Reverence
Reverence by Paul Woodruff is a study on how people, as a whole, view and display their reverence, or lack there of. Woodruff’s initial claim addressing the foundation of reverence is that “Reverence is the capacity to have feelings of awe, respect and shame when these things are the right feelings to have” (pg 6). Reverence is fundamental awareness that needs to be developed and thus he considers it a virtue. He goes into this main point extensively, making it sound as though reverence is the end and these feelings described are just means to achieve that end. So if every feeling that one develops over time is just a way of knowing you have a certain capacity, would the end not be understanding human limitation, or even capability, instead of merely achieving reverence? Because if this is the case there could potentially be people who would be incapable of achieving reverence in a lifetime. This makes me also wonder how, if reverence is a virtue could it be considered an end, if there are other virtues that one might desire in their life. This would be prioritizing reverence as the highest virtue. …show more content…
People are less able to discover the person on the other side of the screen’s intentions. This relates to the story Woodruff gives about Ajax on page 200. Since Ajax’s friend Odysseus knew his true character and why Ajax had tried to lash out and kill Agamemnon he was able to save him due to compassion. Whereas to someone looking at the specific instance of Ajax trying to kill the king they would not have the context necessary to judge the situation fairly. That’s the issue with short snippets of information online, they are almost always taken out of context in some way. It is important to practice being virtuous and so it is also important to be reverent, especially through all of the varying communication
Reverence by Paul Woodruff is a study on how people, as a whole, view and display their reverence, or lack there of. Woodruff’s initial claim addressing the foundation of reverence is that “Reverence is the capacity to have feelings of awe, respect and shame when these things are the right feelings to have” (pg 6). Reverence is fundamental awareness that needs to be developed and thus he considers it a virtue. He goes into this main point extensively, making it sound as though reverence is the end and these feelings described are just means to achieve that end. So if every feeling that one develops over time is just a way of knowing you have a certain capacity, would the end not be understanding human limitation, or even capability, instead of merely achieving reverence? Because if this is the case there could potentially be people who would be incapable of achieving reverence in a lifetime. This makes me also wonder how, if reverence is a virtue could it be considered an end, if there are other virtues that one might desire in their life. This would be prioritizing reverence as the highest virtue. …show more content…
People are less able to discover the person on the other side of the screen’s intentions. This relates to the story Woodruff gives about Ajax on page 200. Since Ajax’s friend Odysseus knew his true character and why Ajax had tried to lash out and kill Agamemnon he was able to save him due to compassion. Whereas to someone looking at the specific instance of Ajax trying to kill the king they would not have the context necessary to judge the situation fairly. That’s the issue with short snippets of information online, they are almost always taken out of context in some way. It is important to practice being virtuous and so it is also important to be reverent, especially through all of the varying communication