living the life of a moral saint. We gain a lot from our mistakes. If we 're living a perfect life that means we will never have the opportunity to make a mistake then have to figure out how to come back from it. Also, as a morally perfect person (A moral saint) you only have 1 goal in life which is to maximize the happiness of all people. However, it is impossible to be a moral saint and be a regular human being because you really cannot live your life. You can’t have a job because you should be spending your time helping others. You can’t eat because someone else somewhere in …show more content…
So would it be possible to maximize happiness for everyone including yourself? If the goal is to “maximize” happiness then you could be a moral saint by simply trying to do what is right for everyone, and in cases where your happiness outweighs others, do what is right for you. From an attitudinal hedonism point of view one could argue that living a selfish life maximizes happiness for you which counts for something. We learned about the story of Stoicus whose main goal was to live a calm, stress-free, relaxed life. So from him saying that we can assume he does not want to do wild things like skydiving, riding bulls, attending concerts and throwing parties because these are all exciting things. We can also assume that he does not want to get into relationships or get a job or have friends because these are all things that can sometimes be stressful. Stoicus is living from an attitudinal hedonist point of view and believes that what is of basic value is the experiences he approves of and believes that his happiness outweighs others. By living his “selfish” lifestyle he not only got what he wanted but did not add any sort of bad stimulus to the environment. He was neutral he didn 't do anything. However this argument would be wrong because to be a moral saint the main point isn’t not doing bad it is doing
My purpose is to argue that a perfectly virtuous life is not a compelling ideal; however, living a virtuous life is preferable to living the life of a moral saint. We gain a lot from our mistakes. If we 're living a perfect life that means we will never have the opportunity to make a mistake then have to figure out how to come back from it. Also, as a morally perfect person (A moral saint) you only have 1 goal in life which is to maximize the happiness of all people. However, it is impossible to be a moral saint and be a regular human being because you really cannot live your life. You can’t have a job because you should be spending your time helping others. You can’t eat because someone else somewhere in …show more content…
So would it be possible to maximize happiness for everyone including yourself? If the goal is to “maximize” happiness then you could be a moral saint by simply trying to do what is right for everyone, and in cases where your happiness outweighs others, do what is right for you. From an attitudinal hedonism point of view one could argue that living a selfish life maximizes happiness for you which counts for something. We learned about the story of Stoicus whose main goal was to live a calm, stress-free, relaxed life. So from him saying that we can assume he does not want to do wild things like skydiving, riding bulls, attending concerts and throwing parties because these are all exciting things. We can also assume that he does not want to get into relationships or get a job or have friends because these are all things that can sometimes be stressful. Stoicus is living from an attitudinal hedonist point of view and believes that what is of basic value is the experiences he approves of and believes that his happiness outweighs others. By living his “selfish” lifestyle he not only got what he wanted but did not add any sort of bad stimulus to the environment. He was neutral he didn 't do anything. However this argument would be wrong because to be a moral saint the main point isn’t not doing bad it is doing